For two and a half centuries Tejanos have lived and
ranched on the land of South Texas. This modest book
tells the story of one family, the Sáenzes, who estab-
lished Ranchos San José and El Fresnillo. Obtaining land
grants from the municipality of Mier in Tamaulipas, these
settlers crossed the Wild Horse Desert into present-day
Duval County in the 1850s and 1860s.
Through the simple, direct telling of his family's stories,
Andrés Sáenz lets readers learn about their homes of piedra
(stone) and sillares (large blocks of limestone or sandstone),
as well as the jacales (thatched-roof log huts) in which people
of more modest means lived. Cattle raising, marriages and deaths,
feasts and droughts, education, medicine, and domestic arts are
all recreated through the words of this descendent.
The accounts celebrate a way of life without glamorizing it or
distorting the hardships. Those who seek to understand the ranching
and ethnic heritage of Texas will enjoy and profit from Early Tejano
Ranching.
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ANDRÉS SÁENZ was born in 1927 on the Rancho de Santa Cruz in Duval
County, Texas. ANDRÉS TIJERINA is a professor of history at Austin
Community College in Austin, Texas. Tijerina is author of the award-
winning Tejano Empire: Life on the South Texas Ranchos, also published
by Texas A&M University Press.
Published in cooperation with the University of Texas Institute of
Texan Cultures at San Antonio
