Lawrence F. Hill

Although it is now over eighty years old, this book is still the best biography of José de Escandón in English and among the best in any language. It is also at the top, in English, in describing the colonization and early years of Nuevo Santander. Escandón single-handedly led the pacification and population of what is now the state of Tamaulipas, dispensing with the Indians he could not fit into the Spanish Empire. Amazingly, the towns he founded he named after himself, his wife, his backers, and numerous towns in his homeland. This exemplifies the European urge to name places in the New World after places in the old.… (mehr)