Jesús F. de la Teja
Texas State University
Department of History
601 University Drive
San Marcos, Texas 78666
Phone: 512.245.2142
Fax: 512.245.3043
delateja@txstate.edu
Jesús F. de la Teja is University Distinguished Professor of history at The University of Texas at Austin. Prior to joining the faculty at Texas State in 1991, he served as director of archives and records at the Texas General Land Office. He is a former president of the Texas State Historical Association and was the first state historian of Texas, serving from 1997–1999. He has been a member of the Philosophical Society of Texas since 2007 and a member of the Texas Institute of Letters since 2001. De la Teja co-authored two textbooks: American Anthem and Texas: Crossroads of North America. Most recently, de la Teja edited Tejano Leadership in Mexican and Revolutionary Texas. He holds a Ph.D. in colonial Latin American history from The University of Texas at Austin, as well as M.A. and B.A. degrees from Seton Hall University.
Presentations
Spanish Texas: A Historical Legacy
A slide-based presentation focusing on the legacy of the Spanish colonial period in the architecture, language, place names, and political institutions present in Texas society today. The lecture begins with an examination of how present-day Texas was forged out of four different colonial-period jurisdictions. It then discusses why the Spanish settled where they did and why Texas remained so lightly populated until after Mexican independence. The lecture concludes by providing examples of the political, legal, economic, and social practices in modern Texas that have their roots in the Spanish colonial period.
The First Texas War of Independence
A slide-based presentation examining how the Texas Revolution has its seeds in Texas's participation in the Mexican War of Independence from Spain (1810–21). The presentation discusses how conditions in Texas quickly deteriorated following the outbreak of Father Hidalgo's revolt against Spanish rule in 1810, how unrest in the province led to a revolt in San Antonio the following year, and how filibusters took advantage of the war in Mexico to attempt to wrest Texas for the United States. The presentation concludes by pointing out how the destructiveness of the 1810s created the conditions under which Anglo-American immigration was promoted and why most Mexican Texans sided with the Texans in their revolt against Mexico City in 1835–36.
Teaching Texas History in the Twenty-First Century
This presentation focuses on the importance of reorienting the teaching of Texas history to better reflect the demographic, geographic, and social changes that have overtaken the state during the twentieth century. With a more diverse and overwhelmingly urban student population, the history taught in the schools must better reflect their experiences in order to be more meaningful.