Well I admit I am into history, but no where close to knowing wild west history that is for sure. Actually just started it a few days ago.

Having moved to Miami, I don't see many cowboys walking around over here. lol

So believe it or not you would be the closest cowgirl I ever talked to in my life Now that is pathetic right!

I will send you sites if I find any on them. The Alamo movie was sad, but it lead me to research on Davey Crockett now

I heard he was quiet the musician and storyteller and being a storyteller myself one can only respect the effort we put into entertaining people with wild stories.

IMO...there were good and bad points to Crockett. he was for slavery which is a big reason IMO he fought at the alamo

It is ironic wouldn't you say

The Mexican's ran a dictatorship at the time

and the majority of the Texans believed in slavery


both wrong idealogies wouldn't you think

and one can only think of the native indians and what they are doing

They are just shaking their heads at the time

Yes many interesting figures in the wild west. I will take it in strides each day, but the real fun is actually go to the sites and that will be my plan eventually.

that's why I say it's subjective to who you talk to. if the slavery wasn't in the picture...I'd say go for it. I don't see some of those people as heroes (although some are)

the yellow rose of texas IMO was a hero from what I read about her

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_West_Morgan

it had nothing to do with the united states

it was tex fighting for its independence in 1836

in 1837 the united states recognizes the republic of texas

texas did not become a state till 1845


and as in many wars americans went to help those that they thought were in the right

but hey what do i know

you are 100% right

I also read that there were even Mexicans or Spaniards who fought with the Texans for this freedom.

Here is a interesting article between two historians that I would like to share concerning freedom for Mexicans and Texans.

Mr. Arrelleno wrote:

We have all heard the saying United We Stand Divided We Fall well, I believe Mr. Alex Loya is dividing the Hispanic community even further with his frequent references to the white faces of the Mediterranean, the white faces of the Canary Islanders, the white faces of his uncles, the white faces of his cousins, the white faces of his father and mother and the white faces of the glorious people of Spain. I have just finished reading Mr. Loyas entire manuscript and I am appalled at his many references of white this and white that, which verges on the brink of being labeled white supremacy rhetoric. I am also shocked at how he attempts to glorify Anglo history and his misinterpretations of historical fact.

The only thing that I agree on with Mr. Loya is that he is correct in the fact that the struggle for independence did not begin at Anahuac in 1831 and that the first shot fired for freedom was not at Gonzales in the come and take it skirmish in 1835. In fact the struggle for freedom began in San Antonio in 1811 with the Casas Revolt and it was a continuous affair with the Gutierrez-Magee Expedition of 1812, the four month siege of the presidio in Goliad, the Battle of Rosillio, the Battle of Alazan, leading up to the biggest and bloodiest battle of them all, the Battle of Medina. More lives were lost in this first struggle for freedom than in any other conflict of the Texas Revolution. The Alamo, San Jacinto and Goliad all pale in comparison to the violence, to the brutality and to the atrocities that occurred at the Battle of Medina.

It was the bloodiest battle ever fought in Texas, but ninety Americans escaping death. More lives were lost than in all the battles and sieges of the war of the second Republic of Texas on both sides put together. (The Galveston Daily News, August. 19, 1900. Ted Schwartz, Robert Thonhoff, The Forgotten Battlefield of The Battle of Medina.).

Many Hispanics have given their lives defending freedom and democracy. A thousand Tejanos were killed in one battle alone in defense of these causes. But this conflict was not on foreign soil. Not on the beaches of Normandy, not in Korea, Viet Nam or Desert Storm, although Tejanos were there, but much closer to home in south Texas, less than twenty miles south of San Antonio. The Battle of Medina.the forgotten history of the Tejanos, these first sons and daughters of the state of Texas, unknown and unrecognized, for their ultimate sacrifice.

