Winner, Finalist, Soeurette Diehl Fraser Translation Award, Texas Institute of Letters, 2001

Texas was already slipping from the grasp of Mexico when Manuel Mier y Teran made his tour of inspection in 1828. American settlers were pouring across the vaguely defined border between Mexico's northernmost province and the United States, along with a host of Indian nations driven off their lands by American expansionism.

Teran's mission was to assess the political situation in Texas while establishing its boundary with the United States. Highly qualified for these tasks as a...