Skip to main content

tv   [untitled]    April 10, 2012 8:00pm-8:30pm EDT

8:00 pm
as congress continues its spring recess this week, we're showing you american history tv in primetime. tonight a symposium on the 180s texas revolution between u.s. settlers and the mexican government. first historian gene smith on how thomas jefferson and the concept of manifest destiny laid the framework for the texas revolution by encouraging american growth. this is about 50 minutes. >> thanks, mark. i'm pleased to be here again today representing the texas state historical association as a sponsor of this second annual save texas history symposium. i'm again honored to have this opportunity to introduce land
8:01 pm
commissioner jerry patterson, the person ultimately responsible for making this program happen. it's always a pleasure to be among people who understand the importance and the need to save texas history. a year ago before this meeting, my wife, tara, and i were eating dinner the night before. someone asked us what we were doing in town. we said, we're here for the save texas history symposium. they said, why does texas history need saving? and so many things flooded through my head at that point that i didn't really know how to answer. all i could think about was how all of us work the museums, the archives, the libraries, the general land office, the texas historical commission and we fight for funds to preserve the materials to support scholarship, to make them accessible, to publish them and to bring the fruits of that scholarship to the classroom
8:02 pm
through all the teachers and the education work that we do. so i really didn't have a good answer for the person at the dinner table. but i just said, trust me, it does. but since then, i've thought that this question could represent how well we are doing at our jobs. but it also reflects how much work we have to do in the way of making the importance of our work apparent and our needs widely known. that is why this aptly named event is so important. and i want to thank the general land office and jerry patterson for instituting it. commissioner patterson is a well-known figure in texas and much of his biography has not changed in the past though there have been some significant editions. he served as state senator for district 11. he was elected as the 27th land commissioner in november 2002. he was reelected in 2006 and elected to a third term in 2008.
8:03 pm
born in houston, commissioner patterson graduated from texas a & m in 1969 and received his commission in the united states marine corps. in 1972, he volunteered for duty in vietnam and was later designated as a naval flight officer. he served in marine fighter squadrons until his retirement from the marine corps reserve as a lieutenant colonel in 1993. his love of history likely derives at least in part from the fact that five consecutive generations of his family have served our nation in time of war. commissioner patterson demonstrates not only his love of history but also his courage in everything he does. both attributes will be much needed as he and the general land office take on new challenges in the future. especially efforts to preserve the greatest texas history shrine of all, the alamo. i can't think of a more appropriate person or organization to take on this charge.
8:04 pm
please join me in welcoming and thanking a great friend of texas history, land commissioner jerry patterson. [ applause ] >> i think it's time to sit down and shut up if you have a good introduction and folks are aplayeding you, you can't make it any worse. i'll attempt to do just that. welcome to our symposium. i tell people at every opportunity when they say, what do you do or what's a land commissioner do or i can't vote for you because i'm not in your precinct, and by the way will you fix my road. if you live in texas you're in my district. i say, i have the greatest gig in texas government. and i really do. it's an opportunity to look good through no effort of your own. how can you do any better than that? i have people that work for me in archives and records, and you know mark and others that are here who make even me look good. but it's a great opportunity. i'm a big history buff.
8:05 pm
i'm not a historian. i'm a history buff. i have a history degree. it doesn't mean i have anything other than interest in history. but i think it started when i was very, very small and my grandmother who was the daughter of a confederate veteran used to sit in her rocker. she had a rocking chair and she had -- she dipped garrett snuff. and she had this little brown streak that ran down her cheek and a hairy chin, whiskers and a coffee can here that she would pick up by this manner and in it like that. and when i went to see her, she always wanted to kiss me because she was my grandma. and i was like -- but i loved listening to her story, word of mouth, about my great grandfather and his escapades or episodes in the war. he was captured south of vicksburg. and i loved that.
8:06 pm
every time i'd go up to visit my grandmother in east texas, she had a picture of me, i said, tell me more stories. i suspect some of those stories were actually true. but knowing my family, i also suspect that there was a little bit of embellishment in them. we need to focus on history because saving the documents that we have today is important. but it's also important to look at history as a method to kind of heal some wounds and maybe to bind us together a little bit and take those historical examples that are pertinent today. i'm a believer. i was in the legislature for six years and i concluded there are no new public policy issues. nothing's new. it's got different names and different players and different times. but it's the same stuff that's happened before. we can make historical associations with that. and we can show folks who have no interest in history or who ask the question, why do we need to save it, we can say, this is why we need to save it.
