Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar: A Vicious Life of White Supremacy

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Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar: A Vicious Life of White Supremacy – Ed Sebesta 2/25/2020 INTRODUCTION: Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar worked for white supremacy throughout his entire life and in many diverse ways brought murder, mayhem, threats or oppression to a wide range of peoples both in the present territory of the United States and to Latin America. This paper attempts to give a summary of his monstrous career.

Additional primary materials and links to sources will be provided online at http://templeofdemocracy.com/lamar-street.html.

In regards to sources, I have adopted a practice not to correct spellings. Many 19th century spellings were different from the 20th and 21st century, and I will not undertake an etymological investigation as to whether the word was misspelled at the time it was written or typeset. Further, the understanding of the text is not impaired and the needless and numerous insertions of “[sic]” is avoided.

I have chosen to use the term “Native Americans.” In my readings over the years I have come across “Indians,” “Amerindians,” “Native Americans,” and “Indigenous,” and “First Nations.” Clearly Native Americans are not Indians and the geographical mistakes of Christopher Columbus need not be perpetuated. “Native Americans” could be faulted in that projected onto Indigenous identity is a term invented by an Italian cartographer.

However, it is a term understood by enough of the public as to not require explanation and it does in its name make it clear that these are indigenous people in the United States of America. However, my choice is not meant to be an instruction as to what terminology use, though the author would never use “Indian.” The author had to write this paper and chose a term.

Also, though it is likely many readers would know that Comanche and Cherokee are references to Native American groups, there will not be a presumption that every group mentioned will be known by every reader as being Native Americans and hence they will be designated as such in the text.

Quotations of primary materials will be lengthy. A few quoted sentences would in most cases summarize the point Lamar was making, but longer quotes allow the reader to perceive the tone or tenor of the presentation or of the writing and in Lamar’s case learn of his arrogance. Another reason for lengthy quotations is that defenders of white supremacists in history often make the claim that the one or two sentences you might quote are taken out of context or are in some way unrepresentative of what the person said or meant. The lengthy quote refutes this defense and show that the person really meant it.

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As in the case regarding other historical figures in Texas history, the published biographies of Lamar are all bad are in sympathy with Lamar’s white supremacist agenda. The author only found them useful to find out what in the primary sources needed to be read to write a real history of Lamar. However, much needs to be researched. For example, Stanley Siegel’s in his “Political History of Texas,” states regarding M.B. Lamar that, “for the Troup administration, he submitted political tracts to the local Georgia newspapers, and he went on frequent speaking tours for his chief.” 1 It remains to track down what political tracts he submitted and what he might have said in his speeches for Georgia governor Troup as part of Troup’s policy against Native Americans if any records exist of the tracts and speeches.

Since this paper will be online, updated versions incorporating additional research on Lamar will be available.

BRIEF OVERVIEW Lamar was born on August 16, 1798 near Louisville, Georgia and died on December 19, 1859 at his Richmond, Texas plantation. He grew up on his father’s plantation in Georgia. When George M. Troup was elected governor of Georgia in 1823 Lamar became Troup’s secretary and a member of his household. Early in 1826 he resigned for family reasons. In 1828 he moved to Columbus, Georgia and established the Columbus Enquirer newspaper in support of the Troup political faction. Was elected Georgia state senator in 1829, but did not run for re-election. Lamar ran for the U.S. Congress in 1832 and 1834 and failed both times. He helped organize the States’ Rights Party of Georgia in 1833. He sold his share of the Enquirer in 1835 and went west to Texas and soon was part of the Texas rebellion against Mexico.

He was a colonel in the battle of San Jacinto and ten days later was made secretary of war in David G. Burnet’s cabinet. A month later he was major general and commanderin-chief of the Texas army but the Texas army refused to serve under him and he resigned.

In Sept. 1836 he was elected Vice-President of the Texas Republic. He was elected president of Texas in 1837 and was inaugurated December 10, 1938. He instituted a murderous campaign of ethnic cleaning against Native Americans in 1839 and 1840.

Without Texas congressional approval he launched in 1841 a disastrous campaign to capture Santa Fe, New Mexico. The entire expedition was captured and marched to Mexico City and were not released until April 1842.

In 1838 in his inaugural address Lamar was against Texas being annexed by the United States to protect slavery since there were abolitionists in the Unites States of America.

1

“A Political History of the Texas Republic, 1836-1845,” by Stanley Siegel, Univ. of Texas Press, Austin, pp. 101. His source is “The Life and Poems of Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar,” by Philip Graham, Univ. of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, pp. 13-16.

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Later in 1844, Lamar fearing the Mexican and British governments working together to force abolition on Texas, advocated annexation to protect slavery in Texas and the American slave states.

After he left office in 1841 he went to his plantation and also traveled to Mobile, Alabama and New York City. He was an officer in the Mexican American War of 18461848. He denounced the Compromise of 1850 in the U.S. Congress believing that slavery could only be protected by secession.

Lamar was supportive of filibustering, that is the formation of private armies to invade Latin American states to make them American slave states, and in 1857 was appointed

by U.S. President Buchanan to be minister to Nicaragua and Costa Rica which lasted 20 months. In 1858 his diplomatic mission ended and he died at his Richmond plantation in 1859.2 There is more documentation readily available concerning some periods of his life than others. For example, though he ran for congress twice, I have no speeches or campaign writings that might shed light on the positions and policies he made. As researches are made, this article will be updated.

IN THE GEORGE M. TROUP ADMINISTRATION In the contest for the governorship of Georgia Mirabeau Lamar’s brother, Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar had been strong supporters of George M. Troup election in 1823. In return for the support Troup appointed Mirabeau Lamar his secretary for his administration. Stanley Siegel’s in his “Political History of Texas,” states regarding M.B. Lamar’s that, “for the Troup administration, he submitted political tracts to the local Georgia newspapers, and he went on frequent speaking tours for his chief.”3

2

Lamar, Mirabeau Buonaparte, entry in the Texas State Historical Association online handbook entry by Herbert Gambrell. https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fla15, printed out into PDF 10/4/2019. When Gambrell wrote this is not provided in the online entry but it is likely a very old entry. I only use this online entry to get some basic information about his life and the use of this source should not be construed in anyway as endorsing this online handbook which is atrocious. For the name of the Georgia States Rights Party is “Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar,” by A.K. Christian, The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 3, Jan. 1920, pp. 153-170, reference on pp.

157. “Texan Santa Fe Expedition,” H. Bailey Carroll, Texas State Historical Association online handbook, https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/qyt03, printed out 2/18/2020. A good source on Lamar and the ethnic cleansing of Native Americans is “Chapter 11: Lamar, His Generals, and Ethnic Cleansing,” in “The Conquest of Texas: Ethnic Cleansing in the Promised Land, 1820-1875,” by Gary Clayton Anderson, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Oklahoma, 2005, pp. 172-184. Robert E. May in his book, “Manifest Destiny’s Underworld: Filibustering in Antebellum America,” footnote 28, page 307, discusses how it is clear that Lamar was sympathetic to the plot to invade Cuba in 1851.

3 “A Political History of the Texas Republic, 1836-1845,” by Stanley Siegel, Univ. of Texas Press, Austin, pp. 101. His source is “The Life and Poems of Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar,” by Philip Graham, Univ. of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, pp. 13-16.

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Lamar was deeply involved with the support of the Troup administration which openly defied the U.S. Supreme Court in illegally taking Cherokee land in Georgia. There had been efforts to integrate Native Americans into American life. Racists like Troup, who Tim Alan Garrison, author of “The Legal Ideology of Removal, described as “the most rabid of them,” argued against accepting Native Americans.4 Troup in an 1824 letter to John C. Calhoun expresses this racism.

Troup wrote: Having said so much, it remains only to advert to the other topics contained in your letter to the Indian delegation; and for these, a world will suffice. 1st. The reservation of a part of our territory for the settlement of Indians. 2dly. Their incorporation into, and amalgamation with, our society. As to the first, the answer is, the article of agreement having made no provision for such reservation, none can be made with the consent of Georgia; and that Georgia will never give her assent to any, without an equivalent, (if she would with one,) is absolutely certain. With regards to the second proposition, the answer is, that if such a scheme were practicable at all, the utmost of rights and privileges which public opinion would concede to Indians, would fix them in a middle station, between the negro and the white man; and that, as long as they survived this degradation, without the possibility of attaining the elevation of the latter, they would gradually sink to the condition of the former – a point of degeneracy below which they could not fall; it is likely, before they reached this, their wretchedness would find relief in broken hearts. Most assuredly, nothing will contribute so essentially to that scanty share of human happiness which is left them, as their concentration and insulation, where, having enough for the wants of agriculture, they will, in their seclusion, afford no pretext for the intrusions or annoyances of the white man.5 It was during Troup’s administration that he through fraudulent means stole the lands of the Creeks by drawing up the Indian Springs Treaty with William McIntosh who only represented a small fraction of Creeks who sold it to the Georgians as if he represented all of the Creek. McIntosh along with other collaborators were murdered by the Creeks for their role in this fraud. President John Quincy Adams withdrew the treaty and offered another marginally better treaty. Adams threaten to use force and send in federal troops, Troup organized a state militia preparing to fight the United States Army and Adams backed down and Troup theft of the land stood. The expulsion of the Creeks than began.6 “It was during this period that the struggle between Georgia and the “The Legal Ideology of Removal: The Southern Judiciary and the Sovereignty of Native American Nations,” by Tim Alan Garrison, Univ. of Georgia Press, Athens Georgia, 2002, pp. 24.

5 George M. Troup to John C. Calhoun, Feb. 28, 1824, American State Papers: Indian Affairs: Vol. 2. Pp. 475-76.

6 “George Troup (1780-1856),” Natalie D. Saba, New Georgia Encyclopedia, online, https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/government-politics/george-troup-1780-1856. Pdf produced 2/18/2020.

4

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Federal Government over the removal of the Creeks and Cherokees took place, and Lamar is credited with activity in raising the militia to resist the efforts of the federal government to coerce Georgie,” says Asa Kyrus Christian in a biographical article about Lamar, though claiming to be a history is really a hagiography.7 It was this murderous regime that Lamar gave full support. Lamar’s praises Troup as a hero and Troup’s defiance of the federal government in Troup’s depredations of the Creeks Native Americans in his 1844 letter urging he citizens to support Texas Annexation. This praise is fully quoted in this essay in the section about that letter.

Troup was part of a larger racist effort that had devastating effect of destroying the human rights of Native Americans and resulted in the infamous Trail of Tears in which the Cherokees were removed from Georgia at a loss of their homes, land, property and a loss of human life.

