Book launch: Charles Hebert's "on the Run!!!"

​Local author and historian Charles Hebert has recently completed his second novel entitled “On the Run!!!” ; the story of Texas from 1790-1836.  It will be launched with a book signing during Second Saturday Soiree on November 14 from 1-7pm at the gallery.  
            Inspired after a visit to San Felipe de Austin in the fall of 2018, along with fellow historians Greg Walker, Rox Ann Johnson and Maria Rocha, Hebert became intrigued with the story of Stephen F. Austin’s settlement while visiting with park superintendent Bryan McCauley and his vast knowledge of the history of the site and the settlement of Austin’s colonists often termed the Original 300.  Sensing there was more to the story and that there were stories yet to be told, Hebert began to dig and the more dug the more he uncovered.  There was indeed far more to the story of Texas and the early colonists and their stories as he notes from both the Anglo and Mexican perspectives.   Enter into this the Native Americans and a different picture emerges of a true clash of cultures.
            On the Run offers the reader different perspectives.  Mexico wanted the cessation of Indian raids into Mexico and saw an opportunity to solve the problem by permitting the Anglo colonization of Texas in the form of land grants to perspective settlers willing to live under; first Spain and then Mexican rule.  Then there was the allegiance to the crown with the requirement that all new settlers into Texas  convert  to Catholicism.  The frontiersman of the eighteenth century were probably some of the toughest minded individuals in American history.  Indians were perceived as merely obstacles in their path.    The settlers wanted, as T. R. Feherenbach would write, “merely to be left alone and for the Indians to move out of the way.”  The Mexican government in the early 1820’s saw this colonization and westward expansion as a means to solve the Indian problem.  Never if ever has such a perception been so wrong.
            Hebert’s book delves into the story of early Texas and presents a unique perspective from both the Mexican side and the Anglo side.  His knack for uncovering the true facts led his research to uncover letters, journals and eyewitness accounts as to what life was like under Mexican rule.  His attention to detail includes the daily journals of Sam Houston and Santa Anna; a comparison if you would as to what each was encountering in their retreat and march across Texas.  Add to this the letters from “the Runaway Scrape” and one gets the true story of survival from eyewitness accounts as the horrors of the times.   “On the Run!!!” is a story like no other of the tragedies and suffering endured by the men and women who lived it, survived it and helped create the foundation of what one day would become the Great State of Texas!    

To purchase this book, click on the link below:

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