Texas: The Lone Star State

Texas was an independent nation for just under a decade, after which it was annexed to the United States. Professor Emilio Zamora, of the University of Texas at Austin, has an endowed chair on Texas history and specialises in Texas and Mexican-American history. He talked to Speak Up about this turbulent period, starting with one of the key drivers for Texas to seek separation from Mexico.

Emilio Zamora (American accent): Slavery has already been prohibited in most of the Latin American nations, including Mexico. What Texas does with the insurrection that it seeks (the slave owners are very influential) they seek to protect the institution of slavery. Once Texas becomes independent, they re-institute slavery, suggesting that slavery was a cause — one of several causes — of the Texas insurrection.

US-mexican war

Mexico challenged not only the right of Texas declaring itself independent, but also of the annexation of Texas to the US in 1945. This i t viewed as an infringement of the sovereignty of the Mexican nation state, triggering the US-Mexican war.

Emilio Zamora: The US sent troops into the disputed territory and invaded Mexico. They cited a provocation which was a battle on what is now the border, but they really had no good reason other than to secure the protection and the independence of Texas by militarising the southern part of Texas, and then waging a war of aggression against Mexico that lasted until 1848, at which point Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo which, among other things, granted the US the right over more than one half of Mexico’s northern territory, which became the American South-West, including Texas all the way to California.

THE FATHER OF TEXAS

Today, Stephen F. Austin is seen by many as the ‘Father of Texas’. Professor Zamora points out the necessity of taking a more holistic view of events.

Emilio Zamora: Like many national histories, this history, of course, applauds the action of slave owners, who gave support to the independence movement. They applaud violation of the national sovereignty of Mexico. The insurrection also justifies the violent campaigns against indigenous people, and so forth and so on. My point is that, though there is general agreement that Stephen F. Austin played a very central role in the history of Texas as it became independent, there are also differing views about the meaning of the Texas revolution. 

IMMIGRANTS IN THEIR OWN LAND

The revolution had far-reaching repercussions which still affect Texans today, particularly the working classes.

Emilio Zamora: There’s an ongoing debate about how we interpret history, not only with regards to the independence of Texas, but also many things like the history of Mexican-origin people, who were here obviously before the insurrection and continued to live here and grew their numbers through immigration from Mexico as well as the Latin American countries, and the role that they play as a working class exploited as low-wage labour throughout the history of Texas. To the point that Mexican-origin people constitute part of the American working class in a marginalised ethnic group.

THE WALL

With its history of independence, there is an idea that Texans are different from the rest of the United States. Professor Zamora explains that such a sense has less to do with having been a republic and more to do with a perceived threat from the south.

Emilio Zamora: We border Latin America. Texas has the longest border with Mexico, and consequently with the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean. And I believe that, over time, Texas, even after declaring itself independent, continues to feel threatened culturally, if not politically and militarily, by the close presence of Mexico. And I think that has also contributed to the sense of uniqueness in the state of Texas. We are in many ways, people believe, a bulwark, a defence against the intrusion of outside influences that could undermine national unity. That is one of the arguments made by intellectuals that oppose immigration from Latin America. 

AN ILLEGAL REVOLUTION

Despite modern-day representations of freedom-loving revolutionaries, Professor Zamora believes that Texan independence was illegal.

Emilio Zamora: The story of the Texas revolution is almost always presented as another version of the American revolution, in which patriots rise up against a colonial power and make themselves independent. In this instance, Texans revolt against the central government and, as such, lead a civil war. The insurgency is a civil war and, just like the confederate states, did not have the right to declare itself independent and separate from the American Union. In my view, Texas didn’t have the right to declare itself independent from the Mexican Union.