COLUMBUS ENQUIRER As stated before Lamar founded the Enquirer in Columbus, Georgia in 1828 and sold his share in 1835.

During that time the Enquirer carried ads advertising rewards for the return of runaway slaves.

The ad to the left, Jan. 12, 1833, page 3, asks for the return of a slave named Melford who managed to escape from the jail of Coweta County where he had been held for return to his owners.

7

Christian, Asa Kyrus, “Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar,” Chapter 1, The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 3, Jan. 1920, pp. 153-158, reference to militia on page 155, entire article comprises Chapters 1,2, pp. 153-170, and was continued in other issues. In doing Texas history research, you come across these hagiographies passing themselves off as biographies and being historical.

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Sept. 9, 1832, page 3, this lengthy ad advised the reader that Washington is "quite intelligent for a negro."

August 4, 1832, page 3. Bill is not so fortunate and is going to be sold off in front of the courthouse in Muscogee Co.

As might be expected the Enquirer was opposed vociferously against abolitionists and woman abolitionists in particular seemed to anger them. When women abolitionists of Philadelphia submitted a petition to the U.S. Congress on slavery they were in a rage.

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From the Jan. 14, 1832, page 2. The vitriol just pours out the editorial whose column nearly runs the length of the page. Some selections follow: “While we yield to none in devotion to the fairer part of God’s creation, we must be permitted to say, that there is upon all the earth nothing which we regard with more utter abhorrence than those same said mongrels. Woman’s sphere is not to be found amid the tumults of political contention.”

The editorial after discussing what the role of women should be, then argues that women in the North should be focusing on the poor there rather than the issue of slavery. The editorial concludes with a story that a “well clothed, well fed negro fellow” had received a “bale of blankets” while nearby a “white woman and her child, covered with a few tattered rags, and freezing to death upon a snow drift,” was neglected.

Nov. 16, 1833, page 2. The editors of the Enquirer have obtained an abolitionist newspaper and a pamphlet. They state, “are fools, or knaves, or both.” They are horrified that they advocate abolishing slavery in Washington D.C. and interstate commerce in slaves.

The editors warn “Thus the Fanatics will proceed, from one step to another,” and that these steps are, “the ominous prelude to other encroachments.”

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The threat of secession of the slave states if there comes to be a real prospect of abolition is raised. The fear of white women being raped by African men is raised in the editorial.

They quote an article out of the Philadelphia Intelligencer stating, “We pray you hear and heed it.” As follows: “The South will not only not bear the violations of the constitution and the infraction of their rights, but they will not even brook the attempt. Their lives and the honor of their wives and daughters depend upon our non-interference in this subject and the instant it is seriously touched, the Union is divided, and a war of extermination commented.”

They then quote an editorial from the Augusta Chronicle: “When the North would place the torch and knife in the hands of the savage and brutal negro of the South and point to his master to satiate his thirst for blood, and his mistress to gratify his brutal passions, they ought to stand by their arms.

Let the sober-minded abolitionists, if there be such an one, think of these things.

Let them remember that Philanthropy does not come in this tiger shape, with her heart hot for murder, and her hands red with blood. Let them see the horrors that follow their steps, and pause ore they push their design to a lamentable triumph.”

FOUNDING OF THE STATES’ RIGHTS PARTY OF GEORGIA States’ Rights in Georgia in the 1820s, 30s and later was about states’ contesting the federal government’s authority in regards to Native Americans, specifically what protections that might be given by the federal government against local efforts to seize Native American land.8 Scholar Skelton points out that states’ rights arguments were used to put a cover over “materialistic interests,” which in this case is about stealing land.9 In Lamar’s 1844 speech in Georgia arguing for the Annexation of Texas praises Troup for his states’ rights stand. (Later in this this essay.)

As A.K. Christian points out when Lamar was helping Troup remove Native Americans, that, “It was during this period, also, that he adopted the principles advocated by the extreme States’ Rights party.”10 Lamar helped organize and promote the States’ Rights Party of Georgia which issued a preamble and resolutions on Nov. 13, 1833. He, along 8

A good review of the ideology of states’ rights being employed to steal Native American lands and drive them out of southern states is, “The Legal Ideology of Removal: The Southern Judiciary and the Sovereignty of Native American Nations,” by Tim Alan Garrison, The University of Georgia Press, Athens, GA, 2002, paperback version, 2009.

9 Skelton, Lynda Worley, “The States Rights Movement in Georgia, 1825-1850,” The Georgia Historical Quarterly, Vol. 50, No. 4 (December 1966), pp. 391-412, reference to “materialistic interests,” pages 391-92.

10 Christian, Asa Kyrus, “Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar,” Chapter 1, The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 3, Jan. 1920, pp. 153-158, reference to states’ rights on page 155, entire article comprises Chapters 1,2, pp.

153-170, and was continued in other issues.

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with William B. Tinsley, announced a series of the Columbus Enquirer in support of the States’ Rights Party of Georgia a few days after its organization.11 In the Nov. 23, 18333 issue they published the preamble and resolutions of the party. It included the claim that a state had a right to secede and also nullify a federal law. 12

1838 INAUGURAL ADDRESS AGAINST TEXAS STATEHOOD TO PROTECT SLAVERY These are Lamar’s notes for his Dec. 10, 1838 inaugural address as president of Texas with his objection to joining to the United States of America. His objection is that in the United States there are abolitionists who are a threat to slavery and if Texas joined the Union slavery in Texas would be endangered. His inaugural address wasn’t as direct as these notes.

Some selections from the notes:

My objections to the unqualified Union of Texas to the United States of America, proceed chiefly from the difficulties involved in the nature of the security which is to be furnished by that Government for the preservation of the institution of slavery, upon which our character, prosperity and happiness as a free people must necessarily depend.

Although not sensible of any advantage either civil, political or commercial, which is to accrue to the Republic from the proposed annexation, yet should Texas, contrary to my expectations, be admitted to a full and unrestricted membership with such guarantees as she may deem essential to the undisturbed enjoyment of her property and the product of her labor, I stand pledged to cooperate either individually or officially with the friends of the measure; But as the advocate of our peculiar institutions looking upon them as the sheet anchor of our Liberty, and safety I cannot seek or desire the connection without some additional guarantee stronger than the feeble & inefficient one afforded at present by the national constitution.

At this moment the Southern States of the American Union alarmed for the safety of their property are demanding a convention of the Federal members to provide for the immediate and more certain protection of the institution of slavery.

Should this Convention assemble and the indemnity thereby secured, the people of Texas might then feel less apprehension in the acceptance of an invitation to enter the Federal compact. The warmest advocates of annexation could not desire an alliance upon any other terms.

11

Christian, Asa Kyrus, “Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar,” Chapter 1, The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 3, Jan. 1920, pp. 153-158, reference to states’ rights on page 157, entire article comprises Chapters 1,2, pp.

153-170, and was continued in other issues 12 No author, “Great Meeting of the State Rights Party,” Columbus Enquirer, Nov. 23, 1833, V.6 No.27, pp. 1-2.

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[ * * * *] It is then from the fanaticism, and not from the people of the North that I would escape.

Having been an attentive observer of the course of events in the United States upon the exciting topic of abolition, it is with no ordinary degree of sorrow I announce my solemn conviction that a dissolution of the American Union, must take place* at an early day if the Anti-slavery party continue to press their views upon the consideration of the National Councils.13 This is the section in his actual inaugural speech dealing with opposition to annexation to protect slavery. Lamar doesn’t use the word slavery, but refers to “peculiar and essential interests” and “very institution” and other terms in reference to slavery. He sees annexation to lead to disaster since there is an anti-slavery movement in the United States. As follows: There is, however, one question of the highest national concernment, on which I feel it a privilege and a duty to address myself to the great body of the people themselves. I mean the annexation of our country to the American union.

Notwithstanding the almost undivided voice of my fellow-citizens at one time in favor of the measure, an[d] notwithstanding the decision of the national congress at its last session, inhibiting the chief magistrate from withdrawing the proposition at the cabinet of Washington, yet still I have never been able myself to perceive the policy of the desired connexion, or discover in it any advantage either c[i]vil, political or commercial, which could possibly result to Texas. But on the contrary a long train of consequences of the most appalling character and magnitude, have never failed to present themselves whenever I have entertained the subject, and forced upon my mind the unwelcome conviction, that the step once taken would produce a lasting regret, and ultimately prove as disastrous to our liberty and hopes, as the triumphant sword of the enemy. And I say this from no irreverence to the character and institutions of my native country, whose welfare I have ever desired, .and do still desire above my individual happiness, but a deep and abiding gratitude to the people of Texas, as well as a fervent devotion to those sacred principles of government, whose defence invited me to this country, compel me to say that however strong be my attachment to the parent land, the land of my adoption must claim my highest allegiance and affection; her glory and happiness must be my paramount consideration, and I cannot allow myself to speak in any other than the language of freedom and frankness on all matters involving her safety, dignity and honor.

13

“The Papers of Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar,” Vol. 2, edited by Charles Adam Gulick Jr. and Katherine Elliot, Austin, Texas, 1922, pages 324-327, item No. 914.

