An illustrated history of Fort Bend County, Texas, paired with histories of the local companies.

This history of secession in the Lone Star State offers both a vivid narrative and a powerful case study of the broader secession movement. In 1845, Texans voted overwhelmingly to join the Union. Then, in 1861, they voted just as overwhelmingly to secede. The story of why and how that happened is filled with colorful characters, raiding Comanches, German opponents of slavery, and a border with Mexico. It also has important implications for our understanding of secession across the South. Combining social and political history, Walter L. Buenger explores issues such as public hysteria, the pressure for consensus, and the vanishing of a political process in which rational debate about secession could take place. Drawing on manuscript collections and contemporary newspapers, Buenger also analyzes election returns, population shifts, and the breakdown of populations within Texas counties. Buenger demonstrates that Texans were not simply ardent secessionists or committed unionists. At the end of 1860, the majority fell between these two extremes, creating an atmosphere of ambivalence toward secession which was not erased even by the war.

Through Many Dangers, Toils and Snares, originally published in 1985, was the first book to make an in-depth examination of the cadre of African American lawmakers in Texas after the Civil War. Those few books that addressed the subject at all treated black legislators en masse and offered little or nothing about their individual histories. Early scholars tended to present isolated events of the violence and political deterrents inflicted upon black voters but said very little about how these obstacles affected black lawmakers. Author Merline Pitre has departed from this traditional method and relied upon the untapped original materials found on these black lawmakers. This third edition features a new preface and extended, updated appendixes, ensuring that this study will remain useful to political scientists, sociologists, and historians of Texas political history, Afro-American history, and revisionists of Reconstruction.

“I am Shanghai Pierce, Webster in Cattle, by God, Sir.” And, in truth, he was. Part rascal, part gentleman, part poseur, part just himself—of all the colorful Texas figures following the Civil War none was as loud, garish, and funny as Shanghai Pierce, who left Rhode Island penniless and became one of the Big Pasture Men of southern Texas. At six foot, four, Shanghai Pierce was big, rich, and selfish, but he could also be kind. His cunning was seldom matched, and business, whether it involved a quarter-million-dollar loan or a twenty-five cent pair of socks, was his lifeblood. In recreating the life of Abel Head (“Shanghai”) Pierce, Chris Emmett unfolds the entire dramatic spectacle of the time and place in which Pierce lived. An arresting figure, Pierce was a symbol of his era. His statue, which he himself erected in Hawley, Texas, is still a perfect memorial to, and a reminder of, westward-moving America. Shanghai Pierce was a man who pulled up his roots and fled to the West, where he found there was ample room and opportunity. First published in 1953, Shanghai Pierce: A Fair Likeness won the 1953 Summerfield G. Roberts award of the Texas Institute of Letters for the best book on the Republic of Texas.