American History Hit - What if the Texas Republic survived?

Episode Date: November 17, 2025

In 1845, the Republic of Texas stood at a crossroads. In our history, they chose to join the USA… but what if they chose another path? Was this even possible? What impact would this have had on life within Texas? And how would it have impacted its neighbours? Today we welcome onto the show Prof. Sam W. Haynes of the University of Texas at Arlington, and he's the Director of the Centre for Greater Southwestern Studies. He's the author of Unsettled Land: From Revolution to Republic, The Struggle for Texas.Edited by Amy Haddow and produced by Tomos Delargy. The Senior Producer is Freddy Chick.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  You can take part in our listener survey here.All music from Epidemic Sounds.American History Hit is a History Hit podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Want to explore even more history? Sign up to History Hit, where you will discover history from around the world. From the American Revolution to prehistoric Scotland, there is plenty to discover. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com slash subscribe to bring the past alive. April 1836. The lowlands east of the Brazos River are soaked and steaming, thick with the smell of gunpowder and swamp. General Sam Houston rides along a ridge, his horse's flank spattered with mud.

Behind him, 900 Texan soldiers slog eastward through the marsh, hungry and exhausted. They're running from Antonio Lopez to Santa Ana's forces, one of the most powerful armies. Mexico has ever fielded, the same army that crushed the Texans stand at the Battle of the Almo and then executed the survivors at Goliad. But Houston isn't just retreating. He's watching, waiting, choosing his ground. In a few days, on the grassy plain near the San Jacinto River, he'll turn his ragged army around, and in a short, decisive engagement, the fate of a nation is sealed. The Battle of San Jacinto will make Texas independent and set the stage for everything that comes next. Annexation, expansion, and less than a decade later, war between the United States of America and Mexico.

Greetings all, welcome to American History Hit. I'm your host, Don Wildman. In 1845, the brand new Republic of Texas was already at a crossroads. To the east, the United States of America, young, hungry, restless, focus fixed on the expansion towards the Pacific. To the south, Mexico, proud, wounded, and unwilling to accept that the Lone Star had somehow slipped away. We all know how it went. Texas chose to join the Union, and within a year, the U.S. and Mexico were at war. But today, let's reimagine this past. Take another path, one where Texas's brief stint as an independent republic lasted longer. No annexation. No annexation. No

American troops crossing the Rio Grande? What impact would this have had on life within Texas and how it would have impacted his neighbors? What if the lone star republic had never become an American state? My guest today to consider all this is Professor Sam Haynes of the University of Texas at Arlington and the director of the Center for Greater Southwestern Studies. He is the author of Unsettled Land from Revolution to Republic, the Struggle for Texas. Welcome to the show. Professor Haynes. Nice to meet you. having me. What happens in Texas does not stay in Texas. It changes the world. So this conversation asks how Texas came to pass, its origins, its independence from Mexico to become an American state.

Then what if it hadn't all happened? And the Republic of Texas had remained its own sovereign nation, which was quite possible. What then? Okay, let's go back to the 1500s and the Spanish arrival, first of all. What becomes Texas had been a major culture of, native peoples, large population, the Caddo Confederacy, Karen Kawa on the Gulf Coast, the Apache Comanche come later, so many names and so many people before Alonzo Alvarez de Pineda arrives, the first European to chart the coastline in 1519. The birth of the USA and the Louisiana purchase in 1803 brings the Americans right to the doorstep of New Spain, but that would not remain the case. In the 19th century, there is the Mexican War of Independence.

a revolution against Spanish colonialism, first of several in the Spanish colonies in the Western Hemisphere, and it lasts from 1810 to 1821, long and agonizing struggle, largely sparked by Napoleon's invasion of Spain two years prior. Until the U.S. grows in strength, events in Europe still shape what's happening politically and militarily over here. Fair to say? Yes, I think that's a good way of putting it. The Mexican War for Independence, if we want to think about Texas as a sovereign nation, we really have to start with Mexico's War for Independence. As you said, from 1810 to 1821, Mexico is in the throes of a violent revolution. Doesn't have much time, really, nor does Spain to pay much attention to these sort of these outlying northern provinces of which Texas was one.