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When I reflect upon the invaluable rights which Texas will have to yield up with the surrender of her Independence the right of making either war or peace; the right of controlling the Indian tribes within her borders; the right of appropriating her public domain to purposes of education and internal improvements; of levying her own taxes; regulating her own commerce and forming her own alliances and treaties when I view her divested of the most essential attributes of free government; reduced to the level of an unfelt fraction of a giant power; or peradventure divided into Territorial districts, with Governors and judges and excise men appointed from abroad to administer laws which she had no adequate voice in enacting, and to gather imposts for the benefit of those who levy them when I look upon her, as she soon will be, the cornucopia of the world, pouring her abundant treasures into the lap of another people than her own; a tributary vassal to remote and uncongenial communities; communities as widely separated from her in pursuits as in distance, who are known to be opposed to her peculiar and essential interests, and who are daily sending forth their denunciations against her from the fire-side, the pulpit and the council chamber; and when I bear in mind that all this sacrifice of rights and dignity and character is to be made, for what! for the privilege of going into a union in which she carries wealth without proportional influence for the glory of identifying her fortunes with a government in which a large portion of the inhabitants are alarmed for the safety of the very institution upon which her own hopes of happiness are based; a government embracing conflicting interests and irreconcilable prejudices with lasting causes of domestic quarrel, where Texas can hope for nothing but a participation in the strifes that distract the public councils, and [after] passing through many throes and convulsions be the means perhaps of producing or accelerating an awful catastrophe which none could be more ready to avert or sincerely deplore than herself when I reflect upon these, the inevitable and fatal consequences of the proposed connection, and then turn from the dark and dreary picture to the contemplation of the high destiny that awaits our country; the great prosperity which lies within her attainment if sh[e] will but appreciate her natural advantages, and not part with the right of developing and controling her incalculable resources: when I view her vast extent of territory, stretching from the Sabine to the Pacific and away to the South West as far as the obstinacy of the enemy may render it necessary for the sword to make the boundary; embracing the most delightful climate and the richest soil in the world, and behold it all in the state of high cultivation and improvement her mountains of minerals yielding their vast treasures to the touch of industry; her luxuriant pastures alive with flocks and herds, and her wide fields whitening with a staple commodity, in the production of which she can have no rival; with the whole world for her market; and then consider the noble purposes to which this immense and exhaustless wealth may be applied, in adornings and beautifying the country, providing for its safety and defence, endowing institutions for the spread of virtue, knowledge and the arts, and carrying to the door of every citizen of the Republic, peace, plenty, and protection and when in addition to these

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glorious and grand results I look still farther to the important improvements which she will be able to devise in government, and to the entire revolution which her example in free trade will effect in the commerce of other nations, emancipating it from the thralldom of tariff restrictions and placing it upon the high grounds of equitable reciprocity, all of which will as certainly flow from the maintainence of her present independent position as the sun courses the heavens. "When I reflect upon these vast and momentous consequences, so fatal to liberty on the one hand and so fraught with happiness and glory on the other, I cannot regard the annexation of Texas to the American Union in any other light than as the grave of all her hopes of happiness and greatness; and if, contrary to the present aspect of affaris, the amalgamation shall ever hereafter take place, I shall feel that the blood of our ma[r]tyred heroes had been shed in vain that we had riven the chains of Mexican despotism only to fetter our country with more indissoluble bonds, and that a young Republic just rising into high distinctionamong the nations of the earth, had been swallowed up and lost like a proud bark in a devouring vortex.

The “devouring vortex” is what Lamar perceived the United States of America to be with its abolitionist movement.

1838 LAMAR’S CAMPAIGN OF ETHNIC CLEANING OF TEXAS Lamar’s actions against Native Americans in Texas involve a discussion of the classification and nomenclature of mass murder and extermination. Thomas Richards Jr. in his 2020 John Hopkins University book, “Breakaway Americans: The Unmanifest Future of the Jacksonian United States,” refers to “Mirabeau Lamar’s genocidal policies.”14 Other historians also classify Lamar’s policies as genocide.

However, in Gary Clayton Anderson’s 2005 Oklahoma Univ. Press book, “The Conquest of Texas: Ethnic Cleansing in the Promised Land, 1820-1875,” explains: While mostly ignored, a few scholars have suggested that Americans practiced genocide on Indians in certain regions of the United States, including Texas. I argue, however, that the situation in Texas fails to rise to the level of genocide, if genocide is defined as the intentional killing of nearly all of a racial, religious, or cultural group. I seek to draw an important distinction from it. Rather, Texans gradually endorsed (at first locally and eventually statewide) a policy of ethnic cleansing that had as its intention the forced removal of certain culturally identified groups from their lands.15 14

Richards, Thomas, Jr., “Breakaway Americas: The Unmanifest Future of the Jacksonian United States,” John Hopkins Univ. Press, Baltimore, 2020, page 37.

15 Anderson, Gary Clayton, “The Conquest of Texas: Ethnic Cleansing in the Promised Land, 1820-1875,” University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Oklahoma, 2020, pp. 7.

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Anderson explains that the white Texas policy was to have Native Americans gone from Texas by any means such as extermination or expulsion. Anderson is also talking about the policies of white Texans as a whole. Lamar uses the term “extermination” and makes it clear that he is willing to kill for the elimination of Native Americans from Texas.

F. Todd Smith in his book, “From Dominance to Disappearance: The Indians of Texas and the Near Southwest, 1786-1859,” doesn’t classify the murder and mayhem directed against Native Americans but in detail describes the violence and activities leading to the “Disappearance” of Native Americans.16 It could be argued that ethnic cleansing could be genocidal if at some point progressive campaigns of extermination and expulsion resulted in no place left to flee. However, the author hasn’t studied the subject of mass murder and its classifications and so doesn’t want to get this paper embroiled in the nomenclature and technical classifications of murderous policies in this paper, but just to let readers know that Texas history regarding Native Americans is murderous enough such that historians engage in such discussions.

Anderson, in comparing Texas to ethnic cleansing that occurred in former Yugoslavia and elsewhere points out that political elites direct paramilitary groups for the purpose of ethnic cleansing. He states, “The situation was similar in Texas, where politicians supported Texas Ranger unites that became the agents of ethnic cleansing,” and points out that many politicians in Texas were former Rangers and that “the paramilitary groups that forced removal or committed the occasional genocidal act were an extension of the Texas political system.”17 Anderson in his Chapter 11, “Lamar, His Generals and Ethnic Cleansing,” and Chapter 12, “The Indians’ Last Stand in Central Texas,” details Lamar’s campaign to exterminate or expel Native Americans from Texas as president of the Republic of Texas.18 Lamar’s General Thomas Jefferson Rusk, who also urged the “extermination” of Native Americans, and later first governor of the state of Texas, supported Lamar’s policies towards Native Americans. Rusk urged Lamar to demand that the United States remove Native Americans in Texas who had moved there to escape from depredations against them in the United States. The Texas ambassador, Anson Jones, who later was the last president of the Republic of Texas, and who Anderson in his book explains, “could spin

16

Smith, F. Todd, “From Dominance to Disappearance: The Indians of Texas and the Near Southwest, 1786-1859,” University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, Nebraska, 2005.

17 Anderson, Gary Clayton, “The Conquest of Texas: Ethnic Cleansing in the Promised Land, 1820-1875,” University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Oklahoma, 2020, pp. 7.

18 Anderson, Gary Clayton, “The Conquest of Texas: Ethnic Cleansing in the Promised Land, 1820-1875,” University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Oklahoma, 2020.

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a good tale” attempted to convince the United States to use its military against these Native Americans claiming there was a war being waged by Native Americans.

American military officers, such as Colonel J.G. Voss, did their own investigation and found the claims of the Texans groundless. As Anderson states that, “He, like many, came to view Anglo-Texans as sniveling complainers who moved onto Indian lands, started conflicts, and then ran to the U.S. government for relief.”19 However, Lamar’s and his government’s policy was to look for pretexts to engage in violence against Native Americans and conduct actions certain to promote conflict. One of the most notorious was the notorious Council House Massacre, in which a Comanche Native American peace delegation including thirty-five women and children, arrived in San Antonio to discuss peace. However, unknown to the Comanche peace delegation the Texas “peace” officers had secretly planned to capture the delegation if they failed to deliver thirteen captives. The Comanche peace delegation did deliver a captive and the Comanche chiefs who had showed up in good faith as peace negotiators were told they were captives and a fight broke out result in the massacre of thirty-five Comanche including five women and children. Remaining Comanche that survived were incarcerated.20 That the issue wasn’t the threat of Native American violence rather than really being a land grab is illustrated by the fate of the Shawnees Native Americans. Lamar, to keep the Shawnees, neutral in the war of white Texans against the Cherokee Native Americans promised the Shawnees that they would not be harmed. However, after the Texans had routed the Cherokee, the Shawnees were expelled by Lamar’s General Rusk from Texas.21 Since there wasn’t money to pay for the Rangers due to the lack of funds Rangers were recruited with the promise of booty of Native American property which Anderson points out was “one of the most lucrative examples of looting in the history of the American frontier.”22 A typical example was a campaign in May 1841 by General E.H. Tarrant for whom Tarrant County Texas is named for. He recruited volunteers and went searching around the Trinity River for Native Americans to plunder. He found abandoned villages that had been burned by General Rusk, but finally found a small Native American town. In a surprise attack the Native Americans fled and many shot in the back. The official report 19

Anderson, Gary Clayton, “The Conquest of Texas: Ethnic Cleansing in the Promised Land, 1820-1875,” University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Oklahoma, 2020, pp. 173.

20 Anderson, Gary Clayton, “The Conquest of Texas: Ethnic Cleansing in the Promised Land, 1820-1875,” University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Oklahoma, 2020, pp. 182-184.

21 Anderson, Gary Clayton, “The Conquest of Texas: Ethnic Cleansing in the Promised Land, 1820-1875,” University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Oklahoma, 2020, pp. 178-79.

22 Anderson, Gary Clayton, “The Conquest of Texas: Ethnic Cleansing in the Promised Land, 1820-1875,” University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Oklahoma, 2020, pp. 194.

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for the attack stated that, “It was not the wish of General Tarrant to take any prisoners.”

After taking that town Gen. Tarrant’s men found further south more Native American towns which they assaulted. The men were mostly away from the town leaving only old men to defend the towns. The attack sought to kill all the Native American men they could find. However, the settlement of Native Americans was very extensive and strategically Gen. Tarrant turned back and included in his party were columns of horses and mules loaded with loot. Native Americans of the remaining towns that weren’t attacked fled to the west knowing that they could expect further assaults from Rangers.23 By 1842 Native Americans had been driven from the central valleys of the Trinity, Brazos, and Colorado rivers and as Anderson explains, “Furthermore, the ‘cleansing’ had opened fertile valleys from Texas towns such as Dallas, Waco, and Fredericksburg, all of which would appear shortly thereafter.” 24 Dallas owes its origins to ethnic cleansing.

Lamar left another legacy of racial hate in Texas as explained by Anderson: The legacy of Lamar would carry Texas into new decades of violence, the lessons learned by the rangers, the glories of their “victories,” the fireside stories told of them, and the trophies – human scalps especially – that they brought back only solidified the Texas creed, further entrenching their hatred of people of color.25 As for the Native Americans Anderson states: Many a surviving villager had fled west in fear and humiliation and sorrow, driven onward by the wails of women and children along the bloody, tear-filled trail that led away from their homeland. 26 This is Lamar’s Dec. 21, 1838 message to the Texas Congress launching his campaign of ethnic cleaning. After discussing Mexican bandits attacking Texas Lamar portrays Native Americans as ravaging Texas to justify a policy of ethnic cleansing that will be murderously carried out. He calls them “wild cannibals” and proposes a policy of “exterminating war” for their “total extinction or total expulsion.”

Unhappily our frontier is suffering greater evils than result from these occasional and desultory incursions. Several native tribes of Indians, deriving confidence 23

Anderson, Gary Clayton, “The Conquest of Texas: Ethnic Cleansing in the Promised Land, 1820-1875,” University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Oklahoma, 2020, pp. 192-3.

