The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 105, July 2001 - April, 2002 Page: 257
741 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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"Just As I Have Written It"
nature of the document (whether it is a diary in the strict sense or a
narrative produced subsequently from a diary and buttressed with docu-
mentation from other sources). Though Groneman raised questions re-
garding the paper and the ink of the document, as well as questions
concerning physical signs of mistreatment, or fraudulent artifice, until
now no investigation of these has been conducted.
On April 29, 2000, the Center for American History sponsored a day-
long conference on the Pefia account, titled Eyewitness to the Texas Revolu-
tion:Jos Enrique de la Perna and His Narrative. For the conference and aware
of Groneman's repeated criticism that "The past and present owners of
the papers obviously believe they [the papers] are authentic. Why would
they spend a great deal of money on tests to prove something they already
believe,"4 Don E. Carleton, the director of the Center for American His-
tory, invited me, and my students and colleagues in both the Archival and
Records Enterprise concentration and the Preservation and Conservation
Studies Program (which studies ways to extend the life of library collec-
tions and archival holdings, and especially of the book and paper objects
that constitute the majority of those collections and holdings) of the
Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of
Texas at Austin, to undertake a study of the Pefia document. Specifically,
he asked us to investigate the physical characteristics of the document,
such elements as its paper, its ink, the relationship between the two, and
signs of age and aging. He asked us to answer the questions: (1) do the
physical features of the document conform to the features of similar doc-
uments of the period, the authenticity of which is indisputable, and (2)
are there any physical characteristics of the document that suggest
forgery. At the same time, knowing that I had been teaching a course ti-
tled "Fakes, Facsimiles, and Forgeries" on the nature, detection, and im-
pact of forged historical documents, he asked me (3) to comment also on
whether, as Groneman asserts, one John A. Laflin, a well-known creator of
fraudulent documents of the first part of the nineteenth century, includ-
ing even documents bearing the supposed signature of David Crockett,
could have been the forger of the manuscript.
For conducting the study, Carleton gave my colleagues and me per-
mission to test the Pefia document, including the original diary and the
4 Ibid., 155-156 (quotation); Bill Groneman, Defense of a Legend: Crockett and the de la Penia Dzary
(Plano: Republic of Texas Press, 1994), 1 18-119.
The findings of this paper represent the work of several students and instructors in the Grad-
uate School of Library and Information Science of the University of Texas at Austin. Jean Baldwin,
Heidi Nakashima, SaraJ. Holmes, and Sarah E. Reidell, students in the Preservation and Conser-
vation Studies (PCS) Program, contributed substantially to the study of the watermarks, the ink,
and the paper. Karen Pavelka, lecturer in paper conservation for PCS, contributed both her in-
sight into characteristics of paper and ink and her expertise m examination and detection of those
characteristics at various stages of their existence. She and Hal Erickson, lecturer m materials2001
257
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 105, July 2001 - April, 2002, periodical, 2002; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101222/m1/287/: accessed May 2, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.