Mr. Loyas interpretation of the invasion by the United States in 1846 in the War with Mexico is also wrong. While it is true that Mexican General Mariano Arista crossed the Rio Grande below Matamoras and led his army onto soil claimed by the United States, it was territory that was in dispute and was also claimed by Mexico. It is also true that President James K. Polk sent Zachary Taylor to occupy Point Isabel to intentionally intimidate the Mexicans. The expansionists policy of President Polk was well known and his campaign of 1844 had placed him on record as being an ardent annexationist. (Quote from The Mexican War, Otis A. Singletary, The University of Chicago Press). Singletary in his prologue writes, Still another reason for our apparent indifference to the Mexican War lies rooted in the guilt that we as a nation have come to feel about it. The undeniable fact that it was an offensive war completely stripped it of moral pretensions that no politician of that era ever succeeded in elevating it to the lofty level of a crusade. The additional fact that we paid Mexico fifteen million dollars after it was all over---conscience money, some called it---seemed to confirm the ugliest charges of those who had denounced the war as a cynical, calculated despoiling of the Mexican state, a greedy land-grab from a neighbor to weak to defend itself.

In his later years General Ulysses S. Grant was to write, that the war with Mexico was one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation. Historian David Fletcher writes, that the United States did not live up to its ideology as experienced in its noblest of writings of democracy and freedom and it was an aggressive war in which we attacked a neighbor and however much we may have won from this war we do not like to look upon the way in which we won it.

But it is Nicolas Trist that sums it all up. In a letter to his wife Virginia, Trist, chief clerk in the Department of State sent by Polk to negotiate a peace, would reveal his true feelings about the war. During the signing of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo Mexican Commissioner Jose Bernardo Coaote remarked, It must be a proud moment for you, no less proud for you than humiliating for us. Trists sense of duty had forced him to conceal his true feelings. As he wrote to his wife, if the Mexicans could have seen into my heart at that moment, they would have known that my shame as an American was far stronger than theirs could be.

Loyas claim of an ethical war against Mexico is a joke. As an example of ethical, let me give you some examples of an American ethical war. In New Mexico on Feb 3, 1846 Colonel Sterling led his US troops to attack 700 Mexicans and Pueblo Indians who had barricaded themselves in the village church in defense of their homeland. The village priest Padre Jose Martinez called for an end to hostilities but the soldiers pounded the church walls with women and children inside. After the walls were breached many tried to escape and were cut down and killed by American soldiers. It is said that the river that ran through the village ran red with blood for weeks. One hundred and fifty were sentenced to hang for rebelling. Lewis Gerard, an American soldier would later write, that for a man to rise up in defense of his country and be hanged for treason is an atrocity and most damnable.

During the forty-eight hour bombardment of Veracruz on March 22, foreign consuls approached Winfield Scotts headquarters seeking a truce in order to allow women, children and neutrals to evacuate the besieged city. Scott refused their request.

And never mind that his Texians were brutal going so far as to murder, rape and rob innocent Mexican civilians. Nine-tenths of the Americans here, complained one observer, think it is a meritorious act to kill or rob a Mexican. Texas Rangers engaged in what one eye-witness described, as a running warfare, embittered by old Texan feuds. General Taylor finally had to muster the Texians out of service and send them home in disgrace.

In chapter 18 Slavery and the Mexican War, of Mr Loyas book he states, Frankly, for those who say the Mexican war was started by President Polk just to include another slave state in the Union do not know the facts, or purposely conceal them. The former disqualify them from teaching this chapter in American history, the later disqualify them from teaching anything at all. This statement suggests that anyone that does not agree with Mr. Alex Loyas version of history, is either nave or ignorant.

smiles...i believe you are correct....they wanted freedom from mexico as well

Dad's mom's family, bought the first ranch from Stephen Austin.
Several died at San Jacinto, have their names on the monument.
Family cemetary is a National Historical Landmark.
Old family story, had a member that left the Alamo, when Travis & his men went in.
He went north to train with Houston, where his family was also.