8:07 pm
it's applicable to what occurs today. an example of an issue that boils -- right now, it's near a boiling point because we have a presidential race under way right now. we've always had this issue of immigration, this discussion about immigration. and a subissue of that is education and education of children who are non-english speakers. since i've told you already that i'm not a historian, then i have license to say things that may not be completely factually accurate. one of my favorite stories about that is miriam a. ferguson, it is said, it is believed that m.a. ferguson who became governor when her husband was impeached and removed from office, announced that she was running for governor and she successfully won that after being in a run-off with the ku klux klan candidate, she became
8:08 pm
the governor. and we had an issue about how to educate children who are primary spanish speakers. same issue we have today. back then, they just said, do we teach them in english or in spanish? m.a. ferguson was asked that when she was governor in 1923 or 1924. she said, how do we teach children who are primarily spanish speakers? and she responded what is the most infamous quote in texas political history -- she said, if english was good enough for jesus christ, it's good enough for the skilled children of texas. i don't know if that's true. i don't know if that's lore or legend. but it brings history right into today and it makes people think about, you know, maybe there are some lessons to be had from what's occurred before. similarly -- today, you'll get to go to the archives. it's one of the options. we have, i think, the eye-watering documents over
8:09 pm
there. a couple of them are illustrative of that issue as well. i think it's out for restoration. so you may not be able to see it. but we have a leather-bound volume that's about that wide, about that thick, about that tall, and it's a register of a gentleman and a few other names. it's the original 300. it's an entry for each of those. it's handwritten in spanish by anglos. who had only been here a short while. why were they writing in spanish? why not in their native language? the language of commerce was spanish. if you wanted to succeed, you had to speak and read and write spanish. the language of commerce in texas today is english. if you want to succeed you need to be conversant.
8:10 pm
the lesson applicable then applicable today. another document that i think is pretty interesting is we have a register of the board of commissioners of the bexar county. it's about 1838, 1839 time frame. it's a list of folks who appeared before the list of commissioners to prove up their title for land. some of that was due to their military service, some to the time that they arrived and not kinds of things that were criteria for how much land you got. there's a couple of names in the columns. there's a name of david crockett represented by robert, his son. and then just a couple of spaces away is a name juan seguin. represented by himself. apparently robert crockett and juan seguin were in the same place on the same day. you wonder if they had a conversation, as someone who had seen his father alive before he died at the alamo.
8:11 pm
also in the document that's pretty compelling is that there's a column up here that says, immigrant or native? and if you go down and look at the names, every anglo name is immigrant. every hispanic name is native. we were the immigrants. people who look like me. we were the immigrants. we were the newcomers. as a matter of fact, i love going to various places and talking to -- particularly at republican events. we're going to build a fence on the border here and we're going to do this and do that. and somebody will say, i'm a fifth generation texan. and i'll say, did your ancestor come here legally or illegally? what do you mean? [ laughter ] >> mr. jones? of course they came -- well, you're not so sure about that. if they didn't come in here sponsored by a presadio grant they were probably illegal. i forget the time immigration was suspended by mexico, they were illegal immigrants.
8:12 pm
we have a long tradition of illegal immigration but it started out with anglos and people who talked the language that i talk and maybe who had blue eyes and red hair or blond hair, whatever. we have to keep that in context. it's directly applicable to what we're talking about today. anyway, i don't want to take up your time. people who actually know something will be talking to you most of the day. i told you about the m.a. ferguson story. there's another wonderful story directly related to the land office about a former commissioner named peg leg ward. if you have time, read about peg leg. no one can hold a candle to peg leg ward. that's all i have to say. i appreciate y'all being here. god bless texas. thank you. [ applause ] >> we're already ahead of time. we have a distinguished group of speakers today.
8:13 pm
introducing the first one right now, just to remind you, we will have half-hour lecture, speech, talk and then a q & a period. we have two microphones in a room. if you have a question at the end, please raise your hand. let us get a microphone to you so you can be heard by everybody else and so you can be recorded by c-span. it's my pleasure to introduce dr. gene allen smith. he's the professor of history at texas christian university at ft. worth. he is author or editor of seven books and numerous articles and reviews on american naval history. he also serves as director of studies at tcu and curator of history at the ft. worth museum of science and history.
