The German Texas Frontier in 1853

Ferdinand Lindheimer was already renowned as the father of Texas botany when, in late 1852, he became the founding editor of the Neu-Braunfelser Zeitung, a German-language weekly newspaper for the German settler community on the Central Texas frontier. His first year of publication was a pivotal time for the settlers and the American Indians whose territories they occupied. Based on an analysis of the paper’s first year—and drawing on methods from documentary and narrative history, ethnohistory, and literary analysis—Daniel J. Gelo and Christopher J. Wickham deliver a new chronicle of the frontier in 1853. 

Lindheimer reports in detail on the area’s Indian peoples. Some Lipan Apaches are killed when the army does not learn of their peaceful intentions; restitution is made at Fredericksburg. The Penateka band of Comanches honors the peace agreement they signed with the Germans six years earlier, but their days in the region are numbered.