24 Anderson, Gary Clayton, “The Conquest of Texas: Ethnic Cleansing in the Promised Land, 1820-1875,” University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Oklahoma, 2020, pp. 194.

25 Anderson, Gary Clayton, “The Conquest of Texas: Ethnic Cleansing in the Promised Land, 1820-1875,” University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Oklahoma, 2020, pp. 194.

26 Anderson, Gary Clayton, “The Conquest of Texas: Ethnic Cleansing in the Promised Land, 1820-1875,” University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Oklahoma, 2020, pp. 194.

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from our forbearance, have waged, and are waging, a petty, but in some instances, a disastrous and cruel warfare upon our neglected border settlements.

The importance of chastising these savage offenders, and extending protection to our exposed and suffering fellow-citizens, cannot fail to attract your early and most serious notice. Honor, humanity, and patriotism, conspire to enjoin this duty upon us. It is a cardinal principle in all political associations, that protection is commensurate with allegiance, and the poorest citizen whose sequestered cabin is reared on our remotest frontier, holds as sacred a claim upon the government for safety and security as does the man who lives in ease and wealth in the heart of our most populous city. I am by no means desirous of aggravating the ordinary and inevitable calamities of war, by inculcating the harsh doctrine of the lex talionis toward the debased and ignorant savages. War is in itself an evil, which all good people will strive to avoid; but when it cannot be avoided, it ought to be so met and pursued as will best secure a speedy and lasting peace.

If that better mode consists in severity to the enemy, then severity to him, becomes clemency to all. The moderation hitherto extended to the Indians on our borders has been repeatedly retorted upon us, in all the atrocious cruelties that characterize their modes of warfare. The Indian Warrior in his heartless and sanguinary vengeance recognises no distinction of age or sex or condition. All are indiscriminate victims to his cruelties. The wife and the infant afford as rich a trophy to the scalping knife, as the warrior who falls in the vigor of manhood and the pride of his chivalry. And why is it, that he is thus so insensible to the dictates of justice and humanity? Has not the white man for centuries furnished him examples of clemency and kindness? Have not their women and children been protected, and the old and the infirm been spared? And when taken in battle, have they not experienced the forbeaarances and indulgences which so much assuage the asperities of civilized conflict? They have; and it is precisely because these indulgences have been profitable to their heartless policy that they have persevered in their ancient barbarities. As long as we continue to exhibit our mercy without shewing our strength, so long will the Indian continue to bloody the edge of the tomahawk, and move onward in the work of rapacity and slaughter. And how long shall this cruel humanity, this murderous sensibility for the sangunary savage be practised, in defiance of its tested impolicy? Until other oceans of blood; the blood of our wives and children, shall glut their voracious appetite? I would answer no. If the wild cannibals of the woods will not desist from their massacres; if they will continue to war upon us with the ferocity of Tigers and Hyenas, it is time we should retaliate their warfare, not in the murder of their women and children, but in the prosecution of an exterminating war upon their warriors, which will admit of no compromise and have no termination except in their total extinction or total expulsion.

I am not informed of all the circumstances connected with the recent disturbances in the East. Neither do I know precisely, the origin of these difficulties. It is thought by some, that the Indians have been encroached upon in the enjoyment of their landed rights. I am not aware of the fact myself. If the spirit of speculative enterprize has been pushed by any of our citizens beyond the boundaries of prudence; and has awakened the savages to a war upon our whole community, it is certainly a matter to be much regretted; but being involved, it

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becomes the nation to meet the exigencies with promptitude and energy. But I am far from conceding that the Indians, either Native, or Emigrant, have any just cause of complaint. That the Emigrant Tribes have no legal or equitable claim to any portion of our territory is obvious, from a cursory examination of their history. Their emigration to Texas was unsolicited and unauthorized; and has always been a source of regret to its more enlightened population. The federal government of Mexico, neither conceded, nor promised them lands, or civil rights. They came as intruders; were positively forbid to make any permanent abidance; and have continued in the country up to the present period against the public wish, and at the sacrifice of the public tranquility. This is particularly the case with the Cherokees. The offer made to bordering Indians in the colonization law of Coahuila and Texas, carries with it precedent conditions which have in no instance been complied with by any one of these tribes. To the Mexican authorities of that state, they were objects of disquietude and terror; and if in any instance a promise of lands was made to their Chiefs or Head-men, they were either induced by fear, or proceeded from a design to array the tomahawk and scalping knife against the American settlers of Texas. Such promises (if ever made) under such circumstances can impose no moral obligations on us. But the pledge of the Consultation of Texas in 1835, and the treaty consequent upon it, are said to be regarded by the Indians, and their advocates, as the chief foundation of the claims which they set up for lands in Texas. It is not necessary to inquire into the nature and extent of the powers which originated and negotiated that treaty; for the treaty itself never was ratified by any competent authority, and therefore can in nowise be legally considered as binding or obligatory upon us. Had it been ratified however by all the solemnities of the constitution, still this government is now wholly absolved from the performance of its conditions, by the notorious and habitual violation of its principal stipulations by the Indians. Should it be urged that a moral obligation is imposed upon us still to extend to them the benefits of the treaty notwithstanding their repeated violation of its provisions, in consequence of their supposed ignorance in such affairs I would reply that all moral obligation presupposes reciprocity; and if the good faith of their government is pledged to convey a large and valuable portion of its territory, situated in the very centre of its empire to these Emigrant bands, then they stand morally bound to render full allegiance to the government of Texas, to respect and obey its laws, and to support and defend its constitution. That this has not been done by them is certain; and that it will not be done, is more than probable. To admit their claim to any extent, on any other conditions would entail interminable vexations on our posterity. It would be parcelling out our territory to strangers and intruders, and introducing into the very viscera of the body politic, an alien, independent and innately hostile people, who know no restraints of law, and are subordinate to no authority. It would not only establish the monstrous political anomaly of an absolute imperium in inperio; but what, is still more abhorrent, a lawless and intractible power, within an organized, enlightened and soveign government. At some future period, I may do myself the honor to lay before the Congress, some of the interesting and important facts connected with this subject; and in the mean time in consideration of the embarrassments which surround our relations to these Indians, I would respectfully offer the following suggestions: That there be

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established as early as practicable a line of military posts, competent to the protection of our frontier from the incursions of the wandering tribes that infest our borders; and that all intercourse between them and our citizens, be made under the eye, and subject to the control of the Government. In order to allay the apprehension of the friendly tribes, and prevent any collision between them and our own citizens, I would recommend that each Indian family be permitted to enjoy such improvements as they occupy, together with a suitable portion of land, without interruptions or annoyance, so long as they choose to remain upon it, and shall deport themselves in a friendly manner ; being subordinate to our laws in all criminal matters, and in matters of contract, to the authorized agents of the Government. To this end the appointment of suitable agents to reside among the located tribes would be necessary, whose duty it should be to keep up a vigilant espionage, cultivate friendly relations, and as far as practicable, prevent all causes of interruption and collisions between the Indians and our own people.

Commissioners might be appointed to make treaties to this effect, with such tribes as are disposed to peace and friendship, while those who reject the terms should be viewed as enemies, and treated accordingly. These gratuitous and liberal concessions, on our part are perhaps due to the regard which we all entertain for peace. If unhappily they shall be found inadequate to secure that desirable object; and the Indians shall persist in their extravagant demands and resolve upon war, then let them feel that there are terrors also in the enmity of the white man, and that the blood of our wives and children cannot be shed without righteous retribution.27 In his Nov. 12. 1839, second annual message to Congress, he reiterates his desire to conduct a murderous campaign “without mitigation or compassion” expel Native Americans from Texas. He asserts that, “The white man and the red man cannot dwell in harmony together. Nature forbids it. They are separated by the strongest possible antipathies, by colour, by habits, by modes of thinking, and indeed by all the causes which engender hatred, and render strife the inevitable consequence of juxtaposition.”

Lamar is urging race war. Lamar calls the policies of the American government at that time “humane” which should tell the reader how murderous in intent he was.

In my opinion, the proper policy to be pursued towards the barbarian race, is absolute expulsion from the country. Nothing short of this will bring us peace or safety. It is vain to flatter ourselves that amicable relations can be preserved with them by virtue of treaty stipulations, or by adopting towards them a course of moderation and forbearance; for experience has long since confirmed the truth, that public or private pledges have no restraining influence with a people who are insensible to all moral obligation; and every attempt which has hitherto been made to propitiate the friendship of savages by the practice of benevolence and kindness, has only resulted in disappointing the hopes of the philanthropist, and placing additional victims in the reach, of their ferocity. The humane policy which the American Government has so long pursued towards the Indians within her 27

M.B. Lamar, “Message to Both Houses,” Dec. 21, 1838, “The Papers of Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar,” Vol. 2, edited by Charles Adam Gulick Jr. and Katherine Elliot, Austin, Texas, 1922, pages 346-69, item No. 948.

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territory, has never been productive of the good which was anticipated; but on the contrary, it has generally resulted in injury to the whites, without any adequate benefit to the savages; for after much forbearance, and a long endurance of the most atrocious cruelties, the Government has usually been compelled to visit the very tribes which they had most cherished, with the severest exercise of power. And it does appear to me, that it would have been the better policy to have commenced, instead of ending with military inflictions. For by so doing, it might have spared the lives of a thousand inocent families, who being lulled into a false security by this mistaken humanity, had fallen victims to the tomahawk and scalping knife. Let us then endeavour to profit by the long experience of a people whose situation is similar to our own, and learn in time the important lesson, that our only security against a savage foe, is to allow no security to him. The white man and the red man cannot dwell in harmony together. Nature forbids it. They are separated by the strongest possible antipathies, by colour, by habits, by modes of thinking, and indeed by all the causes which engender hatred, and render strife the inevitable consequence of juxtaposition. Knowing these things, I experience no difficulty in deciding on the proper policy to be pursued towards them. It is to push a vigorous war against them; pursuing them to their hiding places without mitigation or compassion, until they shall be made to feel that flight from our borders without the hope of return, is preferable to the scourges of war.28

28

M.B. Lamar, “Second Annual Message to Congress,” Nov. 12, 1839, “The Papers of Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar,” Vol. 3, edited by Charles Adam Gulick Jr. and Katherine Elliot, Austin, Texas, 1922, pages 159-83, item No. 1529. Quote is from pages 166-67.

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The world justly abhors and condemns the inexecrable Massacre of Lidice by the Nazis as well as the hideous Nanjing Massacre (Rape of Nanking) by the Japanese Army during World War II. Both crimes are repudiated by the German and Japanese people.

