The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 85, July 1981 - April, 1982 Page: 96

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

ronage questions such as the Philadelphia collectorship appointment.
Lander thus overdraws the self-sacrifice attached to Calhoun's antiwar
stance: Calhoun had probably "peaked" well before the 1846-1847
winter showdown. However, Lander does show convincingly that Cal-
houn was trapped into renewed southern-rights activism by a terri-
torial issue that could not be suppressed, given the nationwide con-
sensus (operating even in South Carolina) that Mexco had to pay for
the war with at least a limited land cession.
Well grounded in manuscript and newspaper sources, and consis-
tently attuned to the fluctuating context of internal South Carolina
political factionalism, Reluctant Imperialists is a welcome addition
to Mexican War historiography.
Purdue University ROBERT E. MAY
Papers Concerning Robertson's Colony in Texas. Compiled and ed-
ited by Malcolm D. McLean. Vols. VI, VII. (Arlington: Univer-
sity of Texas at Arlington Press, 1978, 1980. Pp. 632, 664. Intro-
duction, bibliography, maps, index. $25 each.)
Volumes VI and VII of Papers Concerning Robertson's Colony in
Texas continue the story of the colonization of Central Texas begun
in the previous volumes of this series. Volume VI contains records for
a brief period, March, 1831, through December, 1831, and Volume
VII carries the record forward through October, 1833. Some of the
themes initiated in earlier volumes are maintained. For example, the
first stages of the Robertson-Austin-Williams dispute over control of
the colony were described in Volume V, and developments are duly
recorded and noted in Volumes VI and VII. Other issues are empha-
sized, however, and each volume has a distinct character.
Professor McLean's subtitle for Volume VI is The Campaigns
Against the Tawakoni, Waco, Towash, and Comanche Indians. Al-
though the title is appropriate, the records in the volume also reveal
a good bit about conditions in Mexican Texas beyond the campaign-
ing against Indians. The documents, frequently taken from the Bexar
Archives, portray a garrison life filled with minor crises, bureaucratic
correspondence, scarcity of material comforts, and a multitude of un-
certainties, both political and otherwise. Civilian and military concern
over Indian raids in this period is evident in the attention given to
organization of retaliatory campaigns and the wide support provided
for these. On the whole the campaigns were successful, but the weak-