Hatred by Texas’ Founding Fathers

In a book called “They Called Them Greasers,” by Dr. Arnoldo De Leon with the subtitle, “Anglo Attitudes toward Mexicans in Texas, 1821-1900,” a well documented work tells the story of how Mexicans and African Americans were treated in San Antonio and other Texas cities. It also tells the terrible history of the Texas Rangers and their racist beginnings. This is a must read for anyone who truly wants to understand the denied history of Texas. According to De Leon , Stephen F. Austin once said the Texas Revolution was a war waged by “mongrel Spanish-Indian and Negro race, against civilization and the Anglo American race.” So much for the hero worship of Stephen F Austin, yet for years we had an elementary school named after this scoundrel.
De Leon points out that in the beginning of Texas history “Mexicans descended from Indians, with Africans making an addition.” Because of years of intermarriage the characteristics of African ancestry have been “diluted” after years of Spanish slavery and the “casta system” which tried to “bred out” black features. In the 1800s many Mexicans still had a lot of African characteristics which caused whites a lot of problems when they attempted to identify ethnically vague populations, or mixed “race” people. Many racially-minded Canary Islanders tried to assimilate into white culture and some even fought for the Anglos at the Battle of the Alamo. Whites thought in a very negative way about blacks and Mexicans and often saw them as people engaged in too much sexual activity. Although white men took advantage of their status by taking liberties with minority women they nevertheless tried to characterize Mexican and Black women as “sluts.” How they could ignore their own sluttish behavior is but an example of racial hatred.
In quoting Anglo negative comments, De Leon revealed that San Antonio, near the five point’s area and near Fredricksburg Road and San Antonio College, had a large area of slums in which “women of the very lowest type” could be found. A racist reporter by the name of Hans Mickle, reported in 1879, that whites and blacks could be found in the area. This may explain why James Newcomb, the Union registrar of voters, set up Newcombville, near San Pedro Park, because there was a Mexican and African American enclave near five points. The area would later extend to what is now the Lincoln Courts (Housing projects). A vibrant African American area grew up on the West Side as a result of a long history of Afro Mexican heritage in the early 1700s and the early 1800s, and later by African Americans moving into the area near San Pedro Park and west to Zarzamora Street and beyond.
Racial views dominated San Antonio as in any other southern city. This racism extended to personal relationships. At that time, discriminatory laws were passed that did not stop marriage between Mexicans and whites, but the law insisted on calling Mexicans by the term “Spanish.” In this way Mexicans were taught to hate themselves by claiming a whiteness that was in name only. Mexican Americans have Native American roots, Arab roots, Spanish roots, and African roots, but many were given a “white” status so that Anglos could feel comfortable with intermarriage. Canary Islanders were given a semi-white status, and if you let some of them tell their history they will completely ignore their Arab-African roots from the Moors in the 15th Century.
In Matagorda County, in 1850, all Mexicans were chased out of the city, except if they claimed to be Spanish (white). According to De Leon, in Uvalde County, Mexicans were prohibited from passing through the area “unless they had in their possession a passport granted by some white authority.” When the Civil War erupted, many Mexicans refused to fight for the racist forces under Robert E. Lee. The “white Mexicans,” or those who were wanted to be white, like the Yturris, Ruizes, and the infamous actors Antonio Navarro and Juan Seguin, supported the Bexar and Wilson County Declaration of Texas Independence in leaflets that said that they supported the “the supremacy of the white race and the peace and happiness of ourselves, our wives and children.” Many of these Uncle Tom Canary Islanders also said that, “Shall Negro supremacy be embodied as a portion of the organic law of the State? Should white men stand below the Negro in the ranks of freemen?” Jose Antonio Navarro was one of the most despicable racists in the Texas revolution. Despicable in that he was Spanish and desired to be white. He was probably trying to escape his Moorish past as many Spaniards have tried to do. Yet, we have named streets and schools after him, and hold him up as a hero when he supported Anglo slavery. Looks like racist historians turned a bum into a hero!
The Texas Rangers emerged during the 1820s as a racist force designed to kill and intimidate Mexicans. They also hated Mexicans because Mexicans often helped Blacks escape to Mexico. Antonio Navarro took the opposite view and supported the slave owning class. Racist whites sought the protection of the Rangers, which was dominated at one time by the ideas of the Knights of the Golden Circle, a pre-Klan type organization, for invented fears designed to run Mexicans out of “white towns and areas.” Throughout Texas, Mexicans, blacks and abolitionist whites were robbed of their land, hanged, falsely imprisoned, and hunted by the Texas Rangers. Mexicans would be called “greasers” in much the same manner as whites referred to African Americans as “niggers.” Texas Rangers hated Mexicans and blacks, they were in effect the Ku Klux Klan of that era. This is some of the history that racist historians hope we won’t discover. In seeing the past in its true light we can then derail those with purposeful historical amnesia who have built a society based on fabrication.