This volume, first published in 1889, is one of the most thorough accounts of Indian warfare in Texas.

Reliable accounts of battles, wars, adventures, forays, murders, and massacres together with biographical sketches of many of the most noted Indian fighters and frontiersmen of Texas.

This is a history of the conflict between whites and Native Americans in Texas, written from a white point of view. From the preface: "I FEEL that for those who will read the description of the conflicts and Indian cruelty contained in this volume some preface which will introduce the author to his readers and which will explain the motives which inspired him to write this book is needed. I came to Texas over half a century ago, and am now an old man, the only survivor of three brothers who served Texas in her early struggles. Josiah Wilbarger, who was scalped by the Indians a few miles east of where the capitol of Texas now is, was my brother. He survived, as this book relates, the massacre of his companions, but afterwards died from a disease of the skull caused by injuries. Having spent the prime of my life among the pioneers of Texas, and therefore knowing personally about many of the fights and massacres described in this volume, the idea occurred to me many years ago that when the early settlers were all dead their posterity would only know from tradition the perils and hardships encountered in the early settlement of Texas. When I found that no one else seemed inclined to preserve in history the story of massacres and conflicts with Indians, I undertook the work myself. During some twenty years I have carefully obtained from the lips of those who knew most of the facts stated in this volume. For their general correctness I can vouch, for I knew personally most of the early settlers of Texas, and have relied on those only whom I believed to be trustworthy. Many of the articles contained in this book were written by others, who were either cognizant of the facts themselves or bad obtained their data from reliable sources."

Bonded Leather binding

The book leads the reader through the past to the present and here leaves him amid active and progressive men who are advancing, along with him, toward the future. Including, as it does, lives of men now living, it constitutes a connecting link between what has gone before and what is to come after. It is therefore fitting that it should be dedicated to a prominent man of our day in preference to one of former times. The matter presented, in the nature of things, is largely biographical. There can be no foundation for history without biography. History is a generalization of particulars. It presents wide extended views. To use a paradox, history gives us but a part of history. That other part which it does not give us, the part which introduces us to the thoughts, aspirations and daily life of a people, is supplied by biography. The men whose deeds are recorded in this book were or are deeply identified with Texas, and the preservation in this volume in enduring form of some remembrance of them—their names, who and what they were—has been a pleasant task to one who feels a deep interest and pride in Texas—its past history, its heroes and future destiny.

"Indian Depredations in Texas" is the most thorough compilation of accounts of Indian warfare in the19th century Texas. It is an excellent sourcebook for those seeking to discover the truth about the early days of settling Texas. The author chronicled the true story of life in early Texas. The struggle between the settlers, who sought to tame the land and the Native Americans who ruled the land, were waged on a daily basis. The results were often conflicts and clashes which were described in detail in this volume.

Reliable accounts of battles, wars, adventures, forays, murders, and massacres together with biographical sketches of many of the most noted Indian fighters and frontiersmen of Texas.

This is not your grandfather’s history of Texas. Portraying nineteenth-century Texas as a cauldron of racist violence, Gary Clayton Anderson shows that the ethnic warfare dominating the Texas frontier can best be described as ethnic cleansing. The Conquest of Texas is the story of the struggle between Anglos and Indians for land. Anderson tells how Scotch-Irish settlers clashed with farming tribes and then challenged the Comanches and Kiowas for their hunting grounds. Next, the decade-long conflict with Mexico merged with war against Indians. For fifty years Texas remained in a virtual state of war. Piercing the very heart of Lone Star mythology, Anderson tells how the Texas government encouraged the Texas Rangers to annihilate Indian villages, including women and children. This policy of terror succeeded: by the 1870s, Indians had been driven from central and western Texas. By confronting head-on the romanticized version of Texas history that made heroes out of Houston, Lamar, and Baylor, Anderson helps us understand that the history of the Lone Star state is darker and more complex than the mythmakers allowed.

This edition is abridged and annotated with updated information.A judge from Prussia. A French Texas Ranger. Emigrants from all over the U.S.Their names and stories are mostly now forgotten but were recorded in this 1900 volume by Andrew Jackson Sowell. They were mostly young, hardy, and looking for new opportunities in land they felt was wide open but, in fact, was inhabited by Native Americans. The lives of these early pioneers is part of the history of the American West.The original bound edition of this book ran over 1100 pages and most of that content is here. It's the story of an incredibly violent and adventurous time that was lived by the people whose stories you find here. Sowell talked to them all and created one of the most interesting collections of personal histories of the wild West.