I’ve been brushing up on my American history a bit, in particular the civil war, and Texas isn’t getting much of a mention in what I’ve been looking at. It was a slave state but it can’t have been for long I don’t think. So, since I have access to some real live Texans here, I have a few questions for anyone who wants to help me out. To what extent is Texas part of “the south,” either in formal or practical terms? What was the extent of slave ownership in Texas? To what extent was Texas involved in the civil war?
I see. Texans tend not to identify with “the south” then but instead view themselfs more as a distinct area/people in this sense then. Would that be correct? How about the other questions?
yes, i think that's true. we certainly aren't the "deep South". there are cultural differences. Texas role wasn't HUGE logistically in the Civil War. There was a naval battle near Galveston, if I remember right. There was a huge Confederate war prison near Tyler, up in northeast Texas. you generally don't have the confederate chip on your shoulder in texas that you see in the rest of the south. my friend from colorado went to graduate school in alabama...he says texas is completely different from there. that they're still very much caught up in that identity there. he says he considers texas to really be part of the southwest more than the south. but i think texas is just texas. it's just different.
I believe there is a great deal of pride in the fact that Texas was an independent republic for a time.
Um, we were in the Confederacy as an active member. We are part of the South, but think of ourselves as Texans first. DD
We weren't as active in the "War of Northern Aggression" (as my NC buddy calls it...) as most of the other Southern states.
Are Texans really more proud than people from other states? Everyone's proud to be from their home state or whatever.
Texas did side with the Confederacy after some deliberation but was vehemently opposed by Sam Houston, our most famed leader. He warned Texas to stay out of the debacle and was saddened by the results of joining the "rebs". Obviously, slave ownership was in place before we joined the Confederacy, but I don't know the extent as it compares to the rest of the South--most likely we were far behind in ownership. Remember, Texas didn't become the "Cotton Capital" of the world untill the early 20th century--post Emancipation. Also, for a better historical perspective of Texas, slavery and the civil war, see "Juneteenth". As far as Texas being the "south"?? I resent that implication, we are TEXAS. WE are the state that can legally secede and fly our flag at the same height as the US Flag. WE are the state that was it's own country and that both Anglo and Mexicans fought for against Mexico. Furthermore, I am generally angered by seeing Confederate Flags flying in Texas--to me, that's for tobacco row hicks, hillbilly Hatfields, and Alabama inbreeds who still talk about their great-great grandpappy in rebel grey lickin' them yankees in the "war between the states" or "the war of northern aggression". You are much more apt to hear a Texan talk about the Alamo, "Remember Goliad" or "Come and Take It" then all the civil war, Antebellum, Robert E Lee bullshhite...
Texas is large. It was in the confederacy, but isn't really a part of the South. Texans have some cultural similarities with the south, and certainly are closer to the states of the South than they are to states above the Mason Dixon line. West Texas is also closely related to the "Southwest". Mostly though you are correct in saying that Texas is its own classification. It is large, has its own distinct regions, food, dances, etc.
Yes, but Texan Pride is something of legend and far surpasses the pride factor of other states, with the possible exception of Alaska.
Thanks all. I’m asking these questions because we really don’t get sense of what the distinctions and divisions between the north and the south were before and after the civil war in our history classes in Canada, or at least I didn’t. We get the overview. The north didn’t allow slavery. The south did. They fought a war. The north won. On to the next chapter. There was a little more than that, but not that much and no real texture to it. Now when I think about the fact that in “the south” before the war there were 9 million people, including 4 million slaves, and that in the war over 600,000 people were killed, I find those to be pretty jarring numbers. I don’t judge them by today’s standards of course, but nonetheless this was a hugely significant and pivotal event in history in a number of different ways. I’m sure y’all are saying “well duh!” but for most of us Canadians it’s kind of one of those wars that happened “over there” and other than that it ended slavery in the US we don’t really have a full appreciation of what it was about and how destructive it was. If my math is right over 1 in 10 southern white males were killed in the war. And that 600,000 number of total dead is just mind boggling. My family on both sides came up from the US, but one side came up 100 years before the war and the other 80 years before. On my fathers side they came up from the south, from South Carolina to be specific, and they might have been slave owners for all I know. As relatively poor immigrants from Ireland and United Empire Loyalists I suspect they weren’t, but I’m not sure. I think other branches of my family down there were though. I don’t really know how sensitive the issue of slavery is either so that’s why I put this in this forum. Ah, so in Canadian terms you are Quebec then. Thanks for the Juneteenth tip, btw. I didn’t know about that.
The way I say it (I kited it from a bumper sticker)... I'm not FROM Texas, but I got here just as fast as I could.
I've always thought Alberta resembled Texas more than Quebec, but, in the way we view ourselves, Quebec may be a decent analogy.
The upper Gulf Coast and Southeast Texas was much more southenized than the rest of the state, especially regarding agronomy and slaves as field labor. There were some sizable plantation-type operations. Many wealthy urban Texans in at the time had 1 or 2 slaves as housekeepers and personal assistant types. Indians (Apache in West Texas and the Comanche on the Panhandle plains and Hill Country) and settlers, farming and cattle operations were the norm in South Texas (heavily Tejano and anti-slavery) and the rest of the state. The vast majority of Texas was (and is) part of The West much more so than Southern. In the Hill Country the European immigrant communities (largely German, Czech, Polish) and most of the hardscrabble settlers (from Tennessee and elsewhere, country people who came for land & opportunity) were anti-slavery - couldn't afford slaves, never saw slaves (or blacks) and pretty much had enough on their hands trying to scratch out an existence. Confederate Texan soldiers would travel around recruiting/conscripting males to join the army. Some hid, some joined for the money. Union sypmathizers would get lynched from time to time, Confederate recruiters/supporters would get killed as well.
That may be true, but I revel in the knowledge that as much as is wrong with me, I am a far better person than either you or your chickenhawk brother.
