Podcasts about anglo texans

This is Episode 51 – Texas Politics as we start the 1850s Texas politics is a contact sport, and Texas Politics as we start the 1850s was almost a blood sport and today's Texas politics and politicians often seem like they still are set in 200 years ago. What was Texas and America like in 1850? Frankly, it was a mess, the country was mired in controversy after controversy, especially when it came to the issue of slavery. Texas itself, after lowering the flag of the Republic in 1846 struggled to find its footing. After the war with Mexico in 1848 the state government was bound and determined to make the Rio Grande river, especially the far western part, the state's boundary. Well, this meant that most of Eastern New Mexico, including an area that reached all the way to Santa Fe would become a part of Texas. In fact, in 1848 the state legislature declared that part of Eastern New Mexico to be named Santa Fe County and the governor, George T. Wood, sent Spruce Baird there to set up a county government.  Needless to say, the proud people of Santa Fe, refused to accept the Texans and with the help of federal troops forced Baird and the other Texans with him to depart. Baird was only able to stay until July 1849 at which time he left the region. Meanwhile, in Washington D.C. a major controversy was brewing between legislators from the North and those from  the South. Of course, this was over the issue of slavery and especially if it was to be allowed in the newly acquired territories that had recently been acquired from Mexico in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo which ended the Mexican-American war. This necessarily drew Texas into the dispute on the side of the South, remember the early Anglo settlers of Texas were mostly southerners and their allegiance was to the south and to the slave owners. Why does this matter? Simple, because when President Zachary Taylor, took office in March of 1849,  he suggested that the  best way to handle adding the new territories of California and New Mexico would be to bring them in directly as states and just bypassing the whole you have to be a territory first thing.  While that sounds like an easy thing to do, not so fast, because most people knew that both California and New Mexico were most likely going to prohibit slavery. Well, this set off alarms in the South, Texas and the Anglo Texans. It also angered Texans  because it effectively stopped Texas from ever claiming Santa Fe and Eastern New Mexico and more importantly to the southern states, it would effectively stop the expansion of slavery at Texas. Diehard southern slave holders vowed they would break up the union before they accepted President Taylor's proposals.  Not only did they urge Texas to stand strong and demand the boundaries they wanted, but the Mississippi state legislature actually called for a convention to take place in Nashville in 1850 whose purpose was "to devise and adopt some means of resistance" to what they labeled as Northern aggression. Needless to say, this was warmly greeted by the passionate Southern spokesmen in Texas, and they  took up the argument. They demanded that the state send delegates to Nashville to prove that Texas would not meekly submit to the union. As my mother used to say, the squeaky wheel gets the grease and in 1849 the Texas Legislature gave in to the pressure and passed an act that created new boundaries. Once again, they proposed to create Santa Fe County and this time they sent Robert Neighbors to organize the government.  Since this was a very active legislative group, they also declared that there would be an election in March of 1850 to send 8 delegates to the Nashville convention, so that they might provide "consultation and mutual action on the subject of slavery and Southern Rights." Neighbors, as Baird before him, discovered the residents of Santa Fe had no desire to be a part of Texas. Well, being the stubborn folks they were,

