William C. Binkley (1889–1970)

A good short introduction to the background of the Texas Revolution of 1835-1836. It covers all the bases in a succinct manner. Binkley offers some insights and questions, some of which still have not been addressed in the six plus decades after he asked them. It is not an in-depth narrative of the Revolution, but it is thought provoking, especially if you are well read in the subject already. Binkley basically holds to the Barker line (with less palpable racial animus that stuns modern-day readers) of ethnic conflict: "Fundamentally it was the result if the difference between the racial and political inheritances of the two groups of people who came into contact with each other on Mexican soil" (p. 129). He notes other tensions, but maintains that "we may rule out at once the concept of a conspiracy of interests, whether of slaveholders to incorporate Texas into the United States or of land speculators to create an independent government which they might control" (p. 129). Some other conspiracy theories are added today, like Texas slaveholders who wanted to maintain slavery, all of which are quite popular with modern historians. (They think the same things with the American Revolution: no good motives can be allowed, it must all be bad motives, à la Zinn and every other liberal academic.) Binkley, instead, maintains that: "The immediate cause of the revolution, therefore, was the substitution of centralism for federalism in Mexico and the determination of the Mexican authorities to use force rather than reason to compel an unqualified acceptance of the change" (p. 130). He even notes that most Texas settlers were "reluctant" until "they faced the threat of military interference in the summer of 1835" and "still thinking of themselves as Mexican citizens" (p. 130). A good introduction, still vital for the Texas historian.… (meer)