I was wondering if someone could point me in the right direction on finding some good reads about the reason for Texas Independence from trusted sources.

My wife is from NYC and we were having a discussion about history and politics as her family often does and a family friend suggested the main reason Texas was looking to be independent from Mexico was because of slavery.

Any insight on the topic is welcomed. Thanks in advance.

Lone Star: A History Of Texas And The Texans by T.R. Fehrenbach

Thanks

Although this was not stipulated in the constitution, slavery was prohibited in the Republic. Miguel Hidalgo promulgated the abolition in Guadalajara on 6 December 1810. President Guadalupe Victoria declared slavery abolished too, but it was President Vicente Guerrero who made the decree of Abolition of Slavery on 15 September 1829.

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#Slavery is abolished in the Republic.
[ol]

Therefore are free those who until this day were considered as slaves.

When circumstances of the treasury permit it, it will compensate slave owners in the terms that are held by law.

[/ol]

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The Constitution in question is the Constitution of 1824.

For someone who did not grow up taking Texas history in school, I'd suggest starting with some basic primers before diving into a grand narrative book like Fehrenbach's.

This is a pretty standard textbook I used both in high school, and again in college when taking Texas History with Calvert:

https://www.amazon.com/History-Texas-Robert-Calvert/dp/1119581435
*note: earlier editions can probably be found for less than the price on that page.

There's a lot of light, quicker reading to be found online:

You can browse around the Texas Almanac to look up individuals like the Lamars and Stephen F. Austin to learn about the conditions and general political climate under which they agreed to settle here at invitation:
https://www.texasalmanac.com/

Various battle sites have websites with a lot of info:
https://www.thealamo.org/remember/battle-and-revolution/revolution-timeline

https://www.sanjacinto-museum.org/

The person who said it was just about slavery - apparently knowing nothing about early settlement or internal Mexican politics of the era - is probably not worth engaging. But a basic understanding of how Mexico handled Texas following the rise of Santa Anna's military dictatorship and dismissal of the 1824 constitution would be helpful.

I did take Texas history in school as I grew up in Texas. But that was 7th grade i believe. I enjoy the discourse with my wife's family but I would like to have more solid evidence for my case than my faint memory of aTexas history course almost 30 year ago. I don't mind an academic read of the history at all and my wife's uncle would appreciate the read as well as he is extremely well read just often very biased as many of us can be.

I wouldn't say slavery was the overriding cause of the war, but it was a significant consideration for Texian leadership and was explicitly protected in the 1836 constitution to the point that slave owners could not free slaves without the permission of the republic's government.

Forgot to mention, the Texas Historical Commission bookshop usually has some pretty good sales. Ordered something a couple weeks ago and it was free & fast shipping.

https://www.legacyoftexas.com/product-tag/texas-revolution

https://www.legacyoftexas.com/product-category/books

Sale:
https://www.legacyoftexas.com/on-sale-now

https://www.texasmonthly.com/being-texan/battle-rewrite-texas-history/

Mexico banned slavery the same way England did in the same time, in name only.
While you couldn't own a slave, a landowner could have a tenant farmer and their family that lived on their land, couldn't leave the land without the land owners written permission, didn't own anything including the cloths on their backs and wasn't paid. You can say that person wasn't a slave because the law said so, but that person was a slave all the same.

I'm not saying Texas didn't want to keep their slaves in the 1830's. Cotton was king and the driving force in the economy of the state and the only way to plant and harvest cotton was with a large labor force that you paid little to nothing. On the other hand, to argue that Mexico was trying to free slaves and Texas declared independence to keep it's slaves is also a misrepresentation of history.

When you have peonage, who needs slaves? Mexico was certainly not on a higher plane than the Texians in the treatment of their under classes. In fact slavery was probably a better option.

" On the other hand, to argue that Mexico was trying to free slaves and Texas declared independence to keep it's slaves is also a misrepresentation of history.."

And it doesn't explain the previous attempt at a revolution within the state as well as the motivation behind multiple other Mexican states being in open revolt around the same time as Texas.

I'm sure it was part of it, but I suspect it's way overblown in terms of overall importance in the actual reasons behind the revolution. If it was, they would have just said so. There would been no need to beat around the bush in 1836.

CT'97 said:

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Mexico banned slavery the same way England did in the same time, in name only.
While you couldn't own a slave, a landowner could have a tenant farmer and their family that lived on their land, couldn't leave the land without the land owners written permission, didn't own anything including the cloths on their backs and wasn't paid. You can say that person wasn't a slave because the law said so, but that person was a slave all the same.

