The origins of the Texas Rangers date from 1823, when Stephen F Austin, a local Texas landowner who was unimpressed with the level of security offered by central government, first organised a band of men to protect his assets from lawless settlers and local tribal raids. Such bands were loosely organised, and hardly even warranted the term ‘militia’. The men provided their own clothing and weapons, mustered when a crisis occurred, and disbanded as soon as they felt the problem had been resolved. During the Texas Revolution (November 1835) the new interim rebel Texas government approved the creation of the official Texas Rangers, which were a more formal version of the previous bands, though still ununiformed and to a large extent self-sufficient. Initially they had some very small involvement in the struggle against the Mexican government, but their main focus remained action against the indigenous natives, mainly Comanches, and their relative cheapness made them an attractive law-enforcement unit for the new government.

To begin with, let’s see if we cannot date these figures a bit more precisely than just ‘early’. Clothing was civilian and entirely down to the taste and means of each individual, so varied enormously, and at this scale little changed for a long period, so we must look to the weapons for clues. One of the major milestones of the early Rangers was the enthusiastic adoption of the Colt revolver, which allowed for five shots without the need to reload; a considerable advantage over the older flintlock firearms. These revolvers reached the market in the 1830s, and were popular in Texas, yet all three of the figures in this set with pistols have flintlocks, so while flintlocks did not disappear once the Colt came on the scene, their complete absence suggests a date perhaps no later than the mid 1840s. Equally, there are no percussion-cap muskets on show here (all are flintlocks), which tends to confirm this date range.

The sculpting of these figures is not particularly good, and there is not much in the way of detail. The absence of any sort of uniform or finer decoration means this is not a subject that suffers much from this, although the figures are generally not pleasing to look at. The faces are okay, and the clothing reasonable, displaying a great variety of working men’s clothes and woodsmen’s outfits. There are a surprising number of peaked caps, obtained from who knows where (some look to be US military), and one man wears a frock coat and a sash, which perhaps is indicative of some sort of rank, though again this was a matter of personal taste. The men have an assortment of bags, pouches, powder horns and hatchets, some of which are quite poorly formed, but the general effect is fair. All the seams have some flash, but this is not particularly extensive, and there is hardly any extra plastic in hidden areas.

The Rangers in this early period rode on patrol, but would dismount to fight, since you cannot reload a flintlock musket while sitting on a horse. All of the poses here seem pretty reasonable for such a body, but we do wonder at the reason for the man in the second row waving his hat on the end of his musket. It is certainly not the sort of pose you would need multiples of, so would not have been our choice in such a set, especially as trimming the hat off would not make a more useful figure. Before the coming of the revolver, pistols were pretty inaccurate even at close range, so when not used as a mark of rank by some officer, they had little practical value, particularly in what amounted to skirmishes at long range. As a result, we were a little surprised that there are several in hand here, and the man moving forward with both musket and pistol does not seem to us to be particularly likely either, even given the time needed to reload either weapon. However, for the most part the range of poses is reasonable, with some being quite nicely done without seeming to be flat or contrived.

Descriptions of early Rangers often mention long hair and beards, as might be expected of frontier folk, or those on a long patrol with little access to shaving, but most of these figures appear to be clean-shaven. More realistic is the fact that some of the clothes on these men are clearly worn or damaged, which fits well with what you might expect of men with few resources to call upon.

Later on, the Rangers took on a very different look as they were able to use new weapons to fight from the saddle, and increasingly dominate the native tribes, but for the early years these figures are not a bad representation. Strelets have recently taken more of an interest in early 19th century American history, and depicting such a niche subject is a pleasant surprise. As essentially armed civilians, these figures have much wider potential beyond the Rangers, including the Texan War of Independence and any number of actions on the frontier, so this is a set with many uses. It is a pity that the quality of the sculpting is not better, but this is still an interesting depiction of men on the American frontier in the last few years of the flintlock.