there had actually been an attempt to break Texas away from Spain while that revolution was going on. First declaration of Texas independence is issued not in the 1830s during the Texas Revolution, but about 15 years earlier when Texas is still part of New Spain. So in 1821, the situation changes considerably when Mexico finally does win its independence. And then in 1824, Mexico becomes a republic. And Texas, as part of a state to the south, Texas and Coelah, they become states in this new Mexican Republic. And by that time, Anglo-Americans have begun to come into Texas to settle the region. Spain had thought about colonizing the area for a while and it made fitful progress.

but the colonization program sort of kicks into high gear once Mexico becomes a republic in 1824. Having said that, I think it's important to understand that Anglo-Americans coming to Texas, these are not the first people to come to the first Americans to come to Texas in the 1800s. There were what we call immigrant tribes coming from the United States by the hundreds and then thousands. In fact, there were more Native Americans from the United States living in Texas than there were Anglo-American immigrants throughout the 1820s. They were here before Stephen F. Austin, the most famous colonizer of Texas, ever got here. As far as we know, there may have been some Alabama and Tushada, who made their way into Texas in the very early 1800s. Some Cherokees had come even before the War of 1812.

and certainly by 1819, I mean, we have pretty solid evidence that Cherokees are coming, and they're beginning to encourage other Native Americans to come as well. And some of those Americans came from the deep south, but some of them came from Indian territory above the Red River in Oklahoma. So very often, and I think the traditional view sort of paints a picture of a Mexican colony in the 1820s that is southern. opened up for Anglo-American settlement, and the situation changes. And certainly, Austin's arrival is important. We have to give Austin his due as the most successful American colonizer,

but there were Native Americans from the United States who were all part of this process of Indian removal. They were making their way into Texas as well, and really do, I think, change the political situation in all kinds of interesting ways. Stephen Austin, the father of Texas, he's called. Can you explain where he came from and what kind of guy was he? He was an entrepreneur. His father was an entrepreneur. I think one way of looking at Stephen of Austin is to think about a guy who covers an enormous amount of ground during the course of his life from Kentucky to Missouri to New Orleans.

I spent some time in New England down to Mexico City to petition the Mexican government for a land grant. back to Texas. All you have to do is look at Stephen of Austin's itinerary over the course of a several-year period and realize you're not dealing with an average American. I mean, he is covering a tremendous amount of ground, and he was doing so because he was trying to fulfill his father's dream of establishing a land empire in Texas.

And in what we call the Jacksonian period, in the 1820s and the 1830s, there were sort of men on the make who hoped to get rid of, who hope to get rich in a land speculation and in agriculture as well. And Stephen Fawston was at the forefront of that movement. He was an entrepreneur and the desire for land caused him and many others to move west rapidly. We are all familiar with American expansion. Sometimes that's called manifest destiny.

Historians have a problem with that term because nobody moves west out of a sense of manifest destiny. They don't see themselves as carrying the flag by any means. They don't really care what their citizenship status is. I mean, Stephen of Austin left the United States to become a Mexican citizen. Many Americans left, headed west, not knowing what their status as citizens would be. But they went for one reason and one reason only, and that was to grow their wealth. This was a time of almost manic entrepreneurship in the United States. and Stephen if Austin was part of that economic revolution, if you will.

I mean, he has 300 families coming with him. This is 1825 we're talking about. I mean, is it your standard, your stage coach, you know, wagon train kind of thing? Most of them came by sea from New Orleans because the colony was at the mouth of the brassists. Now, some did come overland, and increasingly Americans would come from western Louisiana and also from farther to the north. But in Austin's colony, most of them make landfall on a place called Velasco Beach, now called Surfside,

and they move their way up the Brazzas or the Colorado River, two of the main waterways that run from northwest to southeast in Texas. Yeah, so this is the reality. We have this vast land, which is going to be the state of Texas, which has been heavily populated by all kinds of people. And that was okay. that was the way it was going to be. They assume that things are going to be status quo there. They're going to move in and do what they want to do. What drives this movement towards revolution? What happens? So I am of the opinion that Anglo-Americans who came to Texas, many of them bringing enslaved people with them, didn't take their obligations as Mexican citizens particularly seriously. As I said earlier, they were interested in growing their wealth. They did take oaths of citizenship when they were. got there. But one of the things that you do find, and this is, I think, what set Stephen of

