Tag Archives: Texas History

Today in Texas History – September 15

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From the Annals of Emancipation –   In 1829, Mexican President Vicente R. Guerrero issued the Guerrero Decree. The decree abolished slavery in the Republic of Mexico.  It would be another 46 years before Mexico’s northern neighbor would do the same via the 13th Amendment.  With the Decree, Mexico enacted what Padre Hidalgo had originally decreed with El Grito in 1810—the abolition of slavery in Mexico.

Guerrero’s hatred for slavery was probably linked to his own Mestizo origins.  Being of mixed race – including African heritage – Guerrero refused to identify himself with as being of a particular ethnicity.  He referred to himself as an “Americano” and his only loyalty was to his patria and not with any caste or class of the Mexican nation.

The Guerrero Decree was not well received among the freedom-loving, slave-owning, Anglo residents of Texas who were determined to hang onto their slaves despite what decrees might be issued in Mexico City.  Anglo resistance to the abolition of slavery was a major cause of the Texas Revolution only six years later.

A Translation of the Guerrero Decree

The President of the United States of Mexico, know ye: That desiring to celebrate in the year of 1829 the anniversary of our independence with an act of justice and national beneficence, which might result in the benefit and support of a good, so highly to be appreciated, which might cement more and more the public tranquility, which might reinstate an unfortunate part of its inhabitants in the sacred rights which nature gave them, and which the nation protects by wise and just laws, in conformance with the 30th article of the constitutive act, in which the use of extraordinary powers are ceded to  have thought it proper to decree:

 1st. Slavery is abolished in the republic.

2nd. Consequently, those who have been until now considered slaves are free.

3rd. When the circumstances of the treasury may permit, the owners of the slaves will be indemnified in the mode that the laws may provide. And in order that every part of this decree may be fully complied with, let it be printed, published, and circulated.

 Given at the Federal Palace of Mexico, the 15th of September, 1829.

Vicente Guerrero To José María Bocanegra

Today in Texas History – September 14

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From the Annals of the Latinos –  In 1911, the Congreso Mexicanista began meeting in Laredo.   THE CM was the first statewide Mexican-American civil-rights conference and was organized and promoted by the Idar family – the publishers of  La Crónica.  Attending the CM were representatives and members of most of the major Mexican-American social organizations of the day, as well as all Mexican consuls in the state, and Texas-Mexican journalists.  The CM established the Gran Liga Mexicanista de Beneficencia y Protección (Great Mexican League for Benefit and Protection) and the Liga Femenil Mexicanista to promote cultural and moral values among Texas Mexicans, provide protection from abuse by public authorities, and combat segregation of Texas Mexican students. Nicasio Idar was chosen the leader of the Gran Liga, and Jovita Idar, his daughter, was elected president of the Liga Femenil.

Today in Texas History – September 13

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From the Annals of the Religious Right –   In 1860, abolitionist Methodist minister Anthony Bewley was lynched.  In 1858, Bewley – an outspoken opponent of slavery – established a mission south of Fort Worth.   He ran afoul of the so-called vigilance committees who were claiming that abolitionists were plotting to burn Texas towns and murder white citizens.

Bewley was targeted primarily on the basis of a letter he allegedly received from another abolitionist earlier in July.  The letter implored Bewley to continue with his work in helping to free Texas from slavery.  Many were convinced it was a forgery set up to incriminate Bewley.  But the letter was widely published and used as supposed evidence that Bewley was fomenting trouble along with other John Brownites in Texas.

Bewley knew trouble was coming and took his family to Kansas.  A Texas posse caught up with him in Missouri.  He was returned to Fort Worth on September 13.   Later that evening,  vigilantes seized and lynched Bewley. His body was allowed to hang until the next day.  He was buried in a shallow grave, but quickly disinterred.  His bones were stripped of their flesh and placed on top of Ephraim Daggett’s storehouse and children were allowed to play with them.

One cannot know how many in the lynch mob went on to serve in the Confederate military.  But stories such as this illustrate clearly why the Confederate “heroes” should continue to be removed from the place of honor that hold in many Texas areas and relegated to the dustbin of history.

Today in Texas History – September 8

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From the Annals of the Indian Wars –  In 1874, Lt. Frank Baldwin and three army scouts captured the “white Indian” known as “Tehan” in what is now Hemphill County during the initial phases of the Red River War.  His anglo name is unknown as he was taken by the Kiowas when he was a child and given the name Tehan (“Texan”). He was adopted by the medicine man Maman-ti and grew up to become a fierce warrior. He was completely assimilated as a Kiowa and was striking for his red hair, fair skin, and bull-like neck.  As an apprentice brave, Tehan took part in several raids during the early 1870s.  When captured, Tehan made a show of being grateful for his delivery from the Kiowa.   Baldwin met up with Captain Wyllys Lyman train of supply wagons, and transferred custody of Tehan to Lyman.   Indian scouts sent out to look for Tehan discovered Lyman’s wagon train.  The Kiowas besieged the train from September 9 to 14, during which time Tehan escaped and rejoined his adopted tribe, sporting a suit of clothes the troops had given him.  The ultimate fate of Tehan is unknown.

