Ok, I love Texas and all, but the "insurgents" do seem like a load of rabble-rousers. Was Mexico all that bad? I must say I feel more sympathy for the likes of Santa Anna than Sam Houston. Austin was reasonably sane for a backbiting deadbeat liar. A lot of the rest were plain nuts. What was thier cause, anyway? Steal all you can? Mine until you take it?
Which action? Other countries had an interest in what happened in Texas, like the United States, and Britain and France, who recognized the Republic. Mexico had an interest in getting Texas back if she could manage it, but that was after San Jacinto and Santa Anna's surrender. Factions in the Yucatan who wanted to break away from Mexico themselves enlisted some support from the Republic and her navy and looked with favor on the events. And Texans didn't care for black beans for many, many years afterwards and the international community may have looked suspiciously at the lack of black bean production and consumption.
I'm shocked. Flabbergasted. Taken aback. Setting down my daughter's softball bat I had unknowingly grasped with the iron grip of a Texan turning colors, seeing spots, frothing at the mouth... eyes agleem with righteous wrath... (grrrrrr!!!!) after reading such slander upon our heroes and sympathy for the devil.
Well, Santa Anna WAS a military dictator and it WAS a totalitarian society, although it could have been a worse one, I suppose. Mexico did have a huge beef with all of the whites coming into Tejas and failing to convert to Catholicism, the state religion. Most of the Texicans were also in favor of electing their own government, preferably one that was cool with slavery. As I recall, Santa Anna started to tax the hell out of the Texicans and shut down the borders to more white immigrants. That was a sure recipe for PO'd settlers in those days. Mexico had been desperate to get people to settle in Tejas forever, but it turned out they didn't like the people who came... And of course, those massacres at Goliad and the Alamo weren't too kind, either. I don't think it'd be fair to call Santa Anna a "good guy," but guys like Bowie and Travis were pretty scummy themselves.
My grandparents took me to that restaurant. I like it. Did you see The Alamo (not a great movie). I think they changed around the final battle at San Jacinto to make it seem more heroic. The actual attack was during the siesta, I thought; hence the reason we lost only 6 soldiers. Anyway, yes, Happy S.J. day. Didn't they originally intend to make the monument taller than the Washington Monument but Washington nixed that idea? And does it even matter, given how the SJ monument has been slowly sinking out there in the swamp?
Is that place still there? I used to go to it on family get togethers (you know, cousins and aunts and uncles and stuff). Man, the food was terrific, but this is 30 years ago. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. The battleship Texas was a load of fun to tour when I was a kid. My cousin and I used to sneak off into the places that were restricted. Just a gas. I haven't seen it in ages. It's the last surviving example of a BB of the Dreadnought class, if I remember correctly. Hard to tell because of all the changes that were made during it's years of service. There is a great model of it in one of the state office buildings here in Austin. (can't remember which one... I think it's been moved a couple of times) It shows the original configuration. The Dreadnought class on steroids!
