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A Choice of Destiny
Texas were compelled by political events to align with Britain and possi-
bly with other European powers rather than to join the American
Union. Since many Anglo-American leaders perceived these newcomers
as a direct threat to slavery, their own support for annexation was inten-
sified by fears of internal subversion at the hands of immigrants who
might be controlled from abroad.5
The connection between proslavery politics and antiforeign sentiment
during the annexation controversy has heretofore received little atten-
tion from historians, perhaps because most Texas scholars until very re-
cent times have been reluctant to confront the more distasteful aspects
of their state's or nation's past.4 Another reason for this neglect may re-
late to the nature of annexation as a diplomatic process. Because the po-
litical initiative emanated from the United States, historians have
naturally focused on how Texas government leaders responded to Amer-
ican proposals. This emphasis has produced some fine scholarship, but
it has also tended to reduce the politics of annexation within Texas to
questions concerning the personal motives of Sam Houston and Anson
Jones, the last two presidents of the Republic.5 While these leaders were
obviously important, their diplomacy can be understood only by examin-
ing broader social concerns within the Anglo-American community. It is
necessary, moreover, that we extend our vision beyond the mid-184os,
and look back, at least briefly, to the period of Mexican rule. Annexation
s Whereas nativists in the Northeastern United States reacted to a massive foreign influx, their
Texas counterparts (who were mostly themselves immigrants) expressed their greatest fears
about a future threat directed from Europe. Northern nativist groups were largely anti-Catholic,
and obtained considerable support among antislavery voters. See Ira Leonard and Robert
Parmet, American Nativism, 1830o-86o (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1971); Tyler An-
binder, Natzvssm and Slavery: The Northern Know Nothings and the Politics of the x85os (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1992).
4 Walter L. Buenger and Robert A. Calvert, "Introduction: The Shelf Life of Truth in Texas
History," in Texas Through Time: EvolvingInterpretations, ed. Buenger and Calvert (College Station:
Texas A&M University Press, 1991), ix-xxxv.
5 The standard political history of annexation for most of this century has been Justin H.
Smith, The Annexation of Texas (1911; rev. ed., New York: Barnes and Noble, 1941). See also
David M. Pletcher, The Diplomacy of Annexation: Texas, Oregon, and the Mexican War (Columbia:
University of Missouri Press, 1973); Eugene C. Barker, "The Annexation of Texas," Southwestern
Historical Quarterly, L (July, 1946), 49-74 (cited hereafter as SHQ); John H. Schroeder, "Annexa-
tion or Independence: The Texas Issue in American Pohtics, 1836-1845, SHQ, LXXXIX (Oct.,
1985), 137-164. See also Stanley Siegel, A Political History of the Texas Republic, 1836-1845
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1956); Herbert Gambrell, Anson Jones: The Last President of the
Republic of Texas (Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday and Co., 1948); Llerena Friend, Sam Houston:
The Great Designer (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1954); Randolph B. Campbell, Sam Houston
and the American Southwest (New York: Harper Colhns, 1993); John Hoyt Williams, Sam Houston: A
Biography of the Father of Texas (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993). For three studies emphasiz-
ing the slavery issue within a national perspective, see Frederick Merk, Slavery and the Annexation
of Texas (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972); Thomas R. Hietala, Manifest Design: Anxious Aggran-
dizement in Late Jacksonian America (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985); William W. Freehling,
The Road to Disunion: Volume I, Secessionists at Bay, 1776-1854 (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1990), 353-452.273
1997
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 100, July 1996 - April, 1997, periodical, 1997; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101218/m1/339/: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.