Haroon (Ty) Aregbe
The Sam Houston Speech
Sleuthing the Alamo is a book about a historian, James E. Crisp, investigating and finding out some interesting truths about the Texas Revolution. In part one of the book, Crisp investigates Sam Houston’s speech that was given to a group of volunteer soldiers at Refugio. Crisp decided to take a deeper look into Houston’s speech because to his knowledge it “seemed so unlike Houston” (39). Along with believing the speech was incorrect, Crisp also does thorough research on the speech and then uses this research to prove that the speech given is wrong. Also as Crisp does his research, he finds out two surprising discoveries on Houston’s speech and how it had been recorded.
When reading Houston’s speech initially, it is easy for the reader to infer that he is showing strong racial prejudice against the Tejanos. “The last drop of blood would flow before we would bow under the yoke of these half-Indians.” (38). It seems that the speech was used to turn the Tejanos into the ultimate enemy. Houston accused them of letting the Americans “struggle without any aid” (38), and went on to say that Americans and Mexican “will never get along together” (38). After reading the speech Crisp is completely stunned and confused that Houston would use such harsh words against all Mexicans. Crisp explains that his disbelief comes from his “childhood image of Sam Houston, the adopted Cherokee”(39), and his “long and friendly relationship with Native Americans” (39). With a name like the adopted Cherokee, How could Houston all of a sudden turn anti-Mexican? Because of this Crisp was forced to believe that the speech was wrong and says, “The speech contradicted much of what I thought I had learned in more than two decades of investigating the causes and consequences of the Texas Revolution” (39). Fueled by disbelief and suspicion, Crisp is