Subject: Texas History Education
Date: March 26, 1998
From: Donny Branam
A recent article in the Dallas Morning News raised the issue of the relevancy of teaching Texas History to Texas students. Is it necessary that our Middle School students spend an entire year studying their Texas heritage?
How relevant is the Alamo to Hispanic and African-American students whose ancestors may have been either on the wrong side or enslaved in 1836? What can be done to reach kids who have not had the benefit of growing up in the baby boom era when Davy Crockett was a cultural icon and western movies about Texas were a dime a dozen? Is it a lost cause or should we man the barricades and fight to the last man?
Donny Branam, Educational Coordinator
Alamo de Parras
For starters, there is no "wrong side" in Texas history. There are definitely winners and losers, but this notion of "good" and "evil" is out of place. I was shocked that a Texas history teacher is comparing Santa Anna was Sadham Hussain. A letter to the editor in the San Antonio Express-News compared the Mexican soldados to Nazi storm troopers. Whether we like it or not, Texas was part of Mexico in 1836. This was a revolt against a Mexican government. Santa Anna did not invade a foreign land. This issue of taking sides is interesting. Who then were the good guys and the bad guys in the American Civil War?
This goes to show that interpretation is the key. Everyone in the Texas experience has a perspective. This is not being PC-it is simply being fair.
Your question concerning Crockett is interesting. Crockett was a icon with kids long before Walt and Fess. Just look at the school and kid's books written before 1955! The interesting issue is that all of these books lionize Crockett as a great American hero and role model, but often have him being taken prisoner and executed! Apparently the pre-baby boomers had no problem with that side of the story!
I still see hundreds of kids coming to the Alamo today who are inspired by the story. Not all of them are wearing coonskin caps! Some admire Juan Seguin, Gregorio Esparza, and Sue Dickinson. What we tend to forget is that the Alamo is not the story of an individual, but a band of individuals who made a collective stand.
The Alamo and Texas history are as current today as they were forty years ago. Every generation takes from the interpretation what they need. It may not be the same interpretation you experienced, but it is nevertheless Texas history.
So, yes, keep teaching Texas history in the class rooms. We learn from our past. We can still learn from the Alamo.
Kevin R. Young
Subject: Response to Texas History Education
Date: Friday, March 27, 1998 6:31 AM
From: Wallace McKeehan
If Texas History is simply the study of ancestry of Texas residents, "ancestors· on the wrong side or enslaved in 1836" and "Davy Crockett· and western movies about Texas" and such trivia then it should be definitely abandoned. It is more critical today to teach Texas heritage and history to middle school students than ever before and the problem is content---what is taught! If one does not understand Texas history than one will never understand Texas today and oneās role in its successes, failures and problems.
If taught properly no history of any state in the USA or the world can reveal the lessons in microcosm and prototype found in Texas history as it evolved from an aboriginal wilderness to a state of the USA. From Texas history one will understand land and property rights, immigration and colonialism, regional independence movements, militarism, dictatorship, racism, slavery and economic class struggle, religionās role in society, resolution of conflict between birth, family and principle, role of the individual versus the group, and impact of both the flawed and heroic traits of character on society.
The Texas of today, its three primary racial and cultural groups and its key border state position did not suddenly appear yesterday, it is the product of nearly 300 years of slow and torturous evolution and struggle to build a free and prosperous regional society by essentially the same forces and major racial and cultural groups plus many smaller ones which compose the state today.
If studied in depth, Texas history is European, Spanish, Mexican, Black and US history. It is time, not to discuss ablating mandatory Texas history, but to increase the relevance of the content and train a new generation of teachers who can creatively present it.
Wallace L. McKeehan
Sons of DeWitt Colony Texas: http://www.tamu.edu/ccbn/dewitt/dewitt.html
Subject: Mrs. William Barret Travis
Date: April 7, 1998
From: Wallace McKeehan
 | In Adele Lubbock Briscoe Looscan's article, The
Women of Pioneer Days (Sons of DeWitt Colony), in Wooten's Comprehensive
History of Texas, the author shows the photograph (shown at left) with
caption "Mrs. William B. Travis."
How many times was William B.Travis, Alamo Commandante, married and was his wife ever in Texas?Can this individual's identity be corroborated? Dios y Libertad.
|
The story has been told that Travis suspected his wife of infidelity, doubted his parenthood of her unborn child, and killed a man because of it. The story has persisted, despite a definite lack of evidence to support it. Travis was in Texas by 1831 and obtained land from Stephen F. Austin. On his application, he listed his marital status as single, even though he was still married.
By 1834, he began courting a married woman, Rebecca Cummings with plans to marry her once both were divorced. Cummings obtained her divorce by the fall of 1835, charging her husband with desertion. With the turbulent events that ensued from July of 1835 until his death, Travis made no attempts to marry her. Cummings remarried in early 1836. She died in the 1850's. Rebecca Cummings was buried in the Odd Fellows Cemetary in San Antonio about 800 yards due east of the Alamo. At the time, you could see the rear of the Alamo from the site.
Before William's death, his son, Charles Edward, arrived in Texas alone and lived for a time with the family of David Ayres so that he might be near his father. The fact that only his son came to Texas may give some weight to the story of his wife's infidelity. Rosanna Cato Travis also remarried only to die of yellow fever.
The original Rosanna Cato Travis [photograph] is in the collection of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas Museum in Austin, where it on display.
