![[dan-truett-mcwhorter.jpg]](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_473nrD5vEv8/S5hAR2x0JVI/AAAAAAAACVo/caHZJMX-j9o/s400/dan-truett-mcwhorter.jpg)
Today we feature a portrait of Texas Patriot Sam Houston. Following the Alamo, everyone wanted the Texas army to attack Santa Ana. Houston realized that his army was no match for Santa Anna. With a small and poorly equipped army, Houston began a long series of withdrawal movements. He continued to retreat, and stay one step away from Santa Ana's Army. Houston realized that his small army had one battle in them, and he was determined to pick the spot for the Battle. Houston got his chance as he found the Mexican Army napping in an open field near San Jacinto. Houston realized that this was his opportunity, and he attacked. He routed the Mexican Army in 18 minutes, and secured Texas Independence. It was on this day, September 5, in the year 1836, that Sam Houston was elected to be the first President of the Republic of Texas.
I know this is probably going against the grain, but I have a problem labeling a convicted criminal who used political influence to avoid being punished, and then fled the country a patriot. What I understand from my limited reading on the period is that Americans who had moved to Texas (then part of Mexico) wanted the territory to secede from Mexico so they could continue to own slaves, which was illegal in Mexico. Sam Houston was a slave owner and against abolition, he basically helped steal Texas from Mexico.
ReplyDeleteThe new Mexican government was bankrupt and had little money to devote to the military. Settlers were empowered to create their own militias to help control hostile Indian tribes. Texas faced raids from both the Apache and Comanche tribes, and with little military support the few settlers in the region needed help. In the hopes that an influx of settlers could control the Indian raids, the government liberalized its immigration policies for the region for the first time, and settlers from the United States were permitted in the colonies for the first time.
ReplyDeleteAnimosity between the Mexican government and the American settlers in Texas (who were called Texians) began with the Siete Leyes of 1835, when Mexican President and General Antonio López de Santa Anna Pérez de Lebrón abolished the Constitution of 1824 and proclaimed a new anti-federalist constitution in its place.
In American politics beating someone with a cane in that period was common place had hardly deserves the label of "convicted criminal". He was a slave owner, but so was George Washington, and Mary Todd (Abe Lincoln's wife). That was a sad reality of the times. And if ones goes back in history one will find that every country was "stolen" from someone. You must place these things in the context of the times.
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