Happy Independence Day

[Strike For The South]

On March 2 1836 The Texas DOI was signed. This was a landmark day in history because it paved the way for the American SW and played a role in manifest destiny

[PanzerJaeger]

Happy Independence Day!

Texas represents the best of America these days. Good thing that whole independence thing didn't work out. :D

[The Wizard]

Also real significant in the events leading up to the Civil War, in being the opening salvo in the conflict over what the American West would become: free or slave? Texas's answer was obvious (the latter).

[al Roumi]

Also real significant in the events leading up to the Civil War, in being the opening salvo in the conflict over what the American West would become: free or slave? Texas's answer was obvious (the latter).

I'm reading Simon Schama's book "the American Future" in which (as a historian) he inevitably talks exclusively about its past, just finished a section on Texas, it's independance and annexation by the US.

To add to Wizard's point, the independance of Texas from Mexico also marks the beginning of one of the (regretably recurrent) hideous passages in US history of ethnic violence and, ultimately, ethnic cleansing as the immigrant population of Anglo whites asserted itself over the Mexican Tejanos and ultimately booted them out.

[drone]

To add to Wizard's point, the independance of Texas from Mexico also marks the beginning of one of the (regretably recurrent) hideous passages in US history of ethnic violence and, ultimately, ethnic cleansing as the immigrant population of Anglo whites asserted itself over the Mexican Tejanos and ultimately booted them out.

[Strike For The South]

To add to Wizard's point, the independance of Texas from Mexico also marks the beginning of one of the (regretably recurrent) hideous passages in US history of ethnic violence and, ultimately, ethnic cleansing as the immigrant population of Anglo whites asserted itself over the Mexican Tejanos and ultimately booted them out.

um....

[al Roumi]

um....

I guess that's not what is celebrated?

Or do you just think I am barmy/talking ?

I certainly don't mean to be all Krook about this but as I mentioned above, it's in Simon Schama's book. He's well respected in the UK...

I also don't seem to be able to find any quick sources online to corrobrate (or contradict) me. If it comes to it, i will type up the section or scan the pages this evening/tomorrow as I don't have the book with me.



Edit:

This is the book in question.

Note this customer review comment on amazon:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

"This book is for those of you who like history as a sweep of events and with interlocking sections that you have to piece together to get your overall picture. Although this makes reference to the current election I think its only because I think the author sees the two candidates as potentially the Hamilton and Jefferson characters of this age - one quite happy to use American military strength and the other very sey against it. And its this split in the US approach that the four sections of the book address. The four sections cover war, religion , what is an american, and the belief you can have it all if you just try hard enough and while I don;t think you get a full final view I think the observation at the end that the role of government is about making people happy and not to destroy life is hard to argue with.

Apart from the violence of the Civil War which had some horrific parts what these sections bring to vivid life in the internal violence in US history , the programs against the Cherokee, the violence and hatred against the black population as they battled for civil rights, the mis tratment of Chinese and Mexicans and they were killed with impunity and with legal sanction makes for some grim reading. The section on religion makes it very clear why religion plays such a big part in US politics and you can see why as it was and till is a vital way to express a sense of community. The best part for me was the section on multiculturalism where its clear that you can retain a sense of your roots in the US AND still be an American with a fierce committment to the country

It was with a sense of diappointment that I finished this book simply bacause I had not had enough of the American story which is spite of the things done still seems essentially optimistic - and so if Obama wants to use the phase 'Yes we can' then this book will help explain why his audience responds to it."

...from which i have lifted this text:

"Apart from the violence of the Civil War which had some horrific parts what these sections bring to vivid life in the internal violence in US history , the programs against the Cherokee, the violence and hatred against the black population as they battled for civil rights, the mis tratment of Chinese and Mexicans and they were killed with impunity and with legal sanction makes for some grim reading. "

[drone]

I guess that's not what is celebrated?

Or do you just think I am barmy/talking ?

