Alina Scott, Author at Not Even Past

Digital Archive Review – Más de 72

by Ashley Nelcy García, Department of Spanish and Portuguese

An earlier version of this review was published on halperta.com.

What is a digital archive? I asked myself this question in the weeks before submitting this review. While digital archives are typically defined as a coherent set of digital objects that have been put online by a library or an official archival institution, Más de 72 challenges the notion of what we can identify as a digital collection of records.

Screenshot of Más de 72

Más de 72 is a digital project that collects primary sources pertaining to the massacre of 72 migrants from Central and South America and India. The documents and media shared on this site shed some light on the mass murder that occurred in San Fernando, Tamaulipas, Mexico in 2010, under the administration of Felipe Calderón. The collection was created by Periodistas de a Pie, an organization of active journalists that seeks to raise the quality of journalism in Mexico. The International Center for Journalists (ICFJ), CONNECTAS, and journalists who were invited to participate in the project supported the development and completion of this project.

The collection is a valuable resource for individuals interested in Mexico’s recent history, memory, and human rights issues. Visitors can access primary sources such as official documents from Mexico and the United States, including some judicial records and declassified files. Testimonies from surviving family members recorded in video and audio by journalists, as well as photographs and maps are also available. Additionally, journalistic investigations and reports published by human rights entities provide context to users unfamiliar with the case.

via Más de 72

Más de 72’s primary strength is its presentation. The site contains six different tabs or capítulos (chapters) that provide different types of information. For instance, the sections titled “La Masacre” (The Massacre) and “Después de la Masacre” (After the Massacre) include official and visual documents associated the mass murder of the 72 migrants. Under these tabs, visitors can access documents like the press release from the Secretaría de Marina (Secretary of Marine) and the diplomatic cable that the U.S. Embassy sent to the Department of State. Online browsers with an interest in the role of official documents can also download more than 50 files under the tab titled “Transparencia” (Transparency). On the other hand, users interested in criminal records and procedures and migration studies can access a list of objects found in the location where the massacre occurred and the names of the victims under “Después de la Masacre.” In regard to organization, it is important to note that the names of the victims are listed under their country of citizenship and under the month and the year they were identified.

On the other hand, the tabs titled “Las Víctimas” (The Victims), “Los Culpables” (The Culprits), and “Sobre San Fernando” (About San Fernando) provide more detailed information regarding people and location. These sections can benefit visitors interested in oral history, memory, gender studies, and digital cartography. Under “Las Víctmas”, users can listen to four testimonies provided by victims’ surviving family members. “Los Culpables” has a list of the men and women involved in the mass murder; this section includes the names, the photos, the list of crimes they committed, and external links that provide additional information. The section titled “San Fernando” includes a digital map from Time Mapper that helps users identify the mass graves and the people that have been disappeared in Tamaulipas by geographic location.

Overall, the site benefits users who cannot visit Mexico or Tamaulipas. Aside from scholars, people who can potentially benefit from this repository include but are not limited to: family members of migrants and people who have been disappeared, residents from the state of Tamaulipas, people with relatives in the northern part of the Mexico, journalists, lawyers, and activists. Although the project is not affiliated with libraries, governmental, or academic institutions, Periodistas de Pie is open to working with community members. As stated in “Creditos” (Credits), users can share documents or materials by sending an email to the listed email address. In addition, the organization invites visitors to collaborate–either with skills or donations–to continue developing the site.

The website has some technical problems. It would be difficult for someone who is unable to read Spanish to understand the majority of the information included on the platform. Additionally, some links, hyperlinks, and images need to be updated. More descriptive metadata would also benefit the project and there is a need to assist with the second part of the collection titled, “Segunda Entrega: Fosas de San Fernando” (Second Delivery: San Fernando’s graves). While these are minor setbacks, they also provide an opportunity for archivists, scholars, and web developers to get involved with the project.

Capítulo 5: Sobre San Fernando (Chapter 5: About San Fernando) via Más de 72

Even though Más de 72 is not described as a “digital archive” by the journalists at Periodistas de Pie, this platform serves as a repository of digitized primary documents associated with an historical event. In this regard, it is important to consider how the digital humanities field can be co-opted by elites to control historically politicized spaces. We need to be thinking about what is at stake when the term “archive” is used to control information. The politics of archiving is especially important where journalists–the authors of many of the documents in Mas de 72–find themselves in a violent climate and are rarely protected by institutions of power.

A (Queer) Rebel Wife In Texas

In 2001, many of Lizzie Scott Neblett’s diaries and letters were published in a volume entitled A Rebel Wife In Texas. The text provides a harrowing glimpse into the desperation, brutality, and minutiae of everyday life in antebellum Texas from the perspective of a landed, slaveholding, Southern wife. Letters written to Neblett prior to her May 25, 1852 wedding to aspiring attorney William H. Neblett, however, lend an entirely different type of insight into the “rebel wife’s” intimate affairs, one that unearths a wealth of decidedly queer complexity.

Book cover of A Rebel Wife in Texas: The Diary and Letters of Elizabeth Scott Neblett, 1852-1864 edited by Erika L. Murr — *A Rebel Wife in Texas: The Diary and Letters of Elizabeth Scott Neblett, 1852-1864* edited by Erika L. Murr

The bulk of these missives were penned by sisters Sallie and Amanda Noble, childhood friends of Neblett residing at the time in Houston. Much of the correspondence between the Noblewomen and Neblett gestures toward an increasingly sapphic sociality. On September 12, 1851, for instance, Sallie writes to Neblett to divulge that she “was feeling in a funny mood [that] morning [and] could think of no better business than to trouble [Lizzie] with a few of my funny thoughts . . . . I told Amanda a few minutes ago that . . . I was going to do just as I pleased [and] I did not care what people said [or] thought…Did you ever have such feelings Lizzie?” Noble does not elaborate on just what kinds of things she intended to “do . . . as [she] pleased,” but later in this same letter, Sallie assures Neblett that despite persistent rumors that she is soon to be wed, “I have not the most distant idea of getting married soon.”

Ten days later, Sallie’s sister Amanda sends Neblett a note inquiring “what [had] become of [the] Angel of a beauty you [Lizzie] described to us some time since. Is she up there [in Anderson] still?” before adding, “I am happy to know that you have some one or two up there with whom you can be intimate, girls I mean.”

Civil War envelope showing bald eagle with American flag and Confederate stars and bars flag and sailing ships in the distance ca.1861-865 via Library of Congress

While both messages suggest something of a queer kinship between long-time companions, with the Nobles detailing their own disinterest in the prospect of marriage and asking after Lizzie’s Anderson dalliances, Amanda’s letters, in particular, indicate that she and Neblett’s relationship may have constituted what we might now term a romantic friendship. This is evident beginning with Noble’s July 14 admission that “many many have been the times that I’ve wished myself in Anderson with you [Lizzie]—how we would ramble and frolic through the woods—leave our clothes off of us, and many other amusing things, which would be a sunny spot in our lives.”

The tone of Noble’s dispatches becomes more clandestine near the close of 1851. On November 8, Amanda wrote to report that, “when Pa gave me your letter, I was all anxiety to know the contents, so much so, that I could scarcely contain myself. Having hid myself where none could disturb or molest, I sat me down, and there silently and alone communed with my Lizzie.” This desire for seclusion is reflected in Noble’s decision to sign this letter simply “A.,” though similarities in handwriting and content between this and previous writings confirm Amanda as its author. The rest of the missive seems to reveal that the two women have had some kind of falling out. Noble writes “As I perused line after line [of Lizzie’s last communication], thoughts of the past came washing with violence, and in a few moments tears came trickling down my cheeks…It pains me when I think that I ever offended one that I love so much as you Lizzie.” Amanda admonishes her friend to “dwell on the pleasures of happiness we’ve had together” rather than her bouts of temper, and adds that “the past, though [infused] with the bitter, has also its share of the sweet.”

