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Texas flag

Caballero: A Historical Novel, often known only as Caballero, is a historical romance coauthored by Jovita González and Margaret Eimer (under the pseudonym Eve Raleigh). Written in the 1930s and early 1940s, but not published until 1996, the novel is sometimes called Texas's Gone with the Wind.

The book is set in the vicinity of Matamoros at the time of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, in which Mexico ceded its lands north of the Rio Grande to the United States. Its principal character is Don Santiago Mendoza y Soría, a landowner and descendant of the Spanish explorers who first colonized the region, and his family and servants, whose destinies are rewritten by the treaty, the occupation of the region by the American military, and the influx of English-speaking Americans.

Since its rediscovery and publication, Caballero has been branded an important Tejano achievement of national and international relevance and has received much scholarly attention. It is also recognized as an important early piece of Mexican-American literature, in particular for its awareness of the ethnic, gender and class struggles that have characterized Texas history. (more...)