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“One of the most important discoveries in documentary materials for Texas history to be published at the start of this new century. It will influence scholars to re-evaluate earlier conclusions of the tensions in the 1830’s that culminated in Texan Independence.”
~ Dr. Félix Almaráz, Peter T. Flawn Distinguished University Professor of Borderlands History, University of Texas, San Antonio
Voices from the Goliad Frontier makes the minutes of the municipal council of the Texas-Mexican community of Goliad readily available to researchers for the first time. Early in 1821, soon after its founding, the town’s council, or ayuntamiento, began to keep a record of its weekly meetings. It continued to do so until the autumn of 1835 when the violence that culminated in Texas’s successful rebellion against Mexico shattered municipal life. The council ceased to meet, but someone took possession of the ayuntamiento’s minute books and archive, and, at some point, spirited them out of Texas. Most of these documents made their way to Mexico City and into Mexico’s national archive, the Archivo General de la Nación. There they remained, forgotten by scholars.We do know who rescued them from historical oblivion. In 1998, Malcolm McLean found a reference to their location in the Archivo General and immediately recognized their significance. He obtained a photocopy, put the scrambled pages in chronological order, and translated both the minutes and the documents that accompanied them. He finished that work in March 2003, at age ninety.
As Malcolm McLean labored over the translations, his son, John McLean, worked with him to make the council minutes more complete and more accessible. For example, the surviving minutes lacked the year 1829, so John McLean compiled a list of that year’s events in Goliad, drawing chiefly from the Béxar Archives, and included it in the book. Similarly, a number of national and state laws referred to in the council’s minutes were not among the surviving papers and so both John and Malcolm McLean located copies and added them to Voices from the Goliad Frontier. Most importantly, John McLean made digital images of both the documents and of his father’s translations. Experimenting with fonts and formats, he designed the book and CD. Adding to the richness of the volume are illustrations by Jack Jackson. It will be an essential source for historians who write about the politics, economics, culture, or society of the community as well as for those who write about Mexican Texas in general. .
~ David J. Weber, Dedman Professor of History and Director, Clements Center for Southwest Studies, Southern Methodist UniversityPaper, Available March 2008.
ISBN 978-1-929531-080
724 pp. 8 1/2" x 11", 18 illustrations, 1 map, 4 tables, 33 figures, notes, bibliography, name and place glossary
Click here to view the title page.
Click here to view the contents of the CD.
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