UTA Center for Southwestern Studies

10/07/2026

10/07/2026

The Texas Map Society is pleased to announce a special Graduate Student Research Prize, Military Mapping of the Texas /New Mexico Borderlands: 1840-1870, as part of the April 2027 joint meeting of the Texas Map Society and the Rocky Mountain Map Society taking place in Las Vegas, N.M. We invite graduate students in history and related fields who work on the mapping of West Texas and the greater Texas-New Mexico border regions to submit a paper for consideration for this competitive prize.

In the late nineteenth century, the U.S. military undertook the majority of the surveying of West Texas and the greater Southwest region of the United States. The resulting maps are among some of the most detailed maps of the area prior to the USGS surveys. These maps and the expeditions that produced them are the focus of this research prize. The Texas Map Society wants to have a panel at the meeting featuring 3 graduate students whose research broadly focuses on this theme.

Each student whose papers the prize committee selects for a 20-minute presentation at the meeting will receive a $500 honorarium, to offset meeting travel costs, and complimentary admission to the full meeting proceedings (excluding the optional excursions). Prize winners must be members of the Texas Map Society to present and may join at the student rate prior to the meeting.

For consideration, must be currently enrolled in a graduate program. To apply, students should submit a paper of 5,000 – 8,000 words (excluding footnotes), along with a short biographical statement, and a CV via email with the subject heading “TMS Student Research Prize” to Dr. Lydia Towns at [email protected] by Jan. 15, 2027. The committee will notify candidates by Jan. 31, 2027.

For more information about this competitive Student Research Prize, please reach out to Dr. Lydia Towns at [email protected]

10/05/2026

Center Director Sam Haynes will be speaking on The Texas Revolution and the Memory of 1776 at the San Jacinto Museum on Saturday, November 7 from 5pm-7pm. See ticket link below.

History Under the Star Lecture Series: "Imitating the Example of Our Forefathers:” The Texas Revolution and the Memory of 1776 with Sam W. Haynes
This presentation seeks to shed light on a question that has long preoccupied historians of the state: what were the motives of those who took up arms against Mexico during the Revolution? In deciding upon a course of action, Haynes argues, Anglo-Texans looked to the past, drawing upon their memories of the “Spirit of 1776” to make sense of the political crisis with Mexico City and as a template for revolutionary action.

Date: Saturday, November 7, 2026
Time: 5:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.
Talk: 5:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.
Q&A: 6:00 p.m. - 6:30 p.m.
Reception: 6:30 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.
Location: San Jacinto Museum
Ticket Link: https://apps.sanjacinto-museum.org/special-events?EV=352

10/05/2026

The Alliance for Texas History is undertaking a bold project – one that we expect will establish the Alliance as a trusted public resource for accurate, accessible Texas history.

Our project, Behind the Markers, is a long-term public-history initiative by the Alliance for Texas History that extends our mission to a broader statewide audience. Using Texas Historical Commission marker data as a foundation, the project will create online digital entries that extend the official marker inscription with new interpretation, corrections, citations, multimedia materials, and links to scholarship.

For more information go to www.atxh.org/btm

10/02/2026

09/30/2026

Congratulations Dr. Ron! What an incredible honor!

Uncovering the role of Northern agriculture in economic growth and the expansion of federal power in nineteenth-century America.

09/23/2026

Happening Today

On behalf of UTRGV’s Center of the Borderlands, we are pleased to invite you to the XI International Colloquium on the Mexican Northeast & Texas: The Border - History, Memory, and the Present, taking place September 23–25, 2026, at the UTRGV Edinburg Campus Library.

The international, interdisciplinary colloquium brings together scholars, students, archivists, and community members from the United States and Mexico to explore the interconnected histories and experiences of Northeastern Mexico and Texas.
Registration is free and open to all, and English-Spanish interpretation will be available throughout the conference.
The complete program and registration are available here: https://www.coloquionorestexas.com/

09/16/2026

🎉 Congratulations to our outstanding College of Liberal Arts faculty! 🎉

We are so proud to celebrate the incredible achievements of our UTA History and Geography team. Your dedication to research, teaching, and our community makes CoLA stronger every day!

Please join us in congratulating these amazing faculty members on their recent awards:
🏆 Dr. Alberto Ortiz Diaz – CoLA Outstanding Research or Creative Activity Award
🏆 Dr. Sarah Rose – Faculty Research Endowment Award for CoLA
🏆 Dr. David LaFevor – CoLA Outstanding Teaching Award (Tenured Faculty)
🏆 Dr. Sam Haynes – Dean’s AcCOLAdes Award

09/14/2026

On this day in 1859, federal Indian agent Robert Simpson Neighbors was shot and killed by Edward Cornett at Fort Belknap, in Young County.

A former member of the Texas legislature, Neighbors helped pass a law granting twelve leagues of land (53,000 acres) to establish Indian reservations for the Caddos, Tonkawas, and Wichitas on the upper Brazos River, near present-day Graham in 1854.

Area whites resented the Brazos Indians, especially those who had received permission from Neighbors to leave the reservation on hunting expeditions. In the winter of 1858 a group of whites attacked a party of Indians on a hunt in Palo Pinto County, killing seven while they slept.

Tensions between area whites and the Brazos Reservation Indians came to a head the following year, fueled in large part by John R. Baylor, a bitter enemy of Neighbors and editor of a Jack County newspaper, The White Man. In May, Baylor led a mob of several hundred vigilantes onto the reservation, killing two elderly Caddo Indians, a man and a woman, three miles east of Graham. The murders incited a group of several dozen Indians to leave the reservation in pursuit of Baylor’s men. Five Texans and two more Indians would die in the fighting that followed.

Neighbors realized that he could no longer protect the two thousand Indians on the Brazos Reservation from the attacks of white settlers. To avoid further bloodshed, he and a US Army es**rt led them into Oklahoma in the summer of 1859. “I have this day crossed all the Indians,” Neighbors wrote to his wife in August, “out of the land of the philistines.”

Returning to Texas one month later, he was murdered by Cornett, “a drinking, boasting blustering desperado,” whose brother-in-law had been accused by Neighbors of horse theft.

Neighbors is buried in the old Belknap cemetery, two miles south of Newcastle.

To learn more about the "Reservation War," visit Texas in Turmoil: Mapping Interethnic Violence, 1821-1879
https://sites.libraries.uta.edu/texasinturmoil/