The Republic of Texas

by on January 31, 2020 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

Texas played a unique role in the various revolutions that plagued New Spain in the early 1800s. Spain had only lightly colonized it, France had reportedly placed colonies there, and the United States of America thought they had purchased everything up to the Rio Grande from France in the Louisiana Purchase. And then Napoleon conquered Spain and threw the Spanish Empire into more chaos. Local Tejano independence movements sought friends in America as revolution raged in Mexico, but the Spanish Empire squashed one after another and executed the revolutionaries en masse. The United States and Spain eventually signed a treaty in 1819 that accepted Spanish rule over the area and everything was good. Then the First Mexican Empire established itself in 1821, Spain of course did not recognize the rebellious province, and that made everything far more complicated again.

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The Republic of Texas

by on January 30, 2020 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

New Spain played host to many revolutionary movements over the centuries of Spanish rule, some of Indian focus and some by Spaniards who simply wanted more freedom from the crown. The 1800s proved the bloodiest time for New Spain though. Napoleonic France conquered Spain, leaving the rest of the Spanish Empire in turmoil. Would they be loyal to the new French-installed ruler, their deposed king, or themselves? Brushfire rebellions burned in Texas, Mexico, and other colonies, and were put down by the local Spanish authorities with extreme brutality in an effort to teach the locals a lesson. Father Hidalgo led a peasant rebellion in 1810 that sparked a decade-long revolution that would inevitably lead to the creation of the First Mexican Empire in 1821. The Spanish Empire of course did not accept this and attempted to retake Mexico several times in the years that followed. It was a complicated time for the Spanish Empire, the New World, and everybody it touched.

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The Republic of Texas

by on January 29, 2020 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

Spain explored Texas in the late 1600s to hunt down rumored French outposts in the area, and sent full colonies to plant their flag in the 1700s. But they soon found Eastern Texas not worth the effort to maintain and decided to abandon those colonies. And when the Tejano colonists refused to leave, Spain shipped them back to the other colonies at gunpoint. The Tejanos did not appreciate these heavy-handed tactics, and independence movements began to take heart in their communities. What did Spain know about their daily lives? What did Spain know about their dreams and visions? What did Spain care about their world out beyond the frontier? And what gave Spain the right to demand anything of them? The longer they thought and stewed over those questions, the more they could see a world where they were free of the Spanish crown telling them to do anything.

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The Republic of Texas

by on January 28, 2020 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

Spain claimed and colonized New Mexico in the 1500s, though that far region was hard to control and defend against the Indian tribes further to the north. It actually seemed as if Spain might abandon the region in the 1600s, which encouraged the Franciscan priests to make the region more Spanish by force. They evicted the locals from the best farming lands, banned the practice of local religions, seized and burned religious artifacts, and arrested local religious leaders. By the late 1600s, they officially arrested nearly fifty medicine men for practicing sorcery, and sentenced four of them to death. That sparked what historians call the Pueblo Revolt and evicted Spain from the region. Spain’s initial reaction to the revolt was muted, though they returned in force a decade later upon hearing rumors that France was trying to take over the area. The insurrection would continue on and off until the end of the century, though Spain eventually prevailed and many Pueblo moved further north and west to evade their control. But this was not the end of independence movements in the New World.

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The Career Bureaucracy

by on January 27, 2020 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

One of the more fascinating arguments I’ve heard during the recent Impeachment is over who decides our foreign policy. And as a reader and writer of science fiction, I have a deep interest in this kind of thing.

On the one hand, there are those who argue that foreign policy is decided upon by our elected leaders. They argue that the elected officials should conduct it in their role as representing the public who put them into position. In the United States of America, that power is granted to the President.

On the other hand, there are those who argue that foreign policy is decided upon by the professionals in the career bureaucracy. They argue that career officials who have had years and decades to study foreign countries can make much better decisions than some elected flunky who can’t stick a finger on Iran if given a world map. In the United States of America, the State Department performs this function.

The debate in this case of course concerns whether or not we should Impeach a President who is described to have conducted a side foreign policy in contravention of the official foreign policy decided upon by the career bureaucracy in the State Department. And numerous State Department bureaucrats have been called forward to testify on this.

As I prefaced on this, I have read a lot of science fiction, and there is an entire genre of sci-fi that deals with something like this. Vast numbers of dystopic fiction deals with places where the elected officials are little more than figureheads for the career bureaucracies that truly decide…everything. The laws people live under. The punishments they get if they violate those laws. The people sent to enforce the laws. The trope of the “vast bureaucracy” is actually inherent enough in fiction that a certain website has a rather appropriately vast page dedicated to it. Go there at your own risk.

The point I’m going to make is simple. It is often very interesting to read stories about people struggling in a world where the career bureaucracy dictates everything. I do not wish to live in such a world though. I like a world where the people I elect to represent me have a say in what the government does, or more preferably, does NOT do.

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