Texas was free – if imperfect

We are remembering the 190th anniversary of the War of Texas Independence in March and April of this year. And recalling both the lessons we should remember or learn afresh, while countering the “modern” condemnation of the First Republic of Texas.

For us here at TPOL, this is a personal matter. Our family roots are largely Texian, and the West (highly influenced by Texas). From childhood (or marriage), we’ve been taught the lessons learned from Texas between about 1800 and 2000. Good and bad examples.

So read on and let us share some thoughts about liberty and Texas and the West today.

James L. Haley, a biographer of President Sam Houston, wrote: “It seems it is the modern intellectual fashion to treat the Texas Revolution as a felony committed against the dignity of the Mexican nation by a besotted gaggle of slave smuggling American land speculators and to humbug any voice that there may have been a kernel of justification for it.

“One must concede that for generations the topic of revolutionary and frontier Texas history basked in such a rosy glow of uncritical hero worship that some contrary reaction was not only inevitable but justified and even overdue.

“This new wisdom, however, has entrenched itself by glossing over the fact that it was Santa Anna who abrogated the Constitution of 1824, which envisioned full Mexican statehood for Texas, and that the Anglos who fell at the Alamo died contending not for independence but for restoration of the Mexican constitution.

“Nor does it have much luck explaining why so many Hispanic Tejanos supported the revolution with their whole hearts nor why Texas was not the only state in rebellion against Santa Anna. Nor does it explain exactly how much of the dictator’s gothic, vanity-driven brutality Texans should have endured before a resort to arms would have been justified nor why Mexicans themselves shook off his enlightened despotism in no fewer than three separate coups d’état.

“Santa Anna was righteously defeated, and it was the patience, sagacity, determination, and –as is the case in all war– luck, of Sam Houston that effected it.”

We point out a few more details. The early Texians came to settle in what was then the newly-independent and finally republican nation of Mexico. They were encouraged to come, in part to settle land that the current population was unable to occupy, due to the constant murder, rape, and looting by what are today described as “peaceful Native Americans defending themselves against illegal immigrants stealing their land.” (Neat, huh? Five lies in a single clause.)

Texians (later Texicans) were so willing to be a part of an independent and liberal (in the old meaning of the term) Mexico that many of them became Catholics and of course, not just swore loyalty to the republic but actually fought for it. When a dictator seized power and cancelled the Constitution, they opposed him and sought to restore the Constitution. They also intermarried, built and gave wealth freely, and were good neighbors.

Yes, Texians were nowhere close to perfect: many of them held black or AmerInd slaves. Many of them were fleeing prosecution for crimes back East. Many of them were violent and aggressive. (Against not just “Mexicans” or “Injuns” but against each other.) But they were willing to learn, to police themselves, and to uphold the values that they believed other Mexicans shared.

It is also worth pointing out that the land that Texians settled before the War of Texan Independence (and even during the Republic) was not the land of the Comanche who warred with them. The Comanche were based and had their homeland hundreds of miles to the northwest, and raided (killed, raped, looted) Texians just as they had done to Mexican settlers (themselves many Metizo, of mixed Euro-AmerInd blood) and to other AmerInd tribes. Particularly the Plains Apache nations, which the Comanche in essence exterminated.

Modern history does not accurately present to us the good or the bad of the settlement of Texas.

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