Analysis Of James E. Crisp Over Sam Houston's Speech

James E. Crisp over Sam Houston’s Speech

James E. Crisp is a historian from the North Carolina University who put most of his work studying the Texas history. In his book entitled “Sleuthing the Alamo”, he tried to distinguish and separate the myth and the real fact of the Texas revolution. Crisp played a detective work by researching the David Crocket’s controversy and other mysteries of the Texas revolution. Specifically, in the first chapter of the book, he discussed thoroughly about the racist speech of Sam Houston, his idol of Texas revolution, in Refugio that was quoted by the prize-winning book of Paul D. Lack “The Texas Revolutionary Experience” (25, 49). James E. Crisp was extremely surprised of the racist content of the speech and

Houston used the derogatory words such as “phlegm of the indolent Mexicans” to portray his opponent (38). This anti-Mexican phrase illustrated the hate of Sam Houston to all Mexican which Crips found it really strange after studying Houston’s history for so long. In his speech, Houston even accused that Tejanos had helped the enemy and brought threat to the Houston’s side (38). By reading his speech, one could easily imply that Houston was really a racist by creating a distinctive dichotomy between Anglo and Mexican. His speech also inferred that Texas revolution happened simply because the racial issues between two groups, which contradicted to Crisp’s knowledge. Moreover, at the last part of his speech, Houston described Mexicans as “half-Indians” (38). This part of the resentment speech inferred that Houston despise the Indians by equalizing them to his most hateful enemy. This hate toward Indians is completely different with what Crisp had in mind about his idol of the Texas

Houston was adopted by Cherokee Indians and spent most of his teenaged life with them (10). He even received a calling name Co-lo-neh, the raven, from Cherokee (29). Crisp believed that Houston who made a quality friendship with Indians would not disrespect them in the speech at Refugio. In addition, Houston refused to take an oath of allegiance to the confederacy at 1861, even though as a result, he needed to sacrifice his position in Texas Government (11). This fact justified that Houston strongly opposed the slavery and white supremacy. Crisp doubted that the person who strongly valued human liberty gave such racist hateful speech. Moreover, Houston had made a quality friendship with Juan Nepomuceno Seguín, a Tejanos who was illiterate in English, and trusted Seguín as a commandant in Santo Antonio (48). During the Texas revolution, Houston and Seguín “worked together” fighting against racism (59). Crisp was skeptical that the same Houston would put so much hate toward Mexican, considering that some of them were his