However, it seems that what is inexecrable or not depends whether a mass murderer was the historical victor and whether a people are without moral sense. In Dallas, the birth of a slave republic by white supremacist is felt to go together with the birth of Christ.

LAMAR’S SANTA FE EXPEDITION Lamar had dreams of Texas extending to the Pacific ocean which would have required more territory from Mexico.29 Without approval from the Texas Congress he launched an expedition in 1841 to seize the Santa Fe area of present day New Mexico for the

29

Lamar, Mirabeau Buonaparte, entry in the Texas State Historical Association online handbook entry by Herbert Gambrell. https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fla15, printed out into PDF 10/4/2019. When Gambrell wrote this is not provided in the online entry but it is likely a very old entry. I only use this online entry to get some basic information about his life and the use of this source should not be construed in anyway as endorsing this online handbook which is atrocious.

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Republic of Texas. The expedition was incompetent and in the end surrendered without a shot. The prisoners were marched to Mexico City and weren’t released until 1842.30

1844 LETTER TO GEORGIA CITIZENS SUPPORTING ANNEXATION OF TEXAS FOR THE PROTECTION OF SLAVERY In 1844 Lamar feared that the British working in cooperation with the Mexican government would force abolition upon Texas which he felt would be the destruction of the prospects of Texas. Lamar also explains that not only is annexation necessary to preserve slavery in Texas, but it is necessary to preserve slavery in the United States of America. The following are some extracts. … to escape from both these fates, by throwing herself full into the bosom and embrace of the U. States. Of these three destinies I have no hesitancy, as a citizen of Texas, which to choose. Her incorporation into this Union would be infinitely the best policy. It would be the best, because it is, in my belief, the only means of strengthening and confirming her in the enjoyment of her system of slavery, without which she can never attain to any great prosperity or dignity.

Lamar later in his letter defends slavery as the best relation for a society and how it is beneficial. He explains that annexation is necessary for the perpetuation of slavery both in Texas and in the South against abolitionism.

The Annexation of Texas to the United States addresses itself with special and peculiar force, to the people of the South. If the measure is an important one to the Union at large, it is doubly desirable to this section of it. And in as much as it is not my intention, in this desultory letter, to enter into a formal and an elaborate argument of the question, but merely to set forth a few of the considerations which have influenced my own conduct, I must be permits ted in my remarks to speak plainly and unreservedly without any reference whatever to the opinions and prejudices of others. I, therefore, approach this branch of the topic with an undisguised avowal of my predilections in favor of a slave—holding country; and that notwithstanding my unaffected attachment to the whole American Union, yet, in relation to its particular parts, I feel that the section that gave me birth, and whose laws and institutions I approve and admire, is entitled to, and must receive my highest allegiance and affection. I must furthermore confess that the wrongs which the South has-received from the hands of the free 30

Texas Santa Fe Expedition, entry in the Texas State Historical Association online handbook entry by H. Bailey Carroll, https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/qyt03, printed out into PDF 2/18/2020. When Carroll wrote this is not provided in the online entry but it is likely a very old entry. I only use this online entry to get some basic information about his life and the use of this source should not be construed in anyway as endorsing this online handbook which is atrocious.

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States—the calumnies which have been heaped upon her—the burthens she has been made to bear for the benefit of those who imposed them—and the un natural and fanatical crusade which the North is now waging against her, on account of her domestic institutions, do but endear her more deeply to me, and augment my desire for Annexation as the most effectual means of enabling her to protect her rights and to save herself from the ruin which her foes are preparing for her.

I do not support the institution of slaver merely because the land of my birth, or the land of my adoption, is connected with it. I believe the system of servitude as it exists in the Southern States, and in Texas, is the best relation which has ever been established between the laboring and the governing portions of mankind.

There is an unintectual toil to be performed, and menial service to be rendered; and it is infinitely better (whenever it is practicable) to assign those duties to that class of our species whom Providence has so signally fitted for the task, than to them upon our own brethren, who are our equals in every respect, except in the gifts of fortune.— That there shall be in society such a division as master and. servant is a law of God ; and He has clearly indicated the line of distinction between them by colour and character. The system is attended also with its moral advantages. The employer is almost always insolent and oppressive to the hireling; but not so the master to his negroes. He is the friend, and not the tyrant of his slave. He protects him against wrong from others—he ministers to him in sickness—regards his comfort at all times, and supports him in his declining years. The practice of these virtues; the kind and paternal attentions which he constantly bestows on his slaves, fix upon the slave-holder an active and habitual benevolence and liberality, which he carries with him in all the transactions of life; whilst the habit of commanding without tyranising—“blending justice with authority”—imparts to his general character a decision and firmness united with equity and kindness, which make him efficient and honest in the discharge of public responsibilities, and brave, generous and honorable everywhere. Such is the Southern man as he is moulded by the influence of this system of domestic slavery—a system which seems to be established by God for the amelioration of the black man, and the relief of the white man; and one which, as far as my observation and experience enable me to judge, is productive of the greatest advantages to both races.

Such being my opinion of Southern Slavery, I was desirous to establish the system on a permanent footing in Texas, believing that without it, she would be but a grazing country with an idle and ignorant population; and with it, she would become one of the most productive and prosperous nations on the globe, and the mother of a proud and an independent race of people. Hence, when I was in office I preferred that she should stand alone, because I believed that as an independent nation she would be better able, in alliance with other powers, to rebuke the progress of abolition, and thereby not only secure her 0wn glory, but

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also strengthen the rights of the Southern States. I considered that Texas and the South were identified in their interest on the question of slavery, and that the overthrow of the system in either country would lead to its extirpation in the other. And I think it still. But I was mistaken in the hopes which I had built upon the views and policy of other countries; and it was not until I was thoroughly satisfied of the fanaticism of Great Britain upon the subject of slavery, that I began to feel the necessity of receding from my opposition to annexation. When I saw that she was disposed to make abolition the sine qua non of our peace with Mexico, and that she was endeavoring to build up a party in the country to sustain and advocate her views, I had no hesitancy in giving my acquiescence to a measure which I had formerly opposed.

Lamar then explains that there is a possibility if Texas is not annexed that its population might choose to abolish slavery since most Texans don’t own slaves and there are few slaves presently in Texas so their emancipation wouldn’t be a problem.

Lamar proceeds to paint a picture of what he sees are the horrors of the abolition of slaves which he sees is likely to occur if Texas is not annexed.

I cannot believe that the people of the South are fully aware of the ruin which they are drawing open themselves. They do not realize in their minds the nature and magnitude of the evils which the rejection of Texas must finally produce.

They see, it is true, that some advantages may accrue to the South, as well as to the Union at large, by her admission into the Confederacy, but these advantages they think may very well be postponed, or abandoned, for the attainment of other objects in their estimation of equal value; and this they do without reflecting upon the fact, dial: the annexation of Texas is a thousand times more important to the South for the gigantic calamities which it will prevent, than for the immediate and positive blessings which it would bring, as great as they are. A little illustration will make this plain. As I have already shewn, if Texas is left to stand alone, there is every probability that slavery will be abandoned in that country. Indeed, I do not see how it is possible, in her present unacknowledged condition to maintain it against the tremendous efforts which will be made for its subversion. And when slavery gives way in Texas, the ruin of the Southern States is inevitable. That beautiful, rich, and chivalric country, which is now the natural ally of the South, and which, if admitted into the same Government with her, would give her strength to protect her rights and defy her foes; will, as a nonslaveholding Republic, become her bitterest enemy; and will combine with the balance of the world in a sleepless crusade against her, to force her to relinquish the very institution which she had compelled Texas to surrender. The difference, however, between their fates, will be this: The abolition of slavery in Texas, will be effected in a quiet and peaceable manner, without the loss of life or property; whilst its extirpation in the South, will be but another performance of the tragedy of St. Domingo. A half century will not roll away before the slaves will so

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accumulate in the South, and the lands so decline in fertility, that this species of property will not only cease to be profitable, but will become a burden to its owners. In this situation, what will be done with the surplus of blacks? If Texas were attached to the Union, as a slave-holding country, she would not only afford a safe outlet, but would be: profitable market for them. They will be too numerous for transportation; the free States of the Union will not receive them, neither will Texas permit them to enter her territory. The truth is, they will have to remain in the respective States where they are born, still accumulating every year, until their numbers will become so burthensome and dangerous, that the master will have to seek relief in emancipation; and when once the whiteman and negro are forced to dwell together on terms of equality in a dense population, and in a state of poverty and suffering, then will the reign of terror commence; and when, and how it will end, is beyond conjecture. A Southern member of Congress, on one occasion, whilst alluding to the horrors which must result from such a state of things, was replied to by Mr. Adams, in an exclamation (in substance)-“let them come, even though five hundred millions of Southern people should perish.” Did not Mr. Adams, then, and all of his satanic school, act wisely for their horrid ends in rejecting the Treaty of Annexation. Had they voted for that measure, the South would not only have been raised by it into political dignity and power sufficient for self-protection; but slavery would have been placed upon a safe and permanent footing both here and in Texas; and thus would a long reign of happiness and glory been secured to both countries. But the wary Abolitionists, foreseeing these results, have cunningly fore stalled them by cutting off the South from the only bulwark of her safety.

The South, however, can have nothing to complain of. Having contributed to the work herself, she must abide the consequences. She has aided in sowing the winds, and she must expect to reap the whirlwinds. Nor does it require any Prophet to foretell her destiny. Surrounded by enemies, with a rapidly increasing foe in the bosom of her society, without an outlet for their escape, she can look forward to nothing but a long series of heart-rending scenes and calamities, which shall shame the horrors of a thousand Bartholomews. Mr. Adams, and his disciples, may exclaim, “Let them come.” But where is the traitorous Southron who dares re-echo the sentiment? However deeply I may deplore the course taken by the Southern Senators, upon the subject of the Treaty, I am not disposed to attribute to them any of the motives and feelings which influenced the party with whom they acted. Indeed, I feel the impossibility of their being abolitionists themselves; nevertheless, they have, in their opposition to Annexation, cooperated with that class of men—they have co-operated in the support of a policy which was designed by the foes of the South, and is calculated, in its nature, to bring about the very state of things which I have just alluded to.

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After which Lamar explains that he understands by the North would be against Texas annexation since he sees it as part of their fixed and persisting policy in favor of abolition, but he is quite surprised to find opposition to annexation in the slave states against what Lamar sees as their own interest. He then proceeds to argue against many arguments put forth against annexation.

At the end he asks the politicians of Georgia to be like courageous like former Georgia governor George M. Troup and support annexation. This shows that Lamar was fully supportive of Troup’s policies in removing the Creeks from Georgia in defiance of federal authority.

