“Other states are carved or born;
Texas grew from hide and horn.”
— Bertha Hart Nance, 1932
Texas ranching has a long and storied history. Its roots go back to 1493 when Christopher Columbus made his second visit to Hispaniola. He brought with him several head of cattle, who were the ancestors of the Texas Longhorns bred throughout the state today.
The 16th and 17th centuries saw cattle ranching advance through Mexico and into modern-day Texas. The first cattle ranch was found in the El Paso region, where several thousand cattle were raised. These early ranches were formed by Spanish missionaries; private ranches would arise in the mid-18th century.
The Mexican War of Independence destroyed the Spanish missionary ranches. The Austin colony was formed at the end of the war, attracting Anglos to come stake a claim on the land and the cattle on it. They brought their eastern cattle to breed with the Spanish cattle, and the result was the Texas Longhorn.
The U.S. annexed Texas in 1845, and it spread out land for railways and new settlements. There was plenty of land to go around, and the demand grew high for beef. The cowboy system we’ve come to hold so dear began around this time.
It wasn’t just men who worked on the ranches; women were important to ranch operations, too. One woman, a former slave named Julia Blanks, helped with roundups, planted crops, raised up animals, and helped with the cooking during roundups on the Adams Ranch.
Her daughters followed in her footsteps — “My oldest girl used to take the place of a cowboy, and put her hair up in her hat. And ride! My goodness, she loved to ride.”
The first woman who led a cattle drive was Margaret Borland. After her husband passed, she became the sole owner of the Victoria ranch and 8,000 longhorns. Six years later, she had 10,000 cattle in her care. In 1873, she became the first female trail boss, leading 2,500 longhorns, her three children, and several cowboys up the Chisholm Trail into Kansas.
In recent years, ranches have had to adopt newer ways of bringing income, as the cost of cattle and maintaining the land has risen. The historic YO Ranch let its land for hunting and outdoor recreation. The Matador Ranch soon followed suit.
This past spring, the last ‘grande dame’ of the Texas ranching world was laid to rest. And last month, one of the few remaining ranching ‘empires’ went on the chopping block.
I call it a chopping block because here in Texas, far too many of our great and historic ranches have been sold to the highest bidder (usually someone residing outside the country, let alone the state) and chopped up into smaller pieces, the land and its resources plumbed until nothing worth anything remains, and a vital chapter of our Texas heritage and history has been wiped clean.
This sad fate of a place I consider to be a bit of Texas heaven inspired this story and this series — the Texas Heritage series.
In the first book, The Texas Cowboy’s Proposal, we meet the two granddaughters of Sarah McNamara Burkitt…Laurel Annabella and Samantha Josefina. The heroine of this first book will be Samantha, aka Sammi Jo. She has just been handed a hard blow when her older sister shares the finer points of their grandmother’s will.
GIVEAWAY
Stop a minute and comment about a piece of your heritage that still impacts your life today.
One lucky commenter will receive a free copy of The Texas Cowboy’s Proposal!
Purchase The Texas Cowboy’s Proposal here
Find Debra online at her website here
For as long as I can recall, my mother has traced our family history. Sometimes she makes slow progress, occasionally great leaps, but it’s something she has built for years. While her dedication and commitment have always inspired me, I must admit that I thought it was such a boring pursuit.
When I received a message asking me to join the 
I chose to give Mason the last name Barkey to honor my heritage. Although my great-great-grandfather did not order a bride via the mail, it was my way of honoring where I came from to include the last name in this story.
In my new book releasing today, Penelope, Book 6 in the Love Train series, my heroine has to pretend to be a nun. This is, of course, a substantial obstacle to the hero who fights falling in love with her. He has to wonder, though, what kind of a nun can’t keep her veil on and doesn’t know her Bible? But when called upon to help an abused Indian girl, Penelope rises to the task with plenty of heart.
The first story I sold, Big City Cowboy, was one. For those of you who don’t know, on a Colorado vacation I met a cowboy bit city slickers kept asking to model. Big City Cowboy sent a born and bred Colorado cowboy to New York City to model to earn the money for his mother’s experimental cancer treatment. That fish out of water concept hooked my editor. She bought that story and Bet On a Cowboy about the first hero’s brother.
With my cowboy, I see him as someone who needs order, predictability and to be in control. However, something or someone has destroyed that for him. Because of this trait, my heroine will be the opposite. She’ll be a laid-back, go with the flow, loves unpredictability, and lives on beach time gal.
Only time will time will tell whether I can answer these questions to get this little seed to grow.
