As author of Texian Web site, Sons of DeWitt Colony Texas, I was privileged to be copied on a fairly passionate exchange between two loyal American Hispanic author/historians, Dan Arrelleno of Austin, TX and Alex Loya, author of Continuous Presence of Italians and Spaniards in Texas as Early as 1520, including the Participation and Consequence of Texas and Louisiana in the American Revolution selected chapters of which have been presented on this forum. Their exchanges are presented with their permission.
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Mr. Arrelleno wrote:
We have all heard the saying United We Stand Divided We Fall well, I believe Mr. Alex Loya is dividing the Hispanic community even further with his frequent references to the white faces of the Mediterranean, the white faces of the Canary Islanders, the white faces of his uncles, the white faces of his cousins, the white faces of his father and mother and the white faces of the glorious people of Spain. I have just finished reading Mr. Loyas entire manuscript and I am appalled at his many references of white this and white that, which verges on the brink of being labeled white supremacy rhetoric. I am also shocked at how he attempts to glorify Anglo history and his misinterpretations of historical fact.
The only thing that I agree on with Mr. Loya is that he is correct in the fact that the struggle for independence did not begin at Anahuac in 1831 and that the first shot fired for freedom was not at Gonzales in the come and take it skirmish in 1835. In fact the struggle for freedom began in San Antonio in 1811 with the Casas Revolt and it was a continuous affair with the Gutierrez-Magee Expedition of 1812, the four month siege of the presidio in Goliad, the Battle of Rosillio, the Battle of Alazan, leading up to the biggest and bloodiest battle of them all, the Battle of Medina. More lives were lost in this first struggle for freedom than in any other conflict of the Texas Revolution. The Alamo, San Jacinto and Goliad all pale in comparison to the violence, to the brutality and to the atrocities that occurred at the Battle of Medina.
It was the bloodiest battle ever fought in Texas, but ninety Americans escaping death. More lives were lost than in all the battles and sieges of the war of the second Republic of Texas on both sides put together. (The Galveston Daily News, August. 19, 1900. Ted Schwartz, Robert Thonhoff, The Forgotten Battlefield of The Battle of Medina.).
Many Hispanics have given their lives defending freedom and democracy. A thousand Tejanos were killed in one battle alone in defense of these causes. But this conflict was not on foreign soil. Not on the beaches of Normandy, not in Korea, Viet Nam or Desert Storm, although Tejanos were there, but much closer to home in south Texas, less than twenty miles south of San Antonio. The Battle of Medina.the forgotten history of the Tejanos, these first sons and daughters of the state of Texas, unknown and unrecognized, for their ultimate sacrifice.
Mr. Loyas interpretation of the invasion by the United States in 1846 in the War with Mexico is also wrong. While it is true that Mexican General Mariano Arista crossed the Rio Grande below Matamoras and led his army onto soil claimed by the United States, it was territory that was in dispute and was also claimed by Mexico. It is also true that President James K. Polk sent Zachary Taylor to occupy Point Isabel to intentionally intimidate the Mexicans. The expansionists policy of President Polk was well known and his campaign of 1844 had placed him on record as being an ardent annexationist. (Quote from The Mexican War, Otis A. Singletary, The University of Chicago Press). Singletary in his prologue writes, Still another reason for our apparent indifference to the Mexican War lies rooted in the guilt that we as a nation have come to feel about it. The undeniable fact that it was an offensive war completely stripped it of moral pretensions that no politician of that era ever succeeded in elevating it to the lofty level of a crusade. The additional fact that we paid Mexico fifteen million dollars after it was all over---conscience money, some called it---seemed to confirm the ugliest charges of those who had denounced the war as a cynical, calculated despoiling of the Mexican state, a greedy land-grab from a neighbor to weak to defend itself.
In his later years General Ulysses S. Grant was to write, that the war with Mexico was one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation. Historian David Fletcher writes, that the United States did not live up to its ideology as experienced in its noblest of writings of democracy and freedom and it was an aggressive war in which we attacked a neighbor and however much we may have won from this war we do not like to look upon the way in which we won it.
But it is Nicolas Trist that sums it all up. In a letter to his wife Virginia, Trist, chief clerk in the Department of State sent by Polk to negotiate a peace, would reveal his true feelings about the war. During the signing of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo Mexican Commissioner Jose Bernardo Coaote remarked, It must be a proud moment for you, no less proud for you than humiliating for us. Trists sense of duty had forced him to conceal his true feelings. As he wrote to his wife, if the Mexicans could have seen into my heart at that moment, they would have known that my shame as an American was far stronger than theirs could be.
