Why do people steal documents in order to add them to their private collections? Several years ago, I was doing research at the Archivo Municipal de Matamoros. The room is dungeon-like, deep in the bowels of Casa Mata, a 200 year-old fort. The chairs are hard wood, the table worn oak, polished from years […]
Just to vary things a little, here is a “Did you know . . . ?” from my upcoming novel. During the 18th century (that’s the 1700s, in case you’d forgotten), nearly 80% of all trade and goods were carried by mule trains. The roads through the mountains of northern […]
Ever need to curl up with a good book, especially an old favorite, and just drift away on the story? What is it about some books that we remember them forever? The main characters envelope us, carry us along, help us to leave our world and enter theirs. It’s a wonderful respite to escape from […]
Footnotes are the bane of an academic’s existence but writing any good book requires research. For the last twenty-five years, I have crouched like a Gringot’s gnome over ancient archives, leafing through four-inch thick tomes, or hauling out Hollinger boxes full of hundred year-old dusty manuscripts. I emerged with hands blackened by equally old dirt […]
Anthony Startz, our Houston representative for the Granaderos de Galvez, while in Denver, has discovered a new portrait of Bernardo de Gálvez at the Denver Museum of History. Not as elegant as the 1783 Portrait by Maella, but interesting none-the-less.
Bernardo de Gálvez, Man of the Enlightenment This unusual young man rose from being a member of small-town Spanish nobility to become Governor of Louisiana, victor over the British during the American Revolution and finally Viceroy over all of New Spain. His military abilities in helping General Washington and the American troops at Yorktown have overshadowed […]
On a happier note, I am just back from Mexico. Went down with a group called the Granaderos de Galvez. The “Granaderos” or Grenadiers were the people who helped fight the British by joining Bernardo de Galvez – yes, that Galveston–to defeat the British along the Mississippi and in the Gulf of Mexico during the American Revolution. […]