Surely it will require an extraordinary energy for an individual whose whole heart and affections are fixed upon political preferment, to sacrifice his hopes of distinction from a mere sense of duty and a love of truth; but he who shall be able to make this surrender of ambition to the sacred cause of his country, will be the true patriot; and, in the long run, will be duly appreciated by the very pe0ple who had discarded him for his virtues in the days of their insanity. The people cannot always re— main in error; for the very chastisement which error naturally brings upon its votaries, will, in the due course of Providence, awaken them from their delusions, without the aid of any other argument; and when a re-action shall take place on the side of intelligence and virtue, the real patriot will then stand prominently forward in the eye of the world, in much bolder relief than did the unfeeling demagogue, in the days of his triumphs, when he was flattering the people in their errors and guiding them to ruin.

What has secured immortality to Troup? It was his fidelity to his state. It was, that he had the incorruptible and daring virtue, to oppose the popular phrenzy of the day, and to save the people from the ruinous consequences of their own infuriated passions. In that dark and portentous period of her affairs, when Georgia was threatened to be wrested of her rights—when her authorities were insulted, her sovereignty was denied, and the federal bayonet was planted on her borders, he stood forward boldly in her defence, and with the true spirit of an American patriot, drove back the fury of her foes. Reviled and insulted as he was, and opposed by every state in the Union, as well as by one half the citizens of his own, almost any other person would have shrunk from the responsibilities of the situation, and would have given up the contest as much in disgust as in despair.

But not so with him. With a strength of character that defied assault, and an energy that could not be repressed, he never faltered for a moment in his duty, nor forsook his purpose, but continued his untiring labors in the sacred cause, until the rights of his state were securely established, and her character was fully vindicated to the world. It is to this zeal and ability that Georgia is indebted for her present internal prosperity, as well as for the high and honorable rank which she occupies among her sister states of the confederacy. Now that he has retired from the toils and perplexities of public life, full of honors and of years, beloved and venerated by his countrymen, should not the politicians of the present day,

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be animated and encouraged by the high example, to move on boldly in the path of duty and in defiance of the dictations of party and the dread of its proscriptions, to make the real interests of their country, the first, the last, the only object of their hearts. Never did Georgia stand in need of firm and honest counsellors, more than she does at the present crisis. Look at her situation. Blind to her vital interests, a prey to demagogues, and clamorous for her own enslavement, be hold her demanding to be taxed for the aggrandizement of others—kneeling like a Cammel, to receive the burthen of her foes—rejecting the proffered friendship of a natural ally—insulting a people who have adopted her own laws and institutions; and in the fanaticism of an awful idolatry, behold her singing Hozannas to the very man, who has flattered and betrayed, her into this most. unnatural conduct:—and all this she is doing, at the very moment, when the states of this confederacy, who are fattening on the fruits of her toil, are denouncing her, in common with the whole South, as being unworthy of political connection with them, and as contaminating to the Church of God. Under these circumstances, the bold and faithful patriots of the country, who shall rise up, like Gov. Troup, with the true chivalry of their clime, and planting their feet upon the draggon of party, will send forth a voice through the land which shall awaken the people to their real situation; which shall arouse them to a full knowledge of the direful calamities, which their own direlictions are drawing upon themselves, and which shall finally succeed in calling them back, from their guilty idotary of men, to a just appreciation of themselves and their rights, they will not only be abundantly compensated by their own reflections, for all the insults and outrages, to which they may be doomed in the course of duty, but they will sooner or later, be rewarded also, by the grateful acknowledgments of an indebted people, and will go down to posterity with James Jackson and George M. Troup, as ornaments of the age—the friends of liberty and the benefactors of their State.

Most Respectfully, Your Friend and Fellow-Citizen, MIRABEAU B. LAMAR. Macon, Georgia, August, 1844.

IN OPPOSITION TO THE COMPROMISE OF 1850 In response to an invitation to speak against the Compromise of 1850 over slavery by the U.S. Congress, Lamar in August 1850 wrote a letter to the editors of the Mobile Register asking them to print an essay against the Compromise of 1850 in their paper. 31 The following are some extracts from Lamar’s editorial published August 16, 1850 in the Mobile Register. Lamar argues for the necessity of secession to save the slave states from dire necessity. The following is from the beginning of Lamar’s editorial.

3131

Letter M.B. Lamar to editors of the Mobile Register, Aug. 1850, item No. 2462, in the “Papers of Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar,” Vol. 4 Part 1, pp. 263.

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With the essential objects of the meeting I fully co incide, so far as they are intended to preserve the connstitution, and to oppose the free soil aggression upon the rights of-the south. In your opposition to the bill of Mr. Clay, I heartily concur. But in the approval of the Missouri line of 36 30 I cannot unite. Neverthe less, I hope I may be allowed to express freely my opinions and sentiments to your assemblage, which I will endeavor to do with the frank ness of a Georgian, and all the spirit of one who has no other desire than to share the fortunes of his friends [ * * * *] In the first place, gentlemen, I am opposed to all compromises except the compromise of the constitution. When our federal constitution was formed, it was based upon a series of compromises, nicely adjusted, and covering all the diversified interests of the country, and harmonising them in the only manner in which they could then or thereafter co-exist.— The south at that time conceded all that she could yield consistently with safety and honor, and received in exchange the guarantees of the constitution and the plighted faith and solemn oaths of the North. At that time, this very slavery question was one of the great vexed and agitating issues, and its adjustment was one of the foundation timbers of the Union. Its settlement — exactly as provided by the constitution —- was the very consideration of that instrument, without which it would never have been formed and upon the failure of which, it would of necessity become void.

Conflicting interests, peculiar institutions, social equality and general security being thus reconciled and established, and, as it was hoped, forever, the south felt her— self as safe in the enjoyment of her rights, as any blessings can be made secure by human pledges. The Federal Constitution became to her a sacred charter, which like the Holy Writ, it would be profanation to increase or diminish.

This being so, how then can any compromises Californian or Missourian, which modify, warp, or add to the relative duties of the north and south, be tolerated by any friend of the constitution or the country! They go to build up arbitrary regulations and to make our most sacred rights depend upon the mere will — the caprice of selfish and unrestricted majorities. They change the whole character of our government, and afford full license to the strong to devour the weak; the very evil which our federative system was intended to avert. Surely the southern people cannot be content to hold their rights by no other tenure than this. Do they flatter themselves that there is more virtue in a compromise than there is in the constitution: and are they willing to co-operate with the free soilers in the dethronement of the latter, and in the substitution of the former? Yet this they virtually did by their tame submission to the Missouri compromise, and the very same thing will they do again, more effectually if they support accept, or tolerate any of the abolition compromises now pending in congress.

When Missouri applied for admission into the Union, the Northern States, in congress, attempted to force her into free-soilism. Finding that they were not able

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to do this, they then introduced into the act of admission, a provision that no future state which might be formed out of the territory of the United States above a certain latitude, should be allowed to hold negro property. This they strove to make a. part of the fundamental law of the land; and, to give it sanctity and warrant of continuance, they denominated it a compromise. Here was a direct assumption of power to legislate over slavery; a brand of infamy and degradation stamped upon the forehead of the south, in the eyes of the world, and a commencement of a policy of legislation which it is now designed to continue, which, if tolerated, will never cease as long as a vestige of the peculiar institutions of the south shall remain. If congress has the right thus to prohibit slavery north of 36-30, they have the same right to exclude it south of that line. If we acquiesce in its exclusion above this visionary moral equator, g for the cogent reasons they advance, how can we, in opposition to the same arguments, resist its prohibition below that latitude? Once surrender the principle and we surrender everything. I am, therefore, opposed to any recognition of that pretended compromise. I defy its validity and force. It was a most flagrant usurpation of power —-- a power intended to serve as a foundation upon which the great lever was to be planted that was to overturn the liberties of the south. It was aimed for her destruction; and that she did not give to it that prompt and decisive repulsion which a brave people should always give to every infringement of their rights, is to be attributed to that lamentable disposition in the great mass of mankind to prefer the tranquility of despotism to that eternal vigilance and those fearful perils which are necessary to the maintenance of liberty.

In this section Lamar expresses his nightmarish fears of emancipated Africans.

We shall be thrown, by the triumph of abolition, into all the horrors of a domestic and servile war — a war which will have no parallel in atrocity and cruelty, and which must leave the Southern country a bleeding victim —— a land of suffering, mourning and desolation. There is no uncertainty as to the consequences. The Northern States will never permit our black population to enter their country.

The gates will be closed against the negroes in all abolition States. The consequence will be that when we shall be finally driven by the combined powers of corruption, harrassment and force into the emancipation of our slaves, they will have to remain amongst us; and the impossibility of their doing this in peace and safety, must be apparent to every mind. The freed slaves and the master cannot dwell together on terms of political and social equality. Such a thing would not only be rendered impossible by the recollection of their former relative positions, but it is forbid by the laws of God and nature. It cannot be. Thus, as I have already said, the success of abolition will throw the two races into a fearful conflict — a conflict that admits of no compromise but death — no [ ] but the grave, no termination but in extinction that the South may he saved from this awful tragedy. I desire that she may escape from it; because it is revolting to every sentiment of humanity — because there is no possible reason for such a horrible

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catastrophe — because it is an unmixed evil without the remotest hope of good.

And yet it is in evitable if the South falter in her duty to herself. I am not opposed to the emancipation of slaves, solely on account of the universal bankruptcy and pecuniary ruin which it would create; but more on account of those very calamities to which I have just alluded; it will - lead to the total butchery and destruction .of a race whose welfare and happiness every Southern man feels bound to consult as well as his own; and viewing the subject in this light. I cannot but hold it as one of the highest duties of the patriot and philanthropist to op pose every act and measure which may have the remotest tendency to bring about this unhappy state of things. We, and our slaves, are now dwelling in peace and harmony together — satisfied with each other — we, with their moderate labor, and they with our kindness and protection; and he who seeks a violent disruption of these good relations cannot mean the welfare and safety of the negro — but the ruin [Six lines torn from document] be seen, that in we only rush into another which is incalculably greater.

