Customer Reviews

Salt Warriors: Insurgency on the Rio Grande (Canseco-Keck History Series)

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The best book about the war over the salt flats just west of the Guadalupe Mountains in West Texas.

I have just finished reading Paul Cool's first book, Salt Warriors. The story of the Salt War in El Paso in 1877 is a complex saga of politics, greed and personal conflicts and Cool has done a wonderful job detailing the events and the combatants. He has exhausted every possible source in the search for new and expanded details on the conflict. In doing so, he has managed to deliver a very balanced account of the trouble. In particular, the author has used his outlaw/lawman research experience to help provide greater detail on all the participants. The result is a triumph of research and writing, that stands above previous works on the subject. Cool's ability to unlock background details of the key players allows for a greater appreciation of the motives of both sides and thereby engages the reader in the events. Salt Warriors is a great read and a truly important historical work, written by a gifted author and indefatigable researcher. Congratulations Paul Cool. The book was long overdue but worth the wait.

Although not as resonant in American borderland history as the Alamo or San Jacinto, the El Paso Salt War left a lasting imprint in Anglo-Hispanic relations, especially in western Texas and New Mexico. With this first full-length study of the Paseño insurrection in El Paso and environs, borderlands historian Paul Cool has advanced both our knowledge of history and our understanding of the roots of present-day borderland issues. Cool, with prodigious research and use of a myriad of untapped primary source material, has shed new light on this 1877 insurgency that saw murderous clashes between Mexican-Americans, known as Paseños, and newly arrived Anglo-Americans.

Hispanic settlers had apparently been communally utilizing and selling nearby salt deposits as a cash crop for generations. With the coming of Anglos and a differing concept of resource ownership, a culture clash and an ensuing clash of arms was inevitable. Paseños thought the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo guaranteed their unfettered access to the salt even as the region was ceded by Mexico to the U.S., but the Anglo-dominated Texas legislature had other notions. Mix in the personal tragedy of putative manager of the salt lakes and provocateur of Paseños, Charles H. Howard, his angst explained by Cool's insightful analysis of his humiliation and his southern notions of honor and gratitude, and the triumph of violence over diplomacy was unavoidable. And triumph it did, for three deadly months.

Neither institutions nor individuals come off particularly well- the Texas Rangers, the U. S. Army, local law officers, the main protagonists or antagonists- although the author probes the motives and depths of each and makes it all compelling. Most on the Anglo side are incompetent or craven to one degree or another, several are plain cowardly. Others, notably a Silver City contingent of hardcases masquerading as a peace force, led by Dan Tucker and John Kinney and including killer Jim McDaniels, are worse, functioning as little more than a gang of robbers, rapists and murderers. An especially valuable section for the reader's closure is a follow-up on the key participants in the Salt War drama, tracing their later, post-insurrection, years, often with poignancy.

This overdue study is beautifully written, and is a significant achievement in the scholarship of southwestern history.

The so-called El Paso Salt War is one of those important events seemingly forgotten in the swirls of history. Yet it is a tale that ripples through Anglo and Mexican relations to this day.

Undoubtedly, one of the reasons this chapter has gone relatively lost is the complexity of the story. It involves hundreds of people, many with backstories vital to understanding what happened and why. There are numerous shades of grey and nuances that demand a subtlety beyond the scope of most researchers and writers.

But not Paul Cool.

Years of intense study and investigation provided him insights previously undiscovered. Moreover, Paul has been able to take this huge amount of information and present it in an easy to understand, intelligent yet compelling book. His talent is a gift to the reader.

And make no mistake--Salt Warriors is a grand tale of greed, ego, ethnic and cultural hatred, duplicitous behavior and violence that no novelist could have come up with. If this were fiction, readers would dismiss it as a flight of fancy. But it's dead-on history. It really happened. And it impacts current border relations.

Paul Cool has done an incredible job of revealing the people and events of the Salt War, and of bringing them to life for the modern audience. This is a must for the library of any Old West history fan.

Salt Warriors is both a work of scholarship and a terrific read, one of those rare history books that is willing to consider the past on its own terms while reevaluating it in the light of the present. The best book on Old West history published so far this year.

The Salt War is one of those subjects that we have often heard without understanding its significance. Cool gives us an opportunity to catch up in a hurry. This book should appeal not merely to lovers of Old West history but to those who want to understand how it connects to the politics of our own time.

I have just read quite a few pages through google's scanned book selections and all I can say is that Paul Cool Has written a extremely well written and well balanced book! The book appears to not just talk about the anglo american experience in the San Elzario Salt war but clearly includes biographies about such El Paso luminaries as Gregorio Garcia and Telesforo Montes of San Elizario. It's clear that rare books by George Wythe Baylor and John Russell Bartlett were utilized in a strong capacity. The Salt war (which probably began with James Maggofin's use of force in the 1840's as a means to privatize salt in the El Paso region) is evolving into key event in Mexican-American history. The changing alliances, Mexican leaders, and poor documentation of this event seemed hidden for such a long time. Only now are we gaining a strong understanding of who the primary actors were and how this event took shape decades before 1877, the civil war, or even the Mexican-American War. Also using the census records of El Paso in 1860 and the Mesilla Census of 1870, we can see that there was a diaspora of Mexican Americans from La Isla because of Confederate (Texan) incursion. Now take into account that John Kinney, Albert Fountain, and many Mexican-American Mesilleros know first hand about the atrocities committed in the Salt War of 1877 and you probably have an important ingredient for the beginning of the Lincoln County War. This is strongly supported by Cool's book about the trouble caused by confederate troops in Ysleta, Socorro, and San Elizario. Many other books, such as Mill's Forty years at El Paso and Sonnichson's Six who came to El Paso mention that Mexican-Americans left La Isla, but never provided referenced atrocities committed by Confederates, such as what cool does! Lastly, kind of surprised How cool Excellently talked about the irony of how Chico Barela as leader of the mob in the Salt War, left for Mexico and eventually met up with George Wythe Baylor's Texas Rangers. Baylor had a warrant for Barela's arrest but instead chose to unite with Barela in order to hunt down Victorio, the apache chief. Well it just seems that this event demonstrates how the Apaches were always the prime concern of people living along this region of texas and new mexico. Well, bottom line is that I've purchased and finish this amazing book and I didn't know Mr. Cool was such a scholar of the south west but definitely welcome sboard!!!!