Slavery was the Reason
Evidence exists that many more Blacks were part of the Mexican army, and not that slave owner army of Sam Houston. This is proven by Travis’ attempt to recover two slaves from Mexican General Juan Bradburn during the disturbances in East Texas. Slaves escaping their masters (the masters that William Travis was trying to help in Louisiana) reportedly went to Mexican authorities for freedom. What made Texas slave owners particularly upset was the fact that Mexican general Juan (John) Davis Bradburn withheld land titles requested by White land thieves, enforced Mexican laws, and most importantly refused to return runaway slaves to Louisiana masters. William Travis grow insane with anger at slaves being able to escape to Mexico.
Indeed, Bradburn had a checkered past, having been a supporter of slavery in Virginia, but was also a close friend of the Black Mexican general Vicente Guererro. Bradburn would change and Guerrero would eventually become Mexico’s only Black president. Out of racism and pure anger, Stephen F. Austin, a diehard white supremacist, called him the Mexican general “half-crazy.” This was no surprise to me as racialized Whites often used all sorts of hateful adjectives to denigrate Whites that opposed slavery and racism. John Brown, the white abolitionist, was also called “crazy” by racist bogus historians.
Travis would use the race card and the issue of slavery to incite racial hatred against Mexicans. Travis’ attacks against Bradburn led to increasing the ranks of a “citizen militia” with racist lunatic bigfoot followers. White racist militias sometimes were able to attract Mexicans and Native People into their ranks—nothing new here as racists often seek people of color to do their bidding (the Sambo-Uncle Toms). “Citizen soldiers” were nothing more than white supremacist militiamen that were used throughout the South to slaughter Native people and catch runaway African slaves. The toxic whirlwind that Travis helped to instigate in support of slavery, and the apparent greedy path that his law practice hoped to exploit, would soon come. A town council, called Villa Trinidad de la Libertad, was established in Mexican Texas under Juan Bradburn, where Blacks could seek freedom, and was later “whitened” into the town now called Liberty, Texas.
Slave owners would have hated Santa Anna, and Juan Bradburn in particular, for their desire to follow the ideal of owning human beings was central to the future of Texas as a slave state. Slavery became the call and desire, yet camouflaged, to start a war with Mexico. Additionally, the 1824 Mexican Constitution, being a deficient constitution in regard to slavery, became a convenient excuse for hostilities since it did not prevent slavery on Mexican territory in the states of Mexico. The Mexican Constitution was much like the American Constitution which allowed slavery by conveniently hiding the intent to keep slavery the law of the land.
It should be noted that Santa Anna freed slaves across Texas wherever he went. It is logical to conclude that this was in part why he was villainized by Texas slave owners. Today, in Texas history and political science textbooks this quote, by Santa Anna, is not even mentioned: “In compliance with said laws, the persons of all colored people, of both sexes, are from this moment are declared free, and this whatever may be of nature of the contracts which bind them to their masters; should said contracts be, in a direct or indirect manner, contrary to the existing prohibitory laws of the Republic of Mexico and slave trade, in which case they shall be considered as null and of no value.”