I certainly don't mean to be all Krook about this but as I mentioned above, it's in Simon Schama's book. He's well respected in the UK...

I also don't seem to be able to find any quick sources online to corrobrate (or contradict) me. If it comes to it, i will type up the section or scan the pages this evening/tomorrow as I don't have the book with me.

European settlers did all kinds of nasty things in the New World, but booting the Tejanos out of Texas isn't one of them. Tejanos make up ~30% of the Texas population.

Edit to your edit-> So you get that from a customer review? For one, we didn't have programs against the Cherokee. Pogroms yes, but ENIAC wasn't developed until 1946. And Tejanos != Mexican.

[al Roumi]

European settlers did all kinds of nasty things in the New World, but booting the Tejanos out of Texas isn't one of them. Tejanos make up ~30% of the Texas population.

I mean no insult to you guys or modern day Texans or Tejanos. But, with all respect, 30% nowadays doesn't really mean much in a country which has grown so much and so fast as the US.

Call it the right of the conqueror or not, there were apparently many race riots and other instances of race related violence after the signing of the Guadaloupe Hidalgo treaty. I guess it's part of the ugly side to the "Manifest destiny".

[Strike For The South]

South Texas has always been a stronghold for Tejanos and they were certianly never booted out.

There were no rampant killings or expulsions as many of the anglos stayed north of the guadlupe and would do so until the 1880s.

Were the marginlized in the political and social spectrum? Mostly but they most certianly were there

[al Roumi]

Edit to your edit-> So you get that from a customer review? For one, we didn't have programs against the Cherokee. Pogroms yes, but ENIAC wasn't developed until 1946. And Tejanos != Mexican.

No, I get that from reading a chapter in the book. The customer review is unfortunately all i can find to show it's even in the book! I've given up on finding other sources on the net :sweat: (all i came accross was a serbian site about the US supposedly support cleansing of Serbs from Kosovo -which is too much of a boggle for me )

South Texas has always been a stronghold for Tejanos and they were certianly never booted out.

There were no rampant killings or expulsions as many of the anglos stayed north of the guadlupe and would do so until the 1880s.

Were the marginlized in the political and social spectrum? Mostly but they most certianly were there

I will do my best to get what is in the book on this forum, one way or another.

[Azathoth]

Actually, the Tejanos were driven out. Thousands of them were forced to sell their land or were attacked, on the pretext that they were Mexicans or Mexican sympathizers. Even Juan Seguin, who led Tejanos and fought on the side of Texas during the Revolution, who was elected as Mayor of San Antonio, had to flee with his family in 1842 after trying to protect his fellows.

For example: http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6531/

San Antonio claimed then, as it claims now, to be the first city of Texas; it was also the receptacle of the scum of society. My political and social situation, brought me into continual contact with that class of people. At every hour of the day and night, my countrymen ran to me for protection against the assaults or exactions of those adventurers. Sometimes, by persuasion, I prevailed on them to desist; some times, also, force had to be resorted to. How could I have done other wise? Were not the victims my own countrymen, friends and associates? Could I leave them defenceless, exposed to the assaults of foreigners, who, on the pretext that they were Mexicans, treated them worse than brutes.

The problem was that many of the settlers were greedy racists.

http://www.escholarship.org/editions...&brand=ucpress

Mexico and the United States are peopled by two utterly distinct and unhomogeneous races.

After the Dawson Massacre many Texans advocated simply running all the Tejanos out of the state. You can't possibly find this surprising, America has exhibited similar suspicions of the Japanese and German ethnic groups during the World Wars. And hey, those Mexicans are brown.

White folks and Mexicans were never made to live together, anyhow, and the Mexicans had no business here.

Check out this book for backstory. http://www.amazon.com/Anglos-Mexican...8176560&sr=1-1

[Snite]

There were a lot of ethnic tensions yes, but it wasn't all created by the whites. The history of Texas actually has several incidences of Tejanos banding together and pillaging whites in order to drive them out. But the Tejanos were never booted out of Texas. Were there clashes and problems, yes, but they were never kicked out. Also, we're the fastest growing state because of all the people from Mexico, and also the more-than-you-think people from the rest of the US. And Tejanos make up a lot more than 30% of our population. I don't remember the last statistic I heard, but whites are officially a minority in Texas.

