Revolvers and Pistolas, Vaqueros and Caballeros: Debunking the Old West

This riveting exposé reveals how a distorted belief in Anglo superiority necessitated the rewriting of American western history, replacing heroic images of Mexican and Spanish cowboys with negative stereotypes.

• Introduces topics unfamiliar to most readers, such as the role of Spanish-Mexican Jews, the presence of the Spanish Inquisition in the United States, and the real Yellow Rose of Texas

• Reveals the duplicity of la leyenda negra to illustrate prejudices of the time

• Traces the development of stereotypes such as the Black Legend, banditos, greasers, Zorro, the Cisco Kid, and "loose women," and how these characterizations came to depict Latinos in the Old West in the popular imagination

• Documents Latinos' participation in the conquest of the territory west of the Mississippi