This is Episode 50 – Slaves and Slavery in Texas Part 3 Treatment of Slaves and Slave Insurrections In this episode I'm going to continue my discussion about a topic that often makes some folks a tad uncomfortable and that's because I'm talking about the history of slaves and slavery in Texas. In the last episode I covered how the early Anglo settlers of Texas had roots in the deep south and brought with them  their prejudices and social customs and one of those customs was slavery. I looked at how even though Mexico and Spain eventually outlawed slavery, Texas was exempted from those laws. Government officials were so eager to profit from the production of cotton that they ignored the slavery issue. Steven F. Austin, said, “The primary product that will elevate us from poverty is cotton and we cannot do this without the help of slaves.”  As a result, Anglo-Americans where able to bring their family slaves with them to Texas. Until 1840, they were also allowed to buy and sell them.  As I mentioned, it's important to understand that Texas was actually the last frontier of slavery in the United States. Between the years of 1821 and 1865, slavery spread over the eastern two-fifths of the state. The reality of slavery tightly bound Texas with the Old South. I realize that there are some who refer to it as the “peculiar institution” because even though slavery was a reality in many other countries, how large it was and how it was so tightly woven into Southern society made it unique or  "peculiar"  only to the South. Over decades Southern politicians and writers used the term to defend the practice of slavery. One thing we need to keep in mind when it comes to the issue of slavery is that it was and is an absolutely barbaric practice. In the past Hollywood made movies that sometimes-showed images of scenes of “happy” slaves, sitting around singing and generally in good spirits. The reality is slaves lived a life that was totally under the control of their owners. They were whipped, not a childish misbehavior spanking, but a brutal ripping of the skin off the back of the person being whipped. They could be hung. They could be beaten. They could be and were often sold. Female slaves could be and were raped by their masters. Families were torn apart. Slaves were considered to be less than  human. There were no happy slaves. As it was elsewhere, in Texas how slaves were treated did rely on who their owner was. One story about how slaves were treated is the story of Lavinia Bell, a Black woman who had been kidnapped when she was a child and sold into slavery. She eventually escaped and part of her story was how she had been forced to work naked in the cotton fields near Galveston. She had made multiple attempts to escape and after her first failed attempt she was physically mutilated and beaten severely by her owner. Hers is not the only such story, many others who were enslaved in Texas told similar stories of violence and cruelty by their owners. Hundreds sought to escape, especially to Mexico where they knew they would be safe from being returned. Now of course, there are the outliers, such as Joshua Houston. He was owned by Sam Houston, actually he was  owned initially by Houston's second wife, and he became an important part of Houston's family. He was treated well, taught to read and write, and actually the Houston family helped to prepare him for his eventual emancipation. After the Civil War he became a politician, and, at one point, offered to lend money to Sam Houston's widow when she faced financial difficulties. While the treatment of slaves in Texas may have varied on the basis of the disposition of individual slaveowners, it was clear that Anglo Texans in general accepted and defended slavery. There was also one undercurrent of reality that existed for all slave owners, and that was the fear of a revolt or insurrection by the slaves. Actions by the Texas legislature provide an apt illustratio...

Episode 40 - The Cherokee - the "Principal People" Conclusion Welcome to Episode 40 of the Hidden History of Texas, this episode concludes my discussion of the Cherokee. Before I get started, just a quick reminder that I have 3 audiobooks based on this series. You can find information about them at my  website https://arctx.org. On the menu, under Digital Products -> Audiobooks. Check them out, thanks, Now back to the Cherokee. Ever since Europeans had landed on the continent, the Cherokee had done their best to coexist. Unfortunately, their desire to live in peace on their ancestral lands conflicted with the new settlers desire to own that same land. As a result, they were forced off their land and as I mentioned in the last episode they arrived in what is now East Texas where they lived in relative peace for a few years. They did their best to maintain neutrality when conflict started between the Anglo Texans and the Mexican Government. After Texas achieved independence in 1836, Texas Republic President Sam Houston was a strong advocate for peace with all Texas tribes. He spent many hours working to keep the Cherokees as allies as he tried to negotiate treaties with the Apache, Comanche, and the Kiowa. This even included the Cherokees agreeing in 1836 to send a company of 25 rangers to help patrol the land west of their settlements. In 1837 Cherokee leader Duwali agreed to be the republic's emissary to the Comanches. However, in 1838 relations began to fall apart after a raid on settlers in East Texas was blamed on a combined Cherokee and Mexican force. As he was getting ready to leave office, Houston once again tried to keep the peace between Texans and the Cherokees. He established a boundary that could have served as a boundary separating the groups. This line upset the Anglos who wanted the land and who believed the Cherokees were actually allies of the Mexicans. Mirabeau B. Lamar who took Houston's place as Republic President was an ardent foe of the Cherokees and wanted them completely out of Texas. He initiated his campaign of elimination by sending troops to the Neches Saline (a small community in East Texas). When Chief Duwali had his people block the Texans and in response Lamar told the chief that the Cherokee would be relocated beyond the red river. His words to the chief were, "peaceably if they would; forcibly if they must." Lamar then put together a commission who were told they could compensate the Cherokees if they left their land.  The Cherokees said no, and the result was what is known as the Cherokee War. The war, although it was really more of a pitched battle took place in the summer of 1839. That was when Chief Duwali led several hundred of his warriors in a fight that took place near present day Tyler Texas. The result was a disaster for the Cherokee as more than a 100 warriors including the chief were killed. The Texans then drove the remaining Cherokees across the Red River into what was then labeled Indian Territory. Not all Cherokee were exiled to the territory, some stayed and lived as fugitives in Texas and still others moved into Mexico. There were some Cherokee who conducted raids and fought for their lands, but they had little to no success. In 1841 Sam Houston was elected to another term as president and he instituted a policy that he thought would help end future hostilities between the tribes and the settlers. This policy gave two  treaties with the Cherokees who remained in Texas in 1843 and 1844. After the Cherokees who had been moved north of the Red River they were able to reunite with the much larger group of Cherokee who had been settled in the northeastern corner of the territory. In 1846, the Cherokee signed an agreement with the U.S. that specified that all the Cherokee, those from Texas and those who were already in the Territory had equal rights to the  lands of the Cherokee nation. This union lasted until the Civil War.

