James Bailey Blackshear

James Bailey Blackshear is a history professor at the University of North Texas Dallas.

He spends most of each summer with his wife Barbara at their mountain cabin not far from Las Vegas.

At present he has published several articles, three books on the Southwest, and one science fiction novel.

Honor and Defiance: The History of the Las Vegas Land Grant in New Mexico

Fort Bascom: Soldiers, Comancheros and Indians in the Canadian River Valley

Confederates and Comancheros: Skullduggery and Double Dealing in the Texas New Mexico Borderlands

Confederates and Comancheros is co-authored by award winning historian Glen Sample Ely.

The Last Day Before Forever, a dystopian novel where voices are replaced with thoughts and children are no more than fables

Blackshear's book on the Las Vegas Land Grant details the early history of this significant New Mexican grant, as well a chronological look at the growth of Las Vegas, New Mexico. This history also has a particular focus on the impact of the coming of the railroad and what this means for Las Vegas and all of New Mexico. The last sections of the book details land usurpation and the rise of Las Gorras Blancas.

His book on Fort Bascom, focuses on a little known but significant frontier fort in post-Civil War New Mexico, published by the University of Oklahoma Press in 2016. This history also details the culture of this region, with a particular look at the Comanchero trade and its impact on both the Comanches and the soldiers who sought to defeat them.

Confederates and Comancheros, co-authored with Glen Sample Ely, was released at the end of Sept. 202. This book, continues to focus on the arid and desolate borderlands that existed between Texas and New Mexico, but begins to train more focus on the trails that stitched these lands together, as well as the men and women who made them. Confederates and Comancheros, about Civil War spies, Texas cattleman, Comancheros, New Mexican politicians, butchers and more has already won first place in the Westerners International Co=Founders Award for non-fiction and first place and winner of the Will Rogers Gold Medallion Award for best non-fiction book of western history for 2022..