The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 77, July 1973 - April, 1974 Page: 280
568 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
rived in Texas in the early 1820O, and died in Nacogdoches in 1856. Goyens,
had he been a white man, would have been unusual, but since he was a
quadroon, he was unique. He amassed a fortune of $ 2,ooo, was a friend
of Sam Houston, and was a participant in the Texas Revolution. Unfor-
tunately, the author, in his zeal to rectify the wrong done to minorities, em-
bellishes Goyens's career and makes him into something he was not. The
unvarnished truth is sufficient to stand on its own merits.
A major fault in the book is its lack of footnotes. Suffice it to say that
much of the material included seems to have appeared elsewhere. The
author would be well advised to give credit where credit is due. The bib-
liography is little more than a casual listing of some of Kubiak's sources,
arranged in an unscholarly fashion. William Goyens evidently left few re-
cords, and the author, to make up for a paucity of material, spends most of
his time repeating tired cliches and platitudes.
The text is filled with errors and misconceptions. Goyens arrived in Texas
in about 1820, which was early in the ninteenth, not the eighteenth cen-
tury (p. 16). The term "Anglo" may be an acceptable term in Texas, but
it is not customarily applied to white people living in North Carolina. Nor
was it unusual for free Negroes to own property; in Texas, several dozen
did. In one place Kubiak refers to Goyens as "a genius in law" (p. 28),
yet a few pages later he says that Goyens had "a working knowledge of
law" (p. 36). The two statements would seem incompatable. And finally,
the author relates, without substantiation, a classical treasure story of two
milk-can size containers filled with gold and silver, which were buried and
lost.
This book may be useful for instilling pride and understanding in chil-
dren, but it is of little value to the historian.
Texas A&M University VICTOR H. TREAT
The Handbook of Waco and McLennan County. Edited by Dayton Kelley.
(Waco: Texian Press, 1972. Pp. ix+308. $io.)
This volume is a potpourri of information about people, places, events,
organizations, and institutions of Waco and the surrounding area. It is com-
piled on the order of The Handbook of Texas. Approximately i,6oo entries
are included in its 308 pages of text, and a brief appendix contains several
lists of city and county officials.
Over Ioo local citizens contributed articles to the volume, and an edi-
torial staff of students headed by the former curator of the Texas Collection
of Baylor University put it together. With so many fingers in the pot and280
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 77, July 1973 - April, 1974, periodical, 1973/1974; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth117148/m1/314/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.