Episode 33 Independence and a Republic is born (sort of) Welcome to the Hidden History of Texas. I'm your host Hank Wilson and this is Episode 33 - Independence and a Republic is born (sort of) The program is brought to you by Digital Media Publishers Ashby Navis & Tennyson. Download our audiobooks at Spotify, TuneIn, Apple, Google,  Barnes and Noble, and stores around the world. Visit AshbyNavis.com for more information. Time to start discussing the actual founding of what was to be known as the Republic of Texas. While it is true that most Anglo Texans and many of the Mexican Texans believed that Texas began working to become a nation after the victory over Santa Anna at San Jacinto, the reality is quite different. In earlier episodes, I talked about the various declarations that had been passed during the 1830s. The actual convention that was to declare that Texas was independent began in March, prior to the falling of the Alamo. The convention was held at Washington-on-the-Brazos on March 1, 1836, and it was very different from the Consultation or any of the pervious gatherings. There were 41 delegates present and another 59 people who periodically stopped by or attended the meetings. An interesting fact about the makeup of the convention is that two delegates (José Francisco Ruiz and José Antonio Navarro of Bexar) were native Texans, one (Lorenzo de Zavala) had actually been born in Mexico. Of the rest of the delegates only 10 had been living in Texas before 1835. The majority were late arrivals who came from either the United States, or from Europe. While about 2/3 of the delegates were not yet forty, several of them already had political experience.  For example, Samuel P. Carson of Pecan Point served in the North Carolina Legislature and Robert Potter of Nacogdoches in the U.S. House of Representatives. On March 1 George C. Childress, who had returned from a visit with President Jackson in Tennessee, presented a resolution calling for independence. It was quickly adopted, and Childress was appointed to lead a committee of five in drafting a final declaration of independence. Childress must have been expecting this because when the committee met that evening, he pulled out a statement he had brought from Tennessee. That document followed the outline and contained the main features of the United States Declaration of Independence. On March 2nd, the delegates unanimously adopted his suggested declaration. After 58 members signed the document the Republic of Texas was unofficially born. Upon receiving the news about the fall of the Alamo and that Santa Anna's army was marching eastward, the convention hastily adopted a constitution, signed it, and elected an interim government: David G. Burnet, was elected president; Lorenzo de Zavala, vice president; Samuel P. Carson, secretary of state; Thomas J. Rusk, secretary of war; Bailey Hardeman, secretary of the treasury; Robert Potter, secretary of the navy; and David Thomas, attorney general. Immediately after this the delegates fled Washington-on-the-Brazos and headed towards  Galveston Island. Upon hearing of Houston's victory at San Jacinto they quickly headed to the San Jacinto battlefield and began negotiations to end the war. At Velasco on May 14, they had Santa Anna sign two treaties, one public and one secret. The public treaty ended hostilities and restored private property. Texan and Mexican prisoners were to be released, and Mexican troops would retire beyond the Rio Grande. The secret treaty included the provision that Santa Anna was to be taken to Veracruz and released. In return for this, Santa Anna agreed to seek Mexican government approval of both treaties and to negotiate a permanent treaty that acknowledged Texas independence and recognized its boundary as the Rio Grande. Texans demanded that Santa Anna should be put to death, but on June 4, the dictator, his secretary Ramón Martínez Caro, and Col. Juan N.

More than just a civil war, the Mexican Revolution in 1910 triggered hostilities along the border between Mexico and the United States. In particular, the decade following the revolution saw a dramatic rise in the lynching of ethnic Mexicans in Texas. Nicholas Villanueva Jr.‘s new book The Lynching of Mexicans in the Texas Borderlands (University of New Mexico Press, 2017) argues that ethnic and racial tension brought on by the fighting in the borderland made Anglo-Texans feel justified in their violent actions against Mexicans. They were able to use the legal system to their advantage, and their actions often went unpunished. Villanueva's work further differentiates the borderland lynching of ethnic Mexicans from the Southern lynching of African Americans by asserting that the former was about citizenship and sovereignty, as many victims' families had resources to investigate the crimes and thereby place the incidents on an international stage. Stephen Hausmann is a doctoral candidate at Temple University and Visiting Instructor of history at the University of Pittsburgh. He is currently writing his dissertation, a history of race and the environment in the Black Hills and surrounding northern plains region of South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

