Sons of Texas
3 primary works • 5 total works
Book 1
In 1816, Mordecai Lewis, a veteran of Andrew Jackson's Indian campaigns and battles against the British, moves his family into the western Tennessee canebrakes. But Mordecai is not satisfied with farming, and with his sons Michael and Andrew, he leads a foray into Spanish-held Texas to hunt wild horses and return the mustang herd to sell in Tennessee. Unfortunately, a bloody skirmish along the way leaves Mordecai dead, and his sons find their way back to their Tennessee farm. Five years later, after the Spanish government in Mexico City has agreed to permit three hundred American families to settle in Texas, the Lewis brothers ride to the frontier town of Natchitoches, Louisiana, intending to be part of the new American colony. But they are considered interlopers and horse thieves, and are dogged by a patrolled by the same ruthless Spanish officer who killed their father.
Book 2
Book 3
Ten years have passed since Michael Lewis made his first venture into Texas, now a province of Mexico. Together with a small number of Americans pioneering on the Brazos and Colorado Rivers, Michael and his brother Andrew each have a plot of land assigned to them by the entrepreneur Stephen F. Austin. Michael Lewis has his father's wanderlust; Andrew is less footloose and excitable but the two act as one when trouble starts. To secure their places in Texas, the Lewis boys have to fight not only Mexican authorities and hostile Indians, but their own kind, renegade white men attempting to settle on Texas land without permission. In "The Raiders", Elmer Kelton continues his saga of the Lewis family and the formative years of Texas.
