Los Mesteños: Spanish Ranching in Texas, 1721-1821

Until Los Mesteños was published in 1986, the history of cattle ranching in Texas focused almost exclusively on the nineteenth-century era of the great cattle drives. But even before the birth of George III or George Washington, the king's men--subjects of the Spanish crown--had established a vast cattle kingdom in Texas. Jack Jackson chronicles in rich detail the hundred years of Spanish ranching, beginning a century before Mexico, and subsequently Texas, gained independence. From the intr...