"Tax-Funded Curricula"

Think of this as a footnote to my previous post and the issue of "tax-payer funded curricula."  Because I went to school in Texas (up until I entered seminary in a suburb of St. Louis, MO), and I learned as holy writ that, but for the brave actions of William B. Travis and Davy Crockett and others, we would still be "enslaved" by Mexico.  The Alamo was even run as a shrine, not the mission it was in the 19th century, but a shrine to Texas independence.  I remember the picture that hung above the entry, of John Wayne as Davy Crockett being speared by a number of Mexican soldiers as he mowed them down with... a flag?  A spear?  A sword?  Anyway, it was an epic and sweeping vision, a donation from "The Duke" to the site, a painting of a scene from the movie he made about the battle.

Even as a child I knew that was complete, ahistorical bullshit.  Nobody really knew how Crockett died, I'd learned.  There weren't any survivors, were there?  Anyway, we knew he'd died bravely, as did everybody at the Alamo.

Turns out we were wrong about everything:

 Start with the Alamo. So much of what we “know” about the battle is provably wrong. William Travis never drew any line in the sand; this was a tale concocted by an amateur historian in the late 1800s. There is no evidence Davy Crockett went down fighting, as John Wayne famously did in his 1960 movie The Alamo, a font of misinformation; there is ample testimony from Mexican soldiers that Crockett surrendered and was executed. The battle, in fact, should never have been fought. Travis ignored multiple warnings of Santa Anna’s approach and was simply trapped in the Alamo when the Mexican army arrived. He wrote some dramatic letters during the ensuing siege, it’s true, but how anyone could attest to the defenders’ “bravery” is beyond us. The men at the Alamo fought and died because they had no choice. Even the notion they “fought to the last man” turns out to be untrue. Mexican accounts make clear that, as the battle was being lost, as many as half the “Texian” defenders fled the mission and were run down and killed by Mexican lancers.

Nor is it at all clear that the Alamo’s defenders “bought time” for Sam Houston to raise the army that eventually defeated Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto the following month. Santa Anna had told Mexico City he expected to take San Antonio by March 2; he ended up doing so on March 6. In the end, the siege at the Alamo ended up costing him all of four days. Meaning the Alamo’s defenders, far from being the valiant defenders who delayed Santa Anna, pretty much died for nothing.

Oh, that's hardly the worst of it.  Sam Houston kept telling Travis to abandon the Alamo (it wasn't worth protecting, nor much of a redoubt).  And it's more likely Houston's famous retreat to the marshes near the San Jacinto was to allow a U.S. artillery company to cross over from Louisiana and join up with Houston's forces.  Without them, we'd probably still be a part of Mexico.  That part isn't taught in Texas history classes.  Neither is this:

Imagine if the U.S. were to open interior Alaska for colonization and, for whatever reason, thousands of Canadian settlers poured in, establishing their own towns, hockey rinks and Tim Hortons stores. When the U.S. insists they follow American laws and pay American taxes, they refuse. When the government tries to collect taxes, they shoot and kill American soldiers. When law enforcement goes after the killers, the colonists, backed by Canadian financing and mercenaries, take up arms in open revolt.

As an American, how would you feel? Now you can imagine how Mexican President Jose Lopez de Santa Anna would have felt in 1835, because that’s pretty much the story of the revolution that paved the way for Texas to become its own nation and then an American state.

Yeah, I was never taught that Texas independence was for the purpose of being able to own people and work them like machines.  And my only question now is (history being what it is, and the truth being better told than lies and fictions):  should this history be taught in Texas public schools?

Will it be?  Yeah, I'd be surprised if Texas schools weren't afraid to put this book on their library shelves.  And this isn't likely to soon find itself in to Texas history classes in Texas public schools; but shouldn't it? They’re tax-funded, aren’t they? Or does that mean they should only teach what the people want taught?