Image of part of the "Dear Lizzie" letter from Amanda Noble to Lizzie Neblett (1851) — “Dear Lizzie” letter from Amanda Noble to Lizzie Neblett (1851)

Revisiting her earlier fantasy, Noble tells Neblett that “it appears to me if I were with you that something would quicken my languid imagination. We would ramble over the woods, build fires, and roast potatoes again, and perform many wondrous exploits. Lizzie, I so sincerely wish I were with you, but how I shall get there, I know not . . . I will not ‘give it up so’—perhaps fate will yet smile on [us].”

It is unclear, though, whether that was to be the case. Shortly after the writing of this letter, Lizzie was wed and embarked on a new, ultimately trying chapter of her life—marked by war, motherhood, violence, and loss. And, despite earlier protestations to the contrary, the years following Lizzie’s marriage found both Sally and Amanda Noble following suit, with the former marrying a John Kennard in 1855 and the latter marrying Henry White in 1856. Years later, however, Neblett still seemed to maintain a nostalgic fondness for the confidantes of her maiden days, journaling of a sick and seemingly dying Amanda in 1863, “she is not long for this world—[but] she ought to live, for she has always managed to extract much sweetness from life.”

Gallery of Neblett and Noble’s Letters via the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History

Bibliography

A. to Lizzie Scott, November 8, 1851, Lizzie Scott Neblett Papers, 1848-1935, Box 2F81, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin.
Benowitz, June Melby. “Neblett, Elizabeth Scott.” Handbook of Texas Online. Accessed February 11, 2020: https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fne28.
Neblett, Elizabeth Scott, and Erika L. Murr. A Rebel Wife in Texas: The Diary and Letters of Elizabeth Scott Neblett, 1852-1864. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2001.
Noble, Amanda to Lizzie Scott, July 14, 1851, Lizzie Scott Neblett Papers, 1848-1935, Box 2F81, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin.
Noble, Amanda to Lizzie Scott, September 22, 1851, Lizzie Scott Neblett Papers, 1848-1935, Box 2F81, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin.
Noble, Sallie to Lizzie Scott, September 12, 1851, Lizzie Scott Neblett Papers, 1848-1935, Box 2F81, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin.

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The views and opinions expressed in this article or video are those of the individual author(s) or presenter(s) and do not necessarily reflect the policy or views of the editors at Not Even Past, the UT Department of History, the University of Texas at Austin, or the UT System Board of Regents. Not Even Past is an online public history magazine rather than a peer-reviewed academic journal. While we make efforts to ensure that factual information in articles was obtained from reliable sources, Not Even Past is not responsible for any errors or omissions.

Free Healthcare with a Price

By Lera Toropin

In flipping through old issues of Soviet Life, one finds a wide array of articles that present only the best that life in the USSR could offer: fashion, recipes, sports success stories, film reviews, detailed descriptions of beautiful travel destinations in Kislovodsk, Zheleznovodsk, and Naryan-Mar, all paired with colorful, enticing photographs. An almost too-good-to-be-true paradise, just beyond the Iron Curtain. “Wouldn’t it be nice to live like this?” the pages seem to ask, “Why don’t you come visit?”

Generally considered a “soft” form of propaganda, Soviet Life was a glossy magazine designed to present an informed, if not embellished look into Soviet culture for American audiences during the Cold War. At the same time, the U.S. published Amerika in Russian for Soviet readers. Everything worthy of showing off was often included in issues: Yuri Gagarin and the Soviet Space Program was an obvious choice; the achievements of Soviet medicine were another. Keep turning the pages and suddenly they’re whispering, “Don’t you wish you had universal healthcare like us?”

The October 1984 issue of Soviet Life (note the FREE HEALTH CARE at the top right) via glossycommunism

Certainly, the USSR had plenty to flaunt during the 1960s in regard to the health and well-being of its citizens. Services were cheap, life expectancy was up, and infant mortality rates were down, all thanks to the state-funded healthcare system called the Semashko model (after the first Soviet Minister of Health in the 1920s, Nikolai Semashko). However, the system was actually kept cost-effective and available to all because doctors were paid very low wages to maintain cost control for the public. Preventive medicine — averting the appearance of diseases through immunizations and healthy living — was the top priority. Prophylactics and visits to medicinal spas were stressed, yearly check-ups were made compulsory, and alcoholism was highly discouraged.

For a while, it worked. From its implementation in the 1920s, Russian citizens came to enjoy all the benefits their new healthcare system provided. The effects of the Semashko model peaked in the 1960s, and Soviet Life reflects that. Articles from 1966-1968 sing the praises of huge strides being made in medicine: a ground-breaking serum has been developed to treat and prevent infantile blood diseases, new radiation sickness treatments are being explored and optimistically predicted to be “controlled completely” in the near future, a brand new operation was just designed for the vertebral artery. Concrete achievements were documented to show American readers that Soviet healthcare was a success.

A new health resort begins construction in September 1986 via glossycommunism

If that wasn’t enough, the magazine was always ready to fall back on statistics to really underline that life wasn’t just good, it was improving. An engineer who designed a magnet to extract foreign objects from the body has trained 100 apprentices, many of whom are now experts; a pharmaceutical company in Kazakhstan is producing 33-35 million rubles’ worth of medicine annually – 30 different types, shipped to 26 different countries. In 1966, a reader from California writes in to ask, “Is it true that there is a shortage of medical doctors in the USSR?” “No,” the magazine responds, “not by our standards. We have 555,000 doctors. 23.9 for every 10,000 of the population.” To Soviet Life, the numbers speak for themselves.

So how did the magazine adapt when the reality turned sour? By the late 1970s and 80s, the Semashko model was drastically deteriorating and suffering from diminishing returns on its innovative investments. Years of focus on preventive care and “keeping healthy people healthy” caused rates of other illnesses to rise. Alcoholism did not decline, cardiovascular and heart diseases increased significantly, as did the mortality rate in adults. The number of doctors doubled to nearly 1.1 million, but with average salaries of approximately $210 a month and non-existent incentives, quality of care and training deteriorated due to apathy and low job satisfaction in the field.

Nikolai Dubin, winner of the 1966 Lenin Prize for his work on the chromosome theory of heredity and the theory of mutations via glossycommunism

Money also dried up. The system became so underfunded that citizens had to bring food to their sick relatives in the hospital because most state-fun facilities could no longer afford to feed their patients. Drugs were more difficult to come by, the system was not modernized, and suddenly, the care that one could get for free was being treated with skepticism and distrust.

In response to the growing healthcare crisis and lack of medical achievements to report on, Soviet Life simply carries on, omitting grim facts and doubling down on feel-good articles. Gone are the full-page spreads on the latest and greatest findings in Soviet medicine. Most articles in the 1980s now focus on descriptive writing and fluff pieces that seek to amplify the ethos of the 60s: a day in the life in a resuscitation ward, a travel guide-esque description of a health spa in the Baltic region. There’s a tone of desperation to it: “look here, don’t look over there.”

via glossycommunism

An excerpt of the interview with Sergei Burenkov via glossycommunism

One piece from 1984 stands out in particular. The word “free,” bold and in the center of the page, is repeated ten times. X-rays? Free. Lab Services? Free. The rest is an interview with the Minister of Health, Sergei Burenkov, and Soviet Life, once again, leans heavily on statistics and idea of low costs to emphasize the triumph of healthcare.

