About book Lone Star Nation: How A Ragged Army Of Volunteers Won The Battle For Texas Independence - And Changed America (2004)
The book give a good history of the settlement of East Texas by American adventurers, the 15-year rush to populate Texas with American "Anglos", and the contentious showdown with Santa Anna and the Mexican army. There are many familiar characters, now legendary personalities, like Bowie, Crockett, and Houston, and the author introduces a dozen more individuals who were probably just as ornery and colorful. But I found the political history to be the most interesting and compelling part of the book. Moses Austin, followed by his son Stephen, became Mexican citizens in order to realize their dream of establishing permanent settlements in the Mexican state of "Coahuilla y Tejas" north of the Rio Grande (Rio Bravo). Other Americans likewise swore allegiance to Mexico in order to move to the fertile farm ground along the banks of the Colorado, San Antonio, Brazos, and Trinity Rivers. But 20 years before someone coined the term "manifest destiny" Americans were already bent on taking over foreign possessions in North American by the power of immigration. "Becoming Mexican" seems to have been a big joke to the settlers. When the new Mexican republic started to falter, Austin made a good-faith effort to keep the state of Coahuila y Tejas together under the new president, Santa Anna, but the obvious conclusion was going to be one of two alternatives: an independent Republic of Texas, or Texas as a new holding of the U.S. Having no background at all in the history of the Lone Star State, I was really intrigued to learn about Texas' ambiguous position between Mexico and the U.S. When "Tejanos" began to experience growing tension with the local Comanches, Mexican neighbors to the south, or the Mexican government, President Andrew Jackson offered no consolation, feeling no responsibility to defend or protect Americans who had willingly emigrated to the foreign territory of Spanish, then Mexican, Texas. While Austin is portrayed as an earnest, loyal, if somewhat vulnerable speaker of the Texas settlers, Sam Houston is an enigma. He is by turn bullish with patriotism, drunken coward, egomaniacal rabble-rouser, and flake par excellence. As Texas struggled with its identity, Houston would disappear for days, months, even years, only to return in a blaze of rhetoric and bombast. The character of the Texas army is similarly enigmatic. These guys were total mavericks unwilling to follow a command unless it suited them. Everything seems like it was totally disorganized and haphazard. The deaths of Bowie, Crockett and hundreds others at the Alamo seems to be the result of this insistence of a small band of men to go-it-alone. And when Houston finally got his act together, showed up, and was given command by the newly formed Texas Republic, the soldiers only listened to him when they felt like it. The author shows how, at one crucial point just before Houston and the Texans achieved victory of Santa Anna and the Mexicans, Houston steered the troops into a semi-controlled situation, then appeared to let them make the decision on when, where, and what to do. The old drunk had some shrewd moves when the need arose.Houston beat Santa Anna and Texas was free of Mexico. But what to do next? Jackson and his Secretary of State, J.Q. Adams, didn't want them at first, so Texans formed their own independent nation in 1836. But, as was the tacit understanding from the beginning, Texans themselves wanted to be part of the Union. There was finally agreement in Washington D.C., but then a major financial crisis put the country in a tizzy and Texas had to wait almost 10 years before being incorporated.Another fascinating political development was, when Texas was still independent, the British were making moves to forge close economic relations (and maybe offers of incorporation with the Empire?) to gain a position from which to trade with the Caribbean.THEN, when Texas was finally annexed by the U.S., Santa Anna and the Mexicans came back for one or a few more stabs at regaining control of land north of the River. This prompted the U.S. to go to war with Mexico, which resulted in the acquisition of New Mexico and California. A year later, gold was discovered near Sacramento, and Washington was all ready to make Cali a state.All in all, a well-written story of a territory swept up in a feverish land-grab, inspired to cry for freedom, and cornered like a pawn in an intriguing, complex, and nuanced political struggle.
