wds"--notwithstanding all this, the Southwest has been and is
religious-minded. This is not to say that it is spiritual-natured.
It belongs to H. L. Mencken's "Bible Belt." "Pass-the-Biscuits"
Pappy O'Daniel got to be governor of Texas and then U.S. senator by
advertising his piety. A politician as "ignorant as a Mexican hog" on
foreign affairs and the complexities of political economy can run in
favor of what he and the voters call religion and leave an informed man
of intellect and sincerity in the shade. The biggest campmeeting in the
Southwest, the Bloys Campmeeting near Fort Davis, Texas, is in the midst
of an enormous range country away from all factories and farmers.

Since about 1933 the United States Indian Service has not only allowed
but rather encouraged the Indians to revert to their own religious
ceremonies. They have always been religious. The Spanish colonists
of the Southwest, as elsewhere, were zealously Catholic, and their
descendants have generally remained Catholic. The first English-speaking
settlers of the region--the colonists led by Stephen F. Austin to
Texas--were overwhelmingly Protestant, though in order to establish
Mexican citizenship and get titles to homestead land they had,
technically, to declare themselves Catholics. One of the causes of the
Texas Revolution as set forth by the Texans in their Declaration of
Independence was the Mexican government's denial of "the right
of worshipping the Almighty according to the dictates of our own
conscience." A history of southwestern society that left out the
Bible would be as badly gapped as one leaving out the horse or the
six-shooter.

See chapter entitled "On the Lord's Side" in Dobie's _The Flavor of
Texas_. Most of the books listed under "How the Early Settlers Lived"
contain information on religion and preachers. Church histories are
about as numerous as state histories. Virtually all county histories
take into account church development. The books listed below are strong
on personal experiences.

ASBURY, FRANCIS. Three or more lives have been written of this
representative pioneer bishop.

BOLTON, HERBERT E. _The Padre on Horseback_, 1932. Life of the Jesuit
missionary Kino. OP.

BROWNLOW, W. G. _Portrait and Biography of Parson Brownlow, the
Tennessee Patriot_, 1862. Brownlow was a very representative figure.
Under the title of _William G Brownlow, Fighting Parson of the Southern
Highland_, E. M Coulter has brought out a thorough