I'm not saying Texas didn't want to keep their slaves in the 1830's. Cotton was king and the driving force in the economy of the state and the only way to plant and harvest cotton was with a large labor force that you paid little to nothing. On the other hand, to argue that Mexico was trying to free slaves and Texas declared independence to keep it's slaves is also a misrepresentation of history.

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The slaveowners were certainly concerned about the possibility. Whether or not the concern makes sense to us now, it was certainly a consideration at the time.

Slavery was prohibited at the time the empresarios were bringing colonists into the state. They had all kinds of ways to get around the prohibition, so I don't think it was that big of a concern for the slaveholders. I think the biggest tell was that several other Mexican states, with no slaves present, rebelled at the same time. Was it an issue? Sure. Was it the issue that started the war? Not even close.

The heart of the rebellion was Santa Anna enacting laws that applied to the outer territories but not his inner circle of states around Mexico City. The idea that he might try to enforce a ban on slavery in Texas while allowing the states in central Mexico to keep tenant farmers/slaves had to be a consideration.
But Santa Anna wasn't giving speeches that he was going to Texas to free the slaves. At least not to my knowledge. California wasn't seeking independence from Mexico because they wanted to preserve slavery.

I think presenting it as Texas rebelled against Mexico to keep their slaves makes no more sense than the argument that slavery had nothing to do with it.

I'm not disagreeing.

Slavery was part of it, but the idea that it was the prime cause is nonsense.

If you need a nail for the coffin of that argument, it's this:

1. All Texans owned slaves.
2. This included the anti-war as well as the pro-war factions in Texas from 1832-36.

Ergo you could be anti revolution and independence and still be pro slavery.
The fact was, Texas had a carve out on slavery and the Mexican claim of superiority on this is bull**** because they had debt peonage, which was practically the same thing.

This isn't a slam dunk argument. The Civil War was caused by slavery. Period. That didn't mean every pro-slavery Southerner was also pro-secession or that everyone who didn't own slaves was against secession. It also didn't mean the North was not hypocritical in a lot of ways. Peonage wasn't seen as the same at the time by many of the people making the arguments. It doesn't pass the smell test in 2023, but it did in 1823.

When I have researched this in the past, I have seen the Texas Revolution described as a battle for state rights. I think you can make a far greater case for this being the causation for Texas Revolution than the Civil War, where slavery is one of the rights but not necessarily the vast majority reason to fight.

CT'97 said:

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Mexico banned slavery the same way England did in the same time, in name only.
While you couldn't own a slave, a landowner could have a tenant farmer and their family that lived on their land, couldn't leave the land without the land owners written permission, didn't own anything including the cloths on their backs and wasn't paid. You can say that person wasn't a slave because the law said so, but that person was a slave all the same.

I'm not saying Texas didn't want to keep their slaves in the 1830's. Cotton was king and the driving force in the economy of the state and the only way to plant and harvest cotton was with a large labor force that you paid little to nothing. On the other hand, to argue that Mexico was trying to free slaves and Texas declared independence to keep it's slaves is also a misrepresentation of history.

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The Mexican army did free slaves as they marched through Texas. That in part was why "Joe the slave" was set free from the Alamo. But I am sure an argument could be made that was more militarily strategic than morally motivated.

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Peonage wasn't seen as the same at the time by many of the people making the arguments. It doesn't pass the smell test in 2023, but it did in 1823.

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The same could be said of the indentures that the Anglos used for their slaves. A lot of Mexicans bought that, particularly the ones in Texas and Coahuila who felt that the only way to improve their economy was to have Anglo settlement, and anything that facilitated that they were good with.

How long would Mexico have held onto Texas given the situation with the Comanches without the "Anglo" settlers? Wasn't that a material reason for inviting the "Anglos" to settle in Texas?

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How long would Mexico have held onto Texas given the situation with the Comanches without the "Anglo" settlers? Wasn't that a material reason for inviting the "Anglos" to settle in Texas?

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This is a very good point and is one of the key takeaways of my upcoming book. During the 1811-13 revolution, the Spanish killed or exiled as much as 1/3 of the population of Texas. This is precisely why Texas lost its statehood within Mexico and was combined with Coahuila. It was a province in decline and the Comanches were ascendant.

Arredondo, who had caused all of this, recognized it, and it was he who gave initial approval to the Austin colony. (Note, this was initially a Spanish decision, inherited by Mexico).

The problem from the Mexican perspective was that they had inherited an empire on a banana republic salary, and there's almost zero chance they could have held onto anything north of the Nueces in any event. It was either going to be Comanches, other Indians pushed out of the US, Anglos with government support, Anglos without government support, or even some European vultures. The Tejanos knew exactly how screwed they were, so they supported Anglo immigration because they brought economic activity with them.