Talk:Republic of Texas

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Republic of Texas was a good article, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these are addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

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Contents

[edit] History

Later: I looked at the history and reverted out the 1861 section. --Henry Troup 15:31, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

The section on 1861 secession probably doesn't belong to this article, and is rather strong POV. --Henry Troup 13:56, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Shouldn't we break out a separate Texas Revolution page? --Ben Brumfield

2002-01-10: Added a paragraph of background, including link to new T.R. Page. --Ben Brumfield

[edit] Internal politics

Just added a section on internal politics. My sources for it were of varying reliability, and are as follows:

  • Political factions -- 7th grade history (taken in 1986)
  • List of presidents -- Museum at Washington-on-the-Brazos
  • Diplomatic recognition of Texas -- The French Legation in Texas Vol I:Recognition Rupture, and Reconciliation, Nancy Nichols Barker 1971
  • Burnet as acting president -- The French Legation in Texas Vol I:Recognition Rupture, and Reconciliation, Nancy Nichols Barker 1971 (surely there's a better source -- maybe "Lone Star"?!)

--Ben Brumfield

[edit] Texans

2005-01-09: This page tells me nothing about who the Texans were in 1836, and why the rebelled against Mexico. Most of the names are English-sounding. Does this mean that Texans spoke English? Were they the descendents of English settlers? --Alex Tingle —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.152.38.2 (talk • contribs) 14:02, January 9, 2005.

  • Tejas had been settled in the Houston area in the late-1400s, and Black Plague victims unearthed recently show their origins to be English. Additionally, the Texas drawl has been attributed by modern linguists to be a direct descendant of Old English.
  • Mr. Tingle, I concur with the previous comment, you wil find more information in Texas Revolution; however, I did add some very brief comments that clarify a little of the historical, ethnic, and political context of the 1836 declaration. --Supersexyspacemonkey
I added a couple sentences that explain why English-speakers moved into the region.
I added some information about other Mexican states that attempted to secede from Mexico.

--WisTex 04:50, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes some were of English Descent, but a lot of us were also of French descent, as my family was. My family came to Texas from Louisiana as migrant farmers. But it also should be noted that mass sustained immigration and settelment into Texas really did not take place until the late 1800s, specially the North Central Part. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.90.211.225 (talk) 16:14, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Map

The map highlighting the current U.S. state of Texas in red is completely inappropriate for this article. Those borders were determined by the U.S. Congress after the annexation, and were never a part of the Republic by any measure. -- Decumanus 07:02, 2005 Mar 31 (UTC)

Agreed. Texas was actually much much larger. --WisTex 04:24, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Boundries

Who was actually de facto in control of the area in dispute between the R. of T. and Mexico? I know the area claimed on the east bank of the Rio Grande in current New Mexico was under Mexican control up until the US-Mexican war, at least -- what about the rest? --Jfruh 16:07, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Texas had de facto control after the defeat of Santa Anna, although there were many border clashes where troops from Texas and Mexico crossed the Rio Grande. In fact, Texas Rangers regularly crossed the Rio Grande to pursue bandits (much to the dismay of the U.S. Army after Texas was annexed, I might add) and patrolled all the territory claimed by the Republic of Texas. You should note that the entire Republic of Texas is "disputed territory" according to the Mexican government. The "disputed area" that you often see on maps was the portion of Texas that was claimed by both the Republic of Texas and the Republic of the Rio Grande. Mexico never recognized Texas as a republic. The United States and several European states did recognize Texas' independence, however. --WisTex 04:23, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the Treaty of Velasco was signed by Santa Anna as a War prisioner, rendering it a useless piece of paper. Besides, it was never ratified by the Mexican Congress. So it NEVER became a treaty between two countries. It was merely a TREATY between Texas and a war prisioner, with no executive powers whatsoever. So Texas was de-facto Independant but legally was still very much Mexico. The boundries of TEXAS (both as a Mexican State and a Spanish territory) were the Nueces River to the south and Coahuila to the west. So not even by an act of Independance by Texas, the boundry could be just moved south to wherever river or mountain or limit they wished. Setting the border by the US at the Rio Grande was illegal, but very convenient to the interests of border-setting President Polk and the United States. 201.141.227.42 (talk) 23:39, 9 February 2008 (UTC)RGV

[edit] Short-lived states category

I removed the Category:Short-lived states notation from the article. A spot check of other entries in that category show that most lasted less than a year, many just a few days. Since the Republic of Texas lasted ten years, I'm not sure it really fits. Any other opinions on this? — Bellhalla 01:03, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

  • I agree with your reasoning. Johntex\talk 01:57, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
You're both wrong. Texas was a short lived state. Does ten years really stack up to a couple hundred? Ten eyars is NOTHING.

-G

[edit] Inconsistencies between articles.

The article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Revolution list the number of men defending the Alamo as 183 and the article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Texas list the number of men as being between 180 and 250.

The article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Revolution list the number of men in Cos' and General Santa Anna's force as being over 1200 and the Texan army as numbering about 900 in Battle of San Jacinto. The article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Texas list the number of men in Cos' and General Santa Anna's force as being of 1,600 men and the Texan army as numbering only 800. The article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_San_Jacinto has 1200 and 910 respectively. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.120.196.138 (talk • contribs) 09:50, March 2, 2006.

