The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 57, July 1953 - April, 1954 Page: 528

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

with proved aptitude for historical research and deep knowledge
of Texas history.
MANDRED WV. COMFORT, M.D.
Les Aventures au Mexique et au Texas du Colonel Ellis Peter
Bean (1783-1846); Ses Memoires. By Jean Delalande. Paris
(Librairie Honor6 Champion), 1952. Pp. 22o. Illustrations.
Ellis Peter Bean, long an interesting figure to persons acquainted
with Texas history, would have been the joy of Alexandre Dumas
according to Jean Delalande, author of Les Aventures au Mexique
et au Texas du Colonel Ellis Peter Bean. Aware that the French
public knew nothing about Bean, author Delalande has brought
out in French an edition of Bean's memoirs. By dealing with
historical facts only, Delalande's account of the romantic and
historical biography of Bean does have the qualities of a Dumas
novel.
The memoirs left by Bean cover only the years 18oo to i816,
but Delalande has included several chapters to give a rather
complete Bean biography. Bean's writings begin in 18oo when as a
youth of seventeen he joined Philip Nolan's expedition to Texas.
Captured and taken to Mexico where he was imprisoned for
several years, Bean was offered freedom if he would join the
fight against the revolutionary Jose Maria Morelos. At the first
opportunity, however, Bean joined forces with Morelos. Con-
siderable portions of the book deal with Bean's accounts of life
in prison and the fighting with the revolutionists.
Bean rose to the rank of colonel in the Mexican Army and
returned to the United States in 1814 to prepare for an invasion
of Texas. He changed his plans, however, and went to New
Orleans to fight under Andrew Jackson against the British. After
the battle of New Orleans, Bean again returned to Mexico and
engaged once more in revolutionary activities. In 1818, leaving
his wife in Mexico, he returned to Tennessee, married a second
time, and moved to Nacogdoches. During the Fredonian Re-
bellion in 1826, Bean is credited with preventing the Cherokee
Indians from supporting Haden Edwards. One day, quite myste-
riously, Bean left Nacogdoches and returned to the hacienda
of his Mexican wife at Jalapa, where he died in 1846.

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