| A Word Edgewise by Mary Joe Clendenin |
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| A Word Edgewise by Mary Joe Clendenin |
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LITTLE EVENTS CAN CHANGE HISTORY
I noticed in the paper recently that a group of about 100 people gathered outside the Capitol in Austin to proclaim that Texas was and should be a nation unto itself.
A look back about 150 years in history shows that we tried that--and failed. There in lies an interesting tale of how we stood in danger of becoming a French province.
Since Europeans discovered the New World, and Texas began to attract explorers and then settlers, beginning in 1519 (before the days of Columbus) when Alonso Pineda began to map the Texas coast line, Texas has moved its capital fifteen times.
In 1682, Robert Cavelier, a Frenchman, built a fort at Matagorda Bay and claimed Texas for France. The French were also coming closer from Louisiana where they had built a settlement and fort in Nachitoches. The Spanish to protect their claim moved the capital to Los Ades, near the present site of Robeline, Louisana, just sixteen miles from Nachitoches.
The French were not very successful at building and growing in Louisana, except near New Orleans. But the threat of spreading into Texas was real at that time. So you see, we might have wound up with the French people and language influencing Texas as much as they have Louisana.
But that was not the only effort by France. On down the years when Texas really was the Republic of Texas, with mounting debts and no viable way to furnish the cost of running a government--and unable to raise a militia of more than 800 men--things were getting desperate. When Mirabeau Lamar was president and Sam Houston was an influential citizen, the Republic was trying to borrow money. An ambitious man from France made another bid to get at least a part of Texas under French control.
France was the only foreign government in 1841 to have a legation in Austin. Through the diplomat named Alphonse Saligny, Houston and other government representatives were talking loan money. Saligny got friends (through lobbying) to introduce a bill in the Texas Congress specifying terms of the loan: Texas would grant France three million acres of land and France would bring 8,000 immigrants, build a string of forts, be allowed to work all mines in Texas, and have the sole right of trade with Mexico. Saligny saw his chance of setting himself up as the empresario.
Lamar and his vice-president Burnet were opposed to the idea, but Houston supported it, along with many congressmen. A delegation was appointed to make the trip to France when five pigs changed the course of history.
Saligny was an avid gardener who grew many nice vegetables in the embassy yard, so when five pigs, owned by Richard Bullock, who ran a Congress Avenue hotel, strayed into the garden of vegetables and proceeded to harvest the crop, Saligny was furious. He ordered a servant to kill the hogs. Bullock and many sympathizers were outraged about the hog slaughter. The matter became a diplomatic incident and the loan from France was never finalized. An editor in Philadelphia suggested, when Texas as a state of the union was debating what statue of adornment to place on top of the State Capitol, that the statue of a pig would be appropriate.
Shortly after the loan failed, when Texas was again threatened with forces from Mexico, statehood was sought as the solution to the Republic's problems, with Sam Houston leading the way.
Memory of those early trials, along with memory of the Civil War, with more causalities than any other war in U.S. history, fought mainly to maintain the Union, should cool the thoughts of those seeking again to create a Republic of Texas. Surely, history can teach lessons.
I really don't enjoy reading history. It's too bloody. Too many atrocities committed in the name of righteousness--but I do like finding little curious facts and incidents that have influenced people. One such in modern day would be Gingrich feeling that he was slighted in that flight to Europe for Rabin's funeral. In an effort to retaliate, he began a chain reaction of miscommunication. So many important decisions hinge on such lack of human diplomacy--yet we underrate the value of communication skills and the ability to negotiate as taught in schools. What could be more basic? Maybe we should have a pig for our emblem--for pig-headedness.