I am sure someone can clarify, but I read that the Mexicans under Santa Anna had ended slavery and that the Texans wanted to keep their slaves and that was the crux of the division.
This was apparently why the rest of the States did not help Texas as Texas coming into the Union would have tipped the balancein favour of slave states.
If this is true the the Alamo was less a fight against tyranny and a defense of salvery.
Your first sentence has truth. I don't know if slavery ended under SA but Mexico outlawed slavery. And slavery was one cause of the division between Mexico and Texas. For some people, like W.B. Travis, however, slavery was the issue.
The states themselves did not help Texas, but individuals (many from the south) came to the aid of Texas, after reading about the conflict in the newspapers.
The History Channel did a great documentary on Myths and Legends of the Alamo. It should be available on their website.
The Mexican Government outlawed Slavery in 1821 after gaining independance from Spain. Americans came into Texas under the Consititution of 1824 with their slaves, knowing it was illegal, and it all started from there.
I live in Texas, the home state of George W. Bush. I apologize.
I live in Texas, the home state of George W. Bush. I apologize.
I suppose I can forgive you for living in our state. How soon can you leave?
lol, given the number of "Secede!" Texas flag bumper stickers I've started seeing around here in Texas, I think a good number of ya'll red staters are ready to head out. :D
shareIt wasn't just slavery. Mexico wanted to settle the land and offered 10 years of property tax exemption to settlers and many people moved in from the states, many more than came from the rest of Mexico. As a result, Mexico prohibited further immigration to Texas from the states in 1830. The property tax exemption was rescinded and huge tariffs were put in place on imports from the states. Settlers were ordered to comply with the prohibition against slavery or face military intervention. These developments, coupled with the fact that Texas enjoyed very little if any representation in Mexico's federal government, and additionally, because the capitol of Texas was several hundred miles away in the Mexican state of Coahuila, frustrated the settlers and created embers of revolutionary fire. When Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana came on the scene in 1833 and installed himself as a dictator, and doing all that goes with that like getting rid of state legislatures and whatnot, it was like throwing dry grass on those embers. Slavery was not a core issue, most of the settlers didn't own slaves but had to deal with the same issues as the slave owners. Roughly 40,000 settlers, roughly 5,000 slaves.
Slavery did play a big role in Texas' involvement in the Civil War, though.
I live in Texas, the home state of George W. Bush. I apologize.
I suppose I can forgive you for living in our state. How soon can you leave?
WAs Santa Ana the dictator of all Mexico or just some caudillo in the North?
As wmecc stated it wasn't only about slavery but also about not wanting to obey several laws proclaimed by mexican government.
Mexico allowed a number of settlers under 2 conditions:
1. They have to be catholic.
2. To obey the mexican law and authorities.
But the settlers didn't want to obey the mexican laws, some of them kept their slaves and didn't want to pay the required taxes for the land they just have received practically for free.
Besides most of the settlers were protestants not catholics.
Finally, USA agents intervened directly in the conflict helping anglo-texans and encouraging them to separate from Mexico to join USA.
Mercenaries were hired from everywhere, some came by their own will but still were paid with money or granting them lands, therefore they should be considered mercenaries as well.
The Alamo (the myth and the movie) is a sad ode to slavery, greed, treason and deceit, but somehow it managed to become a symbol of the "independence" of Texas. An "independence" that lasted only a few years because Texas joined the USA in 1845.
Just a couple of years later the US army would cross the border between Texas and Mexico in order to invade the southern neighbor despite the fact that there weren't any real pretext nor justifications to do it, except greed to possess those lands that today includes the states of Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and California.
Years later, during the civil war Texas sided with the pro-slavery Confederation. I wonder why...
As you can see this movie is totally inaccurate on its depiction of the events that happened in the battle of El Alamo. i.e. David Crockett was shot in the back as any traitor or mercenary after he was captured. He wasn't killed in action fighting bravely.
But of course you are not supposed to know the truth behind the myth. It's not convenient.
The truth of Crockett's fate is not known. The Mexican army's report was that he was captured, "renounced the cause" [tortured], and executed. That is not unexpected-- he was the famous frontiersman and Congressman, 'representative' of the obvious fact that it all amounted to a US of A v. Mexico showdown to possess Mexico's northern lands, that it had not settled or developed. Susannah Dickinson said she recognized Crockett by his 'unusual cap' lying dead outside one of the barracks near the chapel. John Wayne, who did not deny the film's metaphorical comparison to the Cold War, knew the movie could not depict Crockett dying by the Mexican version. But anyone knowledgeable about the Alamo would know that what he did portray is 99% untenable; and that upon successful invasion of the fort, one of the first things the Mexican army would have done is take steps to prevent anyone from blowing up the powder and shot. Reportedly, it was still tried by one Texas defender, who was killed at once.
shareWHERE did you read this crap, rice?
In Louis Farrakhan's "church" ?
Or was it in "Reverend" Wright's church?
No, because the Mexicans had a peon system that forced men and woman to work on haciendas, and face corporal punishment if they escaped. If Santa Anna hated slavery so much, he certainly had no problem forcing his own people into it.
Check out my blog: http://brians-things-that-are-cool.tumblr.com/
You've been reading a lot of revisionist crap.
shareThe thing about politics and history is that the former is so polarized and the latter is so complex that anyone can read anything about the former into the latter.
Myth
share