El Mesquite: A Story of the Early Spanish Settlements Between the Nueces and the Rio Grande

by Elena Zamora O'Shea

Book Overview

The open country of Texas between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande was sparsely settled through the nineteenth century, and most of the settlers who did live there had Hispanic names that until recently were rarely admitted into the pages of Texas history. In 1935, however, a descendant of one of the old Spanish land-grant families in the region-a woman, no less-found an ingenious way to publish the history of her region at a time when neither...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1585441082
• ISBN13: 9781585441082
• Release Date: August 2000
• Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.6" x 7.5"

Customer Reviews

Lovely tale about the area between the two rivers

A beautiful tale recounting the history of an area in Texas which has long been overlooked. Mrs. O'Shea, a native of the area,shares her sympathy and love for the land with the reader.A great book to help young people (and old) understand events in Texas history.

El Mesquite - A Mesquite Tree's View of History

El Mesquite is a novel on the history of Nueces County, Texas from the time of Spanish Landgrants to the early 1900's. The author, Elena Zamora O'Shea, writes the novel from the viewpoint of a mesquite tree. The tree, "Posta del Palo Alto", is a marker on one of the old Spanish trails common in Texas. The story details the settlement of the area around the tree, working its way from the earliest settlement of the area to around 1905. Being a native of this area of Texas and being intimately knowledgeable of Nueces County, it was a fascinating story for me. I suggest that you read the novel first, then read the introduction. Leticia M. Garza-Falcon writes a very interesting, but very long winded introduction to the novel that essentially tells the whole story, leaving little for the reader to discover in the novel. I recommend it for anyone that has an interest in South Texas history, or Hispanic based novels.