Austin apart for many of his colonists, he was something of a conservative. Had he lived in the United States, he probably would have been a member of the Whig Party. And he was something of a, I don't want to call him a snob or an aristocrat, but it was certainly someone who didn't always get along with his colonists. They were annoyed at some of the surcharges that were part of his colonization project. There were disputes really from the beginning. What makes him such an interesting figure was that he did have this uniquely transnational approach. He learned Spanish. He sent his brother to live with a Mexican family in San Antonio. He visited Mexico City. He wanted to be part of this Mexican Republic. There's no evidence to suggest otherwise,

although later he would change his mind. But the people who come to Texas, I think as a general rule, feel differently. They want to maintain the norms and values that they have taken for granted in the United States. And when there's even the slightest hint that those freedoms might be infringed upon, then there's going to be trouble. And so if we talk about the Texas Revolution, that begins in 1835, but the colony itself, the Anglo-American colony I'm talking about, the slaveholding colony, that colony had quarreled with the Mexican government repeatedly. And I try to make the point in my book on Settled Land that as the colony becomes more and more American, that is to say, as more white settlers come to Texas, then Stephen Fosterton becomes less and less,

relevant. And that's because, you know, he alone, or he and a very small handful of planters, want to maintain or want to curry favorable relations with the Mexican government. But the people coming to his colony don't. And the revolution begins in 35, as we said, but it's always important to remember. This is not a one-off event. There was friction in 1827 when another colonizer, not Stephen If Austin, but someone who had gotten a grant of land to colonize East Texas, foments a rebellion. We call that the Friedonian Rebellion. That was in 1827, and Anglo-Americans had just arrived. And then in 1832, there are three separate rebellions, one in East Texas and two along the coast. And Stephen if Austin isn't there, he's in the state legislature at the time.

He comes back and tries to patch things up to the best of his ability. But my point simply is that I don't think anyone should think for a minute that suddenly in 1835 there is this kind of eruption of violence between Mexico and Anglo-American colonists. It had been brewing for quite some time. It was less than a year later, the 2nd of March 1836, that Texas declares independence. Where did the battle of the Alamo fall in the scheme of things? Well, there were actually two battles in San Antonio. One was in December when a group of Anglo-Americans and Tejano's lay siege to a Mexican garrison there and compel it to surrender.

I was in December. The siege began in November, actually, but ended in early December. And that is the, we'll set in motion the efforts by the Mexican government to launch a major military campaign into Texas to subdue this revolt. And the main body, the main part of the army, led by the Mexican president himself, Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana, arrived in February in dead of winter in San Antonio and laid siege to the Alamo mission where there were about 200 Anglo-Americans and Mexican Texans, Tejano's. And after a 13-day siege, the siege was broken when a major. when a major attack on the fort resulted in the deaths of almost all of the Alamo defenders.

And that was on March 6th. Four days earlier, the Texas government had issued a declaration of independence. It's in April 1836, April 21st, that the Battle of San Jacinto ends the main fighting with Texas forces defeating the Mexican army and capturing the general. How clean a break was that? Was there a famous negotiation? Did we have a treaty and all the rest of it? Well, there's something called the Treaty of Velasco after the battle was over and Santa Ana had been made a prisoner. He was taken down to the coast. And at this windswept little village called Velasco at the mouth of the brasses, he signed a treaty. But that treaty, the Treaty of Alaska, is often cited as evidence that Mexico recognized the independence of Texas, I should say. But it had not done so because all treaties.