Loyas claim of an ethical war against Mexico is a joke. As an example of ethical, let me give you some examples of an American ethical war. In New Mexico on Feb 3, 1846 Colonel Sterling led his US troops to attack 700 Mexicans and Pueblo Indians who had barricaded themselves in the village church in defense of their homeland. The village priest Padre Jose Martinez called for an end to hostilities but the soldiers pounded the church walls with women and children inside. After the walls were breached many tried to escape and were cut down and killed by American soldiers. It is said that the river that ran through the village ran red with blood for weeks. One hundred and fifty were sentenced to hang for rebelling. Lewis Gerard, an American soldier would later write, that for a man to rise up in defense of his country and be hanged for treason is an atrocity and most damnable.
During the forty-eight hour bombardment of Veracruz on March 22, foreign consuls approached Winfield Scotts headquarters seeking a truce in order to allow women, children and neutrals to evacuate the besieged city. Scott refused their request.
And never mind that his Texians were brutal going so far as to murder, rape and rob innocent Mexican civilians. Nine-tenths of the Americans here, complained one observer, think it is a meritorious act to kill or rob a Mexican. Texas Rangers engaged in what one eye-witness described, as a running warfare, embittered by old Texan feuds. General Taylor finally had to muster the Texians out of service and send them home in disgrace.
In chapter 18 Slavery and the Mexican War, of Mr Loyas book he states, Frankly, for those who say the Mexican war was started by President Polk just to include another slave state in the Union do not know the facts, or purposely conceal them. The former disqualify them from teaching this chapter in American history, the later disqualify them from teaching anything at all. This statement suggests that anyone that does not agree with Mr. Alex Loyas version of history, is either nave or ignorant.
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Alex Loya replied:
Mr. Arellano, I did not say the white faces of this and the white faces of that, I said their faces, the faces of the Spaniard Founding Fathers of Texas, were not the faces of the people we see by the millions crossing over our southern border today, but, rather, the faces that you see in the streets of Madrid, the Canary Islands etc. It is a statement of fact; all you have to do is look at their pictures. And neither is it white supremacist rhetoric since many of the white supremacists would not consider Mediterranean people white to begin with.
It is not I who attempts to divide the Hispanic community with misrepresentations and the glorifying of Anglo history. It is with statements like these, you attempt to make all Hispanics one people when they are not, and, with these statements, persist in keeping the Hispanics, regardless of race, separate from the rest of America. It is not Hispanic history versus Anglo history, it is American History, my book simply focuses on the role the children of Spain, including those who were not necessarily Hispanic but hispanicized.
Your argument is not with me, your argument is with Antonio Menchaca, all the history in my book is simply an exposition of that history which men like him wrote which have been kept hidden for a century. Your argument is not with me; your argument is with the Mexican peace commissioners who recognized the Mexican Border at the Rio Grande and with Santa Annas troops who were escorted by Juan Seguin out of Texas at the Rio Grande.
Im sorry sir, but the United States conducts as ethical wars as can be conducted, then and now, even if at times some among our American people commit crimes. It is true that the first Hispanic Roman Catholic Priests were commissioned as Chaplains in the U.S. Army during the Mexican War with the express intent of comforting the Mexican people in their fear that our soldiers were there to impose Protestantism, thats a fact, and it is an ethical fact, as is the fact that the American General attempted to be at peace with the Mexican General at Matamoros and in response the Mexican General responded by starting the Mexican War.
Every single thing in my book is a fact, it is a fact that DeZavala called the Mexicans an invading force, it is a fact that Ruiz favored annexation by the United States, it is a fact as well that the Mexican War had nothing to do with adding another slave state to the Union, it is a fact that the Anglos were invited by the Spaniards, or Spaniard Frenchmen like Seguin, and it is a fact that Antonio Navarro called those whom you call invaders and murderers Leonidas North Americans and patriots and compatriots. Read Antonio Menchacas Memoirs.
I am sure that as you focus on the atrocity in New Mexico during the Mexican War, you also think that all our soldiers did in Viet Nam was My Lai, and all that our soldiers do in the present war is Haditha, of which nobody but a few know the details yet the liberal Media an liberal politicians, with whom I am sure you agree, have already judged our Marines as cold blooded killers of innocent people.
