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A New History of Old Texas — Arts
A New History of Old Texas

Explore the history of early Texas as you’ve never heard it before. The most recent season (“Lipan Apocalypse”) unveils the legacy of the Lipan Apaches on modern Texas. Season 6 recounts the outsized impact of José Francisco Ruíz on the state’s history. Season 5 traces the roots of Texans’ unique psychology – their “Texanity” – to the technological innovations that shaped its people. Season 4 relates the largely unknown story of the Republic of the Rio Grande. Season 3 tells the remarkable tale of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and his journey across the North American continent. Season 2 covers the Battle of Medina, the largest, bloodiest battle in Texas history…and the narrowing search for the battlefield itself! And Season 1 traces the identity of modern-day Texas to the first 160 years or so of San Antonio’s history. — As seen and heard on Texas Standard, KSAT12, Texas Public Radio, the San Antonio Express-News, the San Antonio Report, the Austin Chronicle, and more! —

Copyright: © 2024 A New History of Old Texas

Latest Episodes:

The Iron Horse in Texas Jul 13, 2023

Show notes

Episode 6 of Brandon Seale's podcast on the Engines of Texas History.
Railroads made Texans wealthier than they had ever been. They brought labor-saving and efficiency improving implements like riding plows, threshers, mechanical harvesters, and soon, tractors, which collectively lifted the standard of living of most Texans far beyond anything their parents could have imagined. And Texans hated them for it! Texans very conflicted feelings toward the "Iron Horse" exposed an irreconcilable tension between their frontier regulatory model and their unshakable conviction that land was the only proper basis for wealth.
Cover art of Texas's first locomotive - the "General Sherman" - available online at Houston Metropolitan Research Center, HPL.
Sources:
Reed, S.G. The History of the Texas Railroads. Kingsport, TN: Kingsport Press, 1941.

www.BrandonSeale.com

Comanche Superfood Jul 06, 2023

Show notes

Episode 5 of Brandon Seale's podcast on the Engines of Texas History.
From "terraqueous machines" (??) to air conditioning prototypes to "condensed milk," Gail Borden was nineteenth century Texas's most prolific inventor. And yet he may owe the inspiration for his most successful inventions to a form of Comanche "superfood," developed with a uniquely Texan appreciation of the power of energy density.
Cover art by David Moore, courtesy of IllustrationOnline.com
Sources:
Frantz, Joe B. Gail Borden: Dairyman to a Nation(1951).

www.BrandonSeale.com

"Peacemaker" Jun 29, 2023

Show notes

Episode 4 of Brandon Seale's podcast on the Engines of Texas History.
Samuel Colt certainly benefitted from the association of his revolving pistol with the state that most found widespread application for it use. And Texans, by and large, returned the love, coming to believe that "God made man, but Samuel Colt made them equal." Did the Colt Revolver blaze the trail for Anglo immigration into the Western half of the state? Or did the power imbalance it created violently accelerate a demographic inevitability?
Cover art is available in the Public Domain and online.
Sources:
Rasenberger, Jim. Revolver: Sam Colt and the Six-Shooter that Changed America (2020).

www.BrandonSeale.com

The Republic of Cotton Jun 22, 2023

Show notes

Episode 3 of Brandon Seale's podcast on the Engines of Texas History.
When they hosted the Texas Centennial Exposition in 1936, Dallas boosters had good reason to rename their football stadium and associated bowl game based on a bad pun. The "Cotton Bowl" was a nod to the unmatched roll that "King Cotton" had played in shaping the demographics and politics of Texas, where it constituted as much as 90% of the output of the state for parts of the nineteenth century. But it’s a legacy that Texans have become increasingly uncomfortable with in recent decades, favoring the image of the cowboy and cattle drives. There is something far more romantic about a man on a horse than a man with a hoe…particularly when that man with the hoe is enslaved.
Cover art "Young Texas in Repose" available online from Yale University Library.
Sources:
Torget, Andrew J. Seeds of Empire: Cotton, Slavery, and the Transformation of the Texas Borderlands, 1800-1850 (2015).

www.BrandonSeale.com

The Font of Texas Government Jun 15, 2023

Show notes

Episode 2 of Brandon Seale's podcast on the Engines of Texas History.
When Don Juan de Oñate crossed the Rio Grande on May 4, 1598 at a spot which he called “El Paso del Rio del Norte”, he didn’t just bring with him the horses that would redraw the map of Native Texas. He brought with him the Spanish model of self-government centered on a locally-managed flood irrigation system that still serves today as the philosophical underpinning of the Texas "frontier regulatory model." It was the only real competitive advantage that the Spanish had over native Texas populations...but was it enough to build a permanent civil society around?
Cover photo of "San Juan Demonstration Farm" available online at https://www.nps.gov/places/mission-san-juan-farm.htm.
Sources:
Aventuras con el agua: La administración del agua de riego: historia y teoría. Ed by Jacinta Palerm y Tomás Martínez Saldaña. Montecillo, Texcoco: Colegio de Posgraduados, 2009.
Porter, Charles R. Spanish Water, Anglo Water: Early Development in San Antonio(2011).