Alex Loya replied:

Mr. Arellano, I did not say the white faces of this and the white faces of that, I said their faces, the faces of the Spaniard Founding Fathers of Texas, were not the faces of the people we see by the millions crossing over our southern border today, but, rather, the faces that you see in the streets of Madrid, the Canary Islands etc. It is a statement of fact; all you have to do is look at their pictures. And neither is it white supremacist rhetoric since many of the white supremacists would not consider Mediterranean people white to begin with.

It is not I who attempts to divide the Hispanic community with misrepresentations and the glorifying of Anglo history. It is with statements like these, you attempt to make all Hispanics one people when they are not, and, with these statements, persist in keeping the Hispanics, regardless of race, separate from the rest of America. It is not Hispanic history versus Anglo history, it is American History, my book simply focuses on the role the children of Spain, including those who were not necessarily Hispanic but hispanicized.

Your argument is not with me, your argument is with Antonio Menchaca, all the history in my book is simply an exposition of that history which men like him wrote which have been kept hidden for a century. Your argument is not with me; your argument is with the Mexican peace commissioners who recognized the Mexican Border at the Rio Grande and with Santa Annas troops who were escorted by Juan Seguin out of Texas at the Rio Grande.

Im sorry sir, but the United States conducts as ethical wars as can be conducted, then and now, even if at times some among our American people commit crimes. It is true that the first Hispanic Roman Catholic Priests were commissioned as Chaplains in the U.S. Army during the Mexican War with the express intent of comforting the Mexican people in their fear that our soldiers were there to impose Protestantism, thats a fact, and it is an ethical fact, as is the fact that the American General attempted to be at peace with the Mexican General at Matamoros and in response the Mexican General responded by starting the Mexican War.

Every single thing in my book is a fact, it is a fact that DeZavala called the Mexicans an invading force, it is a fact that Ruiz favored annexation by the United States, it is a fact as well that the Mexican War had nothing to do with adding another slave state to the Union, it is a fact that the Anglos were invited by the Spaniards, or Spaniard Frenchmen like Seguin, and it is a fact that Antonio Navarro called those whom you call invaders and murderers Leonidas North Americans and patriots and compatriots. Read Antonio Menchacas Memoirs.

I am sure that as you focus on the atrocity in New Mexico during the Mexican War, you also think that all our soldiers did in Viet Nam was My Lai, and all that our soldiers do in the present war is Haditha, of which nobody but a few know the details yet the liberal Media an liberal politicians, with whom I am sure you agree, have already judged our Marines as cold blooded killers of innocent people.

I said I am aware of bad blood that occurred, but in my book I focus on the good blood that also so occurred, and I do this on purpose. My intent is, other than to preserve a history for my own children, my intent is for the descendants of the original colonial people of Texas and the American Southwest to discover their commonality with the United States, to discover just how much a part of the United States they have been from the very start and to so embrace this country as their own, because it is and has been from the very start.

I dont want to fight with you, let my writing focus on the Spaniard and hispanicized European heritage of the colonial Tejanos, who did exist, and let your writing focus on the mestizos and mulattos, who also existed. Let my writing focus on the sense of destiny the colonial Tejanos had, which did exist, and let your writing focus on the anger and resentment that some of the colonial Tejanos had, which also existed. If you are true to your conviction and your loyalties, then move to Mexico as the colonial Tejanos who were as angry as you did, and from there pursue your cause of Aztlan to bring the American Southwest and Texas under Mexican jurisdiction again. I think the best of America, you think the worst, I focus on the good, and you focus on the bad, and let the readers make decision on where they will fall.

Alex Loya

I know, I didn't dig the basement in the Alamo.

Yes so there was alot in stake here! Very interesting, especially from a European over here

Wow that must be exciting to know family members where involved with all this.

It is said at the Alamo that the lietenant colonel at the time asked the people to make a decision to fight or have the opportunity to leave.