More than just a civil war, the Mexican Revolution in 1910 triggered hostilities along the border between Mexico and the United States. In particular, the decade following the revolution saw a dramatic rise in the lynching of ethnic Mexicans in Texas. Nicholas Villanueva Jr.‘s new book The Lynching of Mexicans in the Texas Borderlands (University of New Mexico Press, 2017) argues that ethnic and racial tension brought on by the fighting in the borderland made Anglo-Texans feel justified in their violent actions against Mexicans. They were able to use the legal system to their advantage, and their actions often went unpunished. Villanueva’s work further differentiates the borderland lynching of ethnic Mexicans from the Southern lynching of African Americans by asserting that the former was about citizenship and sovereignty, as many victims’ families had resources to investigate the crimes and thereby place the incidents on an international stage. Stephen Hausmann is a doctoral candidate at Temple University and Visiting Instructor of history at the University of Pittsburgh. He is currently writing his dissertation, a history of race and the environment in the Black Hills and surrounding northern plains region of South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

More than just a civil war, the Mexican Revolution in 1910 triggered hostilities along the border between Mexico and the United States. In particular, the decade following the revolution saw a dramatic rise in the lynching of ethnic Mexicans in Texas. Nicholas Villanueva Jr.‘s new book The Lynching of Mexicans in the Texas Borderlands (University of New Mexico Press, 2017) argues that ethnic and racial tension brought on by the fighting in the borderland made Anglo-Texans feel justified in their violent actions against Mexicans. They were able to use the legal system to their advantage, and their actions often went unpunished. Villanueva’s work further differentiates the borderland lynching of ethnic Mexicans from the Southern lynching of African Americans by asserting that the former was about citizenship and sovereignty, as many victims’ families had resources to investigate the crimes and thereby place the incidents on an international stage. Stephen Hausmann is a doctoral candidate at Temple University and Visiting Instructor of history at the University of Pittsburgh. He is currently writing his dissertation, a history of race and the environment in the Black Hills and surrounding northern plains region of South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

More than just a civil war, the Mexican Revolution in 1910 triggered hostilities along the border between Mexico and the United States. In particular, the decade following the revolution saw a dramatic rise in the lynching of ethnic Mexicans in Texas. Nicholas Villanueva Jr.‘s new book The Lynching of Mexicans in the Texas Borderlands (University of New Mexico Press, 2017) argues that ethnic and racial tension brought on by the fighting in the borderland made Anglo-Texans feel justified in their violent actions against Mexicans. They were able to use the legal system to their advantage, and their actions often went unpunished. Villanueva’s work further differentiates the borderland lynching of ethnic Mexicans from the Southern lynching of African Americans by asserting that the former was about citizenship and sovereignty, as many victims’ families had resources to investigate the crimes and thereby place the incidents on an international stage. Stephen Hausmann is a doctoral candidate at Temple University and Visiting Instructor of history at the University of Pittsburgh. He is currently writing his dissertation, a history of race and the environment in the Black Hills and surrounding northern plains region of South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

More than just a civil war, the Mexican Revolution in 1910 triggered hostilities along the border between Mexico and the United States. In particular, the decade following the revolution saw a dramatic rise in the lynching of ethnic Mexicans in Texas. Nicholas Villanueva Jr.‘s new book The Lynching of Mexicans in the Texas Borderlands (University of New Mexico Press, 2017) argues that ethnic and racial tension brought on by the fighting in the borderland made Anglo-Texans feel justified in their violent actions against Mexicans. They were able to use the legal system to their advantage, and their actions often went unpunished. Villanueva’s work further differentiates the borderland lynching of ethnic Mexicans from the Southern lynching of African Americans by asserting that the former was about citizenship and sovereignty, as many victims’ families had resources to investigate the crimes and thereby place the incidents on an international stage. Stephen Hausmann is a doctoral candidate at Temple University and Visiting Instructor of history at the University of Pittsburgh. He is currently writing his dissertation, a history of race and the environment in the Black Hills and surrounding northern plains region of South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

More than just a civil war, the Mexican Revolution in 1910 triggered hostilities along the border between Mexico and the United States. In particular, the decade following the revolution saw a dramatic rise in the lynching of ethnic Mexicans in Texas. Nicholas Villanueva Jr.‘s new book The Lynching of Mexicans in the Texas Borderlands (University of New Mexico Press, 2017) argues that ethnic and racial tension brought on by the fighting in the borderland made Anglo-Texans feel justified in their violent actions against Mexicans. They were able to use the legal system to their advantage, and their actions often went unpunished. Villanueva’s work further differentiates the borderland lynching of ethnic Mexicans from the Southern lynching of African Americans by asserting that the former was about citizenship and sovereignty, as many victims’ families had resources to investigate the crimes and thereby place the incidents on an international stage. Stephen Hausmann is a doctoral candidate at Temple University and Visiting Instructor of history at the University of Pittsburgh. He is currently writing his dissertation, a history of race and the environment in the Black Hills and surrounding northern plains region of South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices