Kevin Gannon: The only reason it took 9 years for TX to be annexed was bc of northern opposition (ironically, there were threats from Massachusetts to secede if TX became part of the US!). The reason TX whites wanted independence from Mexico in the first place was bc Mexico abolished slavery in 1829.

Gonna be a lot of dunking on this today, so as someone who wrote his dissertation on secession movements, let me point out: 1. This is not a majoritarian mvmt. Like 1861 secession in TX, it's a minority coup 2. It looks majoritarian bc of gerrymandering and disfranchisement (1/2)

Texas Secessionsts win GOP backing for independence vote: 'Major step'www.newsweek.com The state GOP has backed a referendum on leaving the American Union in its 2024 legislative platform.

3. Nearly 60% of TX's pop is BIPOC, and new pop growth in TX is basically a 10:1 BIPOC to white ratio. So before you fire up your "let them go" hot takes, consider that you'd be advocating for the abandonment of a lot of folks (many disfranchised or inadequately represented) who hate this shit too

Texas Secessionsts win GOP backing for independence vote: 'Major step'www.newsweek.com The state GOP has backed a referendum on leaving the American Union in its 2024 legislative platform.

Also worth pointing out that, despite all these yahoos' bleating about Texas's "proud history" as an independent nation, most of the original TX leaders couldn't wait to be annexed to the US and that was the goal of most TX "revolutionaries." (Except Mirabeau Lamar, but he was an outlier)

The only reason it took 9 years for TX to be annexed was bc of northern opposition (ironically, there were threats from Massachusetts to secede if TX became part of the US!). The reason TX whites wanted independence from Mexico in the first place was bc Mexico abolished slavery in 1829.

Even though white US settlers had taken an oath to obey Mexico's constitution and laws to get the land they settled on, as soon as Mexico made it clear they intended to enforce the law, even in Texas, slaveowners started talking revolution and annexation to the US.

So when you hear these present-day secessionists talking about an independent Texas, know that they're evolving a "glorious legacy" of a fifth-column movement of proslavery landgrabbers and oathbreakers, one that had disastrous consequences for both Blacks and Natives in the long run.

(if you want to know more, start with Frederick Merck's classic "Slavery and the Annexation of Texas," and Randolph Campbell's "An Empire for Slavery")

The new Sam Haynes book would also be a pretty good place to start for a general audience.

Have heard good things, but haven't yet read it myself. Need to move it up in the stack.

I have a feeling most pro secession Texans wouldn't be so pro if they understood what it would cost them just to replace all the resources they get from the Union. Not to mention the diplomatic costs. It would make brexit look like an inconsequential political spat.

Apart from moral reasons a 'let Texas go' attitude does not deserve respect, actually letting Texas go would result in significant disintegration to the US beyond TX, and would make several different types of war inevitable.

In ancient times (‘79?) Phil Donahue had some supremacist group on TV wanted to build their pure white ethnostate. He took them apart methodically as they had no plan or real grasp of reality beyond “THIS WILL BE PERFECT, JUST ALL WHITE PEOPLE!” These TX grifters: know their whole bit is just hooey

This is also coming from someone who only taught US Civics at a high school level but also my reading of specific court cases, especially Texas v White 1869 that there is no constitutional right to succeed. In fact there are no actual apparatus in the Constitution to initiate succession.

True.

What a great & informative thread for non-Texans. It's worth thinking about how many times China broke up & reformed over the last 4,000 years. A 250-year-old nation is just a baby. The long view reassures me, because it means "the American Dream" didn't fail: it's just still a *work in progress.*

I am reading Graeber’s final book, and he had a theory that re-frames the American project as being a whole lot older and greater in scope than I had seen it described previously, and yeah, 250 years isn’t very long

I love this entire thread. I haul all of this out every time someone starts going on about the Alamo etc. mythology b.s. &pushback on it. Way too many people believe a lot of 🗑 in 40s to 70s Westerns. I also throw in all of the squatting a lot of Americans did once they decided to ignore MX laws.

Interesting. History I did not know.

TBH I'm pretty sure the current secessionist totally feel like they're continuing the work of their revered forefathers

Texas: the most successful filibuster.

When I was going to a community college in Texas, I brought this up with one of my professors as part of why I wasn't particularly impressed by the grand revolutionary history of the state. He was... rather upset about my comments, and insisted it Wasn't Like That, Really.

A lot of the profs who teach TX history in the state are, shall we say, unreconstructed.

I was so disappointed, because I really admired him. I also assumed he knew better than me. By the time I found out that I had not, in fact, been wrong on that point, I was also finding out how many other things he'd taught had been wrong. Alas. Good at poetry-writing instruction, though.