He concludes after this that the slave states need to secede to avoid what he sees is the calamity of emancipation.32 LATIN AMERICA The Latin American nations, excepting Brazil, abolished slavery after achieving independence. Prior to the Civil War in America groups of armed men organized filibusters to invade Latin American and Caribbean nations to create additional American slave states.33 Robert E. May, leading national expert on filibustering by pro-slavery forces in the Caribbean and Latin American nations in his book “Manifest Destiny’s Underworld,” writes about Mirabeau Lamar and his sympathies for filibusters. Ambrosio José Gonzales was an aid to Narciso López. Lopez was a Cuban who worked with his aid to gain American pro-slavery support to expel the Spanish from Cuba and give pro-slavery forces the idea that it would be annexed to the United States.34

32

Editorial for publication in letter to S.J. Ray and others, Macon, Georgia, Aug. 16, 1850, item No. 2463, in the “Papers of Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar,” Vol. 4 Part 1, pp. 263-272. This editorial and letter was sent to the editors of the Mobile Register for publication since Lamar was unable to have it ready for the meeting planned in Macon, Georgia.

33 Historian Robert E. May has produced a series of books which cover this topic exhaustively. I recommend the following, “Manifest Destiny’s Underworld: Filibustering in Antebellum America,” Univ. of North Carolina Press, 2002, Chapel Hill; “Southern Dream of a Caribbean Empire,” Univ. Press of Florida, 2002; “Slavery, Race, and Conquest in the Tropics,” Cambridge Univ. Press, 2013.

34 “Manifest Destiny’s Underworld: Filibustering in Antebellum America,” Robert E. May, Univ. of North Carolina Press, 2002, Chapel Hill, biography of López, pp. 21-22, of Gonazles and his being an aid, pp. 22, of López promotion of U.S. annexation, pp. 253-54.

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With expectations that Lamar would be supportive A.J. Gonzales wrote to Lamar asking for support and getting others to support financing their planned invasion of Cuba.

Though Lamar declined to give funds he was in his correspondence sympathetic to Gonzales and López’s efforts to invade Cuba. May writes, “Lamar declined in investing in the April 1851 plot, though he made it clear that he sympathized with the filibusters.”35 The letter is as follows: General Gonzales

Macon, 12th April 1851

Dear Sir, I will explain to you in person, when we meet again, the imperious circumstances which place it entirely out of my power to cooperate with you in your noble endeavors for the good and glory of your deeply injured and oppressed country, and this inability on my part you will please communicate to the incorruptible old veteran and patriot Genl. Lopez, for whom I entertain the highest friendship and esteem and whose cause, being that of God & Liberty, I sincerely hope may be as triumphant as his heart can desire.36 As previously stated, in 1857 Lamar was appointed United States minister to Nicaragua and Costa Rica for 20 months. Nicaragua had been invaded by American William Walker on June 16, 1855 during a civil war in Nicaragua and ending up as dominating Nicaragua and claiming to be president. He was ousted in May 1, 1857 when he surrender to U.S. authorities who evacuated him. He promptly attempted another filibuster starting on November 14, 1857 which ended December 8, 1857 when the American navy compelled his encampment in Nicaragua to surrender. A third time Walker attempted to invade Nicaragua again but in December 1858 the expedition was grounded on a coral reef off Honduras. In 1859 Walker attempted another invasion of Nicaragua but American authorities blocked Walkers’ reputed ship and on October 7, 1859 had taken a group of filibusterers into custody ending this fourth effort to occupy Nicaragua. Walker’s final attempt in 1860 ended when he was handed over by the British navy to the Honduras government who had the good sense to executive him on September 12, 1860.37 On September 22, 1856 Walker issued a decreed that repealed anti-slavery legislation and legalized slavery in Nicaragua.38 Ervay Street in Dallas is named after Henry Schley Ervay who as part of his many activities supporting white supremacy and slavery was a member of Walkers 1859 35

“Manifest Destiny’s Underworld: Filibustering in Antebellum America,” Robert E. May, Univ. of North Carolina Press, 2002, Chapel Hill, pp. 307 n. 28. The summary letter is item No. 2470 in the “The Papers of Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar,” editors Charles Adam Gulick Jr. and Winnie Allen, Vol. 4 Part 1, Austin, Texas 1924, pp. 284.

36 Mirabeau B. Lamar to General Lopez with copy to General Gonzales, April 12, 1851, provided by the Texas State Library and Archives Commission in Austin, Texas. Document No. 2470 in the Lamar Papers. Mentioned in Vol. 4 Part 1, editors Charles Adam Gulick Jr. and Winnie Allen, Austin, Texas, pp. 234.

37 “Manifest Destiny’s Underworld: Filibustering in Antebellum America,” Robert E. May, Univ. of North Carolina Press, 2002, Chapel Hill, pp. 46-51.

38 “Slavery, Race, and Conquest in the Tropics,” Robert E. May, Cambridge Univ. Press, NYC 2013, pp. 130.

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expedition in which he nearly, but unfortunately did not die and therefore lived to support the Confederacy as a supply officer and overthrow Reconstruction and restore white supremacy to Dallas as mayor.39 Lamar arrived in Nicaragua on January 1858. He was there to get approval for the CassIrisarri Treaty to reopen the transit route across Nicaragua. Why U.S. President Buchanan would appoint someone who was most famously known for having torn a chuck out of Mexico to make the slave state of Texas and as President of Texas has sent an armed expedition to seize New Mexico for Texas as a minister to a nation which had been overrun by pro-slavery filibusterers and was under threat of invasion by filibusters is to be wondered but not a subject for this essay. There was considerable opposition to this treaty including that of Nicaraguan President Tomás Martínez. Lamar wrote a lengthy communication to the Nicaraguan Minister for Foreign Relations, Gregorio Júarez, reasons as to why the treaty should be adopted.40 This communication bluntly threatening Nicaragua exhibits extortionist Lamar’s racism and arrogance.

From the communication of Lamar to Júarez, March 20, 1858,41 some sections in which the author’s comments will be in brackets “[]”: What is the present condition of Nicaragua? She has existed as an independent nation more than thirty years, and during that time, she has been involved in desolating wars and intestine commotion, to the total neglect of agriculture, of education, and all the industrial and civilizing pursuits, until her cities, towns and villages — her magnificent churches and great fortifications have sunk into utter ruin and decay, and the great mass of the people into lamentable ignorance. — From the date of her independence, which ought to have been the beginning of her progress and agrandizement, she has continued to retrogade until the present moment — and now, when the hand of friendship is extended to her, to raise her above this subordinate condition, and to place her in the high road of prosperity, dignity and peace, her people virtually say — “we want no change — we want no treaties—we are contented with little; and that little is supplied by a bounteous Providence. We have our bananas, our plantains, our frijoles;–and if we choose to live upon these, and while our lives away in a dreamy hamock – whose business is it but our own?” — True. It is, indeed, a matter of little concern to others; but it is one of vast importance to themselves. It is not optional with the people of Nicaragua, whether they will continue in their present condition or not. No nation can remain stationary amidst an almost universal progress. It must either 39

No author, “Life of Henry Ervay, Pioneer of Dallas,” Dallas Morning News, Jan. 7, 1912, page 4.

Roach, M. Baptista, “The Last ‘Crusade’ of Mirabeau B. Lamar,” The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Vol. 45, No. 2, Oct. 1941, pp. 147-163. This article is phenomenally horrible and is typical of the white supremacist attitudes behind much of Texas history.

41 Document No. 2603, titled, “1858 Mar, 29, M.B. Lamar, Managua, [Nicaragua] to G. Juarez, [Managua, Nicaragua],” from, “The Papers of Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar,” Vol. 4 Part 2, pp. 107-127.

40

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advance or retrograde. It must join in the great labors — in the vast operations and pursuits of the age — or be left far, far behind, to sink into hopeless imbecility and final extinction. If Nicaragua would avoid this fate — if she does not wish to be run over and crushed forever by the giant car of improvement, which no earthly power can stay, she must be up and adoing — she must arouse herself from her slumbers — shake off her long continued leathergy, and assume somewhat of the activity and energy of other nations.

Nicaragua with a population not exceeding two hundred and fifty thousand souls — one third of which are uneducated Indians, and the balance involved in great ignorance, with very limited exceptions," possesses an extent of Territory and natural resources to sustain and enrich many millions of people; and yet, because she has not the talents, energy and industry to develop these resources herself, she is not only unwilling that others should do it, but vainly deems that she has the indubitable right of interdicting its being done. — And more than this. The people of Nicaragua believe that they are under no social obligations to the world — that they have a perfect right to live within themselves, as the Chinese have hitherto done, to the total exclusion of the inhabitants and even to the commerce of other nations, if they choose to do so. Their mode of reasoning is this. They say — “The transit route belongs to us; and so do all the territorial wilds extending from del Norte to Segoria; and why may not a nation be left to enjoy its own property in its own way? By what authority or right can a foreign people, with manners, habits, tastes and modes of thinking different from our own, intrude themselves into our Country, against our well known wishes, and cultivate our soil, establish high-ways and introduce a new order of things incongenial to our disposition and undesired by us?”— Allow me to say in reply, that there is no principle of modern times more valued and better established than the right of free intercourse and liberal commerce with ail nations. This is the law of the civilized world. The door of every enlightened nation is thrown wide open to the admission of all who choose to enter as friends; and all who enter as such, are entitled to the same protection of person and property as the native inhabitants.

Upon what ground, then, can Nicaragua claim for herself an exemption of this universal principle? If she cannot conform herself to the usages and comities of enlightened communities:– if she persists in opposing herself to the spirit of progress — to the great animating and ameliorating principles that control and direct the affairs of the present age, she must necessarily expect to be ruled out of the family of cultivated nations, and be placed in the Category of her first inhabitants. She ought to know this herself, and shape her course accordingly. – [Note from author: Given Lamar’s murderous history towards Native Americans this threat to classify the Nicaraguans as Native Americans should be understood as an ominous and deadly threat.]

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The transit question will serve as an illustration of this principle. — The progress of the age has rendered a route through this Istmus a necessity for the world; and perhaps a matter of more importance to the United States than to any other nation. To close that route against the universal demands of commerce, would be regarded as a general wrong, and a just cause of complaint. — It would not only manifest a decided want of friendly feelings towards the nations interested; but a most contemptous in difference to their wants and welfare. This would necessarily engender in them a reciprocal spirit; and recrimination and retaliation, as a matter of course, would be the consequence. There can be no peace where there is no reciprocal confidence and friendship. Mutual desire for mutual good, is the only bases of harmonious relations, and the true foundation of international prosperity. — It is true that the route is the property of Nicaragua. It rightfully belongs to her; but like all the gifts of providence, it is only hers for utility and good — never for evil. There is a limit to all human rights.

