The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 66, July 1962 - April, 1963 Page: 314

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

This volume closes with the beginning of statehood, thus mark-
ing the end of the time Texas was responsible for her native
peoples. In a sense, too, the end of the republic coincides with
the verdict of who was going to control the western two-thirds of
Texas. The Comanches may have been unaware that their star
had set, and certainly the decades of bloodshed to follow indicate
this, but the date may be taken as a boundary marker. Prior to
1846 the Comanches could be regarded as an independent nation,
still in contention for vast reaches of Texas. After this date the
state and national government could view them as subject people,
usually stubborn and recalcitrant, but nonetheless a dependent
minority.
The format and illustrations of this volume are undistinguished.
Such weakness cannot be blamed entirely on the editor, for the
powers-that-be, no doubt, have made available only minimal funds
for the 'Texas State Library to carry out their legislative mandate
of publishing such materials. On the other hand, the three draw-
ings by Seth Eastman, one in color, are not pertinent to the text
and are poorly reproduced. The illustration of a "Comanche
Warrior" from Homer S. Thrall's Pictorial History of Texas, is
so poorly done that an originally uninspired drawing has become
singularly unattractive. Rather than reproduce shoddy illustra-
tions it would make more sense to omit them entirely and invest
whatever funds would be saved in better quality paper or perhaps
a larger printing. (The first volume is already out-of-print and
a collector's item.) One can always hope that with increasing
wisdom on the part of the state's fathers adequate funds will be
made available to the Texas State Library for publishing both
useful and beautiful books. Until that day comes, it would seem
best to aim for a maximum amount of utility in such publications.
A second minor criticism is of an odd habit adopted by the
editor in the index. Texans, Mexicans, and Europeans are indexed
in the normal way, surname first, given name last. Indians, how-
ever, are not so treated, and this reviewer had worked halfway
through the book hunting for material on John Conner, before
he inadvertently discovered that all references to this Delaware
Indian had been indexed under "John Conner" not "Conner,
John." This discovery led to speculation on how a mixed Dela-

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