I said I am aware of bad blood that occurred, but in my book I focus on the good blood that also so occurred, and I do this on purpose. My intent is, other than to preserve a history for my own children, my intent is for the descendants of the original colonial people of Texas and the American Southwest to discover their commonality with the United States, to discover just how much a part of the United States they have been from the very start and to so embrace this country as their own, because it is and has been from the very start.
I dont want to fight with you, let my writing focus on the Spaniard and hispanicized European heritage of the colonial Tejanos, who did exist, and let your writing focus on the mestizos and mulattos, who also existed. Let my writing focus on the sense of destiny the colonial Tejanos had, which did exist, and let your writing focus on the anger and resentment that some of the colonial Tejanos had, which also existed. If you are true to your conviction and your loyalties, then move to Mexico as the colonial Tejanos who were as angry as you did, and from there pursue your cause of Aztlan to bring the American Southwest and Texas under Mexican jurisdiction again. I think the best of America, you think the worst, I focus on the good, and you focus on the bad, and let the readers make decision on where they will fall.
Alex Loya
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As addenda to the exchange Mr. Arelleno wrote to Mr. Loya:
First of all my Christian upbring has taught me to love my neighbor. I do not hate Anglos, this country and for that matter, I do not hate you. I have been blessed in the fact that my two daughters have given me five granddaughters and they are half Anglo and I love my Anglo son's-in-law. I also served in the military and I am the incoming commander of a unit called Tejanos in Action. We provide military funerals to deceased veterans, march in parades and proudly fly the American flag.
***************
Mr. Loya replied:
I am happy to hear that, Mr. Arellano. I ask your forgiveness if I offended you or if I sound disrespectful. You have a beautiful family, and I sincerely pray the Lord will bless you and them. I am proud of you, sir, for your service to our great American nation, and my hat is off to you for what you do for our veterans.
I just disagree, sir, with your view, and my disagreement is based on research, that's all, hopefully we can learn to disagree agreeably.
You mention, Mr. Arellano, that you have 5 granddaughters, by that I know you are older than I, so, once again, sir, forgive me if I sound disrespectful, for the Scripture says "You will rise before the gray head, you will respect the face of the old man, I am the Lord", so I repent, sir, from my attitude, forgive me.
Alright, sir, I am working [on a revision in response] to your letter. For you, sir, I will delete any statements that would sound emotionally disrespectful like the one where I said that those who teach that the Mexican War was all about adding a slave state to the Union are not qualified to teach.
Alex Loya
****************
Mr. Arrelleno wrote:
We have all heard the saying United We Stand Divided We Fall well, I believe Mr. Alex Loya is dividing the Hispanic community even further with his frequent references to the white faces of the Mediterranean, the white faces of the Canary Islanders, the white faces of his uncles, the white faces of his cousins, the white faces of his father and mother and the white faces of the glorious people of Spain. I have just finished reading Mr. Loyas entire manuscript and I am appalled at his many references of white this and white that, which verges on the brink of being labeled white supremacy rhetoric. I am also shocked at how he attempts to glorify Anglo history and his misinterpretations of historical fact.
The only thing that I agree on with Mr. Loya is that he is correct in the fact that the struggle for independence did not begin at Anahuac in 1831 and that the first shot fired for freedom was not at Gonzales in the come and take it skirmish in 1835. In fact the struggle for freedom began in San Antonio in 1811 with the Casas Revolt and it was a continuous affair with the Gutierrez-Magee Expedition of 1812, the four month siege of the presidio in Goliad, the Battle of Rosillio, the Battle of Alazan, leading up to the biggest and bloodiest battle of them all, the Battle of Medina. More lives were lost in this first struggle for freedom than in any other conflict of the Texas Revolution. The Alamo, San Jacinto and Goliad all pale in comparison to the violence, to the brutality and to the atrocities that occurred at the Battle of Medina.
It was the bloodiest battle ever fought in Texas, but ninety Americans escaping death. More lives were lost than in all the battles and sieges of the war of the second Republic of Texas on both sides put together. (The Galveston Daily News, August. 19, 1900. Ted Schwartz, Robert Thonhoff, The Forgotten Battlefield of The Battle of Medina.).
Many Hispanics have given their lives defending freedom and democracy. A thousand Tejanos were killed in one battle alone in defense of these causes. But this conflict was not on foreign soil. Not on the beaches of Normandy, not in Korea, Viet Nam or Desert Storm, although Tejanos were there, but much closer to home in south Texas, less than twenty miles south of San Antonio. The Battle of Medina.the forgotten history of the Tejanos, these first sons and daughters of the state of Texas, unknown and unrecognized, for their ultimate sacrifice.