[Azathoth]

Well, yes, it never became systematic, and there were still thousands left, but they remained a minority for quite a while after annexation. For many Texas was no longer a hospitable place, and Mexico was the only other option.

[al Roumi]

Thank you Azathoth

The section of Simon Schama's book is 20 or so pages and I don't have access to a scanner, but I will try to photograpth the pages.

[Strike For The South]

No doubt there were tensions and some small scale expulsion (mostly to get emprazario land mind you) but it was never on a massive scale nor was there a cleansing.

What happend to Seguin was absolutley criminal. How one of the most pivotal figure in your revo gets tossed away like that is a dark stain

[Snite]

I don't care if you post the pages. I've studied Texas history for years from more than one author. And quite honestly, what does a redcoat know about Texas history? I don't care what some "respected in the UK" putz has to say. You're wrong. I know you're wrong. And you likely won't admit to being wrong so kindly go jump off a cliff.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Simon Schama is a truly phenomenal historian. He speaks with authority about the French Revolutionary era, the Dutch Golden Age, and the whole of British history. He's equally well qualified in arts history. If he has studied something long and hard, I'm not going to dismiss it outright.

The question is - did Schama study American history long and hard, or are his television programs by now becoming too reliant on the work of staff and secondary literature? Great as Schama is, there must be a limit to the amount of time anybody has. His work on America has been critised for this, including factual incorrectness:

The American Future is a sort of ersatz companion book to a four-part documentary series by the same name that Schama is starring in for the BBC. As of this writing, it has only recently aired (and it will assuredly make its way to PBS in due time). The description offered by the BBC would be nice if applicable to the book: “Simon Schama travels through America to dig deep into the conflicts of its history as a way to understand the country’s contemporary political situation.” Perhaps the television series both digs deep and arrives at some understanding. In print, The American Future does neither. It is, in fact, the worst Schama book this reviewer has ever read.

This does not necessarily mean it is not worth reading. Simon Schama’s worst is better than most people’s best. Yet because he is such a sterling historian elsewhere, it is all the more disappointing to see him phone it in here. The structure of the book purports to examine the American past as a means of discerning its future, and he does this in ways that vary wildly from interesting to absurd.


[...]


Even as he strains — or doesn’t — to make a case for his chosen narrative set-pieces wrested from American history, the reader of The American Future is left with the troubling sense that Schama has perhaps not done his due diligence in sourcing and research. There are the odd, Edmund Morris-style digressions into first-person recollection that cannot possibly be anything but fiction: “Sonofabitch,” Schama has yet another Meigs think just before dying at the Battle of the Bulge, “if it was this cold then you think the mud would’ve frozen … Clean it out, get into Deutschland, finish them off, good guys win, bad guys, very bad guys, lose.” Did any soldier actually think this? It is perilously close to tinny Hollywood rhetoric — what a British expat professor thinks an American infantryman speaks like — and if Schama made it up, shame on him. And if he has documentary evidence that the fallen Meigs of World War Two expressed these thoughts, shame on him for presenting it as his own weird reconstruction.


The reader’s confidence in these episodes, strewn throughout the book, is further marred by the occasional factual error. “[T]he second president of the Texan Republic was a Tejano,” Schama writes, though depending on how you count it, Sam Houston and Mirabeau Lamar were not Tejanos of any sort. There never was a Tejano president of the Republic of Texas: Schama is probably referring to Lorenzo de Zavala, who was interim vice-president of the Republic during the Texas War of Independence. Or rather, one of Schama’s graduate students is probably referring to de Zavala. This is emblematic of the minimal attention the author appears to have given this work, which stands in such regrettable contrast to his earlier, justly famed efforts.
http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/87476.html

American history, the presentation thereof, is also critised for being often prone to a politicised narrative. America's history keeps being rewritten. Especially where it concerns sensitive topics like race and minorities.


