Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire What if Texas hadn't joined the Union?

I've been pondering how American history would've changed if Texas hadn't joined the Union. I know it's a moot point but I think it could've had some pretty far reaching consequences if Texas could've stuck it out for even another 20 years.

First, the Mexican war would've been pushed off another 20-30 years if it had happened at all and 2nd it would have impacted the civil war.

I think there would have been two scenarios, either Texas' population continued to surge with immigrants from the South and it would've become slowly more prosperous before 1861. Population would've probably risen faster if Texas stayed independent as land grant size drastically went down after annexation as the state didn't need the money to keep functioning.

OR Texas would've become a British protectorate. Either situation would've been bad for the Union in the civil war as it would've made it much easier for the South to have run the blockade.

I think the Union would've had to also fight Texas to prevent it being a smuggling conduit , which it largely left alone other than a blockade and a few coastal raids, if it wanted to defeat the South. also a lot of Texans would've probably volunteered for the south even it Texas wasn't part of it.

If Texas had become a British protectorate it probably wouldn't have taken much to get them into the war if Texas had been attacked/blockaded.

We could still own slaves.

I think she had 2 choices, Mexico or the United States.

And there was also the Comanche problem, which wasn't finally resolved until 1875 via the use of Federal troops. Texas' effectiveness in dealing with that issue varied greatly over the years.

...it would be known as Northern Mexico instead of Tejas

Mexico would have owned it eventually

Yes the Comanches were Hell on Wheels and in fact were a major reason that the Mexicans invited the Anglos to settle there in the first place.
The Mex just couldn't effectively fight the Comanche and in fact, the Comanche raided 200 miles all the way to the Rio Grande and burned Laredo to the ground one day, just for the hell of it.
The Mex/Spanish built a new city on the other side of the river and that is why we now have Nuevo Laredo.

And the Anglos fought well against the Comanche but even given the massive superiority of firepower, with the Colt six shooter, it still took 40 years and Federal intervention to finally conquer the mighty Comanche. They were certainly the most powerful tribe in North America, what a bunch of bad asses. Probably 30,000 members of the tribe in 1830 when the war vs. Anglos began.

Harry Truman was fond of telling a story that ended, "A school boy's hindsight is always better than a general's foresight".

The republic was slave free, it was a requirement of the united states that we become a slave state to gain admission to the union

Read books.



Travis

You are less than bright.





Travis

The wall would be built on the northern Texas border.

No idea where you're getting that from.

https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/yps01

In 1836 Texas had an estimated population of 38,470, only 5,000 of whom were slaves. The Texas Revolution assured slaveholders of the future of their institution. The Constitution of the Republic of Texas (1836) provided that slaves would remain the property of their owners, that the Texas Congress could not prohibit the immigration of slaveholders bringing their property, and that slaves could be imported from the United States (although not from Africa).

In the Republic of Texas you weren't even allowed to free your own slaves without species dispensation from the RoT Congress.

Given those protections, slavery expanded rapidly during the period of the republic. By 1845, when Texas joined the United States, the state was home to at least 30,000 slaves.

Birdwatcher

One good thing I can think of is that Austin wouldn't be overrun with California liberals!

Why didn't the Texans just take over Mexico when they had Santa Anna? They were pulling the short hairs at the time!

Pull your head out and look around, that statement is just plain ignorant!

If you cut Alaska into quarters, California would be the 5th largest state.

Most of the big land grants awarded to Anglos were well to the east, east of the plains. By 1835 there were more than 35,000 Anglos in Texas, few lived within reach of Comanche raiding parties.

Mexico's big impetus for inviting in Americans was that Texas lay several hundred miles north of where most of the Mexican people lived. In 1835 there were around eight million people in Mexico, but only 7,000 Mexican citizens lived in far-off Texas, so few in fact that Texas had been administratively lumped into an entity called Coahila y Texas.

Texas did however, lie right on the doorstep of the United States, directly in the path of expansion.

No way that Mexico could stop illegal immigration into Texas from the US, instead they just sought to control it by attempting to bring in educated, wealthy Americans willing to accept Mexican citizenship in return for generous tracts of land. In addition to keeping the riffraff out, these people would also generate revenues for the Mexican government through applied tariffs. It didn't work on either count.



The introduction of the revolver had very little long-term effect on Plains warfare against Comanches wherein the problem had always been just getting close enough to catch sight of them let alone plug them with handguns. The queen of battle on the Plains had always been and would continue to be the rifle.

Indeed the largest single bloodletting against Comanches committed by Anglos, one of the major massacres of our whole history of the West, was when in October of 1840 an estimated 180 Comanches were killed at their winter camp on the San Saba after being surprised by 90 Texians under the command of Ranger Caption John Moore, guided in by Lipan Apaches. That feat was accomplished mostly with longrifles.

The real crux of the issue though was that only a small minority of Texans relative to the whole state population lived within reach of Comanche raiding parties, and even fewer ever took to the field against Comanches.

By 1860, after getting hammered by massive epidemics and whittled down by constant low-level skirmishing there were less than 10,000 Comanches remaining, or about 2,000 men of combat age at best. By that time the population of Texas was around 600,000 of whom more than 400,000 were free. That translates to around 80,000 Texan males of combat age, a great many of whom owned revolvers, rifles and horses.

Just a handful of these ever took to the field against horse Indians, instead Texans for the most part left it to the Federal Government to fight Comanches, and so it was that the relentless Ranald McKenzie became the hammer that finally drove the last Comanches from the Plains in '74.

The last wild Comanches that is, by that time MOST Comanches were settled in the Indian Territory and heavily into cattle ranching, which is how they could be in a position to collectively trade 30,000 head of cattle to the US Army in New Mexico in 1873.

Birdwatcher

Sam Houston , a Texas hero, was ostracized for refusing to support succession. JFK's book, "Political Courage"I believe, gives an overview of that story from Kennedy's perspective.

I think I am a fifth generation Texan from the side that arrived the latest. They were a bunch that showed up in the Panhandle as Comanches were leaving. I think they arrived to mass cattle ranches in at least one case and preach the tenets of Methodist Christianity in another. That group rode with Goodnight. As a a youth I discussed Texas and its history with a direct relative that new Goodnight and many of the old-timers of Goodnight's time.

Another branch were German Catholics and people from the current Czech Republic but of German / Austrian descent. I suspect from history books that they were Union sympathizers, but like most good Germans, they don't talk about nonsense like that today. The German pragmatist attitude is that is long past and better to think about practical matters of the present.

The third group were Texas Revolution period settlers that migrated to NC from Europe in the pre-18th century era. I suspect they were Confederate sympathizers, but don't know for sure.

I think my family reflects a cross-section of the state at that time and I suspect it was highly divided in Texas, like today.

Thank the Lord of all that slavery is no more. At least as sanctioned by the law of the land because it is unfortunately alive and well in Texas illegally.

Better questions;;;

What if Jefferson hadn't bought Louisiana?

What if Seward hadn't sprung for Alaska?

What if gold wasn't found in Northern Georgia?

I mean,,, since we're in the middle of "what it's".