TEXAS: THE ONLY STATE TO COMMIT TREASON IN DEFENSE OF SLAVERY TWICE
BY ERIK LOOMIS / ON JUNE 13, 2021 / AT 12:17 PM /
Those of you who are very old on the internets remember that right-wing hack Josh Trevino, former Bush speechwriter and then who ran the Tacitus blog. He was discredited after it turned out he was a paid agent of Malaysia and then openly called for the murder of Americans who defended Palestinians. I think hes somewhere in the wingnut welfare world today. Anyway, back in the olden days of yore, one of the first time people got super made at me on the internets was when I used to blog about how Texas was the only state to commit treason in defense of slavery twice. This absolutely infuriated Trevino, who would say I was the worst historian in the country and the like. He was sure that the Texas Revolution was all about rights and had nothing to do with white supremacy. This was, of course, insane. I mean, even if you take out slavery as part of it, which would make no sense since that was the whole point of what happened in 1836, the leading Tejano supporters of the Texas Revolution were in exile back in Mexico by the late 1830s once they started standing up for the rights of fellow Mexicans now in Texas. Anyway, Ive always had the right enemies and Trevinos fury made me laugh.
I thought about all this for the first time in awhile when reading this story about the tremendously flawed popular understanding of The Alamo, which completely erases slavery from the narrative, even to the point of the claim that the Mexicans killed everyone inside. This was not true, for there were slaves inside and not only were they not killed, they were freed.
Yet, the legend of the Alamo is a Texas tall tale run amok. The actual story is one of White American immigrants to Texas revolting in large part over Mexican attempts to end slavery. Far from heroically fighting for a noble cause, they fought to defend the most odious of practices. Our newfound understanding of this history presents Americans with a long-overlooked opportunity to correct a racist myth surrounding this monument.
Anglo settlers began arriving in Texas from the United States in the 1820s, when it was part of Spanish Mexico.The Spanish government wanted them as a bulwark against the Comanche, but these new Texans had another agenda. They wanted to take advantage of thousands of acres of land in the Brazos River Valley that was available cheap for White settlers, some of which was used to cultivate cotton.
More:
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2021/06/texas-the-only-state-to-commit-treason-in-defense-of-slavery-twice
empedocles
(15,751 posts)Judi Lynn
(160,644 posts)empedocles
(15,751 posts)appalachiablue
(41,182 posts)czarjak
(11,298 posts)Bucky
(54,087 posts)It's a little off the mark to say it's the only reason, or even the keystone reason, why American "Texians" revolted in 1835. If one insists on a single major cause, it would be a cultural affiliation with the US government. English speaking Texians simply wanted to affiliate with the American government, to which to which an independent republic was only a half step or a temporary deviation.
Significant numbers of non-slave owners supported the revolution. Santa Anna's government was facing at least four other separation rebellions around Mexico. Mexico itself was promoting a hacienda system that was little better than what we would call slavery by another name.
Josh Trevino may be a piece of shit, but calling that out doesn't justify intentionally bad readings of history for political purposes.
Kid Berwyn
(14,980 posts)In WW2, Texas treated NAZI POWs better than its own Black residents.
https://time.com/5872361/wwii-german-pows-civil-rights/