8:14 pm
his talk this morning is thomas jefferson manifest destiny and the texas revolution. please help me welcome dr. smith. [ applause ] >> thank you so much. it's a pleasure to be here today. i need something a little taller. my mom always told me i should be the first one to speak in the room. that way, if i said something that was out of place, there would be a chance for others to follow up and correct me. so hopefully i can get started today and i'll say a few things that you might think, well, that seems out of place. but fortunately the land commissioner's already told you many of the fireworks of my presentation because it's really about texas before it became anglo.
8:15 pm
and how certain people wanted it to become anglo. one of the things i can tell you is that i'm an early american historian and i work on the era of thomas jefferson. and you may say that thomas jefferson really has no association whatsoever with texas. well, that's not exactly correct. i mean, he does have an association with texas. in fact, what we see is he has a vision. and this vision he had was what he called an empire of liberty. and certainly texas embodies that empire of liberty. it was a vision that will provide the framework for manifest destiny. it will provide the framework for the texas revolution and it's really going to lay the foundation for what becomes a continental empire. it stretches from the atlantic to the pacific. now, because of that, jefferson believed that tejas, that that
8:16 pm
was a cornerstone in what he saw as american expansion. for someone who studies thomas jefferson, one thing i can tell you, this is in a day and age before twitter and facebook. and he wrote more than 20,000 letters. and the thing that kills me is how politicians from the right and from the left are quick to cherry-pick his quotes and try to say that jefferson supported this or jefferson supported that. well, yeah, he did support this and that. and you figure he lived to be 80-plus years old. so over the course of a long life, he did have a lot of different attitudes. and his ideas and belief were always evolving and changing. well, in 1786, jefferson would write to a friend, he said, our continent must be viewed as the nest from which all america,
8:17 pm
north and south, is to be people. well, in 1791, the summer of 1791, the spanish governor of florida, quesada -- you said there was a pointer on this thing. fortunately you guys know where florida is. [ laughter ] but the spanish governor of florida, governor quesada extended an invitation for americans to move into florida. all they would need to do is take an oath of loyalty to the spanish government, profess to be catholics and they could acquire all the land they wanted. jefferson thought this was a great idea. he said he wished 100,000 americans would move there because it would give us peaceably what might otherwise cost us a war. what jefferson is telling us
8:18 pm
there is this is his vision for how americans would incorporate territory. they would be invited in. they would profess loyalty to that government. they would embrace that government's christian faith and then in due time, their american loyalties and emotions would bubble to the top. and at that point, they would welcome the opportunity to join the constellation of stars and stripes. keep that in mind. that's a framework. that's a modus operandi that jefferson envisioned for america. in 1801, jefferson mentioned in his first inaugural address that the united states was a chosen country with enough room for our descendants to the 100th and 1,000th generation.
8:19 pm
now, jefferson was someone who was very precise about his wording. he was very precise about his use of language. 100th, 1,000th generation. do you think how long jefferson considered a generation? 30 years. the 100th generation, 3,000 years. the 1,000th generation, 30,000 ars. he's saying there will be enough land here in north america for the 100th and the 1,000th generation. i think he kind of missed the boat on that one. well, even in 1801, his was a country that was already being limited in its growth. to the north -- try this pointer thing again -- to the north -- should have brought my own pointer. oh, don't want to go there. to the north, there are those
8:20 pm
lakes and there are british possessions north of that. that would limit american growth to the north. to the south, spanish florida, the gulf of mexico, that would temporarily limit american growth. to the west there are native americans and there are spaniards, frenchmen. well, there would be an opportunity there for the future. now, when you talk about manifest destiny, one of the things that always comes up in this question about manifest destiny is that it was this preordained belief that americans were destined to expand from the east to the west and incorporate all those lands because americans were going to do with that land what was right. what no one ever really says is that the only reason manifest destiny would work is because you have powerless neighbors, powerless neighbors who can't prevent you from expanding.
