Confederate "Heritage" Month 2022, April 16: The Texas "1836 Project"

Texas last year passed a law as part of its effort to ban the teaching of history in public schools passed a law establishing an “1836 Project” to celebrate the revolt led by pro-slavery Americans living in the Mexican territory of Texas. American slaveowners had been moving into Mexico as part of a larger Southern effort to add new slaves states.

The reliable-if-somewhat-stodgy Britannica Online gives this brief summary of the slave Republic of Texas:

Texans formed a provisional government in 1835, and in 1836 they issued a declaration of independence at Washington-on-the-Brazos. David G. Burnet was chosen ad interim president of the new Republic of Texas; Sam Houston was appointed its military commander; and Austin became commissioner to the United States with the mission of securing strategic aid and enlisting volunteers.

The article also notes:

The Texas Revolution was not simply a fight between the Anglo settlers and Mexican troops; it was a revolution of the people who were living in Texas against what many of them regarded as tyrannical rule from a distant source. Many of the leaders in the revolution and many of the armed settlers who took part were Mexicans.

But the politics around the annexation of Texas and the subsequent Mexican War had slavery and its geographical expansion at its center. Mexico had abolished slavery. The Slave Power in the US was committed to defending and extending it.

Ten years later Texas would be admitted to the Union as a slave state.

The purpose of the Texas 1836 Project is to promote a view of Texas and US history that is essentially a variant on the Lost Cause/white supremacist narrative. Heidi Pérez reported in Texas’ 1836 Project aims to promote “patriotic education,” but critics worry it will gloss over state’s history of racism Texas Tribune 06/09/2021:

One controversial aspect of the 1836 Project is its name. Some critics have pointed out that Texas’ independence didn’t apply to all of those living in the state at the time, such as slaves and indigenous groups. The Constitution of the Republic of Texas, passed in 1836, legalized slavery and excluded indigenous groups from gaining independence.

“1836 marked independence for some, but for others marks a period of slavery and pain and exploitation for many, many people who live there,” said Maggie Stern, a youth civic education and engagement coordinator at the Children’s Defense Fund in Texas. [my emphasis]

Brian Franklin analyzes and debunks the approach of this particular piece of historical revisionism in The 1836 Project Is an Opportunity Slate 06/11/2021. The title goes directly a problem of glorifying an idealized or imagined past, which is that people who actually take an interest in that past may actually learn something about actual history. Franklin refers to some of it:

Let’s read the 1836 Texas Declaration of Independence. It not only exposes the tyranny of Mexican leader Gen. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, but also describes how Anglo Texans consistently bent and broke Mexican laws. In class, we can talk about how one of the laws that Texans violated was Mexico’s decade-old abolition of slavery. The declaration also describes Stephen F. Austin’s incarceration. In discussing what happened there, we can discover that Mexican officials rightly suspected Texans of fomenting illegal revolutions for years.

Let’s read Texas’ single most foundational document, the 1836 Constitution of the Republic of Texas. We will find several values familiar to present-day Texans: divided government, religious freedom, and the right to bear arms. But we will also find some “values” that don’t track very well in 2021. That it was illegal for either Congress or an individual to simply emancipate a slave. That even free Black people could not live in Texas without specific permission from the state. That “Africans, the descendants of Africans, and Indians” had no rights as citizens.

Let’s read Republic of Texas President Mirabeau Lamar’s message to the Texas Congress in December of 1838, where he calls for the “total extinction or total expulsion” of all Indigenous peoples in Texas. This included the Texas Cherokee, who had long-standing land rights recognized by Mexico and by Texas’ previous president, Sam Houston. In class, we can talk about how Lamar would make good on his proposal by sending a Texan army to massacre and drive out the remaining Cherokee in July 1839. [my emphasis]

Real history can be enlightening.