John Francis Bannon (1905 – June 5, 1986)[1] was a Jesuit and a historian of the American West, especially of matters related to the Spanish borderlands.
[2][3][4][5] In a 1972 review, Bannon was described as a "prominent scholar of the 'Bolton School'", referring to Herbert Eugene Bolton, whose 1892 publication The Spanish Borderlands: A Chronicle Old Florida and the Southwest, which highlighted contributions of Spanish northern frontiersmen, was a catalyst for a generation of historians.
[6] For many decades, Bolton and his numerous students published prolifically on the interactions between the Spanish frontiersmen, indigenous Americans, French Canadians arriving from the North, and Anglo-Americans from the east.
"[6] Bannon focused on the successful Spanish expansion from eastern Texas westward, in what was then the frontiers of New Spain.
He traced the histories of the "conquistador explorers, missionaries, soldiers, settlers, government officials, and merchants of the immense territory from Florida to California and across the north Mexican provinces.