5 ms·

Eh, like many things, there were a lot of causes for The Texas Revolution, and, by extension, The Battle of the Alamo. It's pretty reductive, and from a 21st ce

Eh, like many things, there were a lot of causes for The Texas Revolution, and, by extension, The Battle of the Alamo. It's pretty reductive, and from a 21st century POV, to say that it was about slavery first and foremost. There was a lot of unrest in Mexico around this time (Texas wasn't the only breakaway region), there were plenty of American settlers who didn't integrate with the Mexican culture (although there were plenty that did, and plenty Texians who fought for independence as well), and there was a significant geographical distance between Mexico City and the settlers. Slavery was a motivation for some, that is undeniable. But like much, it's more complicated than that.

consumer451 3y ago
I agree that there were many factors, and I didn't say the Alamo was all about slavery, but apparently a large component. Losing the ability to profitably harvest cotton was a major factor, according to this winner of that Texan historical prize. Learning history as kid in Massachusetts, the fact that slavery was any part of the Texas Revolution was never mentioned. > Texas Convention of 1836 > ... It also explicitly legalized slavery... [0] Somehow we were never taught any of that. But I get it, it's nicer to wrap up history in a nice bow when teaching children. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Revolution
- dylan604 3y ago
  >Learning history as kid in Massachusetts, the fact that slavery was any part of the Texas Revolution was never mentioned. That leads me to wonder what were you taught. It seems strange to me that my Texas education taught more about slavery than a New England state. How could slavery be left out like that. History classes for me were a long time ago, and there are definitely things I have to ask myself if they were not really taught, or I just didn't learn/retain/care when they were taught. For example, my recollection of WWII history classes was heavily focused on the European campaign while the Pacific campaign was much more limited. Is that bias on what I paid attention to, or was that how it was actually taught?
  - consumer451 3y ago
    > It seems strange to me that my Texas education taught more about slavery than a New England state. Me too! As I grow older, so many of my early supposistions have been proven wrong. Regarding WWII, this has been one of the most interesting threads on HN which I have participated in. For a further example of "it's more complicated than we are taught in school" see my crazy comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40089205 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40089205
  - dabbledash 3y ago
    You probably spent a lot more time on the details of TX history than they did in Mass
    - dylan604 2y ago
      But don't you think it would be the Texans white washing the slavery aspect than the northern states? That's my point of confusion.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
tonmoy 3y ago
While there were more reasons for sure, I had never heard about the slavery aspect until today. Doing some google search showed me indeed historians think that it was one of the reasons and I find it surprising it isn’t talked about as much
- consumer451 3y ago
  If I was to learn a larger lesson from experiencing acquiring this major detail about the Texas Revolution myself, it might be that history is much more complicated than we are taught. Another huge example for me is that even though we escaped the communist-bloc when I was a kid, where my mom had to de-program me from preschool lessons about Lenin... I still bought into the whole "WWII was won with American industry, and Russian blood" story. Meanwhile, a major missing fact in that story is that Stalin and Hitler started WWII together, as allies. A few days after this pact was signed, Poland was invaded from both East and West. It is very arguable that without this agreement, even nutjob Hitler would not have tried to invade all of Europe. Now that I know that, it makes a lot more sense. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pac... BTW, this historical fact is now illegal to discuss in Russia: https://www.jpost.com/international/comparing-soviet-union-to-nazi-germany-now-illegal-in-russia-672821 https://www.jpost.com/international/comparing-soviet-union-t...
  - Hikikomori 3y ago
    Don't really see how that fact changes that story, both can be true.
    - consumer451 3y ago
      Agreed, both could be true. This is another example of the simplified "kid history" which we were all taught. It is actually much more complicated. As an example from "the other side," in the USA, were we ever taught about the Business Plot?[0] Or the Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden?[1] Why doesn't every American know about these events? However, in the case of “Russian Blood won WWII.” 1) This patriotic story which still rings true in Russia today, would be WTF’ed if the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was mentioned in the same breath. As in, so many died because papa Stalin allied with Satan Hilter? WTF? 2) It was actually mostly Belarusian and Ukrainian soldiers who lost their lives on the front lines, not Russians. Because of course the Kremlin would decide to send them in first. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1939_Nazi_rally_at_Madison_Square_Garden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1939_Nazi_rally_at_Madison_Squ...
bitzun 3y ago
They sure put a lot of effort into enshrining chattel slavery into law and preventing its destruction. It's the only state to secede from another nation twice to protect slavery.
- theultdev 3y ago
  [flagged]
- dustincoates 3y ago
  Correct, I put that in my comment, where I said that slavery was a factor.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - jacobolus 3y ago
    Slavery was the primary motivation (just as it was the primary motivation for the 1861 pro-slavery rebellion of the US South). The weakness of the Mexican central state and its logistical difficulties sustaining its army was a convenient (for the white Texans) bonus that made their pro-slavery revolt possible. If you want to keep digging, you can add American expansionism and ambitions to conquer big parts of Mexico, i.e. a "manifest destiny" land grab. The US was happy to tacitly support the Texans because whether they failed or succeeded it was relatively low risk for the US government and their success was likely to further US interests.
    - 0xBDB 2y ago
      It's fair to say that the primary cause of Texan separatism was slavery. It's also fair to say that Santa Anna was a proto-fascist and that was a legitimate factor, not a convenience. Lorenzo de Zavala, the former Mexican finance minister, didn't become Vice President of Texas for slavery or American expansionism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorenzo_de_Zavala https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorenzo_de_Zavala
doodlebugging 3y ago
Let's take a trip back in time to a period just before the Texas Revolution. Perhaps we can find some basis for claims that a leading cause of the revolution was Anglo settler's desire to increase the number of slaves in Texas to help them build the economy and Mexico's reluctance to allow more slaves. For this trip we will briefly reflect on the writings of a man who traveled to Texas in 1828 to gather information about Texas - plants, geology, business and industry, the political climate, etc for a report back to leaders in Mexico City so that they could use the intelligence to shape their own policies relating to the province. We will use the book *Texas by Teran*. [0] [1] [0] https://archive.org/details/texasbyterandiar0000mier https://archive.org/details/texasbyterandiar0000mier [1] https://utpress.utexas.edu/9780292752351/ https://utpress.utexas.edu/9780292752351/ He touches on the subject of slavery several times since it is becoming, at the time, a point of friction between the Mexican government and the Anglo settlers. A couple of diary entries that support the fact that slavery was a keystone issue in Anglo settler's decisions to separate from Mexico follow. pp38 - He is making recommendations in a letter to President Guadalupe Victoria and his second recommendation notes - "If the North Americans are allowed to introduce slaves, the Mexicans of Tejas should also be permitted to do so, but if slavery is denied to some it should be denied to all." In 1824 Mexico adopted a new constitution that abolished slavery. By 1829 they elected their first president who had partial African ancestry (Guerrero). Slavery was not allowed in Mexico at the time of Teran's journey. pp 56 - The most persistent goal for this colony is to obtain permission for the introduction of slaves. Without them they say that their settlement cannot prosper, nor can much of the land be cultivated, because there are forests so thick that only with negro labor can they be cleared. They petition the state government for permission to have slaves and make the following proposals: that the slave will be such only temporarily until he repays through his labor the cost of owning him, and that his descendants will be emancipated. There is more in that entry that I encourage people to read but the gist is that anglo settlers wanted slaves and were willing to get them into the territory whether the Mexicans permitted it or not.
- consumer451 3y ago
  Thank you very much for these details. I know every country wants to teach their children the simplest, easiest to digest truth. But we are not children here, and this is why I come to this website.

consumer451 3y ago

I agree that there were many factors, and I didn't say the Alamo was all about slavery, but apparently a large component. Losing the ability to profitably harvest cotton was a major factor, according to this winner of that Texan historical prize. Learning history as kid in Massachusetts, the fact that slavery was any part of the Texas Revolution was never mentioned. > Texas Convention of 1836 > ... It also explicitly legalized slavery... [0] Somehow we were never taught any of that. But I get it, it's nicer to wrap up history in a nice bow when teaching children. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Revolution

dylan604 3y ago
>Learning history as kid in Massachusetts, the fact that slavery was any part of the Texas Revolution was never mentioned. That leads me to wonder what were you taught. It seems strange to me that my Texas education taught more about slavery than a New England state. How could slavery be left out like that. History classes for me were a long time ago, and there are definitely things I have to ask myself if they were not really taught, or I just didn't learn/retain/care when they were taught. For example, my recollection of WWII history classes was heavily focused on the European campaign while the Pacific campaign was much more limited. Is that bias on what I paid attention to, or was that how it was actually taught?
- consumer451 3y ago
  > It seems strange to me that my Texas education taught more about slavery than a New England state. Me too! As I grow older, so many of my early supposistions have been proven wrong. Regarding WWII, this has been one of the most interesting threads on HN which I have participated in. For a further example of "it's more complicated than we are taught in school" see my crazy comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40089205 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40089205
- dabbledash 3y ago
  You probably spent a lot more time on the details of TX history than they did in Mass
  - dylan604 2y ago
    But don't you think it would be the Texans white washing the slavery aspect than the northern states? That's my point of confusion.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]

tonmoy 3y ago

While there were more reasons for sure, I had never heard about the slavery aspect until today. Doing some google search showed me indeed historians think that it was one of the reasons and I find it surprising it isn’t talked about as much

