The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 52, July 1948 - April, 1949 Page: 250

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

would have been quite feasible-and wise-to have homesteaded
the more responsible and intelligent former slaves; and this could
have been done without violating the property rights of the
Southern whites-indeed, such a step would have met the appro-
bation of the whites if this had been done without malice and
stripped of its propaganda purposes.
Radical reconstruction not only impoverished the South and
embittered the races in that section, but it humiliated the South-
ern whites and created the solid South in politics, and did more
to create a sense of Southern nationalism than the abolition cru-
sade and the Civil War combined. Indeed, the author is of the
opinion that the Civil War and the events leading up to it would
not have been long retained in the folk memory of the South had
not Radical reconstruction furnished such a horrible denoue-
ment. Certainly the attitudes and conditions in the South from
1865 to the present can not be understood without a thorough
knowledge of reconstruction as it operated in the South. Professor
Coulter's volume will certainly supply that knowledge. It is an
unflinching yet objective account of the South during the most
amazing era in all history, where ex-slaves, supported by the
army, were made the political rulers of their former masters.
FRANK L. OWSLEY
Vanderbilt University
Maria: The Potter of San Ildefonso. By Alice Marriott. Norman
(University of Oklahoma Press), 1948. Pp. xxi+294. $3.75-
This book is a biographic study of Maria Martinez, the well-
known potter of the Pueblo Indian village of San Ildefonso in
northern New Mexico. Maria and her husband, Julian Martinez,
were the principal figures in the recent revival of Pueblo ceramics,
now a flourishing industry. Maria and Julian were a team. Maria
shaped the pottery and Julian, a talented artist, decorated it.
This pair initiated the modern black pottery, which is now in
such demand, and they actually invented the so-called black-on-
black pottery, a ware which has dull or matte black designs on
a glossy black background. Julian died in 1943, but Maria still
carries on.
The life of Maria, who was born about 1881, has not been

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