Burenkov piles numbers upon numbers like a shopping list until it’s difficult to grasp the weight of them. To a general reader, there’s no point of comparison. One is simply expected to bask in the fact that because there are 3.5 million beds in the USSR, the healthcare system is as successful as ever. One cannot immediately make the connection that the large number of beds did not prevent hospitals from overcrowding. Or that even with hospitals consuming two-thirds of the total share of state health allocations, they were still woefully underfunded. Reading the pages now, though, it is easy to look between the lines; amid everything Burenkov is detailing, there is plenty that he is choosing not to say as well.

The original Semashko model eventually collapsed with the USSR in 1991. But the echoes of its successes and failures remain, printed on the glossy pages of a propaganda-driven magazine.

Yugoslavia in the Third World: Not a New Bloc but Unity of Action in the Interest of Peace

by Samantha Farmer

In July 1956, Gamel Nasser of Egypt (then the United Arab Republic), Jawaharlal Nehru of India, and Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia met in the Croatian coastal city of Pula to reaffirm the Bandung Principles, a platform for decolonization established the previous year in Indonesia. [1] In doing so, Tito formally threw in the lot of Yugoslavia with the Non-Aligned Movement made up of countries unaffiliated with either the United States or the Soviet Union.

Issues of Yugoslav Life, an English language magazine published in Belgrade, provide a glimpse into the Yugoslav perspective on the Non-Aligned Movement and everyday cooperation between Yugoslavia and the “third world” as an integral part of the Yugoslav project. The publisher of Yugoslav Life was the official publisher of Yugoslavia, Tanjug (Telegrafska agencija nove Jugoslavije, or the Telegraphic Agency of the New Yugoslavia). Tanjug would go on to be the leading news agency of the Non-Aligned Movement, leading the Non-Aligned News Agencies Pool (NANAP) and providing training for journalists in Africa and Asia. As such, Yugoslav Life presents a sunny depiction of Yugoslavia and its particular “Third Way” — workers’ self-management of the socialist economy, new advances in industrial efficiency and social equity, and a commitment to not engaging in the binary opposition of the Americans and the Soviets.

Leaders present at the Non-Aligned Summit in Belgrade, 1961

As a newly-created socialist state after World War II, Yugoslavia was formally an ally of the Soviet Union. However, in 1948 the Soviet Union expelled Yugoslavia from Cominform (the Communist Information Bureau) over ideological differences between Stalin and Tito. Due to this, Yugoslavia was not a member of the Eastern Bloc nor was it under the direction of the Soviet Union, unlike many other socialist states in Eastern Europe. As a socialist country independent of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia did not fit neatly into the division of the first and second worlds. The Cold War was a war of two systems: the capitalist American sphere of influence in “the first world” and the communist sphere of influence of the Soviet Union in “the second world.” In September 1961, Yugoslavia gathered with leaders of “the third world” to denounce Cold War policymaking and American and Soviet meddling in the decolonized Global South. The Belgrade Conference was the first official summit of the Non-Aligned Movement.

Yugoslavia was the lone non-aligned state in Europe, standing at the intersection of the communist Eastern bloc, the Western first world, and Africa and the Middle East. Yugoslav Life illustrates the cooperation that would come between newly decolonized states and Yugoslavia. An article from May 1963 lists the details of trading deals with African countries: “Finished products are dominant on the list of Yugoslav exports. Machines and vehicles, for example, account for 54 percent of all exports…From Africa Yugoslavia imports raw materials and some industrial products: cotton, phosphates, minerals, coffee cocoa, bananas, and more recently products of the textile and chemical industries.”[2] Such trading partnerships were the legwork of Yugoslavia’s commitment to “creating conditions for equality between the advanced states and the underdeveloped countries.”[3]

The strengthened ties between Yugoslavia and other countries in the Non-Aligned Movement would take on a human dimension, as well. Yugoslavia sent workers to countries in Africa and Asia to build up industry in those countries through programs of technical assistance. Yugoslav Life claimed that more than 1,600 Yugoslav workers were engaged in such programs in Africa and Asia in 1962 alone. Furthermore, it claimed that in 1962 nearly 1,000 students from developing countries were studying in Yugoslavia under various cultural conventions and technical assistance programs.[4]

Jovanka Broz, First Lady of Yugoslavia, visits the School for Arts and Crafts in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 1959

Close to every issue of Yugoslav Life published between 1961-1967 celebrated a visit of people from countries in the Non-Aligned Movement to Yugoslavia or, conversely, a visit carried out by Marshal Tito or other high-ranking state representatives across the globe. Such visible placement of the seemingly tireless diplomatic schedule for foreign readers emphasizes the crucial role the Yugoslav state placed on its cooperation with other Non-Aligned member states. In an issue from June 1961, mere months before the Belgrade Conference would officially inaugurate the Non-Aligned Movement, Yugoslav Life claimed that “The grouping of the uncommitted countries, which some people persist in calling the third bloc, is an important international factor.”[5]

Yugoslavia was officially committed to the liberation and equality of decolonized states as they struggled to “catch up” with their former colonizers, but the Non-Aligned Movement also provided Yugoslavia with a platform for criticizing and differentiating itself from the Soviet and American spheres of influence, from which it was excluded. Quotes from Marshal Tito and high-ranking politicians like Edvard Kardelj in the periodical often condemn Cold War actions from an outsider’s perspective: “a dangerous game of extremism and adventurism which threatens…new world conflicts.”[6] Furthermore, Yugoslavia supported its allies in the Middle East in the rising tensions before the Six Day War in June 1967, as Tito “did not for a moment hesitate to call a spade a spade,” putting the support of Yugoslavia and its government with Arab countries against Israeli aggression.

Newsreel footage of a state visit to numerous African countries in 1970

Since the collapse of Yugoslavia, the only current European member of the Non-Aligned Movement is Belarus. Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Serbia maintain observer status instead of membership, whereas Slovenia and Macedonia have no formal role in the organization whatsoever. However, there is more than ever an urgent need for global commitment to the still extant disparity between more developed countries and countries in the Global South. Yugoslavia emphasized its involvement in the Non-Aligned Movement in Yugoslav Life for English language readers, and it is worth considering what a commitment to the Non-Aligned Movement looks like today.

Sources:
[1] “BRIONI DECLARATION TODAY: TRIPARTITE TALKS END,” The Times, London, July 20, 1956.
[2] “TRADE WITH THIRTY AFRICAN COUNTRIES,” Yugoslav Life, vol. 8 iss. 10, Belgrade.
[3] “COOPERATION WITH AFRICAN COUNTRIES,” Yugoslav Life, vol. 12 iss. 4, Belgrade, April 1967.
[4] “YUGOSLAVS WORKING IN ASIA AND AFRICA,” Yugoslav Life, vol. 8 iss. 6, Belgrade, June 1963, pg. 5.
[5] “NOT A NEW BLOC-BUT UNITY OF ACTION IN THE INTEREST OF PEACE,” Yugoslav Life, vol. 6 iss. 5, Belgrade, June 1961, pg. 2
[6] “COLD WAR METHODS AND PRESSURE THREATEN TO CAUSE NEW WORLD CONFLICTS,” Yugoslav Life, vol. 9 iss. 9, Belgrade, September 1964, pg. 2.