www.BrandonSeale.com

Don't Mess with Texas [Horsemen] Jun 08, 2023

Show notes

Episode 1 of Brandon Seale's podcast on the Engines of Texas History.
The return of the horse to the North American continent and its domestication by people of the Texas plains redrew the map of Native North America and defined the spheres of influence of European colonial empires for three centuries. It led to the formation of highly decentralized, individualistic frontier societies that either successfully adopted the horse or suffered at the hands of those who had. Maybe “Don’t Mess with Texas” didn’t originate with a 1985 anti-littering campaign…maybe it was written the first time a native Texan hopped on the back of a horse.
Cover art of "Lipan Apache" available online at Star of the Republic Museum, Portal to Texas History, University of North Texas.
Sources:
Lipan Apache Band of Texas – Lipan Apache Band of Texas Claim as a Sovereign Nation
Britten, Thomas A. The Lipan Apaches: People of Wind and Lightning (2011).
Minor, Nancy M. The Light Gray People: An Ethno-History of the Lipan Apaches of Texas and Northern Mexico (2009).
Minor, Nancy M. Turning Adversity to Advantage: A History of the Lipan Apaches of Texas and Northern Mexico, 1700-1900 (2009).
Opler, Morris E. Myths and Legends of the Lipan Apache Indians (1940).
Robinson, Sherry. I Fought a Good Fight: A History of the Lipan Apaches (2013).

www.BrandonSeale.com

Season 5: The Engines of Texanity Jun 08, 2023

Show notes

Intro to Brandon Seale's podcast on the Engines of Texas History.
I've come to worry that "History" (capital-H) focuses too much on individuals and ideologies. Individuals and ideologies can move history, no doubt…but just as often, I’ve come to believe, they ride historical waves, rather than make them.
Every now and then, however, some invention, some innovation, or just some change in how technology is used comes along and moves history forward with a momentum of its own, subtler perhaps but far more powerful than any person or political ideology.
Such “engines” of history concentrate resources behind them and focus the human mind in front of them like nothing else. They change how people see the world and their place in it. The stories of these "engines," then, are the reasons why we see ourselves the way that we do.
This is what I want to explore this season: no politicians, no ideologies, just the ten engines that most meaningfully propelled Texas history forward and the ten innovations that most profoundly shaped our psychology as Texans… our collective “Texanity” as I call it.
Cover art by David Moore, www.illustrationonline.com

www.BrandonSeale.com

Cabeza de Vaca as Interpreter of Lower Pecos Rock Art Jan 01, 2023

Show notes

Post-Script to Brandon Seale's podcast on Cabeza de Vaca.
From a speech I gave at the Witte Museum in San Antonio, this is my attempt to argue that we can actually hear the themes of the famed Lower Pecos Rock Art expressed by Cabeza de Vaca in his attempt to take on the role of a "spirit guide" for the native Americans who joined him on his journey. If true, this would be compelling confirmation of the most recent scholarly interpretations of that Lower Pecos Rock Art and the worldviews of the people who created it.
Selected Bibliography
Adorno, Rolena and Patrick Charles Pautz. Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca (1999)

Boyd, Carolyn. The White Shaman Mural: An Enduring Creation Narrative in the Rock Art of the Lower Pecos (2016)
Boyd Carolyn. Rock Art of the Lower Pecos (2013)

Krieger, Alex. We Came Naked and Barefoot (2002)

www.BrandonSeale.com

Connecting the Dots Oct 26, 2022

Show notes

This is a speech I gave recently to the San Antonio Conservation Society about our Battlefield of Medina search with American Veterans Archaeological Recovery. Jump to 34:38 for the big reveal, and the connection we discovered between our finds and the "Blue Wing Body" found in 1968.

www.BrandonSeale.com

Autonomy Within a Tradition Aug 25, 2022

Show notes

Post-script to Brandon Seale's podcast on the Republic of the Rio Grande.
Maybe the reason that Texans are so vocal about their "independence" is because they have a different notion of what it means to be independent. And maybe the reason they're so loud about it is because they've been trying - without success apparently! - to explain their notion of "independence" for more than 200 years now.
These are some of the ideas that I try out in this speech that I gave a few months ago. Enjoy.

www.BrandonSeale.com

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