On January 1, 1937, Manuel B. Bravo was sworn in as county
judge of Zapata County, a post he would hold for twenty years.
In Border Boss: Manuel B. Bravo and Zapata County, J. 
Gilberto Quezada delineates Bravo's political career in the 
Democratic Party and examines his role in some of the important 
issues of his day, especially the construction of Falcon Dam.

    
During Bravo's years in office, he worked and corresponded with 
many Texas and national politicians, including James Allred, 
Lloyd Bentsen, Kika de la Garza, Ralph Yarborough, and, most 
prominently, Lyndon Johnson. The association between Bravo and 
Johnson began with the special Senate election of 1941 and is 
reflected in the more than fifty letters between the two in 
Bravo's personal papers. In Johnson's 1948 Senate runoff against 
Coke Stevenson, voting irregularities were alleged in Zapata 
County when the election returns from Precinct No. 3 were 
reported missing. Quezada analyzes the Bravo papers for any 
evidence that Bravo and Johnson had arranged the disappearance 
and offers possible alternative explanations.

    
From the 1930s to the 1950s Zapata County was one of six South 
Texas counties where the Tejano majority dominated local politics 
and held most public offices. Bravo became known as one of the 
"Mexican bosses" of South Texas, but Quezada draws a more
nuanced picture of bossism than has been presented previously,
analyzing the role of influential leading families but looking
as well at the degree of economic integration into the state
and nation as factors in how bossism developed.

    
Those interested in Mexican American studies and politics and 
bossism in South Texas will appreciate the window onto South 
Texas politics and Tejano culture this biography gives.

_________________________________________________________

J. GILBERTO QUEZADA, who retired in 2002 as Associate
Superintendent for Special Programs, Finance, and Pupil Services
for the South San Antonio Independent School District, is an
active member of the Texas State Historical Association and
several other historical societies. He received his master's
degree in history from St. Mary's University. 


Number One: The Canseco-Keck History Series