Mr. Loyas interpretation of the invasion by the United States in 1846 in the War with Mexico is also wrong. While it is true that Mexican General Mariano Arista crossed the Rio Grande below Matamoras and led his army onto soil claimed by the United States, it was territory that was in dispute and was also claimed by Mexico. It is also true that President James K. Polk sent Zachary Taylor to occupy Point Isabel to intentionally intimidate the Mexicans. The expansionists policy of President Polk was well known and his campaign of 1844 had placed him on record as being an ardent annexationist. (Quote from The Mexican War, Otis A. Singletary, The University of Chicago Press). Singletary in his prologue writes, Still another reason for our apparent indifference to the Mexican War lies rooted in the guilt that we as a nation have come to feel about it. The undeniable fact that it was an offensive war completely stripped it of moral pretensions that no politician of that era ever succeeded in elevating it to the lofty level of a crusade. The additional fact that we paid Mexico fifteen million dollars after it was all over---conscience money, some called it---seemed to confirm the ugliest charges of those who had denounced the war as a cynical, calculated despoiling of the Mexican state, a greedy land-grab from a neighbor to weak to defend itself.
In his later years General Ulysses S. Grant was to write, that the war with Mexico was one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation. Historian David Fletcher writes, that the United States did not live up to its ideology as experienced in its noblest of writings of democracy and freedom and it was an aggressive war in which we attacked a neighbor and however much we may have won from this war we do not like to look upon the way in which we won it.
But it is Nicolas Trist that sums it all up. In a letter to his wife Virginia, Trist, chief clerk in the Department of State sent by Polk to negotiate a peace, would reveal his true feelings about the war. During the signing of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo Mexican Commissioner Jose Bernardo Coaote remarked, It must be a proud moment for you, no less proud for you than humiliating for us. Trists sense of duty had forced him to conceal his true feelings. As he wrote to his wife, if the Mexicans could have seen into my heart at that moment, they would have known that my shame as an American was far stronger than theirs could be.
Loyas claim of an ethical war against Mexico is a joke. As an example of ethical, let me give you some examples of an American ethical war. In New Mexico on Feb 3, 1846 Colonel Sterling led his US troops to attack 700 Mexicans and Pueblo Indians who had barricaded themselves in the village church in defense of their homeland. The village priest Padre Jose Martinez called for an end to hostilities but the soldiers pounded the church walls with women and children inside. After the walls were breached many tried to escape and were cut down and killed by American soldiers. It is said that the river that ran through the village ran red with blood for weeks. One hundred and fifty were sentenced to hang for rebelling. Lewis Gerard, an American soldier would later write, that for a man to rise up in defense of his country and be hanged for treason is an atrocity and most damnable.
During the forty-eight hour bombardment of Veracruz on March 22, foreign consuls approached Winfield Scotts headquarters seeking a truce in order to allow women, children and neutrals to evacuate the besieged city. Scott refused their request.
And never mind that his Texians were brutal going so far as to murder, rape and rob innocent Mexican civilians. Nine-tenths of the Americans here, complained one observer, think it is a meritorious act to kill or rob a Mexican. Texas Rangers engaged in what one eye-witness described, as a running warfare, embittered by old Texan feuds. General Taylor finally had to muster the Texians out of service and send them home in disgrace.
In chapter 18 Slavery and the Mexican War, of Mr Loyas book he states, Frankly, for those who say the Mexican war was started by President Polk just to include another slave state in the Union do not know the facts, or purposely conceal them. The former disqualify them from teaching this chapter in American history, the later disqualify them from teaching anything at all. This statement suggests that anyone that does not agree with Mr. Alex Loyas version of history, is either nave or ignorant.
****************
Alex Loya replied:
Mr. Arellano, I did not say the white faces of this and the white faces of that, I said their faces, the faces of the Spaniard Founding Fathers of Texas, were not the faces of the people we see by the millions crossing over our southern border today, but, rather, the faces that you see in the streets of Madrid, the Canary Islands etc. It is a statement of fact; all you have to do is look at their pictures. And neither is it white supremacist rhetoric since many of the white supremacists would not consider Mediterranean people white to begin with.
