| Book Review | The Western Historical Quarterly, 40.1

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| Book Review | The Western Historical Quarterly, 40.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Petra's Legacy: The South Texas Ranching Empire of Petra Vela and Mifflin Kenedy. By Jane Clements Monday and Frances Brannen Vick. (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2007. xiv + 430 pp. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index. $35.00.)

Petra Vela Kenedy was born in 1823, in Mier, Mexico, and grew up on her father's ranch. At age fifteen, she entered into a relationship with a Mexican soldier and moved to Brownsville, where they had eight children. Although never legally married, upon Luis Vidal's death, Petra claimed the status of widow. By 1854, the part of Mexico that had been the home of her family for a century had crossed into the possession of the United States. In that year, she married an Anglo capitalist, Mifflin Kenedy. Mifflin and Petra raised Petra's surviving children and had six of their own. Meanwhile, Mifflin, in partnership with Richard King, built a shipping trade, the profits of which the two used to build two of the largest ranching empires in Texas.

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