treaties have to be ratified. The Mexican constitution is not unlike ours, the United States Constitution. And of course, the Mexican government wanted absolutely nothing to do with a treaty, which they claimed had been signed by a disgraced president under duress. So the Treaty of Alaska was never ratified by the Mexican government. And the Mexican government, it's important to remember, after San Jacinto, continued to claim that Texas was just simply a province in revolt. Now, we all focus on the Texas Revolution and the Texas Revolution seems to have a rather neat, tidy conclusion on April 21, 1836, with Sam Houston on a white charger and Santa Ana, a prisoner. But in fact, the conflict continued, not in the same kind of way, but the Mexican Navy continued to patrol the coast,

actually captured the Texas minister to Washington on his way home, and made him a prisoner in Matamoros. The Mexican government certainly claimed Texas as a province of revolt, but it also claimed the Neuasas River, which is about 130 miles north of the Rio Grande, if your Texas geography is any good. But the Neuasas River had always been. in the southern boundary of Texas. So whether Texas was independent or not, Mexico believed that region that we sometimes, between the two rivers that we call the transnoisus or the noisusis strip, that region was absolutely Mexican territory. And so there were Mexicans in the transnoasis. I mean, Laredo is on the northern side of the Rio Grande. But those were Mexican citizens.

They paid Mexican taxes. They were conscripted into the Mexican army for all intents and purposes. any control that the new Texas government, this new white government had, didn't extend any farther south than the Noasas River. You're foreshadowing that which we are not going to go into too much detail today about, which is the U.S.-Mexican War, which comes just a little while later. We're going to take a short break and we'll come back and we'll talk about the history of the Texas Republic and what happened after its Declaration of Independence. I'll be back with more American history after this short break. Welcome back, listeners. I'm with Sam Haynes of the University of Texas at Arndon.

Arlington. Sam, after their successful revolution, the Texans have an independent nation. I've always wondered how serious were the Texans about running their own country. I mean, this will only last a decade, 1836 to 1846, but were they ever going to really go for it? Was that their plan to be that sovereign nation? My answer would be no. They had always assumed that Texas would be annexed to the United States. And I talked earlier about the economic motivations of people. white American men during this time period. And let me just sort of go back to that for one second. These were people who had invested their fortunes in land in Texas. What they wanted was land prices to rise. And the best way to see land prices rising would be a steady flow of immigrants from the United States. And by the way, I mean, this was one of the reasons for the conflict between Anglo-Texans and Mexico. Mexico had invited colonists, like, Stephen of Austin, but had never quite understood the dynamics of American expansion. Once you allow

a few settlers in, then they want to bring more settlers in, and they want to bring still more settlers in. And so there is a momentum there that can't be reversed. And the initial colonization law had said, we can stop the flow of immigrants at any time. But it really didn't matter what it said, because even when it does invoke that part of the colonization law, Anglos are still coming. In fact, most Anglo-Americans came as illegal aliens in the 1830s after the Mexican government had tried to stop the flow of immigrants. So as far as the Texas Republic is concerned, the same dynamic holds true. Anglo-Texans wanted immigration from the United States. That's the only way land prices would rise. And so they immediately turned to the United States after the Texas, after the revolt, and found that the United States Congress was not so keen.

The Texas minister to the United States, after the Battle of San Jacinto, a few months later, actually, travels to Washington, travels to New Orleans, travels up the Mississippi, and is constantly riding home. And he had actually been in the United States during the revolt itself. And so now he was back a few months later in an official capacity. And the letters that he writes home are, boy, has the tide of public opinion changed. This man's name is William Wharton. And when William Wharton gets to Washington, D.C., the enthusiasm, which seemed to have been felt almost nationwide for the Texas revolt, not in New England, but certainly in the deep South, where many young men, white men, had decided to pick up arms and join the cause in Texas,

even in the north, in big cities, New York City. There had been rallies for the Texas cause while the revolt was going on. But when William Wharton makes his way to Washington, and then when he takes the lay of the land in Washington, D.C., among politicians there, he writes home and he says, I'm not sure that this is going to be as smooth a process as we had once been led to believe. And in fact, he's right. All he achieves while he is the U.S. minister there for a few months is the recognition, and I would say somewhat grudging recognition on the part of the United States, that Texas is a sovereign nation, grudging because even Andrew Jackson knew.

that by recognizing Texas independence, they would be, the U.S. government would be, antagonizing Mexico, which indeed was the case. And so for several years, Texas has no other choice but to become an independent republic. So did it embrace nationhood eagerly? I would have to say it didn't. It was sort of a geopolitical curiosity,

with one exception, though, because 38, Sam Houston had been the first elected president, and he steps down in, succeeded by a man named Mirabeau Lamar, who was something of a visionary. He had grand dreams for Texas. He came from the deep south, and he was very, very conservative. He was a Calhounite. In other words, he was someone who believed very, very strong. that the South had a right to secede if its way of life was impinged in any way by the North. And this was even before slavery, he had become a major issue. John C. Calhoun had talked about secession over tariffs. And this was something that Mirabal-Lamard agreed with. And he became president, and his inaugural address is pretty interesting.