Out of the 200 or more men only one decided to cross the line and leave, as the rest fought General Santa Ana at the time.

wow sage...that is cool!!!!

interesting articles smiles. but like i said before...there are usually more than one side in war each with different reasons for and against it

Mr. Arrelleno wrote in an email of July 29, 2006:

Although I respect and admire Historian Alex Loyas continuing research on the origins of the Tejano community, I believe he should have taken his research just a little bit further. I, like him, am proud of my Spanish ancestry, but I am also proud of my indigenous ancestry and I disagree with him that the majority of the early settlers were of "pure Spanish blood."

Mr. Loya you make several references of "sangre pura," as if to be ashamed of having indigenous blood flowing through your veins. You may well be of pure Spanish blood sir, but the majority of us are not. Carey McWilliams, in his book, "North From Mexico," describes this as a "fantasy heritage." McWilliams describes this further, "the native-born Spanish-speaking elements resent any attempt to designate them in a manner that implies a "non-white" racial origin. Being called "Mexican" is resented, not on the basis of nationality, but on the assumption of racial difference."

As Dr. Arthur L Campa has pointed out, because of the Anglo-Americans attitude towards race, the first reaction of the New Mexican , "is to disassociate himself from anything that carries a Mexican implication." To do this, he must insist on his difference in origin. Thus he is of "pure Spanish blood," a direct descendent, "of the Spanish conquerors." Carried to its logical conclusion, this line of reasoning results in the deductions (a) that the New Mexican is not a "Mexican," ; and (b) that he has no Indian blood. "Being American citizens the next step is to combine the concept of race with that of nationality and the hyphenated Spanish-American is the result. Such a term serves a triple purpose: it lifts from the New Mexican the opprobrium of being a Mexican: it makes him a member of the"white" race, and expresses his American citizenship." But the difficulty with "Spanish-American," as Dr. Campa adds, is that, while it suits the New Mexican in the abstract, there is little in his appearance and origin that upholds the distinction he is trying so hard to make. To the Anglo-Americans of the borderlands, with their racial pre-occupations, it is second nature to refer to the Spanish-speaking group as "Mexican"; whereas the "Californios, the Tejanos, and the New Mexicans insist that they are "Spanish" or Spanish-American." The trouble with all the terminology, as Dr Campa puts it, "is based on logic and excludes the human factor. The whole thing is characterized by anomalies which attempt to justify prejudices and defense mechanisms. Certainly the attitude of the Californios, the Tejanos and the New Mexicans has been a factor in the cultivation of an absurd dichotomy between things Spanish and things Mexican."

Carol Hendrickson, in her dissertation, "Everybody's Indian When The Occasion is Right," argues that criteria such as wealth, size of landholdings, or the number of votes is a primary factor in fundamental classifiers when she describes the social phenomena of ethnicity. Other systems of labeling exist, of course, but many of the more social-politically oriented are taken to be sub-summed by basic ethnic distinctions. The term "Indio," which translated into English as Indian, has derogatory connotations and is not a common word for self-definition.

The majority of the early settlers were not of "sangre pura" as Alex Loya describes. They are a mixture of the Native Americans, Los Indios Tlaxcallans from northern Mexico and the mixed blood mestizos of Spanish and Mexican Indian blood.

As Dr Arthur L. Campa accurately asserts about the descendents of the mission Indians "the inhabitants of all of the missions have been so completely assimilated that they resent any reference of their Indian identity." As Juan Gomez-Quinones, a Chicano historian noted, "The history of the Southwest is beclouded by assumptions of Spanish this and Spanish that, and is devoid of human content. The literature has information based on legal documents concerning administrative practice, architecture, laws and economic trade, but there is little as to the people, their values and relations as they developed over time. Settlement was carried on, in the majority, by indio-mestizo-mulatto settlers. Nonetheless, upon reviewing the literature, an individual of Mexican descent can speculate, understandably, about the probability of a Machiavellian conspiracy to deny the historical presence of ancestral kin."