[edit] Delisted GA

Unfortunately, the editor who passed this article to GA status did not write comments in this talk page or leave an edit summary. This article fails on criteria 2b of the GA quality standards. Although references are provided, the citation of sources is essential for verifiability. Most Good Articles use inline citations. I would recommend that this be fixed, to reexamine the article against the GA quality standards, and to resubmit the article through the nomination process. --RelHistBuff 12:33, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Recognition of Texas as an independent country

The article says that when Santa Anna returned to Mexico (1836) the Mexican Congress refused to recognize the existence of the Republic of Texas, although it was recognized by every other major power. This is not true. According to [1], when president Lamar began his term (10 December 1838)... "only the United States had recognized her independence, she had no commercial treaties [and] Mexico was threatening reconquest...". --Alonso 04:25, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Memucan Hunt

The Memucan Hunt mentioned on this page as a vice presidential candidate in 1841 is not the Memucan Hunt discussed in the article his name links to (since that one died in 1808). There were two of them, possibly the Texas Memucan was the grandson of the North Carolina Memucan (not sure).

[edit] Formatting of main article

Should references be numbered using the ref tag or left without a specific citation? As of 12/28/06, there were no citations using the ref tag. I added a ref'd citation then re-did it as a "generic" reference. Another editor reverted it as a ref'd citation. Given the sheer number of non-ref'd citations is it better to continue using only non-ref'd citations, or should the article use ref'd citations? Davidwr 19:20, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Which Flag of Texas to use in the template?

The Burnet Flag (1836–1839)
The Burnet Flag (1836–1839)
The tricolor Lone Star (1839-1845))
The tricolor Lone Star (1839-1845))
  • The Burnet Flag, or the current flag? I vote for the current flag, because it was the final one used by the Republic, it was used the longest, and is most associated with Texas. --JW1805 (Talk) 18:30, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
    • I agree, as it was used the for the longest period, too. Argos'Dad 04:02, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] territorial claims

As I understand it, the Nueces was not the border claimed by Mexico, which did not recognize Texan independence, but the border of the Mexican state of Texas. I'd like to repeat the question expressed above about where the de facto boundary was. The borders claimed by Texas included territories clearly still under Mexican control after 1836, particularly Santa Fe. john k 16:09, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Matter of Conjecture

Whether Tejas was truly part of Mexico is a matter of conjecture. Mexico claimed Tejas as a territory in the early 19th century, but a protracted battle of claim prevented amalgamation. Mexico itself recognized this continued independence by separating Tejas from Coahuila in its records until it could be conquered. This never happened, and in less than two decades Mexico released its claims on the territory.

Tejas had been settled in the Houston area in the late-1400s, and Black Plague victims unearthed recently show their origins to be English. Additionally, the Texas drawl has been attributed by modern linguists to be a direct descendant of Old English.

But that may not mean much; the English language in general can be said to be a direct descendant of Old English. And who are these unnamed "modern linguists"? The previous paragraph seems to be without any supporting citations.

I am not the original commenter, but might be able to elucidate a bit. In other discussions, I've seen citations from a researcher at the University of Houston citing "black earth" burials in Texas that may have been casualties of an English expedition predating the Spanish settlement of the 1700s (though of course the graves were not from the 1400s, nor were the deaths from the Black Plague). This was used in garbled form to buttress much crypto-history and conspiracy theorizing about some sort of English "Province of Carolana" in Texas on now-deleted Wikipedia articles. See [2] for a bit more on this.
I'm guessing that the "Old English/Texas Drawl" reference is more speculation used to buttress some kind dispute of Spanish claims on Texas, though it would require a complete ignorance of both linguistics and the history of Texas to swallow. -Ben 20:02, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Hah! Found it on an old version of Six flags over Texas [3] -Ben 15:38, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

--I agree. It is ludicrous to say that there were any English settlers in Texas prior to the 1820s, and there is no historical evidence for the claim. My own ancestors arrived in the 1820s and the "Texas Drawl" that they speak to this day developed naturally as an extension of the Southern Drawl. And if there had been some native Englishmen to speak with, they and other new arrivals would certainly have known it. There is some speculation that the Karankawa Indians of the Gulf Coast may have had European ancestry, but that is based on circumstantial evidence of their stature and skin coloring. While intriguing, it remains only speculation. If there WAS such a connection, I'd pin their ancestry on Skandinavia long before I considered the English. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Savrola (talk • contribs) 05:42, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] No Actual content about the Republic

This article is a continuation of most incomplete histories of the Republic of Texas. They basically say that Texas won independence in 1836 and then ten years later was annexed. There's almost no discussion of the events between March 2, 1836 and Jan. 1, 1846, which to me would be the whole point of the article.

There is discussion about Mirabeau Lamar, but not into any of the internal events of the Republic. Some items that should be included would be the Mier and Santa Fe Expeditions (and the multiple Mexican incursions) and the British overtures to Texas to keep it from being annexed.

A good start, but needs work. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Savrola (talk • contribs) 05:32, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

This is on my to-do list. I've been working my way through the Texas history articles. Fort Saint Louis and Spanish Texas are essentially done, I'm most of the way through Mexican Texas, and I've started cleanup on Texas Revolution, and then, finally, this article will be next! If anyone else is interested in helping to clean up all of these history articles please let me know (or be bold). Karanacs (talk) 21:51, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
I was about to comment the same thing, that this article has very little information about the Republic of Texas. --WisTex (talk) 21:47, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] U.S. Point of View Presented Instead of Neutral

Except for the historical context section, this article appears to be written from the point of view of the United States, instead of a neutral one.

One thing that seems to be common is people with a U.S. point of view claim any facts contrary to their POV are not neutral, therefor skewing the POV towards a U.S. point of view instead of a neutral one. Based on the many edits of this article and others, it appears that people constantly revise any Texas article to have a U.S. point of view, downplaying the fact that Texas was an independent sovereign country recognized by foreign governments. The U.S. point of view dislikes acknowledging the facts, and constantly edit the article to be U.S. point of view. I am not sure what can be done, but it is really annoying that the only "correct" point of view on Texas's independence appears to be the U.S. one according to some contributors. --WisTex (talk) 21:43, 29 February 2008 (UTC)