He, for the first time, in certainly the most eloquent way, and you don't see this expressed as often elsewhere, he calls for Texans to embrace their nationhood. And he argues that, and it's very, very clear, you have to read between the lines, but it's clear nonetheless that in the 1838, he believes that Texas should go its own way. And the reason it should go its own way is because there is a threat to our, as he puts it, our peculiar institution by which he meant the institution of slavery. By 1838, the anti-slavery movement had been gaining steam, not just in New England, but elsewhere in the north. And he said that Texas should simply think of independence as a way of separating itself from the agitation of American abolitionists.

Independence would solve those problems. And he imagined Texas becoming a sort of slave-holding, empire in the American Southwest. Just to be clear, the geography of the Texas Republic is not the Texas we know today. This is a much, much bigger, vast thing. It stretches all the way up to what is in today's Southern Wyoming. This was territory that would be divvied up later as new states. It has an elected government. Congress with senators and representatives, presidents with term limits, political factions formed. I just want to, I'm running through this list just to say that there's a lot here that just says Texas Republic, including currency, right? It definitely goes through the motions,

and it definitely claimed a rather large empire in the West, several states. They claimed the Rio Grande from the mouth to its source, so that was New Mexico and parts of Colorado. And if you look at the map, the maps that were made of the Texas Republic, it is indeed a large area. And in fact, the Texas Congress in a fit of reckless exuberance in the 1840s, actually claimed the Pacific Ocean as its western boundary.

Anglo-Texans absolutely had sort of a rather large appetite for land, as did Anglo-American men in the United States. But I just want to make a point that what the Texas Republic claimed as its national domain and what it actually controlled are two very, very different things. So I said a minute ago that, Mexico, it rejected Texas independence, but even if it accepted Texas independence, it still saw the Nuasus River as the southern boundary. So the land between the Nuasus and the Rio Grande, for all intents and purposes, remained Mexican-controlled territory. That was true throughout the republic period. And as far as West Texas goes, the area that we know extending all the way to El Paso, that was the domain of Mescalero. Apaches. And in the Edwards Plateau is this vast region, the low plains that extend all the way down to the hill country, San Antonio and Austin. And this area, this enormous landmass, central Texas, this area was controlled by Peneteka Comanches. And from the Edwards Plateau would raid south,

sometimes into Anglo-American settlements, to the east, but also historical. historically had raided south into the valley of Mexico. And one of the problems that the Texas Republic has is that it's this rather bizarre experiment in nationhood takes place when the Comanches are at the height of their power. And they had to deal with the Comanches and not very effectively. Now, there were other Native American tribes here, too. And Mirabot Lamar sets about to expel them. diplomatic relations with the U.S., Texas has a very small Navy. They are acting just like a country. So it leads one to the question, which we're ultimately going to be turning on its head, is why did Texas eventually join the United States? Just as in 1838, Anglo-Texans in 1845, just as in 1838 favored annexation. There's no evidence to suggest otherwise.

The problem was whether the United States would finally annex an enormous area of land, which was clearly going to be slaveholding and therefore part of the deep south. Yeah, Texas actually filed to join the U.S. the same year it gains independence. But the U.S. deemed the entry of a new slave state. We haven't even talked about that issue at length yet. That is going to be obviously the major factor as we move through the antebellum period. and as Texas figures itself out. Bringing in a new slave state at that time would have fanned flames. I mean, we just got the Missouri compromise and all that stuff figured out.

