"Many a Cause, Many a Conflict: The Texas
Revolution"
Introduction
Volumes sufficient to fill multiple
warehouses have been written about the Texas Revolution of 1836 in the century
and a half since it culminated in the seventeen minute Battle of San Jacinto.
Few topics have inspired such polarized feelings. Many blame Mexico's loss of
her northernmost regions on a conscious premeditated conspiracy of
Anglo-Americans in the United States to steal Texas by whatever means possible.
This conspiracy, supported by the American government in Washington, D.C., first
bore fruit in 1835-36 with the Texas Revolution and culminated ten years later
with the Mexican War which resulted in the loss of the present-day states of New
Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and California. At the other end of the
continuum are those who blame the Mexican people for the misrule of Texas and
the ruthless dictatorship of Santa Anna for provoking a fully justified
rebellion by Anglo-Americans and Tejanos. While such extreme positions are far
too simplistic to explain the events of 1835-36, they continue to be voiced
today - a century and a half after the fact.
