Texas: an independent state of mind

The only surprise in the Tulia story: It took this long to get this far. Meanwhile, innocent lives are being ruined for no good reason.

The special session is a given, I do believe.

What are the chances they'll try the redistricting thing again, do you think? And come to that, did you know that police don't have to have evidence to back up their statements in court?

How many texans does it take to eat an armadillo?

Three . . . one to pick out the bones, and two to watch for cars.



To me, there is something very revealing in the three heroes of Tejas independence:

James Bowie: After his older brothers had moved to Louisiana, James joined them, and shortly thereafter, wandered over to the hideout near Galvez Town (modern Galveston) of Jean and Pierre La Fitte, and joined them in a little slave smuggling into Louisiana. A some point the brothers La Fitte decided to cut him out, so he went into the land scam business. He was fairly fluent in Spanish, and could write in that language, although little better than he could in English. He forged numerous land grants, and sold off land to which he hadn't the least title in Louisiana and Arkansas. The local Federal land agents soon got wise to his game, and many of his claims were disallowed. Finally, a judge in Arkansas invalidated all of his claims and sales there, so he decided the climate in Tejas suited him better. He eventually wandered as far west as San Antonio de Bejar, where he ingratiated himself with the Alcalde, and married his daughter (he seems to have genuinely participated in the family, and was devasted when typhus killed his wife--her sister was caring for him at the time of his death). He went on to Mexico, where his obvious attempts to get title to land made the government suspicious--so much so that all of the soldiers of Santa Anna's army were looking for him by the time of the assault on the Alamo. He was probably delerious from the fever in the final stages of typhus or typhoid fever, which was killing him anyway, when the Mexicans found him and killed him.

William Barrett Travis studied the law in Alabama, his family having moved there while he was still a boy, after Andrew Jackson had won the Creek War and driven off the original inhabitants. Travis eventually took up the practice of law, and it is worth noting that the gentleman with whom he read law did not want to take him into practice. Travis married a local belle, of good family, and they had a daughter. When his wife was pregnant with a son, and Travis was badly in debt from living a life style he could not support due to his inability to make a living at the law, he fled prosecution for debt, leaving his wife and daughter behind. He eventually established a law practice in Tejas, and was a very vigorous supporter of revolution--he was eventually promoted Lt. Col., and given command of a "battalion of dragoons" (the body actually enrolled didn't merit the designation, for which i do not fault Travis) which he then lead to San Antonio de Bejar, that being considered the frontier of the revolution at the time. In the darkness of the early morning hours when the assault took place, according to the testimony of his personal slave, who survived, he ran to the parapet of the north end of the compound, sword and pistol in hand, and, firing his pistol into the Mexican infantry below, was struck between the eyes by a musket ball, falling dead before his body struck the flooring of the parapet.

David Crockett is by far the most "honorable" man of the three, and the most interesting. He ran away from home at age 13 or 14, and only returned at about 17, leaving again soon after, having again fallen out with his father, a tavern keeper, and very likely an alcoholic. Crockett began a cycle of life which could stand as the type for what frontiersmen of the day did with themselves. He would wander off into the wilderness, stake a claim, clear land, put in a crop, grow bored, and wander off to hunt--killing dozens, and at times, more that a hundred animals, more intent on proving his manly prowess than in getting food or hides for sale. He would then move farther off as civilization approached, and stake a new claim. He served with the Tennessee volunteers under Jackson in the Creek Wars, and, returning to Tennessee, he married an older woman, a widow with children, became a major in the militia, and briefly looked like settling down. But the old wanderlust took over, and he began the cycle again, now dragging an unwilling family with him. In western Tennessee (then very much a wilderness frontier area), he discovered a knack for moving the crowd with a stump speech, and wound up in the Tennessee house. There he proved himself totally clueless in politics (i won't go into details) and managed to alienate Jackson's new party machine, who could have made much of him in the new "Age of the Common Man." He retained his remarkable ability as a stump orator, however, and twice won election to the United States House of Representatives. He gained some national noteriety, and, after someone had published a play based upon him, thinly veiled, he wrote his own book, and promoted it with his stump orator style, passing himself off as the architypal backwoodsman in buckskin. In fact, he had a passion all of his life to be taken for a gentleman, and ran into debt simply on his wardrobe and his style of life while in Washington. He left politics for a few years, returning to the wandering, hunting style of life, but now his wife and family refused to accompany him. He eventually ran for a third term in the House, but, by then, the people of western Tennessee were becoming more civilized, and the animosity of the Jackson Democratic machine far outweighed his homespun oratory on the stump. He vowed that: "If I am not elected, the voters can go to hell, and i will go to Texas." He was not, they did not, and he did. He wandered through the last vestiges of western Tennessee wilderness hunting, and picked up a few companions, and then crossed the river to Arkansas. There, in the Little Rock region, he picked up some more impressionable young men who shared his delight in hunting simply for hunting's sake, and they followed him into what would become Oklahoma (one, Ben McCulloch, would soon become one of the founders of the Texas Rangers, a body originally formed to patrol the frontier with a Mexico which refused to acknowledge Texan independence). Finally arrived in Tejas, and after several weeks in "Indian Country" on the hunt, he learned of the likelihood of war with Mexico. Nothing daunted, he and most (but not all) of his young companions rode off to "see what all the fun was about." As dawn broke over the Alamo, with nearly everyone inside dead, the Alcalde was brought to the mission to identify those within. Crockett, it seems, was found in one of the outworks, surrounded by dead Americans and Mexicans, with his rifle broken, apparently having been used as a club. The truth of the matter will never be verified, but the stories still popular in Tejas that he was brought living before Santa Anna, and then executed for his defiance, have no supporting evidence.