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The King of Adobe: Reies López Tijerina, Lost Prophet of the Chicano Movement by Lorena Oropeza (2019)

By Micaela Valadez

One of the most challenging projects for historians of the twentieth century is producing biographical accounts of the heroes and heroines of the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Historical biographies have been attacked because they muddy our positive view of popular leaders in movements that remain salient in the twenty-first century. Some historians, however, write narratives that are powerful and controversial simply because the historical subject was nowhere near perfect, even crossing boundaries that we consider violent and abusive. This is the case for one of the most influential figures in the history of the Chicano Movement, Reies López Tijerina. Evangelical preacher and prophet turned leader of the Alianza Federal de Mercedes (Federal Land Grant Alliance], Tijerina’s life is chock-full of both violent and inspiring actions and decisions. Lorena Oropeza’s new book, The King of Adobe: Reies López Tijerina, Lost Prophet of the Chicano Movement, skillfully exposes the contradictions of a significant historical character as historians of the Chicano Movement seem to lose sight of his monumental importance in the fight for land rights in the U.S. Southwest.

The King of Adobe: Reies López Tijerina, Lost Prophet of the Chicano Movement by Lorena Oropeza

Taking readers from Tijerina’s early childhood in Texas to the last years of his life, Oropeza creates a fascinating biographical account of a man with controversial and radical ideas. She considers Tijerina’s evangelical approach to religion and preaching, misogynistic view of gender, sexuality, and the family, and anti-imperialist view of the U.S. government. Oropeza comes to terms with the messiness of his past and even questions his mental health and sanity, brilliantly exposing some of Tijerina’s most unpopular characteristics and actions while balancing the importance of his work in the Chicano Movement.

Photograph of Reies Tijerina around the time of the “Courthouse Raid” incident in Tierra Amarilla, NM, in June of 1967 via University of New Mexico Digital Collections

Some of the most compelling parts of this book lie in the oral histories gathered by the people that knew Tijerina intimately, including his first wife and his daughters. Understanding their tumultuous and sometimes violent relationship with Tijerina helps the reader understand how hard it was for Chicano Movement activists, especially women, to work in a context his family describes as patriarchal. Oropeza brilliantly compares Tijerina’s past as a prophet to his role as the leader of Alianza. His motivations as a prophet in the 1950s propelled him and his religious followers to build their own underground dwellings in New Mexico in hopes that they might be free from the secular world that he blamed for the oppression of his people. Only a few years later, his new followers in Alianza were determined to liberate land taken from Mexicans by the U.S. after 1848 and live free from the U.S. settler state. His connection to land and his resistance to oppression were hard lines that ran throughout his various leadership roles.

“Tierra O Muerte” Poster, 1967 (via Smithsonian)

This book also highlights an essential moment in the United States when the discourse of non-violent resistance and protest prevailed over violent militancy. Two years before the Alcatraz Occupation by Red Power activists and five years before the armed opposition at the Second Battle of Wounded Knee, Tijerina’s occupation and raid in 1967 of a courthouse in New Mexico lead to the first instance of armed militancy towards federal and state authorities during the 1960s. However, it also ended up placing him among the most venerable leaders of the Chicano Movement. The Alianza’s militant action garnered national attention for the land-grant cause in the Southwest that Tijerina and the activists in his ranks championed for so long. The 1967 raid also led to his participation in the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign and to conversations with leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. However, his national popularity never stopped Tijerina from continuously using the Bible to justify his place in the broader social movements of the time, nor did he ever truly stop believing that he was divinely blessed, a savior to his people.

Headquarters of the Alianza Federal de Mercedes (The Federal Alliance of Land Grants) via University of New Mexico Digital Collections

The King of Adobe shows how to responsibly tell the history of people that historians have ignored or never fully explored. In the case of Tijerina, Oropeza challenges his designation as one of the “Four Horseman of the Chicano Movement,” and his eventual erasure in the history of the Chicano Movement. Oropeza brings Tijerina back to prominence. She takes no shortcuts confronting the ironies in his life. She commends his bravery in a moment when national leaders of social movements were murdered for their ideas while revealing his sexist tendencies and the hardships people around him suffered. Much like Matt Garcia’s pathbreaking book, From the Jaws of Victory: The Triumph and Tragedy of Cesar Chavez, Oropeza’s book challenges historians who help create simplistic narratives of historical figures for fear of being challenged by academia. Oropeza recognizes that the Alianza’s militant action around New Mexican land-grant disputes and the history of U.S. conquest inspired scholars during that period to investigate U.S. land acquisition further, leading activist scholars and others to critique U.S. imperialism and the creation of the U.S. border. She argues that these early scholarly investigations contributed to the emerging fields of Chicano/a history, the history of the American West, and the history of U.S. settler colonialism. Anyone with interests in the Chicano Movement, the movement for land rights in the Southwest, twentieth-century social movements, Mexican American religion, and oral history should read this book.

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Littlefield Lectures 2020: Jack E. Davis

Jack E. Davis is a professor of history and Rothman Family Chair in the Humanities specializing in environmental history and sustainability studies and the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea (2017).

Before joining the faculty at UF in 2003, he taught at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Eckerd College, and in 2002 was a Fulbright scholar at the University of Jordan in Amman. Upon joining the faculty at UF, he founded the department’s student journal, Alpata: A Journal of History.

His Race Against Time: Culture and Separation in Natchez Since 1930 won the Charles S. Sydnor Prize for the best book in southern history published in 2001. His next book, An Everglades Providence: Marjory Stoneman Douglas and the American Environmental Century (2009), received a gold medal from the Florida Book Awards.

In 2014, he was a fellow at the MacDowell Colony, where he worked on his latest book, The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea. The New York Times Book Review called his book a “beautiful homage to a neglected sea.” The Gulf was a New York Times Notable Book for 2017 and made several other “best of” lists for the year, including those of the Washington Post, NPR, Forbes, and the Tampa Bay Times. In addition to winning the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for History, The Gulf was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction and winner of the Kirkus Prize for nonfiction.

With his former student Leslie Poole (UF PhD 2012), Davis is currently editing a new edition of Wild Heart of Florida, a collection of personal essays and poems about natural Florida. In January 2018, he signed a contract with the publisher of The Gulf, Liveright/W.W. Norton, to write a new book, employing the working title “Bird of Paradox: How the Bald Eagle Saved the Soul of America”.

In April 2019, Dr. Davis was one of the recipients of the 2019 Andrew Carnegie fellowship award. He was one of the thirty-two fellows out of 300 nominations selected for this prestigious award.

February 18, 2020: Coming Ashore: History, Ecology, and The Gulf of Mexico

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The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War by Joanne B. Freeman (2018)

by Ashley Garcia

The Field of Blood is a timely publication that examines congressional violence in antebellum America. The work reorients our understanding of the road to American disunion and the political conflicts that dominated Congress in the three decades before the Civil War. Freeman has unearthed an overlooked history of congressional brawls, fights, duels, and other violent encounters between northern and southern representatives on the Senate and House floors. These violent conflicts were more than personal disputes and petty quarrels. Freeman shows how these incidents were representative of larger sectional tensions and were entangled in a web of party loyalty, personal honor, and regional pride.

One of the joys of reading this work was Freeman’s superior prose. It is at once witty and poignant as she guides readers through a violent world of congressional brawls, fistfights, and canings without sensationalizing the subject matter. Many of the incidents she describes are stomach churning and attention-grabbing in their own right, yet Freeman manages to integrate incidents of congressional violence into a more significant narrative of sectional tension, institutional mistrust, and ideology. Each chapter follows one violent incident as experienced by Freeman’s historical tour-guide, Benjamin Brown French. French was a house clerk from New Hampshire who spent thirty-seven years in Washington D.C. from 1837 to 1870 surrounded by Congressmen and witness to their violent quarrels. Freeman uses Brown’s extensive diaries as guides to the congressional world of “friendships and fighting; of drinking and dallying; of the passions of party and the prejudices of section and how they played out on the floor.” The diaries also personify the way the nation changed over time. Freeman often uses French as an embodiment of the political transformations that took place in the antebellum period. His loyalties, friendships, and party affiliation evolved as southern violence, sectional tension, and fears of a domineering block of slaveholders at the heart of the national government (known as Slave Power) altered party membership and political ideology in the 1840s and 1850s.

Arguments of the chivalry,1854 (via Library of Congress)

Many of the stories Freeman tells will be well known to students of antebellum American history, but what makes The Field of Blood so innovative is that Freeman shows the role of emotions and values in the political and ideological divisions that led to the Civil War. Freeman’s retelling of Preston Brooks’ caning of Charles Sumner, for example, highlights the importance of honor, pride, loyalty, and patriotism in Northern reactions to the Sumner tragedy. On May 22, 1856, Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina brutally beat Senator Charles Sumner with his cane until it shattered. Brooks believed that Sumner insulted him personally and politically by admonishing Brooks’ relative Andrew Butler in an anti-slavery speech about the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Honor, pride, and loyalty played a role in Brooks’ motivation to defend Andrew Butler, South Carolina, and the rest of the South against Sumner’s supposed insult. However, honor, pride, and loyalty also played a central role in Republican responses to the violent act. While, the brutality of Brooks’ violence was cause for outrage in the North, it was Brooks’ violation of the rules of congressional combat that infuriated and offended Northerners. Previously, most acts of physical violence on the congressional floor were spontaneous encounters, whereas Brooks’ attack was premeditated. Brooks also elevated the political stakes of his attack by beating Sumner on the congressional floor rather than outside where personal disputes could be settled apart from political ones. Freeman shows how the location and timing of the Brooks-Sumner encounter exacerbated regional tensions and gave Northerners an opportunity to play up the notion of Southern violence in the press. Brooks’ violent escapade was the personification of pro-slavery brutality and arrogance.

Sacking of Lawrence (via Wikipedia)

Further intensifying the strong reactions, Sumner’s caning occurred around the same time as antislavery settlers were ransacked by proslavery aggressors in Lawrence, Kansas. Northerners viewed these violent encounters as a series of ongoing attacks against the North by the Southern Slave Power and believed the attacks would not stop until the North fought back to take control of the future of the Union. The rise of congressional violence in the 1850s exemplified the civic breakdown and unyielding polarization in Congress that made war seem inevitable. By the end of Freeman’s book, it feels unbelievable that it had taken so long for someone to tell the story of disunion through the lens of congressional violence. As she reminds readers early on in her work, “The nation didn’t slip into disunion; it fought its way into it, even in Congress.”

Freeman’s work breathes life into what often feels like a stagnant field of antebellum political history. Her use of violence as an analytical category provides a new framework for understanding the nation in the antebellum period that synthesizes the existing literature and illuminates an overlooked component of American political development. By deploying emotion and honor in her work, Freeman proves that there is still more to explore in what often feels like an overly dense field and time period of American history. The Field of Blood reassures students and scholars that there are still unchartered territories to explore in the antebellum period.

Political Map of the United States, 1856 (via Wikimedia Commons)

The Field of Blood will do for historians of the antebellum period what Freeman’s 2001 work, Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic, did for historians of the early republic. Her discovery of a “culture of honor” that guided politics in the early republic provided a new way of thinking about political conflict and nation-building in the 1790s. Affairs of Honor was one of the first books I read as undergraduate history major and I returned to the book this fall, delighted all over again by its reinterpretation of the history of the young United States. In that book, Freeman showed how previously undervalued and overlooked modes of political communication, such as political gossip and print culture, affected reputations of political leaders and influenced political alliances and elections. She provides a connecting line from Affairs of Honor to Field of Blood through her repeated methodological use of emotion and honor to dissect patterns of political thought and political behavior in the first seventy years of the nation’s existence.

At a time when congressional polarization and violent political rhetoric have reached an unimaginable height, Freeman’s work feels especially significant. Current party strife and widespread disillusionment mirror similar political developments of the antebellum period in chilling ways. The web of fanatical party loyalty, excessive personal pride, and regional tension that Freeman exposes in her work echoes in the contemporary halls of the U.S. Capitol and Oval Office. The Field of Blood confirms that the time is ripe for a resurgence of historical scholarship that examines the early political development of the United States, which can shed light on our own puzzling state of political disarray.

You might also like:
This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust (2008)
Harper’s Weekly’s Portrayal of the Civil War: The New Archive (No. 11)
IHS Talk: “The Civil War Undercommons: Studying Revolution on the Mississippi River” by Andrew Zimmerman

Slavery in Early Austin: The Stringer’s Hotel and Urban Slavery

On the eve of the Civil War, an advertisement appeared in the Texas Almanac announcing the sale of five enslaved people at the Stringer’s Hotel.

“Negroes For Sale––I will offer for sale, in the city of Austin, before the Stringer’s Hotel, on the 1st day of January next, to the highest bidder, in Confederate or State Treasury Notes, the following lot of likely Negroes, to wit. Three Negro Girls and two Boys, ages ranging from 15 to 16 years. The title to said Negroes is indisputable” —The Texas Almanac, Austin December 27th, 1862

Image of the cover of The Texas Almanac for 1862 — via Portal for Texas History

This hotel was one of the many businesses in Austin using enslaved labor, a commonplace practice that extended to every part of Texas. However, urban slavery in Austin differed substantially from slavery on the vast plantations that stretched across Texas’ rural geography. Unlike rural planters, urban slaveholders were largely merchants, businessmen, tradesmen, artisans, and professionals. The urban status of these slaveholders in Austin meant that enslaved people performed a wide variety of tasks, making them highly mobile and multi-occupational. Austin property holders, proprietors, and city planners built enslaved labor not only into the city’s economy, but into its very physical space to meet local needs. This examination of the Stringer’s Hotel provides a brief window for looking into Austin’s history of slavery and perhaps the history of enslaved people in the urban context.

Close-up image of the 1885 Sanborn Maps of Austin showing the map's title and the eastern part of Austin — Sanborn Maps of Austin, 1885 (via Library of Congress)

Close-up image of the 1885 Sanborn Maps of Austin showing the blocks around the Avenue Hotel — Sanborn Maps of Austin, 1885 (via Library of Congress)

On September 3, 1850, Swante Magnus Swenson purchased a city lot in Austin. In 1854, he built the Swenson Building on Congress Avenue where the current Piedmont Hotel stands today. Inside the building, on the first floor, were a drug store, a general goods store, a hardware store, and a grocery store; a hotel, (named the Avenue Hotel but locally known as the Stringer’s Hotel) was located on the upper two levels of the building. The Travis County Deeds Records show that sometime later, Swenson leased the hotel to a John Stringer, giving the hotel its name “the Stringer’s Hotel.” An 1885 Austin city Sanborn map of the Swenson Building shows that Swenson had a room built for “servants” in the hotel portion of the building. There is no documentation detailing whether enslaved people stayed in that room since the Sanborn map is dated twenty years after the Civil War. However, an 1889 Sanborn map shows that Swenson had the Stringer’s Hotel remodeled to remove the room for “servants,” which suggests that enslaved people originally potentially stayed there, given that “servant” and “dependency” were variant terms used for “slave” in urban spaces. The National Register of Historic Places Inventory notes that businesses on Congress Avenue did not have the financial capacity to maintain, let alone remodel, their properties right after the Civil War. This explains the twenty-year delay to remove the said “servants” room, no longer utilized by enslaved people in the 1880s. Further evidence also shows that Swenson himself had strong ties to slavery in Texas.

S.M. Svensson (via Wikipedia)

S. M Swenson was born in Sweden and came to New York as an immigrant in 1836 at the age of twenty. A few years after his arrival, Swenson worked as a mercantile trader. Through his trade dealings in the south, he befriended a slaveholder by the name of George Long, who then hired Swenson to work at his newly relocated plantation in Texas. A year later, when Long died due to poor health, Swenson married his widow, who then too died of tuberculosis three years later. By 1843, Swenson became a full-scale slaveholder in Texas through inheriting his now-deceased wife’s plantation. In 1848, he enlarged his property holdings by purchasing the adjoining plantation and expanding his cotton crop. In 1850, along with purchasing 182 acres a few miles outside of Austin, he bought the lot on Congress Avenue and constructed the Swenson Building and inside, the Stringer’s Hotel.

There are no records that detail the lives of enslaved people at the Stringer’s Hotel but other sources show that slaveholders expected slaves to fill a variety of roles in running their establishments on Congress Avenue. In his book, a Journey Through Texas, Frederick Olmstead describes his encounter with an enslaved woman who was responsible for tending to the hotel’s patrons along with upkeep and building maintenance. These slaves were also responsible for running errands and transporting goods. Many slaves also lived and traveled to and from homes and communities that formed on the outskirts of town. Traveling to and from their labor obligations or social engagements in their free time illuminates the various networks of movement created by the enslaved. Hence, given their relative independence, expectations, and responsibilities, it is not impossible to imagine enslaved people taking on leading roles in running the Stringer’s Hotel and other establishments in Austin.

Black and white photograph of the Avenue Hotel — Avenue Hotel. Photograph, University of North Texas Libraries (via The Portal to Texas History)

The analysis of the Stringer’s Hotel through Sanborn maps and other qualitative sources illuminates the roles and occupations of enslaved people in Austin’s urban space. Unlike the enslaved people confined to the private domain of plantation estates, urban slaves worked in spaces with considerable mobility, meeting the needs of their owners and to fulfill their own social lives. Perhaps mapping the movement of enslaved people in this way, could allow for further interpretations of possible realities and lived experiences of enslaved people that archival texts obscure and make difficult to see.

Sources

“Negroes for Sale.” The Texas Almanac. December 27, 1862, 1 edition, sec. 34.
“Texas General Land Office Land Grant Database”, Digital Images, Texas General Land Office, Entry for Swenson, S M, Austin City Lots, Travis Co., TX, Patent no 429, vol.1
“Austin 1885 Sheet 5,” Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, Map Collection, Perry-Castañeda Library, Austin, Texas.
Olmsted, Frederick Law. A Journey through Texas: or, A Saddle-Trip on the Southwestern Frontier. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1989: 50;
Austin City Sanborn Map, 1885;
Bullock Hotel. Photograph, University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, accessed December 3, 2019

Additional Readings

“Bullock House.” The Handbook of Texas Online. Texas State Historical Association, June 12, 2010.
Gail Swenson. “S. M. Swenson and the Development of the SMS Ranches,” M.A. thesis, University of Texas, (1960).
Gage, Larry Jay. “The City of Austin on the Eve of the Civil War.” The Southwestern Historical Quarterly 63, no. 3 (1960).
Kenneth Hafertepe. “Urban Sites of Slavery in Antebellum Texas” in Slavery in the City, Edited by Clifton Ellis and Rebecca Ginsburg, University of Virginia Press. (2017)
Jason A. Gillmer. Slavery and Freedom in Texas: Stories from the Courtroom, 1821-1871. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, (2017)

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Documenting Slavery in East Texas: Transcripts from Monte Verdi
Slavery World Wide: Collected Works from Not Even Past
Love in the Time of Texas Slavery

The Lived Nile: Environment, Disease, and Material Colonial Economy in Egypt by Jennifer L. Derr (2019)

Jennifer Derr takes her readers down the Egyptian Nile River, past its newly constructed dams and flowing into its irrigation canals, providing them with the opportunity to dive into the complexity of British colonialism in Egypt in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Following their invasion of Egypt in 1882, the British began a huge infrastructural project aimed at harnessing the natural power of the river to the material needs of the empire. Cotton was the name of the game. Millions of Egyptians were forcibly enlisted to build dams and dig irrigation canals that contributed to increased cotton production and ensured a constant supply of cheap raw materials for the mills in Britain. Derr’s analysis binds together politics, economy, and environment to show what colonialism looks like on the ground and how British control practices shaped, fostered, and maintained the colonized land and society.

Derr argues that in the Egyptian experience, the colonization of men and nature were interchangeable processes. The new irrigation infrastructures irreversibly transformed the Egyptian landscape, overflowing some areas and drying others. Ultimately, changes in nature penetrated the bodies of Egyptian subjects who suffered from diseases directly linked both to their long days of working in muddy canals and to dietary changes – mainly the transformation from a wheat-based to a corn-based diet – imposed by the changes in land usage. In pointing to the connection between nature and the human body, Derr demonstrates the complexity of the colonial economy and its influence over meta-economic processes and individual experiences of subjectivity, citizenship, class, economic abilities, and even personal health.

Craft passing through an open bridge on the Nile (via Library of Congress)

One notable achievement of The Lived Nile is its contribution to a growing attempt to break down the timeline of the Egyptian colonial experience. Although Egypt officially gained independence in 1922, foreign (often British) intervention in the country’s internal affairs remained a permanent issue until 1956 when, following the Suez crisis, the last British soldier finally left Egyptian soil. Derr cleverly demonstrates that colonial control materializes in more than merely a physical presence, as she dives into the complexity of colonial intervention in daily life in its various forms and implications. At the end of the nineteenth century, for example, it was the British irrigation engineers who practiced foreign control and authority over irrigation projects. By the mid-1930s, it was the turn of other experts – this time medical expeditions sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation to promote invasive medical treatments in the countryside, who practiced foreign control over the bodies of the Egyptians. Here again, as in the case of changes in nature, Derr demonstrates the nuanced and complex forms of the colonial experience.

Rather than a strictly environmental history of colonial Egypt, Derr presents a bio-political reading of the relationships among groups of people and between humanity and nature. Using her previous training as a biologist, Derr identifies the various ways in which the agency of non-human actors influenced human lives in Egypt. These range from great natural phenomena like the Nile to the microscopic organisms (Schistosoma) that multiplied following the expansion of irrigation canals, attacking the peasants’ (Fellahin) digestive system. However, for Derr, none of nature’s many representations – the Nile, corn, swamps, and intestinal worms — bear importance on their own; they all become relevant to the story only when they serve a purpose in the political struggles over resources and control.

Map of Egypt and Lower Nile ca. 1897 (via Library of Congress)

While presenting a well-crafted re-conceptualization of Egypt’s bio-colonial experience, Derr often neglects the voices of the local population. In fact, the readers meet the Egyptians only when they interact with colonial officials and mostly through the eyes of the latter. Critical as Derr’s attitude might be towards these encounters, the reader cannot escape noticing the clear power relations between the two groups and the British sense of superiority that accompanies every interaction. One notable example is the way British irrigation engineers disregarded the proficiency of their Egyptian counterparts during their shared work to reshape the Nile’s dam system at the end of the nineteenth century. The influence of Egyptians over the landscape is also missing in the discussion about health initiatives taken by the Rockefeller Foundation during the 1930s. We now know that during these years the Egyptian government was involved more than ever in social projects in rural areas, but Derr seems to dismiss the Egyptian contribution in favor of her bio-colonial argument. Paying more attention to local voices might have contributed to an even deeper analysis of Egypt’s bio-colonial experience.