They terminate with their abuse and disuse. — The servant in the parable was deprived of his talent, because he buried it, instead of using it. — The assumption, therefore, by Nicaragua of the unlimited right of opening or closing the Transit route at her own discretion, upon the plea that the land and the lakes through which it passes belong to her, is a pretention, which cannot, and will not be tolerated for a moment by any commercial nation on the earth; and any attempt on the part of Nicaragua, at a practical assertion of this right, could not fail to be regarded as a declaration of hostility against the civilized world. Let Nicaragua ponder these things, and she will readily comprehend the social obligations which Civilization imposes, and the danger of disregarding them. — It is no answer to all this to say that it is American dictation — that it is the law of robbers — the threat of an enemy. — No, Sir – the doctrines which I here lay down are clearly defined and fully sustained by one of the highest authorities on such subjects – Vattel — and I regret that I have no copy at hand of that celebrated author's work to refer to. I write without books; and alone upon the authority of common sense and common justice. — But You say — An enemy' – When, Sir, have the United States been the enemy of Nicaragua? Was it when they interposed their shield for her protection against the Filibusters? If Nicaragua is determined never to acknowledge, or to reciprocate the generous sentiments of my government towards her, the fault is Nicaraguas alone; and all the responsibilities must be hers which may grow out of such unaccountable perversity. — A threat No sir, I have no authority to threaten or command.

Neither is my government responsible for ought that I have said, or yet may say: — for I am speaking in my individual capacity alone — and only in the language of sincerity and truth — not as a plenipotentiary to this Country; but as its friend — not as an instructed Diplomatist; but as a candid advocate of the best interests of Nicaragua, and a general lover of human progress and human happiness. –

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Allow me then to say without offense, that it is not the Americans who are decreeing those mighty changes, so desired by other nations and yet so dreaded by this, which I doubt not will sooner or later take place in this country. That all Central America is, indeed, destined to undergoe [sic] a mighty revolution in manners, habits, modes of thinking and governing, must be obvious to every reflecting mind. But it is not the United States that have so ordered it. It is the work of God, and not of man. It is His will and wisdom which are now giving direction to the current of events. He is the great arbitrer of fate and disposer of nations; — and one of His immutible laws, is eternal progression — onward, and onward in endless improvement; and the people who shall array themselves against this Divine mandate and attempt to arrest the tide of moral, mental and physical advancement, must necessarily perish, as all nations have perished when they have reared themselves against the supremacy of Providence. — Man was not made to abide eternally in indolence and ignorance. This is not his natural condition. God has imposed upon him two all-important and imperative duties. The one is to till the soil; and the other is to improve and exalt his own nature;— and it is precisely upon the fulfilment of these imperious obligations, that his political, social and personal rights depend.— This broad and beautiful earth was given to the human race to be cultivated and improved by them for their own good, and the glory of Him who gave it; and the people who will not use it to these ends — who will not employ it in accordance with the great, benevolent designs of the Donor — must not expect to debar those from doing so, who have the energy, the intelligence and the willingness to do it.

A people who neither toil nor spin — whose life is leisure and whose bliss is ignorance — can never be allowed to close to the necessities of the world, those vast and boundless plains and wilds [sic] which God has fertilized and fructified for the benefit of all. The political jurisdiction may be theirs; but the usufruct belongs to those who are willing to plough and to plant — to sow and to reap. And so, with respect to our moral and intellectual faculties. God has endowed us with two wonderful powers — the mind; and the soul — which are capable of infinite exaltation and refinement by the proper exercise and cultivation of them; and those who will not bestow this culture, must necessarily subordinate themselves to those who do. Just in proportion to our moral and intellectual advancement, do we become great and good, and assimilate ourselves to the likeness of our Maker; and it is to this portion of the human race—that is, to those who carry the sublime elements and lofty energies of our nature to a high preeminence — that God has decreed dominion. — Nor can any one assail the justice of the law; for it is not in the nature of things that ignorance should dictate to wisdom, and imbecility to energy. – To say that a hand-full of people— a small, unlettered community, who have no industry, no enterprize — who live without labor and feel no necessity of knowledge, might arrest, at their own pleasure and discretsion [sic] the great march of civilization and regeneration, would indeed be

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a lamentable subversion of the order of providence and a sad dethronement of human dignity.

You say that this is filibusterism. Well, You say that this is filibusterism. Well, Sir, there are two great filibusters in this age, whose career it is impossible to check.

They are now stalking thro’ the world with collossal strides, and giant power, trampling under foot many venerated things —extirpating old institutions, and founding new — pulling down here and rearing up there. In one word, they are revolutionizing the whole world, in a manner as if they were determined to allow nothing to remain as they now find it. These restless, innovating and resistless filibusters, are Knowledge and Virtue. They are the great Executors of the will of Providence. God has sent them forth with the two edged swords of Truth and Justice, to fight their way through the world — conquering and to conquer — until they shall plant the broad banner of His love and power wherever there are wilds to be cultivated, and wherever there is human intellect to be enlarged and exalted.

[Note from the author: The essay continues to connect the rapacity of America to the “Deity himself.” After this section Lamar lectures Júarez that the British and French are not likely to risk war with the United States to protect them and comes back to that idea repeatedly in his letter. This should give the reader a better understanding what the Monroe Doctrine explained in your school history text book really means. The United States will not suffer the rapacity of other imperial powers to interfere with its own rapacity. After this section of Lamar’s communication that Nicaragua has no friends, he then decides to let Nicaraguans know how inferior they are to Americans. ]

The difficulty with Nicaragua is easily explained — She has allways been jealous of foreigners coming into the country; because she dreaded their superior energy and enterprize. Nevertheless, feeling the necessity of invoking the aid of foreign industry for the developement of her natural resources, she invited emigration into the country under certain laws and regulations which were not wanting in wisdom and liberality. These laws, however, did not secure the object intended, in consequence of the unsettled condition of the nation. No emigrants came — or at least they did not come in numbers sufficient to create allarm. Few foreigners of enterprise and capital were willing to remove to a country distracted by continual wars, and affording but little security for life or property. Hence the people of Nicaragua have never been disquieted by their natural fears of being overshadowed by the activity and energy of an emigrant population. But now these fears are greatly excited. Nicaragua understands that the Cass and Irisarri Treaty — once ratified — will remove all the difficulties which have heretofore impeded emigration, by establishing peace, order, stability and security in the country; — and she now fears that under this new state of things, there will be such a rush of foreigners into her territory as to endanger her nationality. These

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fears have reference almost exclusively to the people of the United States. It is the Americans that are dreaded. The general apprehension is that in a few years they will so increase in numbers, wealth and strength as to be able to seize the reins of government; denationalize the country and convert it into an American Republic.

[Note from the author: Given that Americans were attempting to invade one Latin American nation after another it seems that the fears of the Nicaraguans are fairly reasonable. The following is the concluding paragraph of the communication.]

Throughout my remarks I have carefully abstained from the use of menacing language; yet it may be useful in conclusion to let Nicaragua understand, distinctly — that the Transit route will be opened without her consent, should she choose to withhold that consent. The necessity of said route, and the right to open it, is not doubted or disputed by any commercial nation. When opened, the right of the government of the United States to protect its commerce and its citizens in passing over said route is inseparable from the right to pass; and the right to protect, necessarily implies the employment of force. Thus Nicaragua will perceive that the life, liberty and property of American citizens can, and will be protected, as effectually without a treaty as with one. Not so peaceably perhaps; but just as effectually. Under this aspect of affairs how much better would it be for Nicaragua to abandon all her ill natured feelings towards the United States, and avail herself of the present favorable opportunity of uniting in peace and harmony two nations which have so many reasons to be friendly and none to be otherwise.

- I have the honor to be very respectfully Your most obedient Servant, MIRABEAU B. LAMAR.

THE SLAVES AND PLANTATIONS OF LAMAR Lamar grew up on his father’s plantation Fairfield near Milledgeville, Georgia. He died at his plantation near Richmond, Texas. That is all the information which you will learn about Lamar and his direct personal involvement with slavery in the Texas State Historical Handbook lengthy entry for Lamar, which is to be expected with the Texas State Historical Handbook.42 Lamar did sell slaves. An April 10, 1840 letter by T.G. Gordon to Lamar opens with an offer by J.W. Pitkin to purchase three of Lamar’s slaves, Emily, Caroline and Caroline’s

42

Lamar, Mirabeau Buonaparte, entry in the Texas State Historical Association online handbook entry by Herbert Gambrell. https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fla15, printed out into PDF 10/4/2019. When Gambrell wrote this is not provided in the online entry but it is likely a very old entry.

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child for $2700.43 Caroline was sold since a new owner stated that he was willing to sell her back to Lamar.44 So he was buying and selling slaves. Buying slaves to run his Richmond plantation and selling them. As with Emily and Caroline and Caroline’s child stealing their lives to profit himself.

Like the Texas State Historical Association, the “Remember the Alamo,” historiography of much of what is passed off as Texas history in Texas has examined little about the lives of his slaves.

Lamar died in 1859, and some of his slaves may have been sold after he died. However, the 1860s Census of the Richmond Plantation shows his widow, Henrietta Lamar is still the owner of thirteen slaves. They are inventoried like livestock in the census with only age and sex given. This is the record.45 Gender Male Male Male Male Male Female Female Female Female Female Male Female Female

Age 28 27 26 20 16 30 25 20 18 16 12 4 2

Whereas Mirabeau Lamar has his name splashed across the landscape on streets, schools, universities and elsewhere, these slaves’ names are lost to history.

SUMMARY To Mirabeau Lamar non-whites, whether Native Americans, Latinos, Africans, existed only to be expelled, exterminated, or enslaved. They were not human, but just animals or wild life to be used or gotten rid of as it suited white supremacy and domination. He was a serial criminal in the commission of crimes against humanity.

43

Document No. 1767, titled, “1840 Apr. 10, T.G. Gordon, Houston, Texas, to M.B. Lamar, Austin, Texas,” from, “The Papers of Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar,” Vol. 3, pp. 366-67.

44 Document No. 2114, titled, “1841 Oct. 20 E[d]w[ar]d Fontaine, Gay Hill, [Texas], to Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar, Austin, [Texas],” from, “The Papers of Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar,” Vol. 3, pp. 590.

45 The National Archives in Washington DC, Washington DC, USA, Eighth Census of the United States 1860, Series Number: M653; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census; Record Group Number: 29. Accessed through Ancestry.com, Ancestry Library, 3/12/2020.

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The fact that there are schools, streets, a university, a Texas county named after him is a sign of depraved indifference to the humanity of Native Americans, African Americans and Latinos and the insufferable racist mythologies which shape the general public’s conceptualization of the identity of Texas.

If Texas identity is no longer to be based on white nationalism and be a white nationalist concept, it will be necessary to recognize the white nationalist named landscape of Texas and to deracialize it, and ridding the landscape of the practice of honoring Lamar would be a good place to start.