The Black Crop: Slavery and Slave Trading in Nineteenth Century Texas

Book Description:

Commonly thought of as the epicenter of American rugged individualism, the modern state of Texas would not exist without the institution of slavery and the slave trade. The 1836 Texas “Revolution” was largely based on protecting and preserving slavery and served as an important precursor for the American Civil War. The 1845 annexation of Texas engendered feverish debates about the role of slavery in the American republic and its relationship to westward expansion. Slave trading—both internal and external—was a basic and underappreciated component of the economic development of Texas, and enriched many northern business elites such as Charles Morgan, who provided the first regular steamship service into Texas, Elisha Marshall Pease, who served as a two-term Texas governor in the 1850’s and during Reconstruction, as well as William Marsh Rice, for whom Rice University is named. This book re-imagines and re-writes the history of Texas from a modern African-American perspective and asks provocative questions about the role of the Lone Star State in the meaning of American freedom.

Austin’s Montopolis Neighborhood

Book Description:

Montopolis is a multiethnic neighborhood located approximately four miles southeast of downtown Austin. The area was long visited and occasionally occupied by various Texas Indian nations; the first documented European or American to settle here was Jessie C. Tannehill, who in 1830 built a cabin and townsite and gave the new community its pretentious name. Instead of establishing a permanent presence in Montopolis, however, subsequent European colonizers looked a few miles upriver to the new settlement of Waterloo, later to be called Austin. Rural and sparsely populated, the remainder of the 19th century saw the Montopolis area used primarily for plantation agriculture. In the 1920s, succeeding waves of Mexican migrants helped establish the modern neighborhood that exists today. Between the 1950s and 1970s, the City of Austin annexed Montopolis, although the area retains much of its rural character.

Austin’s Montopolis Neighborhood Book Lecture

Two Texas Race Riots

Book Description:

Two Texas Race Riots details the forgotten story of two of the most unsettling racial episodes in American history. Amid a hotbed of racial tension, on the evening of August 13, 1906 and August 23, 1917, enlisted members of the United States Army’s 25th and 24th Infantry (Colored) were involved in two of the most notorious race conflicts in U.S. history. Both regiments were part of the Army’s famed “Buffalo Soldiers.” The 1906 incident in Brownsville, Texas resulted in the discharge “without honor” of 167 African American enlisted soldiers by order of President Theodore Roosevelt. Many of the soldiers that were discharged had fought with Roosevelt in Cuba during the Spanish-American War and helped propel him into national prominence. The mass discharge was unprecedented in U.S. history. When the soldiers were finally vindicated in 1972, only two were still alive. The 1917 Houston riot resulted in the largest courts-martial in American military history, with 118 enlisted men charged with murder and conspiracy. 110 of the accused were found guilty, with 28 of the guilty sentenced to death. 19 of the 28 were eventually put to death at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas. The regiments were led by all-white officers. None of the white officers in charge of the Buffalo Soldier regiments in either incident was convicted. Most went on with their military careers.

Fred McGhee Visits Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery in San Antonio, Texas: