Inventing Texas: Early Historians of the Lone Star State

3 Texas Historians and the Rise of the Lone Star

3 ★ Texas Historians and the Rise of the Lone Star Attention had focused on colonization and revolution in Texas during the s, but it turned to the political and diplomatic fortunes of the new republic in the s. Controversy, far from quieting after Texas claimed its independence , increased after the revolution. Mexico’s loss of such a large piece of real estate with its attendant resources had a devastating effect on that country’s investors, many of whom were English. When initial efforts to annex Texas to the United States failed in  and , the contest for the republic, both at home and abroad, escalated rapidly. The volume of publication on Texas increased proportionately, all of it aimed at persuasion. Much of it, as in the previous decade, donned the respectable and popular cloak of history. One Texan convinced of the utility of history for promoting his vision for Texas, and his political agenda for achieving it, was Mirabeau B. Lamar, president of the Republic of Texas from  through . Lamar had, from his youth, mingled literature and politics. Moreover, possessing the heart and soul of a poet, he approached both with genuine romantic passion. He had been a politician and newspaper editor in Georgia prior to coming to Texas in  with the idea, among other things, of writing a history of the region, and to that end he amassed a wealth of documentary material.1 Though circumstances prevented his carrying out the writing himself, when he determined to secure Texas’ sovereignty and economic independence, he promptly sought to procure the writing of a history that would bolster his efforts to obtain diplomatic recognition for the republic. In this endeavor he had two likely prospects, William Kennedy, an English diplomat, and Henry Stuart Foote, a writer and politician from Mississippi. Kennedy became interested in Texas in  after reading newspaper accounts of the province’s revolt against Mexico. As in the case of Frédéric LeClerc and others, Kennedy was intrigued by the fact that this AngloAmerican band, so insignificant in number compared with the population of Mexico, had been successful in establishing their independence by force of arms. “I could not clearly understand,” he wrote, “how the settlers of Texas were enabled to repel the armies of Mexico and to found a Republic of their own.”2 As he was an Englishman, perhaps his interest had been piqued by the fact that these Americans had been able to repeat this feat no less than three times in fifty years, not only against the larger force of Mexico but twice against England, the mightiest nation on earth. In fact, William Kennedy’s interest in writing and in America predated the Texas Revolution by several years. At the age of twenty-five he had published a volume of prose narrative, and during – he had collaborated in the publication of The Paisley Magazine, a short-lived periodical. As private secretary to the Earl of Durham, he had accompanied that British political leader to North America to investigate the cause of the Canadian Rebellion. Having become intrigued with what he had read about Texas, Kennedy welcomed the opportunity to satisfy his curiosity firsthand when the Earl of Durham proposed that he visit North America to head a commission for improving municipal institutions in Lower Canada.3 After completing his report at the end of , Kennedy set out to satisfy his curiosity about the United States and Texas. He made his way to Texas in  and remained until June, during which time he was warmly received. He was also very favorably impressed with the sanguine attitude of the Texans toward his own country, especially in comparison to the animosity he had encountered toward England in the northern United States. Perhaps this hospitality was responsible for Kennedy’s sympathetic attitude toward Texas. Nothing in his correspondence with various individuals nor in the “Personal Narrative” with which he prefaced his book indicated that his interest in Texas at the time stemmed from anything other than curiosity. By , when his book first appeared, Kennedy was clearly concerned for British interests in Texas, which he perceived to be threatened by both France and the United States; thus, one could surmise that he had written his pro-Texan account to encourage and hasten the signing of commercial treaties between England and Texas. In a letter to Lord Aberdeen in October , Kennedy drew attention to remarks on the northwestern boundary question, published in the London Times, which he wrote “for the purpose...