[Sca-cooks] Texas history

[Stefan li Rous]

Misha replied to Phlip with:
> phlip_u at yahoo.com writes:
> > well, everyone knows that Texans don't count as real
> > Southerners- Hell, ask them, and they'll try to tell
> > you all about being their own country once.
>
> Au contrare, Philip. Being a Texan, I must stand up with this fact. Back in
> the early 1800's, Americans settled into a province known as Coahuila-Texas
> and lived as naturalized citizens (President Antionio Lopez de Santa Anna
> supported it because it would give the land natural resources.) But because
> Santa Anna was getting greedy with the province with all of the money getting
> in, it sparked a revolution. The most famous battle coming from this
> revolution was The Alamo. About 1836-37 ish,

1836.

> Texans won their independence
> and Sam Houston (who was the first president of the newely reformed Repubic
> of Texas)

newly REformed?

> forced Santa Anna to sign a treaty recognizing Texas' independence.

Actually at the time of the Battle of San Jacinto, I think Sam Houston
was only the General of the Army, not the first President of the Republic
of Texas. Like the United States, I don't think they had a constitution
until after they had won independance.

> It wasn't until 1844,

1845.

> I believe, that Texas was annexed into the US under
> John Tyler. You can see how they were annex because most of the settlers
> there were native born Americans.

Most of the "settlers" were folks born or who had once lived in, the
territories and the states of the United States. However, there was
a substantial population who were born in the area that became Texas
or who were born in Mexico. There were also a large number of settlers
that had settled in Texas directly from Germany and other places in
Europe.

> Kinda like what Hitler did before WWII (he
> annexed his home country and others with large populations of Germans). And
> that is why Texas was once considered its own country.

In no way was this similar. The push to join the Union was mostly from
the folks that were already in Texas. It was not forced on the people
of Texas as a whole. I'm sure not all of the Texans liked the idea of
joining the Union, and many today still consider it a mistake, but it
wasn't an invasion. In fact, the fight to admit the Republic of Texas
as a state was a hard fought one, because of the controversy over
the legality of slavery.

other than these few items, you have it down pretty well. And you
certainly remember the names better than I.

Large chunks of the Republic of Texas became parts of the states
of New Mexico, Oklahoma and maybe another. Texas apparently still
has the right, from the law that admitted it to the Union, of
dividing itself into upto four different states. No other state
does. That would probably change the makeup of the Senate a bit. :-)

Mexico was not pleased with the idea of Texas joining the Union.
It was bad enough to lose Texas, but it at least gave them a
buffer between the land-hungry folks in the United States and
the sparsely populated Mexican territories to the west. There
was also the unsettled question of whether the southwestern
Texas-Mexico boundary was the Rio Grande River or one of the
rivers futher to the east. As it was, Mexico lost the war of
1848 and the United States occupied and "bought" the land that
became California and the US southwest.

> Misha
> Proud Texan and true Southern. I love ma grits.

They are not a Texas dish. They are a southern import. Like their
idea of BBQ, the Southerners had the right idea, they just missed
something somewhere along the way. :-)

Kind of like some Texan's ideas of pizza...

(*Beef* BBQ and roasted corn on the cob is the way to go.)

--
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
   Mark S. Harris            Austin, Texas          stefan at texas.net
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****