March 15, 2022
A study of Texas history that shows how the era of revolution was a contest of many sides. Wresting Texas away from Mexico wasn't just the work of Davy Crockett and Sam Houston. Haynes, director of the Center for Greater Southwestern Studies at the University of Texas at Arlington, opens with a party of German freethinkers recruited by an Englishman in New York with the promise of free land--but not forewarned that the Comanches had designs on that land themselves. Then came a wave of eastern woodland Native peoples who had been driven out of their homelands by White settlement, guided by a canny leader who, though refused permission to colonize, did so anyway. They faced down Comanches along with many other neighbors. "The Indian refugees who came to Texas from the United States," writes Haynes, "would find an even more diverse collection of Native peoples already living there." Then came Anglo fortune-seekers and settlers, such as a Mississippi speculator who, "following in the footsteps of Stephen F. Austin, had been working for more than a year to establish his colony in the Piney Woods." That colony put him up against Native peoples, the Hispanos of the town of Nacogdoches, and a nest of ruffians who had fled from Louisiana when the U.S. Army established an outpost there. All these parties came into conflict during the revolutionary era, and in the end, as Haynes documents, it was the pro-slavery Whites who initiated their revolution after learning that Mexico was abolishing slavery who emerged victorious. The effects of newly established White supremacy were many, including the removal of many Tejanos, Hispanic Texans who had joined in that revolution, from positions of authority or power. One was the guerrilla fighter Juan Segu�n, driven from the mayorship of San Antonio in 1842. As Haynes notes, sharply, "Anglos dominated the city council; 140 years would pass before the town elected a Mexican-American mayor again." A much-needed exploration of the complex racial history of early Texas that won't please the remember-the-Alamo crowd.
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May 2, 2022
Historian Haynes (Unfinished Revolution) delivers an eye-opening if somewhat exaggerated revisionist history of the Texas revolution. Debunking myths and adding depth to the “familiar Texas story,” Haynes claims that before the Alamo, Tennessee congressman Davy Crockett was “famous simply for being famous.” Elsewhere, Haynes briskly recounts Mexican general Antonio López de Santa Anna’s 1836 defeat of the Alamo’s defenders—including Crockett, frontiersman Jim Bowie, and lawyer William Barret Travis—and pursuit of Sam Houston’s ragtag army of Anglo-Texans across southeast Texas. In Lynchburg, near the confluence of Buffalo Bayou and the San Jacinto River, Houston finally decided “to stand and fight,” scoring a lopsided victory that forced Santa Anna to recognize Texas independence. Throughout, Haynes convincingly chips away at nearly 200 years of hagiography that has elevated the role of white settlers in shaping Texas. He details how the displacement of the Cherokee and other eastern tribes affected Plains tribes, and delves into the role slavery played in colonial and republican Texas, though his claim that the Texas revolution was spurred in part by Anglo fears that the Mexican government would emancipate enslaved people in the Texian colonies overstates the available evidence. Still, this is a robust reconsideration of a crucial turning point in American history.
May 1, 2022
Historian Haynes' history of early Texas goes beyond the usual focus on battles at the Alamo and San Jacinto, widening his scope to include all who lived in or emigrated to Texas. Instead of discussing Native Americans as a monolithic bloc, he portrays individuals from different tribes. Haynes also identifies the shifting policies of various factions in the complicated politics of newly independent Mexico, and explains how they affected relations with Texans. He illuminates the lives of Mexican settlers, African American freemen, and enslaved people, some of whom were illegal immigrants after Mexico passed a law to restrict American settlement. Throughout, Haynes is sad and frustrated that white American settlers overpowered a multicultural society in Texas, marginalizing Mexican settlers and Native Americans and bringing enslaved people to the region. He describes Texas landscapes that are sometimes beautiful and often nearly uninhabitable. With over 100 characters, the narrative can be challenging, requiring rereading or a visit to the index. Three maps and 30 illustrations complement the text. Haynes generously acknowledges the help of librarians and archivists in research, especially during the pandemic.
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