This book by Brands has a great deal in common with the one I read on California a few months ago. The politics of admitting both Texas and California to the Union became a battleground for the slavery issue, as did, I presume, the political history of every other state admitted in the decades before the Civil War. Texas and California were just bigger and destined to be influential. I was disappointed when the California book left the gold rush—which was my primary interest in reading it—and got into the politics of slavery, but I ended up interested enough to think those decades before the Civil War were a lot more interesting than I’d assumed.Lone Star Nation doesn’t get to the slavery issue until the end, after Texas won its independence and sought to join the Union. Then former president John Quincy Adams led the opposition to Texas statehood on the grounds that it would be a backward stop to admit such a big state as a slave state. Adams was also offended, on moral grounds, that Texas had admitted slave owners with their slaves—illegally—even as a part of the Mexican state of Coahuila y Tejas. (Mexico had outlawed slavery in the 1820s.) I had not known that the last public act of Sam Houston, then governor of the state of Texas, was to refuse to sign the papers officially transferring Texas to the Confederacy. He resigned and died before the Civil War was over and slavery defeated and the Union restored. Brands’ story is a heroic one—rag-tag settlers, mostly from the US, who tried to get along as a state of Mexico but failed. Stephen F. Austin, the founder of Texas, tried very hard to make Texas work as a Mexican state and before joining those agitating for complete independence from Mexico had advocated Texas statehood within Mexico separate from Coahuila. At one point he spent a year in Mexico City trying to move the government on behalf of Texas and when he returned in a last ditch effort to negotiate a deal with Mexico, he was imprisoned as the traitor he wasn’t at the time—but would become.The story of defeat and death at the Alamo and Goliad were familiar from an earlier read; Houston’s victory at San Jacinto is familiar because I’ve visited the battlefield and memorial many times and knew at least the barebones of the story. I enjoyed reading about the heroics of men who had been before only the names of downtown streets.Brands perpetrates the legend of ragtag and fiercely independent Texans. Houston’s army had no discipline at all, though Houston was trained under Andrew Jackson and knew something about military discipline. He wanted to fight a defensive war with Santa Anna’s superior forces (and he had ordered the abandonment and destruction of the Alamo), but his men made their own decisions, first to defend the Alamo and then forcing his hand at San Jacinto. One scene I had not known about though was the mass exodus of the civilian population that spring of war. Following the defeats at the Alamo and Goliad, settlers—often just wives and children—sought to leave, bunched up on the roads, abandoning goods and vehicles that couldn’t deal with the roads and piling up trying to cross first the flood-swollen Trinity and then the Sabine. Knowing something of “evacuation” from recent hurricanes I was duly horrified at their predicament.I didn’t grew up in Texas but one thing I’ve learned from living here is that Texas is proud of being the only state that was once an independent nation, but that’s really twisting history. The years after victory at San Jacinto which ended the fighting and sent the army back to Mexico were years of trying to get adopted by the American union and treating with other countries (particularly Britain) in case that did not work out. And while Santa Anna, the President when he led the Mexican army to Texas, but soon deposed when he was captured, was willing to recognize Texas independence, official Mexico was not. The tensions led the Mexican war which finally paved the way for Mexico to recognize the annexation of Texas to the United States as well as to cede California and New Mexico. That’s the next period I need to read up on….
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This is a strong effort, very readable, and a good history of how Texas became a destination for American settlers and later became independent from Mexico, subsequently annexed by the United States. This does not include the strident jingoism that seems to pervade movies about the Alamo - the book even points out that the proud claim in Texas textbooks about the state being an independent country is misleading, as there was always a prevailing expectation that Texas would become part of the United States. In fact it seems that Texas was not annexed anywhere near as quickly as might have been expected.Sources are balanced, many and detailed, including extensive sources from Mexico, and it becomes easier to understand that the emergence of Texas was as much a part of Jacksonian western expansion as anything. While the people emigrating to Texas did expect to become Mexican citizens, as shown by Stephen Austin's example, the mindset became American, and even the Mexicans perceived that the bounteous country was being developed by American entrepreneurism, not by Mexican landholders. Another element that the book particularly brings to the fore is the lack of organization of the army fighting against Santa Anna, that this was a motley group of volunteers who might or might not take orders - quite a contrast to Santa Anna's trained army, which reflects the discipline and organization, also tactics, of European armies at the time (so badly dispelled later in WW1).I read this in anticipation of a trip to San Antonio, Austin, and the region, and it was a good choice.
—Mary
My girlfriend thinks it's amusing that kids in Texas have to take at least one year of Texas History in junior high or high school. She's from Florida -- but I'm from Texas and it never struck me as that weird. Don't kids in Iowa have to take an Iowa History class? Maybe not.Anyway. Regardless of the class, growing up in Austin, Texas a lot of Texas history works its way into your brain. Everyone knows the core elements of the revolution, for example: The Alamo. Goliad. San Jacinto. Houston. Crockett. Travis. Bowie. Santa Anna.This book fleshed out that vague history very nicely. It provides a wide breadth of historical context, starting several decades in advance of the revolution with Moses Austin's arrival in the region and takes us up to Sam Houston's death during the US Civil War. Most of the book does, though, take place during the 1830s. And it does a great job of presenting these characters and situations in a realistic light, rather than as glowing-gold statues of perfection. The slavery issue, for example, is not shied away from and much discussion is given to how many in the US found the idea of annexing Texas repellent for this and a variety of other reasons.It's also the first time I've really felt like I understood what the real situation in Texas was at that time. It was a fucking mess, for lack of a better term. Very little centralized control. Lots of crime and speculation. Continuing conflicts with the Native American populations. A mess.Finally, one of the very interesting things about this book: It's the first time (I think) that I've really seen the Heroes of the Texas Revolution painted as real people. I knew kind of who belonged where. Travis, Bowie, Crockett = Alamo. Houston = General, later President. But I guess I hadn't been aware that Crockett had been a legitimate celebrity before he ever came to Texas. Or that William Travis was only 26 when he commanded the troops at the Alamo. I also hadn't been aware of the closeness of many of these guys to the power structure in the US Government. Both Crockett and Houston were at times considered viable candidates for the US Presidency. I guess when Texans present Texas History they keep it a bit artificially isolated from American History.Anyway: Very good book. And continuing along my US history reading kick that started last year...
—Josh K
“Remember the ladies.” Not in this case. I greatly appreciate that Brands avoids the trap of either carrying forward legends or tearing them down. His is a more authentic history-telling based on evidence. Where there are differing details in the record, he says so. Many of the Texas history stories focus on the lives of the “heroes” after they arrived in the area. Brands presents their backgrounds in proportionate detail, which puts their later actions and beliefs into a larger context. Regretfully, however, he has conveniently disregarded the role of any women in the Texas story. I’m not calling for political correctness, but the historical truth. Focusing only on the men distorts the story of Texas history.Given that missing element, I still recommend this book over many others on the formation of Texas.
—Clgoodman