consumer451 3y ago
If I was to learn a larger lesson from experiencing acquiring this major detail about the Texas Revolution myself, it might be that history is much more complicated than we are taught. Another huge example for me is that even though we escaped the communist-bloc when I was a kid, where my mom had to de-program me from preschool lessons about Lenin... I still bought into the whole "WWII was won with American industry, and Russian blood" story. Meanwhile, a major missing fact in that story is that Stalin and Hitler started WWII together, as allies. A few days after this pact was signed, Poland was invaded from both East and West. It is very arguable that without this agreement, even nutjob Hitler would not have tried to invade all of Europe. Now that I know that, it makes a lot more sense. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pac... BTW, this historical fact is now illegal to discuss in Russia: https://www.jpost.com/international/comparing-soviet-union-to-nazi-germany-now-illegal-in-russia-672821 https://www.jpost.com/international/comparing-soviet-union-t...
- Hikikomori 3y ago
  Don't really see how that fact changes that story, both can be true.
  - consumer451 3y ago
    Agreed, both could be true. This is another example of the simplified "kid history" which we were all taught. It is actually much more complicated. As an example from "the other side," in the USA, were we ever taught about the Business Plot?[0] Or the Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden?[1] Why doesn't every American know about these events? However, in the case of “Russian Blood won WWII.” 1) This patriotic story which still rings true in Russia today, would be WTF’ed if the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was mentioned in the same breath. As in, so many died because papa Stalin allied with Satan Hilter? WTF? 2) It was actually mostly Belarusian and Ukrainian soldiers who lost their lives on the front lines, not Russians. Because of course the Kremlin would decide to send them in first. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1939_Nazi_rally_at_Madison_Square_Garden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1939_Nazi_rally_at_Madison_Squ...

bitzun 3y ago

They sure put a lot of effort into enshrining chattel slavery into law and preventing its destruction. It's the only state to secede from another nation twice to protect slavery.

theultdev 3y ago
[flagged]
dustincoates 3y ago
Correct, I put that in my comment, where I said that slavery was a factor.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- jacobolus 3y ago
  Slavery was the primary motivation (just as it was the primary motivation for the 1861 pro-slavery rebellion of the US South). The weakness of the Mexican central state and its logistical difficulties sustaining its army was a convenient (for the white Texans) bonus that made their pro-slavery revolt possible. If you want to keep digging, you can add American expansionism and ambitions to conquer big parts of Mexico, i.e. a "manifest destiny" land grab. The US was happy to tacitly support the Texans because whether they failed or succeeded it was relatively low risk for the US government and their success was likely to further US interests.
  - 0xBDB 2y ago
    It's fair to say that the primary cause of Texan separatism was slavery. It's also fair to say that Santa Anna was a proto-fascist and that was a legitimate factor, not a convenience. Lorenzo de Zavala, the former Mexican finance minister, didn't become Vice President of Texas for slavery or American expansionism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorenzo_de_Zavala https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorenzo_de_Zavala

doodlebugging 3y ago

Let's take a trip back in time to a period just before the Texas Revolution. Perhaps we can find some basis for claims that a leading cause of the revolution was Anglo settler's desire to increase the number of slaves in Texas to help them build the economy and Mexico's reluctance to allow more slaves. For this trip we will briefly reflect on the writings of a man who traveled to Texas in 1828 to gather information about Texas - plants, geology, business and industry, the political climate, etc for a report back to leaders in Mexico City so that they could use the intelligence to shape their own policies relating to the province. We will use the book *Texas by Teran*. [0] [1] [0] https://archive.org/details/texasbyterandiar0000mier https://archive.org/details/texasbyterandiar0000mier [1] https://utpress.utexas.edu/9780292752351/ https://utpress.utexas.edu/9780292752351/ He touches on the subject of slavery several times since it is becoming, at the time, a point of friction between the Mexican government and the Anglo settlers. A couple of diary entries that support the fact that slavery was a keystone issue in Anglo settler's decisions to separate from Mexico follow. pp38 - He is making recommendations in a letter to President Guadalupe Victoria and his second recommendation notes - "If the North Americans are allowed to introduce slaves, the Mexicans of Tejas should also be permitted to do so, but if slavery is denied to some it should be denied to all." In 1824 Mexico adopted a new constitution that abolished slavery. By 1829 they elected their first president who had partial African ancestry (Guerrero). Slavery was not allowed in Mexico at the time of Teran's journey. pp 56 - The most persistent goal for this colony is to obtain permission for the introduction of slaves. Without them they say that their settlement cannot prosper, nor can much of the land be cultivated, because there are forests so thick that only with negro labor can they be cleared. They petition the state government for permission to have slaves and make the following proposals: that the slave will be such only temporarily until he repays through his labor the cost of owning him, and that his descendants will be emancipated. There is more in that entry that I encourage people to read but the gist is that anglo settlers wanted slaves and were willing to get them into the territory whether the Mexicans permitted it or not.

consumer451 3y ago
Thank you very much for these details. I know every country wants to teach their children the simplest, easiest to digest truth. But we are not children here, and this is why I come to this website.