The Annexation of Texas

What it is

This is a book-length scholarly study, The Annexation of Texas, written by Justin Harvey Smith, who was then professor of modern history at Dartmouth College. The copyright date is 1911; the copy in this archive is a later Macmillan edition from 1919. Smith describes the annexation as a very interesting, important, complicated and critical affair, with consequences for domestic politics and an area larger than England and France together. The scanned copy carries a Bancroft Library mark.

Why it matters

Texas was annexed just before Polk's inauguration, and the book treats this as the first major achievement of Polk's presidency. Because Smith wrote it long after the events, it is a secondary source. It shows how one historian understood the annexation, not how the people of 1845 saw it at the time.

Look closer

• Which events and people does Smith give the most space to, and which does he pass over?
• Why might a historian writing in 1911 describe the annexation differently from people who lived through it?