to be governor of Texas and then U.S. senator by advertising
his piety. A politician as "ignorant as a Mexican hog" on
foreign affairs and the complexities of political economy can
run in favor of what he and the voters call religion and leave
an informed man of intellect and sincerity in the shade. The
biggest campmeeting in the Southwest, the Bloys Campmeeting
near Fort Davis, Texas, is in the midst of an enormous range
country away from all factories and farmers.

Since about 1933 the United States Indian Service has not only
allowed but rather encouraged the Indians to revert to their
own religious ceremonies. They have always been religious. The
Spanish colonists of the Southwest, as elsewhere, were
zealously Catholic, and their descendants have generally
remained Catholic. The first English-speaking settlers of the
region--the colonists led by Stephen F. Austin to Texas--were
overwhelmingly Protestant, though in order to establish
Mexican citizenship and get titles to homestead land they had,
technically, to declare themselves Catholics. One of the
causes of the Texas Revolution as set forth by the Texans in
their Declaration of Independence was the Mexican govern-
ment's denial of "the right of worshipping the Almighty
according to the dictates of our own conscience." A history of
southwestern society that left out the Bible would be as badly
gapped as one leaving out the horse or the six-shooter.

See chapter entitled "On the Lord's Side" in Dobie's _The
Flavor of Texas_. Most of the books listed under "How the
Early Settlers Lived" contain information on religion and
preachers. Church histories are about as numerous as state