It’s Independence Day, 1842
Hola! Welcome to July 4, 1842!
In the hurly-burly of 1842 American politics and culture, radical abolitionists are calling for the North to secede from the South, in part because the specter of Texas annexation is darkening the national doorway. The idea that Texas might enter the Union, vast enough to be divided into multiple states—some slave, some free—made hearts flutter and tongues wag.
While a part of the country lit its hair on fire over the slavery issue, the majority celebrated the Fourth. Throughout the twenty-six states in the Union, there were military parades and pyrotechnic displays. Salutes were fired and speechifying was the order of the day at town picnics.
Also en vogue on Independence Day 1842 were curious displays of underwater warfare. Cleveland, Ohio treated onlookers to a submarine/torpedo exhibition and New Yorkers bore witness to an explosive collaboration of two of America’s most innovative minds..
Before their aquatic alliance, Colt and Morse had each done business with the Republic of Texas. Morse, in 1838, offered exclusive rights to his new invention (the telegraph) to the infant Republic, but his inquiries went unanswered. The following year, Colt sold a whole mess of revolvers to Texas.
I wonder if the men compared their Texas transactions as they awaited the signal to detonate the mines of Colt’s Battery. “I offered them an equalizer during wartime. You came bearing dots and dashes, man. How ‘bout you quit yer sniveling and mash the boom button, Sam? …Nerd!”
Here in the Republic, Independence Day 1842 was frantic, not festive. Though we conducted our business as an independent nation and were perceived as such elsewhere, no recognition of that status ever came from the revolving door government to our south. Our independence remained contested by our next door neighbor.
Understandable. It was not an amicable divorce.
The table for the 1842 Texas Fourth of July picnic was laid the year before when Santa Anna ascended to the presidency for the sixth time. He was primed for some 1836 payback and Lamar’s Santa Fe Expedition likely didn’t improve his mood. In March 1842, Texas saw General Rafael Vasquez at the head of seven hundred Mexican troops march into San Antonio.
After the Vasquez raid, tensions between Tejanos—Juan Seguin among them—and an increasingly paranoid Anglo population bubbled over. Had Seguin, battle-tested in the Texas Revolution but with strong business ties to Mexico, assisted with the Vasquez foray? Surely not…but maybe so. Was he playing both sides? Seguin, feeling the heat of the political rotisserie on both sides of the Rio Grande, left Texas.
President Houston declared a state of emergency after the Vasquez incident. He put the citizenry on notice, but remained calm and collected in his correspondence with Generals Morehouse and Somervell. They would remain in readiness for additional Mexican troops but, at all costs, maintain subordination and not let the men go off half-cocked. Law and order, Sam said, had to prevail to avoid another Alamo.
Houston ordered volunteer companies to be raised down near Corpus Christi, ready to push into Mexico if he gave the word. In June 1842, these waiting troops got word of Mexican boots on Texas soil, marching for the Nueces.
This brings us to Independence Day. A plea issued forth from the Committee on Military Affairs, on July 4, would put those repeating firearms of Mr. Colt to use in the name of Texas independence.
Sensing that the incursions into San Antonio and the Nueces marked only the beginning of a Santa Anna revenge arc, the Military Affairs Committee resolved that Texas must raise an army and take the fight to Mexico. Congress approved the sale of ten million acres of Texas land to finance the full scale offensive, to force the recognition of Texas independence.
On this Independence Day, as the radical abolitionists were pondering secession and Sam Colt was showcasing American ingenuity, Texas was gearing up for a war on Mexican soil to cure the defects in her claim to independence. These were the headlines in Texas and elsewhere on this Fourth of July, 1842 Headlines of big men acting upon the historical stage.
But what of history acting upon men?
That’s the category most of us fall into. If you look beyond the headlines, you find evidence that life marches on despite the big events. On Independence Day 1842, you find a notice of divorce proceedings in Galveston, a suspected gold nugget found on the banks of the Llano, and Mrs. Levy opening a saloon for ladies in Houston.
You also meet young Quintus, a San Felipe slave, who had been held in the Brazoria County Jail for a month. The life of Quintus was in limbo on Independence Day. His status would not change regardless of the prosecution or outcome of a war. He would remain a slave until he was in his forties, if he remained here.
Did the matter of another war for Texas independence matter to Quintus on July 4, 1842? It likely did not. Did it matter to the divorcing couple or to Mrs. Levy as she opened her ladies saloon? Texas independence mattered to Juan Seguin, who would remain absent from Texas for years because he was Mexican by birth and suspected of treason largely for that reason.
Now, flip back to our own timeline.
Modern historians point out, at every turn, that independence (Texas and American) only meant “freedom for some.” That’s a true enough statement and it is, perhaps, lamentable with the benefit of hindsight.
Or perhaps a historical lament isn’t appropriate in 2024. Hell, maybe we should all—Texans and Americans—observe where we were in 1842 and thank God that we don’t live there, but ended up here instead.
Where and what is here, exactly? Texas. America. 2024. Look around. What do you see that’s different from 1842? What do you see that’s different from Japan or Greece? West Virginia?
