Save Texas History Symposium

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Title: “Mapping the King’s Highway”

Abstract: El Camino Real, the phrase itself brings to mind romantic notions of Texas during the time of Spanish missionaries and frontier presidios. But rather than a single road from Mexico City to East Texas that is often imagined, multiple branches of the King’s Highway ran throughout Texas connecting remote settlements to the world beyond. This presentation explores efforts to map the various branches of the caminos reales in Texas from the expeditions of Alonso de León in the 1680s through the designation of a portion of the road as a National Historic Trail in 2004. This talk will also include information about some of the cartographers and engineers who platted the road and their adventures along the way.
 

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Title: “Tejas/Texas: Spanish America and the ‘Texas Question’ in the Age of Manifest Destiny”

Abstract: How did Spanish Americans view Texas independence and the ensuing territorial conflict between Mexico and the United States? Drawing on nineteenth-century printed materials, travelogues, and diplomatic correspondence, this presentation examines how the “Texas question” became a critical lens through which Spanish Americans discussed the future contours of the two Americas and Anglo-American expansionism. It demonstrates how Texas became a fundamental reference in comparative debates about slavery, citizenship, and colonization in the American hemisphere. Spanish Americans engaged with the “Texas question” not as a binational conflict but as hemispheric turning point with lasting consequences for the future of the Americas.

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Title: “Priests, Politics, and Place: The Religious Geography of Texas/Mexico Borderlands in Anthony Ganilh’s Ambrosio de Letinez”

Abstract: Through the assortment of lesser-known figures of the Republic of Texas, one stands out as not only being one of the first novelists of Texas, but also for providing one of the most extensive descriptions of religion in the Texas Republic. Fr. Anthony Ganilh, a French Catholic missionary priest, occupied a diverse range of roles during his years of ministry in North America's far-flung frontiers, from Michigan to Matamoros, including professor, blanket factory owner, and abolitionist poet. However, Ambrosio de Letinez, Ganilh’s novel on the land, people, religion, and culture of the Rio Grande area before and during the Texas Revolution continues to be his most notable yet obscure legacy. This talk will explore how descriptions in the novel demonstrate how geography influenced religious and pious practices in early 19th-century Northern Mexico and pre-Revolutionary Texas, through depictions of pilgrimage, specifically those to the Sanctuary of Nuestra Señora del Chorro and the Church of Jesús Nazareno. Furthermore, the literary dynamics surrounding these sites will demonstrate the intersection of nationalism, devotion, ethnicity, and Mexican reactions to American expansionism.
 

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Title: “Runaways, Rivers, and Narrative Reconstruction: Enslaved People and the Utilization of Texas Geography in the Escape to Mexico”

Abstract: Studied less frequently than its northern counterpart, the southbound Underground Railroad to Mexico was also crucial for escaping from slavery. Enslaved and freed people’s movement along these networks were influenced by Texas’ relationship with slavery and location on the Mexican border during the mid-nineteenth century. Within this historical context, how did runaways utilize Texas geography to aid their escapes – particularly given the absence and erasure of their personal stories from the historical record? Furthermore, drawing upon sources ranging from historical archives to Alice Baumgartner’s book South to Freedom, this project aims to reconstruct narratives of runaways through fugitive advertisements as they absconded across the Texas landscape into Mexico.

The U.S.-Mexico borderlands were a liminal space which presented enslaved people with simultaneous dangers of harsh slave laws and opportunities for fluid movement across its complex geography. Examining landmarks, from the city of San Antonio to Texas’ rivers, as important reference points for escapees reveals their possible trajectory and knowledge of the land. While the details may be finite, reading between the advertisements’ limited information provides insight into freedom seekers’ support networks and even aspects of their personality – a first step into elevating their individual experiences as much as possible.
 

