Thread: COMMENTARY:I give thanks for illegal immigrants

I give thanks for illegal immigrants
COMMENTARY
By RICK CASEY
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
Nov. 25, 2008, 11:03PM


This year, as we gather for the feast, I am giving thanks for illegal immigrants.

I have a particular group of illegals in mind, but I confess that my gratitude to them does color my view of most other illegals.

I refer to the liars, debtors, opportunists and criminals who flooded into Texas in the first half of the 19th century, and then wrested the land from Mexico.

Their story is told in A Glorious Defeat: Mexico and Its War with the United States. The author, Timothy J. Henderson, earned his bachelor's degree at the University of Texas at Austin and his doctorate at one of those well-regarded institutions back East.

He is now a professor of history at Auburn University Montgomery.

Best of intentions
So he brings both experience of Texas and an academic distance from it.

Stephen F. Austin, who brought many Anglo families to Texas, is not numbered among the illegals. Henderson describes him as "likable, handsome, hardworking, and well educated, with cultivated manners, a moderate temperament, and a sometimes unfortunate tendency to assume the good intentions of others."

He traveled to Mexico City to negotiate a pact under which he pledged to bring Anglo settlers into Texas according to rules set out by Mexican authorities.

Austin, writes Henderson, "from the outset made plain his intention to do everything by the book, and for most of his adult life he never wavered from his commitment to be a good citizen of Mexico."

He negotiated a generous deal. A head of an immigrant family would get 4,438 acres for farming and another 177 acres for livestock. For every 200 immigrants he or other impresarios brought in they would receive 66,774 acres.

There were a few rules. They had to pledge loyalty to Mexico. If they weren't already Roman Catholics, they had to convert.

Despite Austin's best efforts, Henderson says, Anglos came pouring in and most "had no intention of abiding by their end of the bargain."

Mexican law, for example, stipulated that any slaves would be free as soon as they entered Texas.

Anglo immigrants "elected to assume that this referred only to the buying and selling of slaves and did not apply to slaves brought by colonists for their own use," writes Henderson.

One Mexican general wrote that the colonists "commit the barbarities on their slaves that are so common where men live in a relationship so contradictory to their nature: they pull their teeth, they set dogs upon them to tear them apart, and the mildest of them will whip the slaves until they are flayed."

Some illegals came to escape debts or domestic obligations. Some were simply adventurers.

Some were fugitives from justice, "sporting brands on their faces marking them as miscreants." (Think gang tattoos, only not voluntary.)

Some of these, not surprisingly, continued their criminal careers in Texas. Colonists who caught them at it considered the Mexican prohibition of the death penalty to be inconvenient and carried out executions.

These immigrants not only entered illegally or violated the terms of their legal entry, but rather than keep their heads down and try to fit in, they lived in active defiance of the law.

So much so that the Mexican government in 1830 passed a law barring all new American immigrants from entering Texas.

Among the illegals violating that particular law were David Crockett, William B. Travis and Sam Houston.

For the fact that tomorrow we celebrate the particularly American holiday of Thanksgiving in Texas, we owe them and the thousands of other illegals whom they joined our enthusiastic gratitude.

I also give thanks for those illegals who have worked hard to clean up the Galveston area in the past weeks, and have shown no interest in importing slaves or overthrowing our government.

Our history shows that immigrants — even illegal ones, especially when laws are out of whack — often make things better.

You can write to Rick Casey at P.O. Box 4260, Houston, TX 77210, or e-mail him at rick.casey@chron.com
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/met ... 32943.html

One problem with his reasoning...immigration laws did not exist back then, did they?

Here is the letter I just sent Casey.

What a buffoon! I just got through documenting the paperwork that officially lists me as a direct dependent of one of the 1st 300 families in Texas called the Old Three Hundred. The people who came from America to settle Texas were not illegals, liars, debtors, opportunists and criminals. In fact they were allowed by Spain to settle in Texas and later encouraged by Mexico. These people can in no way be compared to the illegals who have come into this county in direct violation of our laws to leach off the American taxpayers. These people have not been given permission or encouraged by anyone to come here and suck our blood. In fact, most all of the Old Three Hundred were as you described Stephen f. Austin; hardworking and well educated. Not exactly the description of the illegals invading this country today.

