[Burr5]

Thanks for a little additional perspective, insulting though it may be in tone. But much of what you've said still fails to refute my central thesis: The fact that Cortez took slaves in the 16th Century (for God's sake!) is irrelevant to the fact that Mexico did not allow it. The fact that "only" 10% of Texans were slaves does not minimize this stain on their political culture. The fact that there was this little thing called The Civil War, of which I certainly have "heard" does speak well of the Union, but not so well of Texas, which fought for the Confederacy, despite NOT even having the excuse of "economic neccessity" that the states to the east had. In any case I thank you for much of the information: I really wasn't spoiling for a fight (or for a stream of abuse). And no, I've never been jilted by a buxom Texas blonde.

[lentulusgracchus]

The fact that Cortez took slaves in the 16th Century (for God's sake!) is irrelevant to the fact that Mexico did not allow it. The fact that "only" 10% of Texans were slaves does not minimize this stain on their political culture.

My point, which perhaps I failed to elucidate sufficiently, was that the Spanish and Mexicans compromised several principles in order to people Texas with Anglo-Celts. Many Spanish officers, before the Mexican Revolution, were Catholic in name only and belonged to the Masonic Order, and didn't strictly enforce the rule that required the immigrants to observe the orders and take the sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church. Likewise, they didn't often try to enforce the laws that forbade commerce with Louisiana (there was a lively underground trade between Nacogdoches and Nachitoches, both of them founded by the interesting Quebecois Louis Juchereau de St. Denis at the instigation of the French governor of Louisiana; St. Denis's father-in-law, the Spanish governor of Texas, shared the profits and protected the trade at that time), and most of the early Texians' exports went to, and imports (except salt) came from, Louisiana.

Likewise the Spanish overlooked slaves owned by Americans and Spanish subjects of American origin, like Moses Austin whom I cited above, and Jared Groce, who brought 90 slaves from Georgia when he joined the Old Three Hundred in 1821 or 1822.

If you want to go on about slavery, consider that many of Lincoln's in-laws owned numbers of them, and that -- as I'm told on these threads -- Ulysses Simpson Grant was attended by at least one slave on the battlefield during his Civil War career.

You insist on judging certain people with a harsh eye and in the light of an exaggerated moral stance concerning slavery, from a distance of 180 years. This is polemic, not historical understanding, and so I ask you:

What have you got against Texans? Other than the "issues" you dragged up?