Writing about the early communities in Texas, Edgar L. Hewett points out, " the disappearance of some of the pueblos is simply the result of a complete assimilation of such Indian villages as Tome, Nambe, Cuyimange, Socorro and Ysleta in Texas." Gerald E. Poyo in his book "Tejano Origins," says that in the early years life in San Antonio the desire of Fray Antonio de Olivares of San Antonio de Valero Mission had been that "pure blooded" Spanish families were to settle the area and virtually all of Alarcon's recruits were "mulattos, lobos, coyotes and mestizos." There, according to the priest, "were people of the lowest order, whose customs are worse than those of the Indians." Unless you were of Spanish descent the friars would not identify race when registering the baptisms, marriages, and deaths, concealing racial "shortcomings." For instance, only one interracial marriage is registered in San Antonio during this time between a Spanish settler and the commanders Indian servant. And in another case, even when the groom is identified as the son of a Spaniard and an Indian he is listed in the marriage register as Spanish and not mestizo. Thus, these descendents of racially mixed individuals were allowed to progress to the preferred social status in the larger colonial society. In spite of their dark skin, many people on the frontier passed themselves off as "Spanish." Because the distribution of San Antonio's resources during the early years were in the hands of the elite Canary Islanders, it was difficult for non-Spaniards to acquire wealth and social status. However, in the later years, it became easier and advantageous to inter-marry into the ruling families in order to obtain status. Along with the attainment of such status came changes in ethnic designations, as is evident in the frequent transition of mulattos or mestizos to "Spanish."

Carlos Castanada in "Our Catholic Heritage Volume II" says that "the ethnically mixed were the rule rather than the exception." Castaneda further states in "Our Catholic Heritage," that during the colonial era "that the Catholic Church and the missionary's role was to reduce and culturally obliterate the Indian. Their objective was to create a "Christian," and that meant to spiritually and culturally stamp out the Indian." In a way they succeeded. As we have inevitably become anglicized by living in the United States and educated in American schools, our Indian remnants have disappeared. We may be culturally extinct, losing our names, our heritage, but we are still here. Like the Maya of Yucatan, their civilization peaked hundreds of years ago, but they still exist, and so do we.

Donald E. Chipman in his book,"Spanish Texas, 1519-1821says that," the ethnic structure of Texas during 1777-1793 reflected that the largest percentage of the population, approximately 50 percent was classified as "Spaniard," followed by settled Indians. By the 1790's roughly two-thirds of the adult population was married. Single men outnumbered single women, with disparity most noticeable in towns containing military garrisons. Most immigrants married women from the local community. At the close of the eighteenth century the population of Texas in general, reflected ethnic mobility. The marriage of white men to women of mixed origin started the process of amalgamation, and children of these unions often passed as white." Chipman also writes: "That despite the rich human tapestry that was pre-Spanish Texas, the Indians were ultimately doomed. They succumbed because of lost ancestral lands, fatal diseases, limited numbers, destruction of the buffalo and superior European technology. The record is inexorable, for not one original native culture remains in the state of Texas. Apart from the ethnic roots of Tejanos, one must search hard to find other significant Indian legacies in the Lone Star State.

As Elizabeth A.H. Johns, in her book,"Storms Brewed in Other Mens Worlds," has demonstrated, "by painful trial and error Indian and Spanish communities evolved toward peaceful coexistence."

In 1821, the greater part of some three thousand nonindigenous settlers in Spanish Texas were mestizo, of mixed ethnicity. Jack Jackson, "Los Mestenos," has shown that caste distinctions continued in the Mexican population with the use of such terms as espanol, indio, negro, mestizo, mulatto, coyote, lobo, and zambo. He also noted that many Anglo-Americans were apt to ignore these finer distinctions and lump all Spanish speakers into one "despicable" race.

