Sam Houston with the Indians gives insight how he lived with them, how they taught him their ways that were helpful to him. How he helped the Indians.

This is a lively effort to pierce the thick fog of Falsehood, calumny, ignorance, and legend surrounding the four years Sam Houston spent among the Cherokees in what is now northeastern Oklahoma, the broken years in Tennessee, and his advent in Texas on the eve of the War for Independence.–Virginia Quarterly Review

Sam Houston is remembered in the name of a major city in the place he loved-Texas. Not only did he defeat Santa Anna s army to free Texas from Mexico, he worked hard to make the Republic of Texas a state and, as the Civil War loomed, to keep it in the Union. He served as president of the Republic of Texas, and then as a senator and governor of the state of Texas. But that s not all. Before Andrew Jackson sent him to Texas, Houston had already been successful as a congressman and governor of Tennessee, and as a self-appointed advocate for the Cherokee Indians. He had fought bravely in the War of 1812 at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. Read all about this amazingly practical man who, above all else, heeded his mother s advice to live a life of honor.

How can the life of one relatively unknown man change our understanding of Texas history and the American West? Peter Ellis Bean, a fairly minor but fascinating character, casts unexpected light on conflicts, famous characters, and events from the time of Mexican rule through the years of the Republic. Bean’s role in Mexico’s revolution against Spain and his service as an agent of the Mexican government, especially as Indian agent in eastern Texas, provide an unusually vivid picture of Mexican Texas, as well as new information about the Indians in his region. More explosively, Jackson’s research on Bean’s career as Indian agent casts doubt on the traditional characterization of Sam Houston as a friend to the Texas Indians. Bean’s career shows Houston as a rival for the loyalty of the Indians during Texas’ rebellion against Mexico, a rival who made false promises for military and political gain. After Texas independence, Bean acquired vast lands in Texas, at one point holding more than 100,000 acres. A good citizen and a good businessman, involved with real estate, sawmills, salt works, agriculture, and stock raising, he was also a bigamist. Meticulously researched, dramatically written, and embodying a unique understanding of Mexican Texas, Jack Jackson’s chronicle of Peter Ellis Bean not only rescues him from relative obscurity but also corrects key aspects of the history in which he was involved and brings to life an era more often consigned to myth.