It is not I who attempts to divide the Hispanic community with misrepresentations and the glorifying of Anglo history. It is with statements like these, you attempt to make all Hispanics one people when they are not, and, with these statements, persist in keeping the Hispanics, regardless of race, separate from the rest of America. It is not Hispanic history versus Anglo history, it is American History, my book simply focuses on the role the children of Spain, including those who were not necessarily Hispanic but hispanicized.
Your argument is not with me, your argument is with Antonio Menchaca, all the history in my book is simply an exposition of that history which men like him wrote which have been kept hidden for a century. Your argument is not with me; your argument is with the Mexican peace commissioners who recognized the Mexican Border at the Rio Grande and with Santa Annas troops who were escorted by Juan Seguin out of Texas at the Rio Grande.
Im sorry sir, but the United States conducts as ethical wars as can be conducted, then and now, even if at times some among our American people commit crimes. It is true that the first Hispanic Roman Catholic Priests were commissioned as Chaplains in the U.S. Army during the Mexican War with the express intent of comforting the Mexican people in their fear that our soldiers were there to impose Protestantism, thats a fact, and it is an ethical fact, as is the fact that the American General attempted to be at peace with the Mexican General at Matamoros and in response the Mexican General responded by starting the Mexican War.
Every single thing in my book is a fact, it is a fact that DeZavala called the Mexicans an invading force, it is a fact that Ruiz favored annexation by the United States, it is a fact as well that the Mexican War had nothing to do with adding another slave state to the Union, it is a fact that the Anglos were invited by the Spaniards, or Spaniard Frenchmen like Seguin, and it is a fact that Antonio Navarro called those whom you call invaders and murderers Leonidas North Americans and patriots and compatriots. Read Antonio Menchacas Memoirs.
I am sure that as you focus on the atrocity in New Mexico during the Mexican War, you also think that all our soldiers did in Viet Nam was My Lai, and all that our soldiers do in the present war is Haditha, of which nobody but a few know the details yet the liberal Media an liberal politicians, with whom I am sure you agree, have already judged our Marines as cold blooded killers of innocent people.
I said I am aware of bad blood that occurred, but in my book I focus on the good blood that also so occurred, and I do this on purpose. My intent is, other than to preserve a history for my own children, my intent is for the descendants of the original colonial people of Texas and the American Southwest to discover their commonality with the United States, to discover just how much a part of the United States they have been from the very start and to so embrace this country as their own, because it is and has been from the very start.
I dont want to fight with you, let my writing focus on the Spaniard and hispanicized European heritage of the colonial Tejanos, who did exist, and let your writing focus on the mestizos and mulattos, who also existed. Let my writing focus on the sense of destiny the colonial Tejanos had, which did exist, and let your writing focus on the anger and resentment that some of the colonial Tejanos had, which also existed. If you are true to your conviction and your loyalties, then move to Mexico as the colonial Tejanos who were as angry as you did, and from there pursue your cause of Aztlan to bring the American Southwest and Texas under Mexican jurisdiction again. I think the best of America, you think the worst, I focus on the good, and you focus on the bad, and let the readers make decision on where they will fall.
Alex Loya
*****************
As addenda to the exchange Mr. Arelleno wrote to Mr. Loya:
First of all my Christian upbring has taught me to love my neighbor. I do not hate Anglos, this country and for that matter, I do not hate you. I have been blessed in the fact that my two daughters have given me five granddaughters and they are half Anglo and I love my Anglo son's-in-law. I also served in the military and I am the incoming commander of a unit called Tejanos in Action. We provide military funerals to deceased veterans, march in parades and proudly fly the American flag.
***************
Mr. Loya replied:
I am happy to hear that, Mr. Arellano. I ask your forgiveness if I offended you or if I sound disrespectful. You have a beautiful family, and I sincerely pray the Lord will bless you and them. I am proud of you, sir, for your service to our great American nation, and my hat is off to you for what you do for our veterans.
I just disagree, sir, with your view, and my disagreement is based on research, that's all, hopefully we can learn to disagree agreeably.
You mention, Mr. Arellano, that you have 5 granddaughters, by that I know you are older than I, so, once again, sir, forgive me if I sound disrespectful, for the Scripture says "You will rise before the gray head, you will respect the face of the old man, I am the Lord", so I repent, sir, from my attitude, forgive me.
Alright, sir, I am working [on a revision in response] to your letter. For you, sir, I will delete any statements that would sound emotionally disrespectful like the one where I said that those who teach that the Mexican War was all about adding a slave state to the Union are not qualified to teach.
Alex Loya