In 1591 four hundred Tlaxcalla families came north with Spanish Captain General Francisco de Urdinola to settle San Estaban alongside the Spanish town of Saltillo. Which later would become, as the Historian, Herbert E. Bolton has described as ,"the mother colony from which numerous offshoots were planted at the new missions and villages further north,..that is in Texas." David Bergen Adams, B.A. in his dissertation "The Tlaxcallan Colonies of Spanish Coahuila and Nuevo Leon; An aspect of the settlement of Northern Mexico," The University of Texas, Dec. 1970, writes: The main attributes of the Tlaxcallans in this process were stated in a 1698 petition which was that they , "would be a buffer against enemies and would always have arms and horses in order to resist...{and} because the natural Indians get along well with the Tlaxcaltecos and help them in everything." The Tlaxcallans were to establish dozens of towns in northern Mexico, too numerous to mention them here.

In his book, "Tejanos and Texas," Andres Tijerina, PHD, states: "The major pattern of Tejano settlement was not the planned spread and strategic military settlements that the Mexican Government tried so diligently to achieve. Instead the population of Texas, particularly in the Bejar-Goliad region, increased only as the established presidio soldiers or presediales steadily integrated or amalgamated into the neighboring communities through intermarriage or retirement. The presidial amalgamation increased the population and promoted a racial mixing as well. Most of the Mexican soldiers and settlers who inhabited the communities and presidios of Texas had come from the stages in Northern Mexico where racial mixing had been prevalent. They were mestizos, a racial mixture of Spanish and native Mexican Indian. The Mexican natives in Northern Mexico were largely of the Tlaxcalan tribe from the former Aztec Empire. Thus, the original Tejano community was most likely a blend of intermarrying between Tlaxcallan soldiers and Spanish mestizo settlers. Presidiales married into civilian communities; Tlaxcallans married into Spanish families."

In his diary, "Texas by Teran," General Manuel de Mier y Teran says, It is a shame that we cannot do what the Spanish did before. From San Luis Potosi to Bejar I have not visited a single town of any size that had not been a Tlaxcallan Indian settlement, established at a cost to the {royal} treasury and run by {missionary} fathers. {This is} a little known fact, as is in all of our history." He also mentions that the Spanish government, when it had made a determined effort to populate these lands, (Texas), that they had sent Indians from Tlaxcalla under the charge of the missionary priests. They had also placed exorbitant funds in the missionaries hands so that they might pursue unchecked, their chief desire to construct buildings.

The eminent historian, Charles Gibson in his book, "Tlaxcala in the Sixteenth Century," says that although there were other Indian Nations that allied with Cortez and the Conquistadores that the Tlaxcallan were the only ones to "participate with fair consistency and in large numbers." He continues by saying, " the military alliance with the Spaniards and the colonization venture in the north was a form of escape and an attempt to begin anew. They were used as general settlers during the later northern expansion and seem to have been members or descendents of the 1591 group." (Saltillo, San Estaban)

I could go on and on, but I felt I had to speak for the indigenous population, which has remained silent and in the background for much to long. All of this information and more is in my book, 'Tejano Roots." The first part is of the "Battle of Medina," of which Mr. Loya makes reference to and again is wrong with his assessment.

Dan Arellano

Historian and Author

I stand firm for the native indians and their reasons


but I do find it interesting how the land was fought for at the time. What I realize is that there are many nationalities that love Texas very much. That is something to admire in itself. It is too bad that they had to kill for it.

Texas belonged to Spain until 1821!
They could never get anyone to settle there until Steve Austin received a land grant and begin to settle there.

When Texas became disgruntled over the Mexican Gov and the Mex Gov imposed a halt to immigration in 1830, Texas was claimed by both the US and Mexico.

In 1830 the pop of Texas was 30,000 Anglos and 7,800 Mexicans!

that's how this whole country was founded and how the states came about