HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!

[indianasmith]

On this day in 1836, the Republic of Texas declared its independence from Mexico.
Four days later, all the defenders of the Alamo were killed in an all-out assault by Santa Anna's well trained Mexican soldiers - at the cost of about 1/3 of the attacking force of some 2000 men.
Over the next month, Mexican troops defeated and destroyed every Texian force they found in the field.  The Anglo colonists of Texas scrambled for the U.S. border in a panicked stampede called the Runaway Scrape.  Finally, Santa Anna separated himself from the main body of the Mexican army in an attempt to capture the interim Government of Texas - and was in turn, attacked, defeated, and captured by the last Texian army still in the field.  That was at the battle of San Jacinto, April 21, 1836.   Santa Anna, under threat of hanging, signed away all Mexican rights to Texas, and the Lone Star Republic governed Texas for the next 9 years.


I teach 7th grade Texas History last period every day of the year.  All year long, I've had to endure as the little darlings come in all sugared up and hyper because some other class had a party to celebrate this or that.
Today, due to a scheduling flip, I had them FIRST period.   And we celebrated Texas Independence Day with cupcakes, cookies, and Mountain Dew.  REVENGE IS SWEET!

[Allhallowsday]

"...under threat of hanging..." 

[indianasmith]

Well, considering that he had ordered the cold blooded executions of 400 Texian prisoners a week AFTER they surrendered at Goliad, I'd say old Santa Anna was darned lucky that the threat was as far as it got when the Texians captured him three weeks later!

The early nineteenth century was a pretty rough era all around!

[Flick James]

So, what you're saying is that Santa Anna was NOT hung?

That strengthens my theory about why men go to war.

[tracy]

Sorry I wasn't online to help you celebrate such a great day,dear indy.....but Happy Independance Day,Texas!!!

[RCMerchant]

Our border? I do believe it belonged to the Mexicans first. And the Apaches. We are on the level of Nazi Germany when it comes to our so called "taming" of the west. It's a shameful thing-and being a school teacher-you should know that. I love ya Indy-but Dam! I dont celebrate genocide.

[Flick James]

Our border? I do believe it belonged to the Mexicans first. And the Apaches. We are on the level of Nazi Germany when it comes to our so called "taming" of the west. It's a shameful thing-and being a school teacher-you should know that. I love ya Indy-but Dam! I dont celebrate genocide.

I don't think anybody is asking you to celebrate genocide. The American expansion west carries it's share of tumult, to be sure. If we're talking about native Americans here, what would have given the Mexicans more claim to the land than Americans? In my view, the ONLY view to take is that of the natives. Manifest Destiny is a tricky concept. It was the 19th Century zeitgeist, the climate of a country very much concerned, for better or worse, with OPPORTUNITY. Expansion was the consequence of Manifest Destiny, and they were acting from a moral ideal, and that expansion was considered a responsibility, since occupation of the whole continent was inevitable, and the more of the New World governed by American ideals of liberty the better.

It was what it was. On one hand I understand it, because if we know one thing it's that occupation of those lands WAS inevitable by someone, and the natives were going to be on the losing end of it regardless. So, which is a better occupation, Mexico or the U.S.? It's a fair question.

[indianasmith]

I've gone back and forth on this before - the treatment of the Native Americans was NOT cool.  However, when you have a technologically stagnant Stone Age society sharing a border with an emerging early industrial power, then the Stone Age folks always loose, whether the newcomers are English, Spanish, French, or Dutch.  That being said, the area of Texas fought over by Texas and Mexico in 1836 was largely devoid of Indians long before the first Anglos set foot in Texas - smallpox had pretty well destroyed them.  You had the emigrant Cherokee coming into East Texas, and the Comanche and Apache out west on land that neither Mexico nor Texians had any particular interest in.

[RCMerchant]

Horse s**t. Geronimo fought his ass off for his people. To the very end. We f**kED him. There is no-NO escuse for what we did to the Indian Nations. We-the American Goverment--robbed,stole-raped-killed. There is no getting around that.. Dammit-my wife Tara Sue was Chippawa-her Ma was 100% american. f**k revisionost history. The People are the real true Americans.

[indianasmith]

I don't deny any of what you said.  But I stick by what I said.  It wouldn't matter whether America was discovered and colonized by Spain, England, Germany, Russia, or any other developing nations.  When two people groups are separated by that wide a gap in technology and general cultural incompatibility, the more primitive culture is going to be destroyed. It's not pretty, it's not right, but it's history.

And think about it - if the Native tribes had kept control of the continent, with no outside interference, I seriously doubt they would have invented computers, or the internet, or bad movies.

So what would we have to talk about?


PS I am part Cherokee and part Scots Irish.  So I am constantly at war with myself, unless an Englishman gets near!

[RCMerchant]

So it makes it right? What we did? Just because we did it first?
Dam-thats sick thinking.
Nazis were good at wiping out people that didnt conform either. So the People dont conform-kill them. f**k that. It was dam evil.

[Flick James]

So it makes it right? What we did? Just because we did it first?
Dam-thats sick thinking.
Nazis were good at wiping out people that didnt conform either. So the People dont conform-kill them. f**k that. It was dam evil.

Hey, RC, I understand what you're saying. I think Indy understands too. I also understand that you have a personal stake in this. My ex-wife was 100% Apache, so I understand having that personal stake. My wife is from Ireland and grew up surrounded by a culture that despised the English for oppressing them for hundreds of years. I get it.

But if you step back and remove that element of it, you have to admit that cannonizing the native Americans is not exactly the right thing to do either. There was all kinds of tribal warfare in the Americas. Look at the Aztecs and Mayans and what they did in endeavors of conquest. The Aztecs engaged in their own forms of genocide. It doesn't make it right, but Indy's point that it's history is a valid one to consider. Manifest Destiny was a part of the spirit of the founders, and mistakes were made.

I still say, however, that whether it was the U.S. or Mexico, the land was being expanded upon and occupied. Much of the motivation was in the form of competition with Mexico, not a specific effort to wipe out native Americans. So, I ask as I did before, and I'm genuinely curious for your response, do you think Texas would have been better occupied by Mexico or the U.S.?

[RCMerchant]

Horses**t.
I dont buy any  of the " making yerself good" lies. We killed them.  A fact is a fact. There aint no whitewashing that. It was murder-and we were guilty.Dam it ! Wounded Knee was a massacre.WHY? That was right? DAM!  Dam it all. It was evil..
Im sure most killers have a reason for what they did as well. Dead is dead. Tell your escuses to the dead.

[indianasmith]

RC, buddy, I think you are getting yourself overly worked up.
The entire history of mankind is a history of warfare, conquest, and killing.  All nations do it, all races do it, and all languages have words for it. 
  I guess my point is simply this: every nation has done some evil and some good.  Some have done more of one than the other.  America has done some pretty bad things.  We have also done some pretty magnificent things.  Other nations have done more harm and less good, and a few others more good and less harm.  But every nation on earth has done some evil.  Native American tribes made war on one another, sacrificed one another to their gods, and (more often than any of their descendants care to admit) even ate one another.
  I certainly understand your anger over the treatment of Native Americans, but as you said, killing is killing.  All of humanity is guilty of it.  Focusing your rage on the U.S. to the exclusion of all others seems . . . I dunno.  Odd.

But yer still my bud!

[RCMerchant]

Yer right Indy. I do dont discrimanate, I hate all.

That means we all are crazy-and were all innocent-right?