April 21, 2008
Happy San Jacinto Day!
On an April afternoon, after enduring heartbreaking weeks of disaster and defeat a ragtag army turned against its better-equipped and more numerous foe, scattering them to the winds and changing the course of history.
But enough about the Presidential primary.
Terms like "history's turning point" are thrown about pretty cheaply, but I think that Sam Houston's victory over Santa Ana back in 1836 qualifies for that sobriquet. Had the Mexican army won that day, or had the battle never been fought and the Runaway Scrape continued until the Texian settlers were driven across the Sabine, the North American settlements in Texas might have been forgotten as a historical footnote; another of colonization's deadends like the Norse in Vinland or the Huguenots in Spanish Florida.
As it was, though, San Jacinto was the narrow end of the wedge that let the United States pry away the sparsely-settled and little-known northern half of the former Spanish Viceroyality of New Spain from its successor, Mexico. And in so doing, the annexation of new territory to the south exacerbated the great sectional conflict that led quickly to our Civil War and our national re-foundation on lines quite different from those envisioned by the 1776 Generation.
I don't mean to ignore the effect on Mexico, but imagining how our sister republic would have developed had she retained Texas, and California, and Arizona requires more imagination than I can spare at the moment. "The history of things that never happened has not been written."
So I invite you to take a moment this afternoon and reflect on how much our world is a product of things set in motion by Buffalo Bayou one hundred and seventy-two years ago today.
Posted by mayor mcsleaze at April 21, 2008 09:30 AM
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Comments
What really sucks is that since I no longer live in Texas, I don't get this day off of work. *pout*
Posted by: DarthVelma ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.mcblogger.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at April 21, 2008 10:17 AM
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