Quite a strange trio, and their status as heroes is to me, as i've noted, revelatory of Tejano attitudes.

Setanta, I happened to be in San Antonio a few years ago and made the obligatory visit to the Alamo. It inspired me to wonder: How was it that the Alamo martyrs died fighting for their freedom when they were on Mexican soil at the time?

So I bought a copy of "Three Roads to the Alamo" which has a lot of the info you include in your post. What a tale! Not exactly the version John Wayne starred in...

Re hotels for Texas Democrats: I have one in Tulsa I can recommend. Close to the airport, and they offer an AARP discount!

And i have an AARP card too ! ! !


You know, i feel certain that Wayne, Lawrence Harvey and Richard Widmark would not have wanted a whole lot of historical accuracy in that movie. You inspired me, D'art, here's a link for that movie:

Davey "The Duke" Crockett does Tejas[/color]

I am gratified to know that someone at the Alamo is letting a little truth circulate, but i can't help but think that this is generally not known in Tejas, or the responsible party would be swinging from a cottonwood somewhere by the river . . .

Tartarin, I remember some talk about a redistricting deadline that passed when the legislature was in OK. I thought that this was a federal deadline - but as can happen, I may be wrong.

Thanks for the link, Setanta. I love the costumes those actors are wearing. So chic--despite the brutal conditions they had to endure!

One of the improvements, if memory serves, that some of those brave heroes were trying to bring to Tejas was the introduction of slavery. Not in the film version, though.

In the simpler days of the 1950's, D'art, when Fess Parker played David Crockett for Disney, Bowie was shown with a black slave, although i don't recall if they showed Travis owning a slave. But, then, in 1950's Amer-ee-kay, everyone knew that slavery was o.k. in them old-timey days, just not anymore . . .

There's a kind of neat restaurant down in Bandera which is wall-to-wall John Wayne memorabilia. Now John Wayne is one of my least favorite actors and I wish, oh I wish, he were still here to witness the new historically accurate (they say) Alamo movie which is coming out at ?Christmas? That's gonna be a treat...

Oooo, i dint know that . . . come on, details Tart . . .

I think Dennis Quaid is in it, but my memory of what I heard or read somewhere is hazy. Maybe they were filming somewhere down around Goliad. Battle scenes. I'll google and let you know.

Here ya go, Set: http://www.thealamofilm.com/

Oooo, yes please . . . thank you very much . . . most people today don't know it, but Goliad was the scene of a truly despicably contrived massacre by the Mexicans which stirred up indignation and brought many volunteers to Tejas. The garrison there had been warned to vamoose, but they left it until too late, and when they surrendered to Santa Anna, they were slaughtered. "Remember Goliad" was the actual slogan of that war.

Ah, yer a sweetie . . . even if ya are a kitty . . .

Goof -- it was shot at a ranch in Drippin'. Where I frequently eat breakfast...

Here's more "ambiente": http://www.bayarea.com/mld/cctimes/5357161.htm

They're gonna speak authentic Cherokee AND 19th century Spanish... This will be interesting. I might even rent it.

Fascinatin' stuff, Boss, i'm gone . . . took in hook, line and sinker . . . now, i wonder if Travis and Crockett will have Tennessee accents (there would have been no "Alabama" accent when Travis was a boy), and whether or not Bowie will be portrayed as the suave, charming, Spanish-speaking dandy he liked to see himself as . . .

Thanks again for the history, Set.

Since Tarty beat me to the link I'll point out the cast--Dennis Quaid as Sam Houston, Billy Bob Thorton as Davy Crockett, Jason Patrick as Sam Bowie.

A couple of things to note about Colonneh, (the Raven) as the Cherokee called him:

--as an adolescent he ran away from home to live with the Indians. He spent much of his life living in both the white and the red man's world. He was adopted by the Cherokee chief Oolooteka, who gave him the name above.

--he fought with and revered Andrew Jackson and became a staunch Jacksonian Democrat

--while in Congress Houston thrashed a representative from Ohio with a hickory cane. The assault resulted from a perceived insult over an Indian rations contract. Houston was soon arrested and tried before the House of Representatives. Francis Scott Key served as his attorney. The month-long proceedings ended in an official reprimand and a fine.

--and his claim to fame was, of course, defeating Santa Anna's forces at the decisive battle of San Jacinto. The "Texican" irregulars shouted "Remember the Alamo!" as they routed a much larger Mexican army while they were at siesta.

--Houston became the first regularly elected president of the Republic of Texas, defeating Stephen F. Austin. The town of Houston was founded in 1836, named in his honor, and served as the capital of the republic during most of his first administration.

--he was a raging alcoholic who was also called "Big Drunk" by the Cherokee

Re: Texas: an independent state of mind


Yes; Gov. Rick Perry is considering bringing up redistricting in a special session this summer. To pass it, he would need those 21 Senate votes for debate and a quorum in the House (which the Democrats denied last month).

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst told the Houston Chronicle editorial board on Monday that he is inclined to continue to use a Senate procedure that would mean two-thirds of the state's 31 senators would have to agree to consider the redistricting issue before there could be debate on the topic. That would mean 11 of the state's 12 Democratic senators could kill GOP efforts to bring up redistricting.

And this article is interesting from the standpoint of how the votes might be counted.

These tales serve to illustrate how we view our contemporaries, too. Bush is just as mythologized by Texas Republicans today as were the heroes of Texas independance.