Changing Tides: Twilight and Dawn in the Spanish Sea, 1763-1803

Changing Tides: Twilight and Dawn in the Spanish Sea, 1763-1803. By Robert S. Weddle. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1995. xv, 352 pp. $49.50. ISBN 0-8909661-3.

This study is the third volume in Weddle's trilogy narrating the history of the exploration of the shores of the Gulf of Mexico and, in particular, the coast of Texas. Spanish Sea: The Gulf of Mexico in North American Discovery (College Station, Tex., 1985) covers the story to 1685; The French Thorn: Rival Explorers in the Spanish Sea, 1682-1762 (College Station, Tex., 1991) recounts events within the title's dates; the volume under review, divided into four parts, roughly covers the four decades between 1763 and 1803. Chapters 1, 2, 4, 10, 15, and 17 will be of interest to students of Alabama history.

Weddle tells us that the Spaniards initially wrote off detailed mapping and settlement of the coasts of the northwestern region of the Gulf of Mexico because of concerns with establishing their control over Louisiana and mistaken impressions gained by the Marques de Rubi during an inspection of eastern Texas that followed the September hurricane of 1766. Only after English travelers, surveyors, and cartographers such as Philip Pittman, Thomas Hutchins, Bernard Romans, and George Gauld began to publish or produce charts superior to those that the Spaniards had-especially for the coast east of the Mississippi River-did the latter begin to undertake careful surveys. Vicente Doz, Miguel del Corral, Matias de Armona, Athanase de Mezieres, Jose Antonio de Evia, Francisco Maria Celi, Vicente Folch y Juan, and Tomas de Ugarte y Liano were among the Spaniards who carried out these new surveys, most of which were concerned with the western shores of the Gulf, from Texas to Yucatan. The advent of the chronometer during the 1760s, wars, and Enlightenment-inspired desires to get the facts impelled English and Spanish surveyors and mapmakers toward ever greater accuracy. The chronometer was particularly critical because it allowed accurate determinations of longitude, which had eluded earlier mapmakers. Although parts of this story have become familiar through the works of Charles W. Arnade (on Tampa Bay), Herbert E. Bolton (on Texas),

Jack D. L. Holmes (on Louisiana and Texas),James C. and Robert Sidney Martin (maps of Texas and the Gulf), Bernard Romans (his own explorations), and John D. Ware (on Tampa Bay and George Gauld), no previous work has brought all of this material and more together to provide the comprehensive survey of exploration and mapping found here. Such comprehensiveness exacts a price, however. At times the reader may lose the larger narrative thread because of new and unfamiliar details, necessary chronological overlaps with previous materials, and the geographic sweep of the work. Perhaps aware of this problem, Weddle has provided summaries at the end of each part that succinctly place the events covered back within the larger story. Illustrations, especially of maps produced by the surveyors, are helpful, but less familiar areas of the Gulf Coast (especially in Mexico) should have been displayed on modern maps within the relevant chapters and not just preceding the text and on the dust jacket. Such problems of presentation can be expected in a pioneering work; they may be, in any case, beyond solution, since some of the events were not directly linked to others.

This book, like its companions, will interest persons with some knowledge of the relevant history and with an interest in the Gulf of Mexico. It is well written, superbly indexed, nicely produced, and highly recommended for the author's scholarship, knowledge of the places about which he writes, and unique vision of the Gulf of Mexico as a single arena of history.

PAUL E. HOFFMAN

Louisiana State University

Copyright University of Alabama Press Apr 1998
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