Lunch and Learn: Dangerous Latitudes

Guest Speaker: Jack Woodfille London, author of Dangerous Latitudes Jack London’s most recent book, Dangerous Latitudes is mostly about the period 1841 – 1846, particularly during the 1842 Mexican invasions of Texas and General Woll’s stealthy invasion through the Hill Country. I think most historians accept that the invasions were retaliation for the Texas Santa Fe Expedition of June 1841 (which set out from Round Rock); most of the Texans on that expedition were still in Mexican prisons in 1842, and Woll’s raid on San Antonio added about 70 more to the number of captured and imprisoned. Dangerous Latitudes emerged from Jack’s immersion in maps to learn what was knowable about the boundaries of Texas 1836-1850. He already had made a road trip around those boundaries, from Austin to El Paso to Santa Fe and Taos, the source of the Rio Grande in the San Jan Mountains, north to Wyoming, and south along the Arkansas River to Dodge City, then due south to Texas. The farther into it he went, the less he was satisfied that Texas ever really exercised sovereignty over its northern boundaries. By the end of it all, Jack was doubtful that anyone from the Republic of Texas had ever even visited any of the boundaries, certainly not beyond Taos and probably not beyond Santa Fe. When he came home and began to delve into the who and the what, what he learned quickly evolved into a story of someone trying to map that area, of the violence between Texas and Mexico, of the role of the Comanche and the Hill Country, and of how really badly it all went. This year, Jack and Dangerous Latitudes have been featured in Texas Monthly, Good Day Austin, San Antonio Living, KPRC 2 Houston, Kirkus Reviews Round Rock Preservation View Organizer Website