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Reading recommendations: Sam Houston, James L. Haley

In the decades preceding the Civil War, few figures in the United States were as influential or as controversial as Sam Houston. In Sam Houston, James L. Haley explores Houston's momentous career and the complex man behind it. Haley's fifteen years of research and writing have produced possibly the most complete, most personal, and most readable Sam Houston biography ever written.

Sam Houston (1793-1863) lived life large. Congressman and then governor of Tennessee, he was commander-in-chief of the Texas Revolutionary Army and served two terms as president of the Republic of Texas. His wit and vitality were legendary as were his appetites for liquor and women, until he reformed for the wife he adored, Margaret Lea. He considered slavery to be cruel and evil, yet he upbraided northern abolitionists for their hypocrisy. He changed the United States forever when he successfully maneuvered Texas's entry into the Union, yet he failed as Texas senator and then governor to keep the young state from joining the Confederacy in secession.

Few figures in American history have so many relevant things to say to a modern audience. Sam Houston's insights into the Right of American Indians, into the place of religion in the political spectrum, and into the ruin that comes from political factionalism remain timeless. Drawn from personal papers never before available as well as the papers of others in Houston's circle, this biography will delight anyone intrigued by Sam Houston, Texas history, Civil War history, or America's tradition of rugged individualism.

The Texas Cherokees, A People Between Two Fires, 1819-1840 by Dianna Everett

In the winter of 1819-20 several hundred Cherokees, led by Duwali, a chief from Tennessee, settled along the Sabine, Neches, and Angelina Rivers in East Texas. Welcomed by Mexico as a buffer against settlement from the United States, Duwalis ' people had separated from other Westerrn Cherokees in an effort to retain the tribe's traditional lifeways, including clan revenge.

This book offers a new interpretation of the Cherokee experience in Texas. While focusing on the tribe's social and political organization and belief system, Dianna Everett describes the adaptation of Duwalis' followers to the physical and cultural environments of Texas and their personal and diplomatic relationships with Mexican and Anglo Texans. She explains in detail the Cherokees' place in the colonization of East Texas and their role in the Texas Revolution in 1836.

Ultimately, in July 1839, the Cherokees were removed from Texas by an army of the Texas Republic. The victory of Texans who would not tolerate a multiracial society forced the Texas Cherokees to rejoin the other members of the tribe, who had settled in Indian Territory.

In 1839, when a Texas general admonished the Cherokees to surrender because they were "caught between two fires," with Texas Republic troops on either side, his words took in a whole world of Cherokee experience. Duwali's band was caught between the Cherokee ideal of harmony and the reality of tribal factionalism, between white settlers pushing westward and western Indians resisting incursions, and between traditional ways and the practical necessity of accommodating the whites.

Readers of Indian and Texas history will find this story of Cherokee resistance fascinating. "A critical, document based, anthropologically informed history of the Western Cherokees who lived in Texas in the 1820 and 1830s."

Other Men's Horses by Elmer Kelton

Texas Ranger Andy Pickard, still unsure of himself and his decision to become a Ranger, is newly married and eager to spend time with his wife. Duty intervenes, however, and he is ordered to apprehend a murdering horse trader and bring him to trial. The man on the run is Donley Bannister, who killed, a low life named Cletus Slocum when Sloeum had the temerity to steal one of Bannister's horses.

At Bannisters West Texas hide out, Pickard is shot by one of the trader's cohorts. In an ironic twist Bannister saves the Ranger's wife by fending off the would be killers. He takes Andy to a cow camp for treatment, then flees.

Once Andy is healed enough to be able to ride, he shadows Geneva Barrister, Donley's young wife, hoping she will lead him to the wanted man. But the trail takes unexpected turns and detours and the story goes from there...

With Texas Independence Day early in March, what better way to celebrate than reading from the Texas bookshelves. I'll be reviewing a couple of weeks from our own Texas collection.

Please join me.

See you at Rylander