He was a lit prof, not a history prof, FWIW. But I'd never taken a class on Texas history--to the point that I went non-degree-seeking rather than getting a second B.A., just to avoid that specific state requirement--so I figured, hey, he'd know more! I had misunderstood the history! I had not.

Oh wow. Yeah, it's definitely a thing (I taught at two unis in Texas) 😕

Still need to properly reconstruct the whole south. Even Alexandria should go back to DC.

"unreconstructed" Chef's kiss.gif

On behalf of community college history professors in Texas, I apologize for that guy. Many of us teach the plain facts that Kevin describes here.

Possibly the history professors in that community college /did/ teach those facts. He was a lit prof! I don't even remember why it came up; I was talking about something with him after class.

I used to teach Texas History in middle school. Holy shit, our official version of Texas' history is soooooo far removed from reality.

I took the required (then, now?) 7th grade TX history and I don't remember learning all the b.s. a lot of people seem to think is real. I find that true about a lot of things in the public schools I went to. I assume it's because many/most of my teachers were POC.

That can make a HUGE difference. We were an all WASP department who would be ok with presenting John Wayne's Alamo as truth. Majority Hispanic student body and they literally never discussed any non-white role in Texas history. I did of course & frankly the kids appreciate I told the truth.

I appreciate you. Don't get me started on John Wayne! I got into a flamewar about that asshole just this morning on FB. 😆 Damn Boomers...

I once made a troll on Twitter stop tryna troll me for a minute to tell me what I had to say about John Wayne made him sad. *true story John Wayne would leave table reads if co stars came in military uniform. He said his service to the country was entertainment. What a little weak boy.

I know one boomer family member has a literal shrine to him in their wood shop. sigh.

The only state to take up arms not once but twice in defense of owning other human beings as property.

Also didn't the Mexican government have an agreement to tax them after a certain period, and when the bill came due the settlers flipped out?

Mexico abolished slavery by an act of Congress in 1837 (except for forced labor of natives). Texas was already an independent Republic by 1836 Treaties of Velasco. 1829 was the Guerrero Decree, which specifically exempted Tejas y Coahuila and was irrelevant since he was deposed a few weeks later.

The Guerrero Decree no doubt stoked the flames of revolution, but to say "Texas seceded because Mexico outlawed slavery" is obviously false.

CAAM | #blackhistory: On September 15, 1829, Afro-Mestizo Mexican President Vicente Ramon Guerrero issued the Guerrero Decree, prohibiting slavery in most of Mexicocaamuseum.org Between the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs and 1829, 200,000 enslaved Africans were taken to New Spain, which we know today as Mexico. An estimated 1.3 million Mexicans today claim African ancestry, a...

In the eyes of the revolutionists, the decree, plus the fact they knew which way the wind was blowing as the new constitution was taking shape, was enough to convince them abolition was a settled fact and coming for them.

It's hard to square that with your statement: "The reason TX whites wanted independence from Mexico in the first place was bc Mexico abolished slavery in 1829." So are we agreed: 1. Mexico didn't abolish slavery in 1829. 2. Mexico never abolished slavery in Mexican Texas, de facto.

I also find that in our rush to condemn the institution of slavery, we whitewash the "Napoleon of the West" Santa Anna's dissolving of Congress, jailing of his political opponents, consolidation/federalization of all government offices & power, nullification of previous treaties & contracts.

What you should rightly focus on are the anti-immigrant laws of April 6, 1830 passed under Bustamante that banned further immigration from the US (including slaves), rescinded a 10 year exemption from property tax that settlers had already been granted & canceled empresario contracts.

Take your whataboutism elsewhere, please

We can condemn multiple groups of being awful for different crimes at the same time Also it's very suspicious why you'd take the word of white people who owned human beings at face value Almost as if we should probably consider slavers as unreliable narrators

We fought alongside the CSA to preserve slavery, pretty sure, "because of chattel slavery" was in our independence movement as well

With respect, that's quibble over trivia. Whatever specific year Mexico legally banned slavery, the handwriting was on the wall when Texas seceded. Just as the handwriting was on the wall when the Confederate states seceded from the US. Both secessions were about preserving slavery.

Texas was one of four separatist movements that started when Santa Anna came to power. Yucatán (1841), Republic of the Rio Grande (1836) and Zacatecas (1835) also issued declarations of independence around the same time as Texas (1836).

And that proves that the Texas secession had nothing to do with slavery how? Please don't spoil my enjoyment of your threads by going all Lost Cause on me.

Huh. I had to take a full year of Texas History as a San Antonio-area 7th grader and boy was that not any part of it. How odd.

One major reason was slavery, yeah, not the biggest one though. The biggest reason was Santa Ana's incompetence and many many Mexican states revolted against his dictatorial takeover.

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