Here is the first comprehensive history of the Colfax County area of northeastern New Mexico. Best known today as the home of the Philmont Scout Ranch, where thousands of Boy Scouts from around the world gather every year, this beautiful country has a violent and varied past. Centering around the town of Cimarron, the region includes much of the vast Maxwell Land Grant, one of the largest pieces of land to be owned by one man in the history of the United States. Controversy over control of the land began in the sixteenth century with quarrels among rival American Indian tribes. Spanish and later American troops continued the bloodshed for centuries more. The culmination of the area’s history of violence was the notorious Colfax County War between homesteaders and landowners that began in 1875 and continued until the Supreme Court acted fifteen years later. A gold and silver rush lured prospectors to the Maxwell ranch and booming Elizabethtown in the 1860s. But by 1870 the supply of precious metals was almost exhausted, and today Elizabethtown is a ghost town. “An interesting and welltold account of an important area, Philmont deserves a place on the Western book shelf.”—Denver Post

John H. Holliday, D. D. S., better known as Doc Holliday, has become a legendary figure in the history of the American West. In Doc Holliday: A Family Portrait, Karen Holliday Tanner reveals the real man behind the legend. Shedding light on Holliday’s early years, in a prominent Georgia family during the Civil War and Reconstruction, she examines the elements that shaped his destiny: his birth defect, the death of his mother and estrangement from his father, and the diagnosis of tuberculosis, which led to his journey west. The influence of Holliday’s genteel upbringing never disappeared, but it was increasingly overshadowed by his emerging western personality. Holliday himself nurtured his image as a frontier gambler and gunman. Using previously undisclosed family documents and reminiscences as well as other primary sources, Tanner documents the true story of Doc’s friendship with the Earp brothers and his run-ins with the law, including the climactic shootout at the O. K. Corral and its aftermath. This first authoritative biography of Doc Holliday should appeal both to historians of the West and to general readers who are interested in his poignant story. "Doc Holliday: A Family Portrait will be considered the definitive Holliday biography and will supplant all previously published works on the man’s life as a complete and authoritative account. This book will undoubtedly take a place among the foremost books in the Western gunfighter genre." - Robert K. DeArment, author of Alias Frank Canton

Tension between Anglos and Tejanos has existed in the Lone Star State since the earliest settlements. Such antagonism has produced friction between the two peoples, and whites have expressed their hostility toward Mexican Americans unabashedly and at times violently. This seminal work in the historical literature of race relations in Texas examines the attitudes of whites toward Mexicans in nineteenth-century Texas. For some, it will be disturbing reading. But its unpleasant revelations are based on extensive and thoughtful research into Texas' past. The result is important reading not merely for historians but for all who are concerned with the history of ethnic relations in our state. They Called Them Greasers argues forcefully that many who have written about Texas's past—including such luminaries as Walter Prescott Webb, Eugene C. Barker, and Rupert N. Richardson—have exhibited, in fact and interpretation, both deficiencies of research and detectable bias when their work has dealt with Anglo-Mexican relations. De León asserts that these historians overlooled an austere Anglo moral code which saw the morality of Tejanos as "defective" and that they described without censure a society that permitted traditional violence to continue because that violence allowed Anglos to keep ethnic minorities "in their place." De León's approach is psychohistorical. Many Anglos in nineteenth-century Texas saw Tejanos as lazy, lewd, un-American, subhuman. In De León's view, these attitudes were the product of a conviction that dark-skinned people were racially and culturally inferior, of a desire to see in others qualities that Anglos preferred not to see in themselves, and of a need to associate Mexicans with disorder so as to justify their continued subjugation.

It has been often said that "an institution is lengthened by the shadow of one man." This is certainly true of John Marshall, who established the Supreme Court, made the judiciary a co-equal branch of government, and served as Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1801–1835. In this book a legal expert discusses the battles over the judiciary between Chief Justice John Marshall and President Thomas Jefferson during the Jefferson Presidency. The focus is on the treason trial of Aaron Burr and the story interweaves conflicts over the Judiciary Acts, Marbury v. Madison, and impeachment. Why did Thomas Jefferson and John Marshall become such great antagonists? In the dramas between these men, President Jefferson is seen in far different light than usual. John Marshall was interested in doing whatever it would take to make the United States successful; he believed in an ordered society. Jefferson, more a philosopher and a romantic, was interested in ideas rather than order. But research reveals that, despite Jefferson's reputation as a champion of civil liberties, he jumped to publicly proclaim Burr's guilt -- before he was even arrested, much less indicted and tried. Jefferson was intimately involved in trial strategy, writing numerous letters to the lead prosecutor. Chief Justice John Marshall responded decisively to Jefferson's efforts to influence, if not dictate to, the Judicial Branch. In fact, Chief Justice John Marshall, usually presented as a champion of property rights and commerce, ensured that the rule of law prevailed despite enormous pressures, throughout the criminal trial. Letters between Jefferson and Prosecutor George Hay, and excerpts from the trial transcript and court opinions, support the author's thesis.

What life has really been like for most Mississippians is the story told in this intriguing history. To many Americans, Mississippi means Natchez and Vicksburg, white columns and cotton. For the people who have lived there, however, Mississippi has been a decidedly different place. Depending on who you were, and where and when you lived, Mississippi could be a much worse or far better place than that portrayed by its romantic image.

Strange as it may seem today, William Clark—best known as the American explorer who joined Meriwether Lewis in leading an overland expedition to the Pacific—has many more claims to fame than his legendary Voyage of Discovery, dramatic and daring though that venture may have been. Although studies have been published on virtually every aspect of the Lewis and Clark journey, Wilderness Journey is the first comprehensive account of Clark’s lengthy and multifaceted life. Following Lewis and Clark’s great odyssey, Clark’s service as a soldier, Indian diplomat, and government official placed him at center stage in the national quest to possess and occupy North America’s vast western hinterland and prefigured U.S. policies in the region. In his personal life, Clark had to overcome challenges no less daunting than those he faced in the public arena. Foley pays careful attention to the family and business dimensions of Clark’s private world, adding richness to this well-rounded and revealing portrait of the man and his courageous life. Coinciding with the bicentennial in 2004 of the departure of Lewis and Clark’s famed Corps of Discovery, Wilderness Journey fills a major gap in scholarship. Intended for the general reader, as well as for specialists in the field, this fascinating book provides a well-balanced and thorough account of one of America’s most significant frontiersmen.