As for Texas and Tejanos - I haven't the faintest clue who presents the more plausible story here.
Tejanos certainly were not driven out. Their impact on Texas history is clear. It is also clear that Texas has a history of Anglo expansion. Where, between these two, lies the most proper representation of Texas' history, I don't know.

[al Roumi]

I don't care if you post the pages. I've studied Texas history for years from more than one author. And quite honestly, what does a redcoat know about Texas history? I don't care what some "respected in the UK" putz has to say. You're wrong. I know you're wrong. And you likely won't admit to being wrong so kindly go jump off a cliff.

Great, so you respond by being a rascist yourself? Can you not see that reacting like that might make the allegations seem more plausible?

Plus ca change, moins ca change...

I have got hold of digital camera now, I will post later. Your lack of enquiry and utter self belief are unfortunately painting a big target on you for me (or anyone) who thinks it's important and good that people question history and what they are lead to believe.

[Strike For The South]

I don't care if you post the pages. I've studied Texas history for years from more than one author. And quite honestly, what does a redcoat know about Texas history? I don't care what some "respected in the UK" putz has to say. You're wrong. I know you're wrong. And you likely won't admit to being wrong so kindly go jump off a cliff.

Calm down there cowboy.

Great, so you respond by being a rascist yourself? Can you not see that reacting like that might make the allegations seem more plausible?

Plus ca change, moins ca change...

I have got hold of digital camera now, I will post later. Your lack of enquiry and utter self belief are unfortunately painting a big target on you for me (or anyone) who thinks it's important and good that people question history and what they are lead to believe.

He's not being a racist, he's being a xenophobe.

If you could just post some excerts that would be wonderful. I'm certianly not going to argue the tejanos were treated badly and some did leave but I'm certianly not buying wholesale expulsion and genocide, South Texas has had a very large continous Tejano population since about 1718 (San Antonio EST.)

[Strike For The South]

I would also point out that the Southern Americans who moved into Texas in the late 60s and 70s considerd all Texans "tejanos" including the central europeans and anglos who settled here. Hell Tejano music is pretty much spicy polka.

That is the real disconnect here. Seguin was actually a frenchman (ethnically, he was certianly not the mestizo as he is often portrayed) and they did charge him with aiding the Mexican army (now how true that was....) But I would point he came back to Texas and was elected Justice of the peace twice in bexar county (My County fwiw) and once in wilson county.

The real oppersion of Tejanos truly only started once Southeners (mostly confederate veterans) came to make their fortune in Texas and even then it was exploitation not genocide. Before that the oppersion amounted to little more than land grabs from emprazarios.

[al Roumi]

He's not being a racist, he's being a xenophobe.

He's not really being xenophobic either, just a .

From memory, Simon Schama doesn't say that all "Mexican" texans were kicked out, just that there was a lot of ugly race related violence and oppression, as a probable result of which many Mexican Texans left Texas.

The term "Tejano" seems to mean a lot and different things in different circumstances... My prior use of it (in this thread) has been to describe those non-Anglo people who were inhabitants of "Texas" and Mexican subjects before Texas' independance. I certainly couldn't really call them indigenous either -at least not without causing considerable offense to Megas!

[The Lurker Below]

I can't imagine why but this reminds me of a tasteless joke I am compelled to share:

4 people are on board a plane when one engine goes bad and the pilot declares they'll have to drop some weight or crash. He believes if one person would jump out it would be okay. The Frenchman sincerely looks them over and declares "Viva la Franca!" before hurling himself out. The pilot expresses his regret that another will have to go. The Brit despises their company anyhow and yells "God save the Queen!" as he jumps away. Still overweight the pilot is certain that if one more goes it will be enough. The Texan looks out the door in contemplation, looks back at the Mexican, looks out the door again, grabs the Mexican, tossing him out, and yells "Remember the Alamo!" as he does so.