Watering the flocks at the Nile River (via Library of Congress)

Though at first glance, The Lived Nile seems to be relevant only for environmental or social historians of modern Egypt, the incorporation of multiple agencies, methodologies, and ideas makes it relevant to a wide range of audiences. Derr’s documentation of what it means to be colonized sets a strong conceptual frame most likely to be picked up by scholars outside of the Middle East in the years to come. On top of all her academic achievements, Derr wisely avoids complicated phrases and jargon, except when the Latin term is necessary (good luck saying Schistosoma mansoni without breaking a tooth). Her straightforward language and complex-yet-accessible ideas make the book readable and enjoyable for curious academic and non-academic readers alike.

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The Curious Case of the Thomas Cook Hospital in Luxor
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Documenting Slavery in East Texas: Transcripts from Monte Verdi

By Daniel J. Thomas III

Originally from Macon, Alabama, Julien Sidney Devereux, Sr (1805-1856) moved to east Texas where he eventually purchased land in Rusk County. This plat would eventually become Monte Verdi, one of the highest producing cotton plantations in the state, where over fifty Africans were enslaved. The Devereux family papers and the maps of the Texas General Land Office, including Julian Devereux’s will (1852) and a plat map of Rusk County (1846-1861), yield rich information about the institution of slavery.

Photograph of the first page of Julien Sidney Devereux, Sr.'s will

On May 7, 1852, Julien Devereux signed his final will and testament. Thirteen of the fourteen sections of his twelve-page will dealt explicitly with the institution of slavery. Sections two through six of his will present a rigid, hierarchical system to control the distribution of enslaved persons among his family members. Devereux named the slaves who, along with the furniture and cattle, were to be willed to his wife and daughter in sections two and three, respectively. Should his daughter not marry or bear children by the age of twenty-one, he noted that all willed enslaved people were to be turned over to his wife. In section four, he bequeathed a nineteen-year-old boy, a twelve-year-old girl, and “their increase” to one of his sons. The increase allotted to his son appears to allude to the arranged breeding of enslaved people and the enslavement of their unborn children. Section five established the equal distribution of Devereux’s remaining fifty-six enslaved persons and all of their future children among his remaining sons. Section six included three stipulations controlling his widow’s actions to ensure that his enslaved persons and property remained within his direct lineage. He declared that his wife must remain on the plantation and under the supervision of his chosen executors, that she could not sell any property or slaves during her lifetime, and that she would relinquish all willed property and enslaved people should she remarry.

The peculiar affection for the enslaved also emerges in the will. In section eight, Devereux appeared to reward an enslaved man and woman for their “long and faithful service” by allowing them to nurse his children. In addition, Devereux declared that the enslaved should never be sold to pay debts because they are “family slaves.” Instead, he reserved over eleven hundred acres of land to be sold if necessary. Finally, Devereux declared that family slaves become fixed by his will thus demonstrating the way enslavement became predetermined and hereditary.

Gomert, A. & Lungkwitz, Herman. Rusk County, map, 1871; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth89173/: accessed October 12, 2019), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas General Land Office.

The accompanying county map incorporated in this analysis of Devereux’s will challenges some common assumption about institutional slavery. To shore up the distribution of public property, the Republic of Texas Congress formed the General Land Office (GLO) in 1836. This map of Rusk County was produced by the GLO and represents plats of property purchased between 1846 and 1861. The density of the map shows that few plats appear to be large; the majority of holdings appear to be quite small and crowded near others. Second, Devereux’s plantation had one of the largest enslaved populations in the state of Texas, at fifty-six. In Rusk County, plantations were not isolated, rural locales with hundreds of enslaved people, as if often assumed. This map shows an densely-settled region where the number of enslaved people would have been similar o that of the Devereux plantation at Monte Verdi.

Collectively, these documents illuminate numerous aspects about the institution of slavery in Texas on the eve of the Civil War.

Julien Sidney Devereux Family Papers, 1766-1908, 1931, 1941, Box 2N215, Will, 1852-1854 Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin. A Guide to the Julien Sidney Devereux Family Paper, 1766-1941; Volume/Box: 2n215

I Julien Devereux . . . State of Texas, being of sound mind, do make this my last will and testament, hereby revoking all others.

It is my will that after my decease my remains be interested in a suitable and christian like manner, in the burying ground adjacent to the Baptist Church in the neighborhood of the town of _______; a tomb of stone or brick to be erected over my remains with a suitable headpiece of stone on which to be engraved the date of my birth and death.

I give and bequeath unto my beloved wife Sarah Ann Devereux the following named slaves to ____: (1) Bill, a boy about twenty years old; 2) Gabby, a girl about sixteen years old, and her male child Franklin about two months old; 3) ____a woman about twenty four years old and her three sons, ____: Peter (the eldest), and George and Isaac (twins) about four years old, also her twin daughter, Kizzy and Emelisa about two years old, and such household and kitchen furniture as I may own at my death. I also give my said wife our ____ of whatever stock of cattle and hogs and ___ one fourth part of whatever stock of mules and horses I may own at my death and the one fourth part of such farming utensils as I may own at my death.

I give and bequeath to my natural daughter Antoinette Devereux the following slaves, to wit: 1) Gino a man about twenty years of age; 2) Rhoda women about eighteen years of age and her two children to wit: Cynthia two years old and the female infant she now have about eight months old named ________________. I also give to Antoinette one horse, saddle and _______ one bed _____ and furniture and two cows and calves I also give said Antoinette her maintenance and education so hereafter provided. And should the said Antoinette be leaving no direct lineal heir of her body begotten then it is my will that said slaves and their increase shall revert to my child or children by my said wife Sarah Ann to be equally divided among them or their lineal heirs. And should said slaves die or any one or more of them before the said Antoinette shall arrive at the age of twenty one years, or before she may marry then it is my will that she should receive and have other slaves to be taken out of those hereafter bequeathed to my children by my wife of equal value with such as may so die, to be set apart to her by my executors.

I will and bequeath to my natural son Sidney Devereux, two slaves, to wit: Joe a boy about nineteen years old and Joanna girl about twelve years old together with their increase. And I also bequeath to the said Sidney our horse, saddle and bridle: One bed, ____ and furniture and two cows and calves. And I also give the said Sidney his maintenance and education as hereinafter provided. And should the said Sidney die leaving no child or children or the descendants of child or children then it is my will and desire that said slaves shall revert to my children by my wife Sarah Ann, or their lineal heir to be equally divided between them. And should one or both of said slaves die before the said Sidney shall arrive at the age of twenty one years then it is my will that he shall have and receive other slaves or slaves in lieu thereof in like manner as herein before provided for Antoinette Devereux.