Today in Texas History – September 7

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From the Annals of the Festivals –  In 1972, the first Texas Folklife Festival was held at the at the Institute of Texan Cultures on the former Hemisfair site in San Antonio.  The Texas festival was modeled after the Smithsonian’s Folklife Festival. On behalf of the Institute of Texan Cultures, O.T. Baker attended the first Smithsonian Folklife Festival and decided to replicate the event in San Antonio.  The inaugural Texas Folklife Festival was held from September 7-10, 1972.  Baker deserves full credit as the founder and initial director of the TFF which is world renown and has received numerous international, regional and local awards.

Red has only been to the TFF once, but was very impressed by the fact that no one was there trying sell you something.

Today in Texas History – September 6

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From the Annals of the War Heroes –  In 1952, Corporal Benito Martinez of Fort Hancock was killed in action near Satae-ri in Korea.  Martinez single-handedly defended a forward listening post after ordering his fellow soldiers to return to a more secure location.  He refused an order to himself retreat stating that he knew the situation better than his commander and would use it to stall the North Korean attack.  He held out until he ran out of ammunition.  He was mortally wounded before his unit could counter-attack.  Martinez  received a posthumous Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions.

Today in Texas History – August 31

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From the Annals of Our Poor Idiot Governors –   In 1871 James Edward “Pa” Ferguson was born in Salado.  Ferguson was City Attorney and a banker in Belton as well as a political player when he decided to run for governor in 1914.  He won election as an anti-prohibitionist Democrat but almost immediately got in trouble.  Ferguson engaged in a personal vendetta against University of Texas professors who he believed should be fired.   When UT refused to act, he vetoed the appropriations bill for the university with the ultimate result of him being impeached, convicted and removed from office.  Ferguson was not done with politics as he later ran for the U.S. Senate and President as a minor third party candidate.  He was able to secure the election of his wife Miriam “Ma” Ferguson who was the first woman elected governor of a U.S. State.

Red regards Pa Ferguson as one of a long line of worthless inhabitants of the Governor’s Mansion along with such notables as  Pappy O’Daniel, Preston Smith, Dolph Briscoe, John Connally, Bill Clements, George W. Bush, Rick Perry and our current poor idiot governor Greg Abbott.  Really, where do they get these guys?

Today in Texas History – August 30

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From the Annals of the Bigots  – In 1956, an angry white mob surrounded Mansfield High School to prevent the enrollment of three African-American students.  Following the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, Texas Federal District Judge Joe Estes ordered the Mansfield ISD to desegregate.  Mansfield was the first Texas school district to be directly affected by the Brown ruling.  The school board approved a measure desegregating Mansfield High School.  Mayor William Arnold “Bud” Halbert and Police Chief C.G. Harwell refused to comply with the school board’s decision and were instrumental in stirring up opposition.

And the opposition came.   The white mob of about 400 people surrounded Mansfield High  to prevent the enrollment of three African American students.  Just in case their intentions were not clear, the good people of Mansfield hanged the three black high school students in effigy.  They also attacked reporters and observers.  Sheriff Harlan Wright attempted to confront the mob but was himself threatened.

Up to this point, African-American high school students in Mansfield were required to ride a bus into nearby Fort Worth and then walk twenty blocks to the all-black I.M. Terrell High School.  Spineless Texas Governor R. Allan Shivers, doing his best imitation of a staunch segregationist, called out the Texas Rangers at Mansfield to prevent any black students from entering the public school.  Shivers openly defied the federal court order for integration and authorized Mansfield ISD to continue to send its black students to Fort Worth.  Mansfield did not integrate its schools until 1965.

Photo from newsone.com

Today in Texas History – August 29

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From the Annals of the Big Storms –  In 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall as a category 3 hurricane.  The storm’s direct impact was directed most famously at New Orleans, but much of the Gulf Coast from  Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle was effected.  The storm killed more than 1,800 and caused over $115 billion in damage.  The indirect impact on Texas was the outmigration of people from Louisiana many of whom have stayed in Houston and other cities.  The devastation wrought by Katrina was also instrumental in triggering the mass evacuation from the Houston area in advance of Hurricane Rita which resulted in several deaths.

Today in Texas History – August 26

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From the Annals of All the Way with LBJ –  In 1964, Lyndon B. Johnson was nominated to as the Democratic candidate for president at the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, NJ.   LBJ had of course been elevated to the presidency upon the assassination of John F. Kennedy the previous November.  Shortly before his nomination, the seeds of trouble had been planted when LBJ began the escalation of the Vietnam War based on the now discredited Gulf of Tonkin incident.  Vietnam and the domestic unrest that it unleashed would be the undoing of Johnson’s presidency and he would decline to run again in 1968.