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Title: “Hostage, Sailor, Soldier in the Mexican-American War: A Belgian’s Crucible”

Abstract: Immigration in nineteen century Texas was not the same for everyone. This is the story of a tumultuous journey of an unknown Belgian immigrant man named Anton Diedrick Dutchover from Antwerp, Belgium. He witnessed a murder in 1842, was kidnapped onto a sailing merchant vessel where he was ship’s company. He escaped when it made a stop in the Port of Galveston, Texas. He enlisted with the United States Army for the Mexican-American War. He fought in two major battles and one against General Antonio López de Santa Ana. Dutchover served with early famous and infamous individuals that became presidents, Civil War generals and folklore legends. Dutchover later rode as a stagecoach guard for the Butterfield Overland Mail Company, warding off hostile Comanche and Apache Natives. He interacted with both the Union and Confederate armies. After the Civil War, he worked among the Buffalo Soldiers. Dutchover ultimately settled in Fort Davis which highlighted his resilience and individual agency and reveals how personal adversity, and cultural displacement shaped an American identity on a rapidly evolving frontier. Few immigrant men travelled through life engaging in historical events as did Anton Diedrich Dutchover.

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Title: “Curating Identity and History: Analyzing Texas Centennial Maps”

Abstract: During the Texas Centennial Celebrations several organizations produced maps to commemorate Texas identity and history. Each map was carefully curated with moments and motifs to represent Texas and Texans and thus reflect the values of the organization. This project looks at several commemorative centennial maps to analyze the histories and motifs represented on each map exhibit what each organization chose to represent Texas and Texans. Frequently these maps present traditional historical narratives and collective memories as the ultimate version of Texas history and identity. These organizations each curated their own version of Texas history and identity that reflects their own values and holds valuable insight into what memories and power structures each organization sought to reify. This analysis also revealed that many organizations sought to utilize the commemorative centennial maps to market Texas identity and history for commercial gain. This research implies that maps are not static cartographic representations of land, instead they are active cultural materials used to exhibiting curated historical memory. As the U.S. semi quincentennial and Texas bicentennial celebrations approach, this project offers a glance at how culture and history are often carefully curated to commemorated and reify traditional memories and identity.

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Title: “Mapping Deaf Legacies: Spatializing Deaf Histories in the Formation of Texas”

Abstract: This presentation examines Texas Deaf history through a geographic and biographical framework, mapping the lives and contributions of Deaf and Child of Deaf Adults (CODA) figures such as LeRoy Colombo, Deaf Smith, Fannie DeLespine, James Sullivan Wells, and Azie Taylor Morton. By tracing underrecognized migration patterns, institutional histories, and burial sites, the research highlights the urgency of preserving these cultural legacies. Emphasizing ethical documentation practices, this work integrates spatial storytelling and archival analysis to address the erasure of Deaf narratives in mainstream Texas history. It encourages scholars, educators, and genealogists to adopt inclusive and responsible methods in preserving historically marginalized communities.

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Title: “Two Ducks: Gus Engeling, Alton Paris, and the Common Tragedy”

Abstract: What happens when new prescriptive boundaries are drawn over existing, dynamic systems? In 1950, a new border was drawn around a remarkably preserved remnant of Post Oak Savanna and marshlands in Anderson County known locally as Catfish Creek. Initially, the conservation space was designated as the Derden Wildlife Management Area. Within two years, it was renamed and is today known as the Gus Engeling WMA in memory of a wildlife biologist and game warden killed in the line of duty by a man poaching ducks.

What paths led Gus Engeling and his convicted murderer, Alton Paris, to these ends? This paper argues that alterations to the local landscape, constructed ideologically and legally in the name of conservation, led directly to the conflict between Paris and Engeling. In drawing these new boundaries around and through this landscape in the name of conservation, human conflict became more likely due to the underlying social and historical conditions in the area. Though the narrative may seem simple, if the frame is widened slightly to include the environment in which the incident occurred, this story can provide important insights regarding land use, exclusion, and survival on Texas’s public lands.

