Stephen F. Austin
Empresario of Texas
(New Haven and London:
Yale University Press , 1999)

 
 
 
 
 
 

In August 1999, Yale University Press published Stephen F. Austin, Empresario of Texas, by Gregg Cantrell. The first major biography of Austin to be published since 1925, it is the first ever to delve into theTexas hero's early years, private life, and complex character.

 
 
 

Just twenty-seven years old when he rode into the Spanish province of Texas in 1821, Austin endured physical hardships, illness, vilification, imprisonment, and one financial setback after another. But he never wavered in his plan to colonize Texas or his conviction that Texas's destiny was entwined with his own. Pursuing his goad relentlessly, he played a central role in the events that led to the Texas Revolution and the establishment of the Texas republic.

In this engrossing biography, Cantrell moves beyond the self-sacrificing, rather bloodless Austin of legend, describing instead a man who was at once a consummate manager and exhorter, politician and diplomat, statesman and manipulator. Drawing on both Amreican and Mexican sources, the author shows how Austin mixed effort and cunning, diplomacy and deception, idealism and pragmatism. Cantrell also shows how Austin faced the crucial issues of his day--slavery, land speculation on the frontier, relations between Anglo settlers and Indian and Hispanic natives of the southwestern borderlands, and the complex dynamics of Mexican politics.
 

Praise for Stephen F. Austin . . .

Cantrell's engagning narrative presents us not with Austin the monument but with Austin the man."
-- John Mack Faragher, author of Daniel Boone: The Life and Legend of an American Pioneer
 

"Beautifully, intricately documented. Cantrell carefully guides us through the life of one of the most perplexing yet most important figures in the history of the American West."
--Skip Hollandsworth, Senior editor, Texas Monthly
 
 
 
 
 

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