8:21 pm
so when you look at this map as jefferson saw it, to the north, great britain was a powerful neighbor. to the west, native americans, not so powerful. in fact, you know, it's during jefferson's presidencies that zebulon pike writes a report -- remember what he calls that great area of the west? he calls it the great american desert. with that powerless neighbor there, when it's time to remove them from the east -- area east of the mississippi river, move them to the west, where do we put them? in the great american desert. and ultimately the indians got the last laugh because they found oil in the early 20th century and they found casinos in the early 21st century. [ laughter ] but jefferson understands that
8:22 pm
his vision of america, that it's going to have to have land. now, shortly after the war of 1812, he's writing to an acquaintance called -- named john jacob astor. and he said that he looked forward with gratification to the time when the entirety of the pacific coast would be populated with free and independent americans. he believed it would be so. now, for jefferson and his supporters, what they saw was the west and the abundance of land created the opportunity for this empire of liberty. now, you look at these beliefs that jefferson -- that he espoused. the acquisition of territory, satisfy the energetic nature of our government, give people the chance -- or human farmer, the chance to purchase lands at minimal prices. he said farmers are god's chosen people. well, he truly believed that.
8:23 pm
and the revenues raised from those lands, well, you could sell those lands, you could make money, you could extinguish the debt. you wouldn't have to tax people as much. land was a panacea for all evils. and as president, look what happens. during his first term, you'll have ohio becoming the 17th state joining tennessee, kentucky, vermont and the original 13. indiana in 1803 becomes a territory. and then in december of 1803, the united states would purchase louisiana. in fact, it would be general james wilkinson that would preside over the transfer of that territory. and in march of 1804, captain amos stoddard would go to st. louis and preside over the purchase of that territory. jefferson's empire of liberty
8:24 pm
was becoming a reality, becoming a reality. yet is it enough land for the 100th and 1,000th generation? jefferson still thinks so. we see that his secretary of war in the 1820s named james barber would comment that there would be enough land for 500 years. well, he didn't get it right either. in fact, we know that by 1890, the frontier vanishes. so what jefferson sees is that over the course of 100 years or so, americans had crossed the appalachian mountains, they had moved down the mississippi valley, they had begun trickling into east and west florida. america has secured the louisiana purchase, and now all eyes would focus to the west. and to the south. of course, that would be texas.
8:25 pm
now, while the acquisition of louisiana does momentarily satisfy this desire for expansion, it was only a moment. in 1810 -- now, i know this is texas history. so as i tell you this, i don't want you to be upset, i don't want to hear any hissing or booing. in september of 1810, there's going to be a minor uprising. and of all places in baton rouge, louisiana. now, let me tell you what happens here. there are a group of americans who are living in this region, north of the lake pontchartrain and north of new orleans. they had been there for more than a decade, many of them had.
8:26 pm
the spanish government was no longer able to meet their needs. and in september of 1810, these americans, they rise up, they storm the dilapidated fort there at baton rouge. in fact, there were gaps in the stockade that the men are running through. they capture the fort, they capture the governor. one spanish soldier dies. well, as soon as that conquest or that rebellion had been successful, they call a convention, they draft a declaration, which looks eerily similar to the american documents, their constitution. and then they even created a flag. they called it a bonnie blue flag with a single star in it,
8:27 pm
the original lonestar republic. see, that's where i figured you guys would be hissing. but the reason i tell you about this little uprising, when it's mentioned in history books, it's called the west florida rebellion. now, rebellions generally imply they're not successful. revolutions imply they are successful. well, here you have a west florida rebellion that is successful. and for about 90 days, this is the republic of west florida. president james madison in late october will finally annex this region in the united states and he doesn't do so as if he is annexing an independent country. he says, oh, no, this was part of the louisiana purchase, we're just now getting around to incorporating it. but what you have here in this west florida rebellion was
8:28 pm
exactly what jefferson had mentioned -- that americans would move into a territory, they would profess loyalty to that government and then when the opportunity presented itself, they would rise up, throw off the shackles of foreign control and ask to be annexed into the union. well, what happens is this single star of the west florida flag will be incorporated into the constellation of stars and stripes. now, at the same time this event is going on, there's also -- you probably -- you may remember this guy here, father miguel hedalgo. in 1810 he leads a revolution in mexico. it lasts for about a year and a half before he's executed. at the same time this is happening, you have what's going on in baton rouge. and shortly after that, there is
8:29 pm
a filibuster attempt that leaves the united states, leaves nacogdoches, louisiana, it's led by a man by the name of de lara. he's got the assistance of another man. a cuban revolutionary. and there's a former american army officer named augustus william magee. they will set off from nacogdoches, cross into the neutral territory of texas, beginning in the summer of 1812, when they finally arrive at nacogdoches, the spanish garrison there surrender. they join the

150 Views

info Stream Only

Uploaded by TV Archive on