And therefore, the United States is not really eager to further that problem or grow that problem. But as you say, for all those economic reasons, primarily land values, it had been pro annexation since the beginning. Largely due to Mexicans, you know, the fear of them retaking the territory. We have mentioned something that's so interesting to underscore, and it was one of those learning moments for me with the episode we did on the Mexican-American War was that with the Noises River, that false flag operation that eventually lands us over that border and, you know, sparks the whole war is such a big part of this story. It's such a fascinating thing. So in 1844, Polk, a Democrat, pro-annexation, beats Henry Clay, anti-an annexation. And he becomes president.

And now we have a whole different story here. October 13th, 1845, majority of Texan voters were in favor of the USA's offer of annexation with a proposed state constitution, which endorsed slavery. December 29th, 1845, Texas becomes the 28th state in the Union. Mexico then breaks off diplomatic relations with the U.S. due to conflicting claims on their borders, not to mention the slavery issue, and this was seen as an act of war, and we're often running, the prelude of the Mexican-American War. Eventually, this becomes the story of Texas seceding from the Union as well. And this is the Civil War, of course, as one of the first states to do so in February of 1865. The details and dynamics of the U.S.-Mexican War are fascinating.

It's an amazing episode of time that leads to such extraordinary gains of land and territory in the mainland United States, of course. But we can't get into that on this episode, and I invite listeners to find it elsewhere. It's on our long list of archival episodes to take a look at. after the break, we'll come back and talk about the flip side of all of this, the counterfactual we've been suggesting all along, which is what if Texas hadn't made this choice? What if Texas had stayed put as a nation? It's an extraordinary thing to consider, and it's not out of the norm. I mean, as far as nation buildings go, this is a big area of land and could have stayed put right there in the middle of the United States when we come back. I'll be back with more American history after this short break. Sam, we've covered the context in his.

history of the Dexon Republic. Now, let's suppose history played out very differently. What would have happened if Texas had remained independent? First of all, was this even possible? Could Texas have stayed independent? Well, it could have. And if Polk had lost the election of 1844, Henry Clay had won, then the momentum for annexation would have stalled. And just as the annexation effort had failed in 1838, it probably would have failed a second time. And so what then would have happened? You know, it's hard to say, but I think that it's unlikely, if I'm being honest, that Texas would be an independent, sovereign nation for a long period. I think, in fact, the 10 years were so difficult. They were so rocky. The threats from attack by Mexico, the threats of

attack by the Plains tribes, these were seriously disruptive. Texas was sort of clinging to this national existence for a decade, and it would have continued to do so if it had no other choice, if the United States had refused to annex it. I think what also could have happened, though, I don't think Texas would have prospered, but I would say that almost definitely, had annexation been rejected, Texas would have. have become a very close ally of Great Britain. And Great Britain was very, very interested in affairs in Texas. A lot of people don't know this, but for all intents and purposes, Great Britain saw Mexico as something of a client state. Mexico had defaulted on its loans to British banks,

and it was heavily indebted to Great Britain. And very few decisions were made in Mexico City without the approval of the British minister. And they were anxious to do the same thing. in Texas. And there was a very ambitious and very effective diplomat on the ground in Texas. His name was Charles Elliott. He was the Charger de Fair to Texas. And he had been enormously effective in, not convincing necessarily, but certainly making the case to people like Sam Houston that Texas might do better if it established commercial treaties with Great Britain. So in fact, to go back to annexation for a minute, one of the reasons why the U.S. Congress decided to pass the joint resolution was because it was afraid of British inroads in Texas. Andrew Jackson rather colorfully said

in the mid-1840s that if Texas became a satellite to Great Britain, it would form an iron hoop around the United States that would cost oceans of blood to burst asunder. And that was rather sort of vivid rhetoric, but there's no question that he believed it because he talked that way almost all the time. In fact, annexation became something of a monomania for Andrew Jackson. But to go back to your question, then, would it have survived? Yes, Texas would have survived with British support. Would it have thrived, though? I'm not sure. And certainly the overwhelming majority of settlers, citizens in Texas were Anglo-American. And, you know, we're only, if, you know, Texas is annexed in 1846, I mean, we're only 15 years away from the Civil War.

