Louisiana State University Press, 1940.

SAXON, LYLE. _Fabulous New Orleans; Old Louisiana; Lafitte the
Pirate_.


_8_

Backwoods Life and Humor

THE SETTLERS who put their stamp on Texas were predominantly
from the southern states--and far more of them came to Texas
to work out of debt than came with riches in the form of
slaves. The plantation owner came too, but the go-ahead
Crockett kind of backwoodsman was typical. The southern type
never became so prominent in New Mexico, Arizona, and
California as in Texas. Nevertheless, the fact glares out that
the code of conduct--the riding and shooting tradition, the
eagerness to stand up and fight for one's rights, the
readiness to back one's judgment with a gun, a bowie knife,
money, life itself--that characterized the whole West as well
as the Southwest was southern, hardly at all New England.

The very qualities that made many of the Texas pioneers rebels
to society and forced not a few of them to quit it between sun
and sun without leaving new addresses fitted them to conquer
the wilderness--qualities of daring, bravery, reckless
abandon, heavy self-assertiveness. A lot of them were hell-
raisers, for they had a lust for life and were maddened by
tame respectability. Nobody but obsequious politicians and