By Heather Blanton
Orphaned at twelve, left to care for five brothers and sisters, Calamity did not shirk her duty. Most likely she did work as a prostitute early on to provide for the family. She left the lifestyle behind, though, by learning to shoot and throw a respectable punch. Everyone who knew Calamity did respect her courage and her kindness. She rescued a runaway stage from a Cheyenne war party and nursed some Deadwood residents back to health during a smallpox epidemic. The only thing Calamity couldn’t do was win Hickock’s heart.
Susan McSween was a shrewd businesswoman and she put all her efforts into frustrating her nemesis, James Dolan. Eventually, she became the Cattle Queen of New Mexico, at one point running nearly 5,000 head of cattle. Best of all, she outlived all her enemies.
My hero, Captain Corbett, is an arrogant Scotsman who believes women should have babies not opinions. How well do you think an attitude like that would have gone over with the rough-and-tumble Calamity Jane, or the fiery, refined Susan McSween?
Howdy! 
As a quick overview, here is what we’ve learned so far: Pocahontas was too young to have had a romance with John Smith. We also learned that John Smith was adopted into Powhatan society. In my last post I showed that she was abducted by the English and forced to live with them. According to Pocahontas — who confided this to her sister — she was raped and was pregnant. It is believed, however, that she was not married to the man who did this to her…Thomas. Instead she was married to a man who could prove to be useful to the Colony if he could obtain secrets from the Powhatan people to turn those secrets to profit. Note again, her son’s name was Thomas, not John. Here below is the final installment of this story.
Because of Pocahontas’ marriage to an Englishman, the priests’ concern over the sharing of their secrets concerning the curing of tobacco seemed to be placated. However, oral history points out that the efforts of the Powhatan priests to help the English had the opposite effect of what the priests had hoped for, meaning that the priests had wished to persuade the English into becoming friendly and a part of the tribe. But, instead of the English embracing the Powhatan people as brothers, it appeared that the new success unleashed an extraordinary rash of greed on the part of the newcomers. Tobacco became the gold of the New World. As a result, more Powhatan lands were trespassed and more killing ensued. Additionally, more of the American Indian people became enslaved by the newly “successful” Englishmen.
Pocahontas provided a means to “show” the English people that the people of Jamestown and the natives were on friendly terms. Pocahontas’s sister, Mattachanna and her husband accompanied Pocahontas to England, as did several other Powhatan people. It had appeared to the Powhatan people that with so many of her own countrymen surrounding her, there would be safety in numbers. Wise men and priests, however, advised Wahunsenaca not to let his daughter go to England; they said that she would never return. But how could he stop it? She was already in the hands of the Englishmen, who could kill her or use her in a bad way. He considered a rescue too risky. She might die.
What opened her eyes was a meeting she had with John Smith. It was because of this meeting that she learned she had been lied to: he was not dead. Moreover, she discovered that he had utterly betrayed her father and her people because he had taken a solemn oath to her people to represent them to the English; he had promised her father that he would bring the English under the power of the Powhatan. She learned he had never intended to honor his word, that he had used her father and her people to simply get what he wanted.
Pocahontas now longed to go home and inform her father of all she had learned. She intended to do exactly that. Unfortunately, she let that be known to the wrong people and the wrong man. While we don’t know what John Smith did or whom he told of his “talk” with Pocahontas, we can surmise from the evil that followed the “talk,” that he told Pocahontas’ words to those who stood to lose money on their investments, and/or those who stood to gain from the merchants’ investments: i.e., Dale, Rolfe and Whitaker or some other merchants. 
So ends my story of the abduction and murder of a true heroine. A heroine because she tried to unite two different peoples. A heroine because she endured much in an effort to help her people. She did it with little complaint, though it goes without saying that she yearned for the company of her own people, her own little son and the husband of her heart, Kocoum. 
I’ll give you my thoughts on the subject, and perhaps you can give me yours. The mistakes that I see that Wahunsenaca (Pocahontas’s father) made were: 1) He didn’t get to know the Englishman’s views of ethics (or lack thereof), supposing instead that all peoples valued the same thing; 2) He sought to placate evil instead of confronting it and eradicating it when he had a chance of winning against it; and 3) One cannot easily placate greed and evil. It seems to feed on itself. To me such greed is vampire-like — one can never do enough. It’s as though one’s own good deeds disappear into a vacuum — a “ho-hum — what else can you do for me,” attitude. The arrogance and snobbery of the criminally insane is beyond belief. And, as far as Pocahontas, herself, I’d say that one could learn that one shouldn’t say too much to those who have raped, kidnapped and/or have harmed or mean to harm you in some way.
And now for the give-away promised: I’ll be gifting the e-book, BLACK EAGLE, to a lucky blogger. I’m giving away the e-book, BLACK EAGLE, because this story is one of an Eastern Indian tribe, the Iroquois. Although the Powhatan tribe is not the same as the Iroquois, both of them were North Eastern tribes.