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Title: "A Paper Empire on Native Ground: Spanish and Indigenous Relations in Colonial Texas"

Abstract: In this presentation, Dr. Tim Seiter examines the everyday military and political interactions between Native peoples and Spanish colonizers in eighteenth-century Texas as they fought over spaces deemed within their territories. These land-based rivalries were further complicated by French incursions, and Spanish officials’ attempts to impose imperial order through maps and administrative reports—instruments that rarely aligned with the realities on the ground. Far from conquering Texas, the Spanish found themselves navigating a world dominated by powerful Native nations. Dr. Seiter will highlight how various Indigenous groups, including the Apaches, Comanches, Karankawas, and Wichitas, maintained firm control over the region, forcing the Spanish to function in a landscape where they had to rely on protection payments to ensure their survival.

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Title: "Practices of Indigenous History Keeping: Kiowa Indian Calendars and Ledger Drawings"

Abstract: This presentation explores Kiowa Indian sai-cut or calendars, a form of visual history keeping, and ledger drawings made with colored pencil on ledger paper. These visual forms recall important events in Kiowa history, including long-distance travels for the purpose of diplomacy, trade, hunting, and battle. We’ll focus on calendar entries for 1874 and 1875, when conflicts between Kiowas and the United States took place at Palo Duro Canyon in North Texas. We’ll use a digital humanities project developed in collaboration with the Kiowa Tribal Museum that collects entries from more than a dozen Kiowa calendars held at museums across the country.
 

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Title: "The Lost War for Texas: The Louisiana Purchase, Mexican Revolution and The Largest Filibuster in Texas History"

Abstract: The Louisiana Purchase brought America to the doorstep of New Spain at a critical time. With the Spanish Empire in chaos, new players sought to reshape the boundaries of the Southwest: Mexican Rebels seeking independence, American leaders pressing claims to Texas, and between them, the restless followers of Aaron Burr, loyal to no one, but committed to a revolutionary act of nation-building. 

Burr’s followers never gave up the dream of carving out a new nation from the Spanish lands in the West. In 1812, teaming up with Mexican rebels, they launched the Gutiérrez-Magee Expedition, the largest filibuster in Texas history. The resulting war profoundly reshaped Texas, sounding the death knell of Spanish power and setting the stage for settlement and conflict over the next three decades. Author James Aalan Bernsen will share findings from his book, “The Lost War for Texas” detailing this forgotten struggle that changed Texas history.

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Title: “Texas Binocular: Complementary Mappings from Opposite Sides of the Comanche-German Frontier”

Abstract: This paper brings together two long-ignored mappings of part of the Texas Hill Country from the mid-19^th century. The Kriewitz-Berghaus map, published in 1851, derives from first-hand information from Native tribes and gives a Comanche view of a part of the Llano Uplift, while Ferdinand Lindheimer’s sketch map from ca. 1847-49, archived with his herbarium at the Missouri Botanical Garden, presents a German immigrant scientist’s view of the same area. The authors explore, on the one hand, how the maps complement each other and, on the other hand, how interpretations of them can be synthesized to generate a deeper and more multi-dimensional understanding of the area they depict. Each mapping reveals geographic, economic, and cultural priorities of the respective originators, and when the maps are viewed together the binocular effect is a vision of layered depth on the contested space of the Comanche-German frontier. 

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Title: “David Crockett in Texas”

Abstract: David Crockett's decision to explore and then remain in Texas was a continuation of his pursuit of land throughout his years in Tennessee. His move was also motivated by his disgust with President Andrew Jackson and his chosen successor, Martin Van Buren, and the public willingness to accept anything Jackson did simply because he was a revered American hero. Crockett saw in this a dangerous personality cult that threatened democracy.  