I hereby will and bequeath the residual of my property real, personal and mixed, choses in action, effects and rights of whatever description among which ___estimate fifty six slaves to my two sons Albert and Julien Devereux by my present wife, together and in common with such other child or children as she may hereafter have by me to be equally divided between my said two sons and such other child or children as may so be done. If there shall be but one of said sons living at my death and no other child born, then he is to have all the property herein bequeathed to both: if both of said sons are living at my death and no other child born, then said property to be divided between them: if there shall be at my death said two sons and one or more other child or children of my present wife living or posthumous, then it is my desire that said property shall be equally divided between all of said children. And for greater certainty I here give the names of the slaves mentioned and intended to pass to said children by this my 5th bequeath to the best of my resolution, to wit, 1 Scott 2 Jack Shaw 3 Henry 4 Luoius 5 Martin 6 Lewis 7 ___ 8 July 9 Daniel 10 Stephen 11 Levin 12 Randal 13 July? 14 Little Jack 15 Amos 16 Charles 17 ___ 18 Tom 19 Anthony 20 Walton 21 Richmond 22 Green 23 Arthur 24 Pam 25 Little Jesse 26 Nelson 27 Dennis 28 Mason 29 Harrison 30 Aaron 31 Anderson 32 Robert 33 Cola Tabby 34 Mary 35 Henry 36 Lev Mariah 37 Katy 38 Marha 39 Amey 40 Matilda 41 Eliza 42 Dea’nah 43 Makalah 44 Sarah 45 Jane 46 Phebe 47 Jinny 48 Elmina 49 Jiney 50 Louisa 51 Penial 52 Charlotte 53 Little Amey 54 Katy’s child not named and 55 & 56 (two others names not recollected, together with all the increase of said slaves. This my 5th bequeath is made charged with and subject to the following restrictions, uses and conditions to wit: That my present wife Sarah Ann remain on the plantation where we now reside, and under the supervision of my executors as hereinafter directed carry on the plantation for the maintenance of herself and her children and the two natural children Antoinette and Sidney and for the education of her own children as well as the said Antoinette and Sidney. And that she may be able to do so. It is my will that she have the use of the said plantation negroes stock, mules, farming utensils and other ___property appertaining to a plantation during her natural life or widowhood with his exception that as my children ______attain to the age of twenty one years- or if-______ the legacies and property bequeath to them by this will is to be delivered over to them respectively provided that my present residences and land to the extent of two hundred acres including the slaves shall not be sold during the lifetime of my said wife. And should my said wife-Sarah Ann again marry it is my will that there be a complete separation of her property and interests in all things of a _____ character from those of my children.

I desire and bequeath to my said wife and her children all the real estate which I may own and possess at my death to be equally divided between them that is to say if I shall have one or more child or children, by her she is to have a childs part of said real estate in value equal to the part or share of said child or children to be laid off so as to include our present residences. My residences as I desire here to explain, consists of the mansion house and other buildings and four thousand acres of land more or less attached thereto in different survey_____as the William & _______and other lying in one body. The division of said land here ____plateau to be fairly and equally made by my executors.

In the event I leave no child or children by my present wife, living or posthumous at my death, then I will and bequeath the property and its increase herin before devised to such child or children to my said wife and the said Antoinette and Sidney Devereux to be equally divided between them that is to say said property is to be equally divided between my said wife, the said Antoinette and the said Sidney or their lineal descendants provided I leave no child or children in being or posthumous by my said wife or the direct lineal heirs of such child or children by my said wife. Said decision to be made between my said wife and the said Antoinette and the said Sidney in three equal parts share and share alike.

In consideration of the long and faithful service of the old negro slaves Scott and Gabby hereinfore bequeathed to my new sons Albert and Julian it is my will and desire that from and after they be exempt from compulsory personal labor further than to give such attention as they may be able in nursing and taking care of my children after my death; and I further will and desire that the said Scott and Gabby shall be humanely treated and will provided for by my executors.

It is my will and desire that all my just debts be paid before distribution of my estate takes place. And in providing for the maintenance of my children I estimate the profile of my plantation as being ______for those purposes and pay my just debts. If, however tho fund arising from my plantation is insufficient for all the _______ properties, and it is deemed necessary by my executors to sell any portion of my estate for the payment of my debts, it is my desire that none of my slaves shall be sold. They are family slaves it is my will that they so remain after my death. I hereby designate as property to be sold for the payment of debts if necessary two tracts of land to with: eleven hundred and seven acres the head right property of ____ Robert W Smith and Eight hundred and eighty acres known as the ____. I purchased of Doctor Elijah Doson or so much thereof as my executors may deem sufficient.

Contrary to any wish desire or request of mine the legislation of the State of Texas at its last___ the second section of act entitled “an act changing the names of Antoinette _____ and Sidney May” which act was “approved January 3 1852.” said second section is in these words “That the said Antoinette Devereux and Sidney Devereux be and they are hereby declared capable in law of inheriting the property of their father Julien Devereux in the same manner as if they had been born in lawful wedlock – and that this act take effect and be in force from and after its passage”. Now, although it has long been my wish and desire that the names of the said Antoinette Scott and Sidney ___ should be changed as provided for by the first section of the above cited act, yet I never intended nor was it ever my will that they shall inherit my estate in the manner provided in the said second section . I do therefore now and forever hereafter by this my last will and testament most solemnly protest against the operation and effect of said second section of said act and desire that said second section may be appealed by act of said Legislature at the next session, the same having been passed without my knowledge consent or approbation and in direct violation of any wishes and desires. It is my will that the said Antoinette and Sidney be provided for and receive portions of my estate after my death only in such manner as is in this my last will and testament set forth and stated and in no other way.

As I have before initiated, it is my will that a sufficient amount independent of the bequeath herein made be set apart and devoted to the maintenance and education of Antoinette Devereaux and Sidney Devereux, and my two sons Albert and Julien, and such other children of mine as may hereafter be born. And it is also my will that should the said Antoinette and Sidney or either of them die without lineal _____ of their body or bodies, the _______ of herein bequeathed is not in any way or under any circumstances to descend to or be inherited by any member of their mother family.

My will is that my friend Doctor Peterson ___ Richardson be guardian of the person and property of my natural daughter Antoinette Devereux to superintend and direct her education and take care of her. And should my said wife deem it proper for Antoinette to be leave here I desire Doctor Richardson to take her and raise her. And it is my will and desire that my extended friend Col. William Wright Morris be the guardian of any natural son Sidney Devereux: as well of his person as his property and I desire that said Morris will consider the said Sidney wholly in his care and under his charge and permit him to ramble or wander off so as to become identified with his mothers people: That he will superintend the education and moral culture of the said Sidney and in a special manner prepare his mind for the study of the law by giving a proper direction to this education.

It is my will that none of my slaves be sold. With due exception they are all family negroes, and my desire is that they so remain under the ____ plateau distribution fixed by this will: that they may be humanely treated and will be taken care of by those who may succeed me in the ownership of them.

I do herby appoint my wife Sarah Ann Devereux, John Laudrew, Col. William Wright Morris, Doctor Peterson T. Richardson, and Doctor William M. ____ of Rush County and Doctor James H. ____ of Nagadoches County Texas (my trust worthy friends) my executors of this my last will and testament to execute and carry out all the terms and provisions of the _____. And it is my will that they or either one of them shall not be required to give bond and security as a condition to entering or the discharge of the duties herby imposed. It is also____my will and direction that no other action shall be had in the County Court in relation to the settlement of the estate herin disposed of then the probate and registration of this will and testament and a return of inventory of said estate. It is my desire and will that my wife Sarah ____ by the council and advice of any one or more of my other executors, as she may choose will take upon herself the supervision of my plantation for the purposes expressed in the will. That aided by my other executors she will attend to the hiring of overseers, the sale of produce, the investing of the proceeds of the plantation: That with the aid of said executor she will plan improvement of my plantation, preserve and take care of property, and above all she will attend strictly and carefully to the education of my two sons Albert and Julien and such other children as she may have by me.

I hereby appoint the said Sarah Anne Devereux guardian of the persons and property of my said sons Albert and Julian and such other child or children as she may have by me, and in case she should die then it is my will that Doctor Peterson T. Richardson will take the guardianship of said two sons and such other children as she may have as aforesaid.
The foregoing will of twelve and a half pages signed sealed and published in our presence and in the presence of each other. The foregoing twelve and a half pages contain my last will and testament executed at the town of Henderson on this 7th day of May AD 1852.
–Julien Sidney Devereux

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Bibliography
Gomert, A. & Lungkwitz, Herman. Rusk County, map, 1871; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth89173/: accessed October 12, 2019), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas General Land Office.

Julien Sidney Devereux Family Papers, 1766-1908, 1931, 1941, Box 2N215, Will, 1852-1854 Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin

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Gallery of Neblett and Noble’s Letters via the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History

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