The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 67, July 1963 - April, 1964 Page: 299
672 p. : ill., maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Book Reviews
tory. Absent are such obvious items to be found in the pages
of this journal as Otis Singletary, "The Negro Militia During
Reconstruction;" James R. Norvell, "The Reconstruction Courts
of Texas. . ;" and Vera Lea Dugas, "Texas Industry, 186o-i88o;"
all of which bear directly on areas Professor Nunn purports to
examine. The information and judgements found in George
R. Bentley, A History of the Freedmen's Bureau, which contains
a great deal on the Bureau's activities in Texas; Walter P. Webb,
The Texas Rangers, which has a chapter on the state police;
Rupert Richardson, The Comanche Barrier, which illuminates
Indian problems and policies; and numerous other works, espe-
cially several recent county histories, would have added ma-
terially to this study.
The work is occasionally marred by uncritical, careless, and
sometimes questionable use of the sources. H. H. Bancroft's pic-
ture of "debased Negroes, . . incessantly . " drunk and quar-
relling among themselves (p. 246), quoted by Professor Nunn,
is hardly a fair one, and this reviewer wonders at Bancroft as a
source on Reconstruction. Equally surprising is H. S. Thrall's
Pictorial History of Texas as a source of agriculture statistics
(p. 145-147), especially since Thrall's figures differ greatly from
those in the U. S. Census returns. In addition to such minor, if
unnecessary, errors as two citations to the San Angelo Times
of 1834 (p. 230 and 233); an inversion of citations to the Texas
Almanac, 1872 (p. 255 and 256); and a small quotation error
(p. 157), a sampling check of footnotes revealed several major
citation errors. The source cited for an increase and decrease
of sheep and stock between 186o and 1866 (p. 135, note 1) con-
tained no mention of sheep and stock; a source cited during a
discussion of sugar culture (p. 147, note 6o), contains no men-
tion of sugar cane. In both cases the statements Professor Nunn
makes seem sound, and more likely than not the mistakes arose
from improper typing. But careless mistakes take on more im-
portance for such critical judgments as "the planters had to do
most of their own work; the Negroes, cherishing their new
freedom, wandered from place to place, working only enough
to keep from starving" (p. 146). The evidence cited for this
statement is a description of Comal, Comanche, and Cooke coun-
ties containing no mention of Negro labor. When for such loaded299
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 67, July 1963 - April, 1964, periodical, 1964; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101197/m1/341/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.