Juneteenth and the Myth of Texas’ Independence

[Blue_Tires]

With Juneteenth fast approaching, now is a good time to talk about Black history in Texas, and an even better time to cut through the myths and get to the ugly facts. Almost from the outset, the historical memories of the Texas independence movement have conflated truth and tall tales. And since the State Board of Education is clearly not going to untangle the two, it is important to challenge the dominant Anglo interpretation of our history by taking another look for ourselves.

In early March 1836 a group of nominally Mexican citizens met in the small Texas town of Washington-on-the-Brazos and declared their independence from Mexico. Their Declaration of Independence charged the Mexican government with oppression and ineptitude. It accused Mexico of failing to protect the life, liberty and property of Mexican citizens. Propaganda in newspapers and among those who attended the meeting sought to link their grievances with those of the American revolution. In their view Mexico sought to enslave them, the true defenders of Texas liberty.

Fifty-Nine people attended the convention, but the declaration was principally the product of George C. Childress, a Nashville lawyer who had been in Texas for a little over a year, and who had apparently showed up at the convention with the declaration already prepared.

Of the fifty-nine delegates representing the Mexican province of Cohuila y Tejas, only two, José Antonio Navarro and his uncle José Francisco Ruiz were Tejanos or “Native Texans.” Only ten delegates had been in Texas for more than six years and fifteen had arrived within the previous 12 months. Samuel Price Carson, who was elected Secretary of State of the Texas Republic, had been a Texas citizen for about a week.

Among other things, the document complained that Mexican rule was conducted by a “hostile majority in an unknown tongue” called Spanish. As speakers and writers of the “unknown tongue,” and not fully fluent in the English language, it is not certain that Navarro and Ruiz possessed a full understanding of the document to which they affixed their names, and its many implications. By full understanding, I mean the degree to which Anglos rapidly racialized Texas government after 1836. For instance the 1836 constitution extended the rights of citizenship to free Whites and to Tejanos who were not Black or Indian, something in flat violation of the federal Mexican constitution.

Women, Blacks, and Indians did not participate in the convention.

http://www.texasobserver.org/thewholestar/item/16648-juneteenth-and-the-myth-of-texass-fight-for-independence