I’d be willing to bet you see the descendants of Texans like Quintus and Seguin, working and living alongside descendants of Texans like Sam Houston. That seems perfectly normal to you. That is here.
Societies tend toward sameness. As a rule, they run better where there’s homogeneity of culture, religion, language, even physical appearance. There’s a natural cohesion and sense of understanding in sameness. Like likes like..
But we don’t have that here. We’ve never had that here and we don’t want that here.
From where we started on this continent, with a sameness that didn’t quite know how to meld different cultures or how to embrace people who never asked to be American in the first place, we developed something that other places lacked: introspection about what that should all mean and what should be done about it.
Without the “freedom for some” that historians use as an indictment of Texas and America, there would be no freedom for all. Western ideas of freedom and independence held the door for open debate, scathing critique, insult, even war to bring us closer to our founding equality creed.
Those who lacked equal rights (or any rights) had something here they’d have lacked elsewhere: hope in the form of foundational ideas that look upward to the spire of equality. Courageous Americans who knew their inherent worth and demanded recognition of it, could not have succeeded in a fight for equality without equality as a founding principle.
So, how do We stack up to the Us of Independence Day, 1842?
We cleared some pretty hefty moral logjams and redefined repeatedly what it meant to be an American, what it took to be an American, who can be an American. We’ve evolved from a society where it was perfectly natural for people of each race to declare their superiority (or singularity) into a society where “racist” is about the most devastating insult you can fling at someone.
We can all vote. We can all worship. We can all learn. We can all try, fail, and succeed. And we can do these things together when we choose to. In the past decade, though, we stopped seeing the value in collaborating.
We chose instead to begin tallying up the columns of an historical ledger on which not a single one of us are listed as an accountholder. In doing so, we’ve turned our backs on the very independence we celebrate on this day.
We don’t want to be free, it seems. Some of us want to be chained to 1842, but with air conditioning, iPhones, and weekly therapy sessions. We want to be victims, albeit very comfortable ones.
We’d have not have made it much past 1842 with this mentality and it’s not sustainable now. Here’s what I think helps. Maybe you don’t need to hear this, you probably know someone who does.
Stop saying, “Diversity is our strength.” It’s not. Our diversity is a rare gem that we worked hard to possess, but it’s only a strength if we’re united in the belief that we’re in something together.
If someone a century ago, who looked vaguely like you, committed a wrong against someone who looked vaguely like me, and I claim you owe me some cultural capital for an offense neither of us even witnessed, I am not a free person and don’t want you to be free either.
If you can’t view yourself as an individual and can’t view me as one, independence is lost on you. Independence and agency belong to citizens, not groups. Regardless of any group status we get in the DNA lottery, we all act in the world as individuals. Have the courage to behave like one. There’s insulating comfort in the herd, but far less freedom.
Regardless of our DNA lotto cards, we all share freedom in a culture, a state, and a nation. We owe each other the following, nothing more and nothing less:
A smile or friendly greeting.
The benefit of the doubt.
Mutual respect and the language that entails. Please, thank you, ma’am, and sir.
A desire to see each other, our state and our nation prosper.
Exercise your freedom to be the best at something. Spend some time thinking about a subject other than yourself. Your various identities are not qualifications. More often than not, they’re crutches. Be independent from as many crutches as you can.
Don’t make a sash of your victimhood merit badges and don’t be an oppressor. Resentment doesn’t benefit you or the world you live in, and nobody likes an a-hole.
Learn gratitude and practice it. Every civilization on earth has committed atrocities and justified them every which way. More lay ahead because we humans are, by our nature, atrocious. You live in a nation that affords you the privilege of being well fed, the opportunity to work and pursue happiness, and the right to be free. You live in a state that overflows with natural beauty, the innovations of industrious people, and the best parts of a buffet of cultures. No matter your grievances, real or imagined, find a way to be thankful for where you are right now.
Know that you only have the time to think things are so bad because you have things so good. Real adversity isn’t a condition cured by hashtags and likes. Real adversity weighs so damn much that it inspires real problem solving and leaves no time for navel-gazing.
Culturally, we’re striving backward to Independence Day 1842.
Mexico isn’t sending uniformed troops but we definitely have some issues in dire need of attention. Social media is all abuzz with secession talk, and we are willingly re-segregating ourselves along racial lines. We entreat school children to engage in struggle sessions to debride old racial wounds that adults have been ripping open since the 1860s.
What’s more, we have to go it alone without Samuel Colt, Samuel Morse or Samuel Houston, all of whom might question whether we have the mental acuity to function as a free and independent polity. We might do well to ask that question of ourselves.
But I offer you a silver lining: unlike 1842, this July 4th, Texas independence is not contested. It is ours. Let’s embrace it in full and celebrate it completely. Let Texas be the beacon for a troubled nation, showing what a free and industrious people can do when they work toward a common goal. Let's light the way with gratitude and grit. with a nod to where we’ve been, where we came up short, and the generations before us who fought together to bring us closer to parity.
There’s elegance and meaning in our past. There’s work to be done if we want an independent future. Let’s relish it all and roll up our sleeves.
Happy Independence Day, y’all.