[al Roumi]

OK, finally sorted my self out. Link below to mediafire download of double page spreads from Simon Schama's book. God knows how many copyright laws I'm breaching, I don't intend to infringe them beyond the needs of a source...

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=0...7b5d7f10aaff85

Each pic is about 3MB, I hope they have survived the upload and remain legible.

Edit:

"Viva la Franca" ???

[Louis VI the Fat]

Guys! I just found the full text of Simon Schama's book on Google books! Go check it out!

Oh wait, All_p just went through all that trouble. I'll spare him the link then.


'Vive la France', but a good joke is not to be nitpicked.

[al Roumi]

[Snite]

I'm not being racist, or a xenophobe, and I'm not being self-reliant, I just happen to have more first-hand resources than some dude on an island really far away drinking his damn tea. You came in here saying there was mass expulsion and now you're changing your words around to match mine and SFTS so I'm not gonna bother reading the links cuz now all of a sudden what your'e saying and what we're saying matches.

There seems to be a movement in our modern times to sully history. "HEY LOOK! THIS WELL-KNOWN HERO WAS REALLY NOT THAT GREAT A GUY!!!" Were there ethnic tensions? Yes. Were they unavoidable? No. You can't take your twenty-first century mind and try to plant it in a 1 18th-19th century person's head. They were of a vastly different mindeset. We're talking about a time when many people actually considered the Irish to be sub-human. Whites hating whites. It's unavoidable for any history scholar and it's something I've never shied away from and am willing to admit: yes, there was racism in Texas. But don't come in here trying to degrade us by saying we were genocidal maniacs. You want a maniac you can make one right here, but I'll represent no one but myself.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Relax, buddy. Holster that colt. The Redcoat is not going to raise your taxes.

[al Roumi]

I'm not being racist, or a xenophobe, and I'm not being self-reliant, I just happen to have more first-hand resources than some dude on an island really far away drinking his damn tea. You came in here saying there was mass expulsion and now you're changing your words around to match mine and SFTS so I'm not gonna bother reading the links cuz now all of a sudden what your'e saying and what we're saying matches..

Apparently this Simon Schama dude has lived half his life in America. I can't rule out the possibility that he spent some of that time sipping tea though.

I also don't think my words have changed, all I originaly said was that there was "ugly racial violence" leading to "ethnic cleansing". That doesn't mean Buchenwald was set up in Houston, but it does mean that people were attacked because of being Mexican and not Anglo, with the complicity of US authorities: "last year a large band of Texas Free Companies plundered and burned in mere wantonness a peaceful Mexican town on the Rio Grande; 400 United States' troops listened to the shrieks of fleeing women and looking on in indolence. This has passed without a rebuke and with entire public and official indifference." (page261) those are the words of Frederick Law Olmsted.

Now that I have backed up what I said with a source -you refuse to engage. That doesn't make me look like the ostrich here.

But don't come in here trying to degrade us by saying we were genocidal maniacs. You want a maniac you can make one right here, but I'll represent no one but myself.

I'm not. The saving grace of America is the fact that whenever these moraly questionable events happened there has always been significant internal opposition to them. Read in the passage for example how the German settlers in San Antonio prevented the Sherif and his posse of 500 volunteers from clearing the town of Mexicans -they said it was "not the republican way".

You can be what the hell you like, even behave like a closed-minded jingoist if that suits you best. Listening to what one already believes is easy though. How can you call yourself a student of history if you reject off-hand a version of events which is new to you?

[The Wizard]

The interesting thing is that Texas is exemplary of a totally different narrative of the "Opening of the West" than the traditional one (cowboys, freedom, jeans, God Bless America!). Like the rest of the Lower South, in Texas, the West was "opened" not by free settlers, but by slavery (and represented a vision on the future of the West if the South won the conflict). This was a major eye-opener to me the first time I learned of it, and something that deserves a lot more emphasis.