In Texas, Crockett found the land he was searching for and the promise of living in a new, country independent of Santa Anna's Mexico and Jackson's United States. He found a land worth fighting for and made the Texas fight for independence his fight too. Thus, Crockett's exploration of Texas became a fight for independence for Texas and for himself, which ended tragically with his death in the Alamo.

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Title: “Between Here and Safety: Texas Families and the Runaway Scrape”

Abstract: In the spring of 1836, the civilian population of Texas took to the road. The "Runaway Scrape," as it was called, denotes a particularly dire period for the Texas revolutionaries and their families. After Texian defeats at the Alamo and Goliad, Santa Anna's forces were on the march, General Sam Houston and the Texas army fell back towards the Louisiana border, and much of Texas thought the cause was lost. Elderly men, women, children, and enslaved persons left behind on plantations and small farms responded to this crisis by joining the retreat, essentially "running" for their lives. Refugees faced chilly temperatures, record rainfalls, and mud-drenched roads that plagued evacuees, creating quagmires and bottlenecks at river crossings that thwarted all attempts at expeditious escape. Adding to troubles, infectious diseases ripped through both civilian and military camps. This presentation will examine the perilous route to safety that was later chronicled by those fortunate enough to survive the journey.   

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Title: “Tracks Through Time: The Santa Fe Railroad’s Legacy in Mills County and Beyond”

Abstract: Mr. Osborn is about halfway through authoring a 20 part series of articles in the Goldthwaite Eagle newspaper about establishment of that town by the Santa Fe railroad in 1885, and the history of its operations in Mills County thereafter.    The company was expanding heavily in Texas at that time, and along the way platted many townsites and sold their lots by public auction.  Texas towns it established in this way, mostly named for company officers and directors, included Ballinger, Blum, Crawford, Dyer, Goldthwaite, Heidenheimer, Hitchcock, Kempner, Killeen, Kopperl, McGregor, Moody, Morgan, Pendleton, Pettibone, Ricker, Rogers, Rosenberg, Sanger, Sealy, Somerville, Temple and Wallis.  In this process the railroad drafted more than 10,000 maps and drawings and compiled thousands of valuation photographs which are now archivally held by the City of Temple.  Mr. Osborn has funded digitization of some of these archives, and today presents a slide show of examples. 

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Title: “Barbs, Bullets, and Blood: The 1880s Texas Barbed Wire Wars”

Abstract: In 1874 Joseph Glidden of Ohio patented and manufactured the nation’s first barbed wire. A young man named Henry Sanborn came to Texas selling Glidden’s wire. Sales grew and in 1883 Sanborn sold Texas cattlemen $1 million worth of barbed wire. Barbed fences obstructed travel, stopped cattle drives, interfered with homesteading, and wrecked the state’s economy. Free-range cattlemen and homesteaders revolted. Over half of Texas’s counties experienced fence cutting. Many experienced extreme violence between pasture men and the fence cutters. Fence cutting occurred as far north as Montana, but no state suffered the magnitude of fence cutting and violence as Texas. Governor John Ireland called the Texas legislature to Austin for a special session to write new laws and appropriate funds to cope with this revolution. New laws were passed and Texas Rangers stepped in to assist. The war of barbs, bullets, and blood followed. 

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Title: “Corpus Christi: A City for South Texas Takes Shape”

Abstract: This presentation will use Corpus Christi as an example of how a city’s growth generates a profusion of maps and charts that express a range of understandings of the city’s character, possibilities, and direction. As students of Texas know, Corpus Christi began during the 1830s as a trading outpost on the margins of the Texas Republic. Corpus Christi grew steadily starting in the 1870s, with the extension of railroads, ranching, and farming across the South Texas hinterland. With the opening of the ship channel in the 1920s and the advent of oil and gas and related industries in the 1930s, Corpus Christi emerged as a regional metropolis and as a major location in Texas’s network of strategic ports. One can follow this story in geographic or geological reports, infrastructure proposals, tourist and economic development maps, planning, land use, and zoning studies, and much else in between.