Anyway, Moses and Stephen F. Austin and many other American's first settled the area we now know as Texas long before Spain gave it to Mexico in 1821. In fact, long before the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. The settled at an area called the Pecan Point settlement which was south of the Red River.

The Spanish were quite aware that Americans were invading their territory, and they were not happy about it. In a treaty negotiated by John Qunicy Adams, American Secretary of State, and Don Luis de
Onis y Gonzales, the Spanish Minister to the US, the southern boundaries of the Louisiana Purchase were formally established. The Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819 affirmed that the lands south of the
Red River were under Spanish control.

In 1821, the Mexican War for Independence severed the control that Spain had exercised on its North American territories. The same year (1821), Mexico enacted the General Colonization Law, which enabled all heads of household, regardless of race or immigrant status, to claim land in Mexico. The first empresarial grant had been made under Spanish control to Moses Austin. The grant was passed to his son Stephen F. Austin, whose settlers, known as the Old Three Hundred, settled along the Brazos River in 1822. The grant was later ratified by the Mexican government. Twenty-three other empresarios brought settlers to the state, the majority from the United States of America.

The new country of Mexico emerged from the war essentially bankrupt. With little money for the military, Mexico encouraged settlers to create their own militias for protection against hostile Indian tribes. Texas was very sparsely populated, and in the hope that an influx of settlers could control the Indian raids, the government liberalized immigration policies for the region.

The Mexican-born settlers in Texas were soon vastly outnumbered by people born in the United States. To address this situation, President Anastasio Bustamante implemented several measures on April 6, 1830. Chief among these was a prohibition against further immigration to Texas from the United States, although American citizens would be allowed to settle in other parts of Mexico. Furthermore, the property tax law, intended to exempt immigrants from paying taxes for ten years, was rescinded, and tariffs were increased on goods shipped from the United States. Bustamante also ordered Texas settlers to comply with the federal prohibition against slavery or face military intervention.

In the Mexican interior, violence began to erupt between those who supported federalism and those who wanted a centralized government. Texians continued to lobby to overturn the laws of 1830. A few years later Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna's lead a revolution against Mexico and was later elected a President. Texians had ask Santa Anna that Texas be allowed to be a separate state. Of course Santa Anna denied their request in 1833. Meanwhile the number of American immigrants entering Texas quickly escalated. Santa Anna believed that the influx of American immigrants to Texas was part of a plot by the U.S. to take over the region. In 1834, because of perceived troubles within the Mexican government, Santa Anna went through a process of dissolving state legislatures, disarming state militias, and abolishing the Constitution of 1824. He also imprisoned some cotton plantation owners who refused to raise their assigned crops, which were intended to be redistributed within Mexico instead of being exported. These actions triggered outrage throughout Mexico.

As we all know, this later lead to the Battle of the Alamo followed by the Battle of San Jacinto where the Mexican Army was defeated on April 21, 1836. Santa Anna signed the sign the Treaties of Velasco on May 14 which recognized Texas's independence and guaranteed Santa Anna's life.

So in fact, the Old Three Hundred and the rest of the Americans who settled in Texas were not illegals and did not violate any laws. They were allowed to settle by Spain and then encouraged later by Mexico. The Americans’ who settled this area also did not ask the Mexican government for any hand outs. They worked hard to provide all they needed.

Family History
George, David (b. ca 1815 at St. Helena Parish, LA - d. ca 1881 at San Marcos, TX) awarded a land grant from service in the Battle of Goliad.
George, Freeman (b. ca 1780 at VA - d. pre 4-1837 at Matagorda, TX) One of the Old Three Hundred

Excellent letter bigtex! The OBLs have really been hitting the comment section there as they usually do when they see a bleeding heart article.

Let the traitor have it Big Tex!!

Maybe he is a member of the modern San Patricio Brigrade along with Kennedy and McCain.