I would think that the ties, certainly the ties as slaveholders being part of the slaveholding culture, would have encouraged the Texas Republic to join the Confederacy in 1861. In other words, it would have done what Texas did as a state in 1861. And so then you would have had two slaveholding nation states fighting the Union, but it probably would have had the same outcome, assuming Texas had been, had not been as successful as many would think. I mean, the barriers to a successful, stable Texas Republic were considerable. And specifically in the form of Native Americans farther to the West. I think it's a, of course, it's a fait accompli, all of this what we're talking about. Of course, Texas is going to join the United States. But it's interesting to consider whether they don't, what happens to the U.S. Mexican War, you know, because so much of that was about that southern border, the incursion upon it. And then the domino effect of what would then happen with all the Southwest territories, the Treaty of Hildago. Everything is so hinged on the fate of Texas. It's so interesting. Well, that's why the election of 1844 is so important. And that was the closest election in American history up to that time. And the election of Polk secures the annexation. The annexation goes forward because Polk is elected president in November. And then we're only a year away from a conflict with Mexico. And so the annexation of Texas, the acquisition of this enormous, amount of territory in the American West and Southwest through the Mexican War. These all can be attributed to or have their roots in the victory of James K. Polk in 1844. I mean, he was a dedicated expansionist. Not only did he acquire Texas, not only did he acquire the American West from Mexico

during that war, but he also negotiated a treaty with Great Britain over the Oregon territory. Boy, is there a Netflix series coming on James Polk? I'm not so sure about that. that. He wasn't the most interesting fellow. He tended to be rather colorless, very rigid in his thinking. I don't know. He's, he's not the most exciting figure. So is it a Netflix series? I don't know. Of course, let's talk about the most pivotal moment of all, which is what happens with the Civil War. You know, Texas stays a republic. You already mentioned they're naturally going to go towards the Confederacy simply because that's how they're making their money. It's a slave-holding state. And they're, their morals are on that direction. I guess the Civil War is going to play out the way it plays out because they did that anyway. After statehood, we do see an influx of immigrants from the United States and the population soars. But the fastest growing population is not Anglo-American farmers wedded to the cotton crop,

but the enslaved people who are needed to pick the crop. The fastest growing population in Texas in the 1850s is African Americans. And so East Texas, the region which is more conducive to the growing of cotton, the population there is clearly supportive of the peculiar institution, as it was called at the time, the institution of slavery, the growth of cotton. Although people live farther west and north by 1861, there had been some settlement after the U.S. government had worked to deal with the threat from the low plains tribes. So settlement was inching westward. But those settlers in those new communities were never really as, they didn't have the kind of political clout that people along the brasses, for example, did, where the population where there was majority of African Americans, in fact, the cotton growing sort of the cotton belt of Texas. Those people had all the plantation owners, the cotton lords of Texas.

They had the political clout. And when you read the ordinance of secession, the Texas ordinance of secession, all of the states seceded drafted their own, but the Texas one is unique in that it makes it absolutely clear why secession is taking place to protect the institution of slavery. And that really does speak to the political clout that planters had in the state legislature in 1861. It's a fascinating thing to ponder. I mean, you can imagine such a rich land, as we are talking about, then becomes this amazing place with cosmopolitan cities of Houston, Austin, Dallas, all drawing in from immigration around the world, just like the United States did on its own. They've got a huge coastline.

Those ships are going to come. Then Texas then forms its own diplomatic alliances around the world, and boy, it affects everything in future conflicts, etc. But the United States without Texas, no remember the Alamo. You've got no cowboy archetypes, no oil boom economy, no jangly spurs and a swagger in its step. Maybe America would have stayed smaller, quieter, and much more cautious. It's a whole different identity that Texas brings along, and it was born of all the conflict that it went through to get there. And you wouldn't be at the University of Texas. Who knows?

That's true. I want to thank Sam Hanks for joining us today. The book is called Unsettled Land from Revolution to Republic, the struggle for Texas. As you can tell from this counterfactual conversation, the facts alone are fascinating. So have a look at that book. Thank you so much, Sam. Nice to meet you. Thank you.

Appreciate it. Thanks for listening to American History Hit. You know, every week we release new episodes, two new episodes, dropping Mondays and Thursdays, from mysterious missing colonies to powerful political movements to some of the biggest battles across the centuries.

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