Alamo Reprieve Lasts Only Five Years For Dimmitt
On March 12, 1836, six days after the fall of the Alamo, Gen. Sam Houston sent an urgent message to Goliad ordering Philip Dimmit to meet him at Gonzales. Few Anglo-Americans came to Texas sooner than the young Kentuckian, who arrived at San Antonio in 1823, the same year Stephen F. Austin got the final go-ahead to populate the Mexican province. Dimmitt learned Spanish, married a local girl and became a successful and popular trader with posts at Victoria, Goliad and Lavaca Bay.
On March 12, 1836, six days after the fall of the Alamo, Gen. Sam Houston sent an urgent message to Goliad ordering Philip Dimmit to meet him at Gonzales.
Few Anglo-Americans came to Texas sooner than the young Kentuckian, who arrived at San Antonio in 1823, the same year Stephen F. Austin got the final go-ahead to populate the Mexican province. Dimmitt learned Spanish, married a local girl and became a successful and popular trader with posts at Victoria, Goliad and Lavaca Bay.
When discontent flared into defiance of the central government in the summer of 1835, planters and merchants almost to a man denounced the hotheads that dared to rock the boat. They had a good thing going and were not about to risk it all in a reckless confrontation with their Mexican hosts.
Dimmitt was the exception. As soon as he learned Santa Anna was sending his brother-in-law to put the upstarts in their place, he suggested kidnapping Gen. Martin Perfecto de Cos the moment he set foot in Texas. But Cos and his 400 troops landed without incident at Copano Bay and reached Goliad on Oct. 2, the day the first shots of the rebellion were fired at Gonzales.
Deciding Dimmitt’s abduction plan was a mighty fine idea, George Collinsworth made a beeline for Goliad with the Matagorda militia. When the would-be kidnappers passed through Victoria, Dimmitt and 30 rancheros joined up and informed Collinsworth that Cos had gone to San Antonio leaving only a token contingent to defend Goliad.
The Texans caught the rearguard by surprise and after a half-hour battle accepted the surrender of Presidio La Bahia. Attracted by the quick and easy victory, colonists streamed into Goliad and on or about Oct. 14 elected Dimmitt commander.
Dimmitt stayed busy in Goliad, to say the least. In a single week, he issued an “Appeal to the Inhabitants of Texas Residing East of the Guadalupe” to drum up public support and designed the first flag of the Revolution.
“I have had a flag made,” he wrote to Austin in a letter dated Oct. 27, 1835, “the colours, and their arrangement the same as the old one (with) ‘Constitution of 1824’ displayed on the white, in the centre.” The banner, believed to have flown over the Alamo, was a symbolic pledge of allegiance to the constitution Santa Anna had scrapped.
But Dimmitt’s commitment to Mexican rule of any kind soon came into question. Gov. Agustin Viesca, who had escaped from one of Santa Anna’s dungeons after being jailed for criticizing his dictatorship, sought sanctuary in rebel-held Goliad. Dimmitt gave Viesca shelter but refused to recognize his authority as governor, a clear sign he was leaning toward revolution rather than reform.
Under pressure from leading colonists hostile to any loose talk about independence, Austin officially relieved Dimmitt of his command on Nov. 18. However, the Goliad garrison not only refused to remove him but gave him a unanimous vote of confidence.
Three weeks later, Dimmitt went to San Antonio with a small portion of his detachment for the climax with Cos. Dimmitt then hurried back to Goliad, where he encouraged Ira Ingram to draft the first declaration of independence and to create a new flag for the occasion – a severed, bloody arm holding a sword against a white background.
The radical document as well as the provocative flag with the unmistakable meaning renewed calls for Dimmitt’s removal. This time he obliged his detractors by resigning and returned to San Antonio with 30 followers to reinforce the Alamo.
Although most of his men chose not to stay, Dimmitt stuck around and surely would have died had fate not intervened. He happened to be away from the Alamo on a scouting mission, when Santa Anna showed up ahead of schedule on Feb. 23, 1836.
Caught outside the walls, Dimmitt spent several days waiting for the opportunity to slip back inside. But to his disappointment the chance never came, and he reluctantly rode to Victoria to raise a relief column for his doomed comrades.
Dimmitt dutifully answered Houston’s summons of March 12, but by the time he made it to Gonzales the town was crawling with Mexican soldiers and the Texas Army was in full retreat. Delayed by the evacuation of civilians, Dimmitt did not catch up with Houston until April 22, the day after the Battle of San Jacinto.
Philip Dimmit probably knew that it was just a matter of time until his enemies took their revenge. High-ranking Mexicans, who had once considered him one of them, now regarded him a despicable traitor.
Mexican troops raided Dimmitt’s trading post near present-day Corpus Christi on July 4, 1841, took the owner and everybody else on the premises captive and spirited them back across the border.
Facing execution or indefinite detention, Dimmitt committed suicide with a deadly drug overdose. These were his last words: “I do not fear death but dread the idea of ending my life in a loathsome dungeon. Tell them I prefer a Roman’s death to the ignominy of perpetual imprisonment, and that my last wish is for my country’s welfare.”
Bartee Haile welcomes your comments, questions and suggestions at haile@pdq.net or P.O. Box 152, Friendswood, TX 77549. And come on by www.twith.com for a visit!
Building Border Walls
Maybe it is worth building border walls simply to create jobs for unemployed Americans. Even if the walls fail to keep out the “evil ones,” at least we can knock-off some folks waiting on the unemployment lines around the nation. It is estimated that the U.S. has an illegal immigrant population near 20 million. A large portion of that number is from Mexico. Most illegal Mexican immigrants come to find a better life, jobs and human rights. A small amount is said to perpetrate illegal activities. Consequently, we may consider that there would be no need for illegal Mexican immigrants to come to the U.S. if their needs were fulfilled in Mexico.
Is it to keep people out, or to keep them in?
Maybe it is worth building border walls simply to create jobs for unemployed Americans. Even if the walls fail to keep out the “evil ones,” at least we can knock-off some folks waiting on the unemployment lines around the nation.
It is estimated that the U.S. has an illegal immigrant population near 20 million. A large portion of that number is from Mexico. Most illegal Mexican immigrants come to find a better life, jobs and human rights. A small amount is said to perpetrate illegal activities. Consequently, we may consider that there would be no need for illegal Mexican immigrants to come to the U.S. if their needs were fulfilled in Mexico.
As the Mexican government tries to get us to take care of the needs of those illegals while they are here, the U.S. could try to encourage the Mexican Government to provide its citizens with a better way of life before they try to enter the U.S., e.g., create better paying jobs and encourage human rights.
It seems our own government does so haphazardly in places overseas, e.g., Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, etc., but never that much in Mexico. In fact, during the past decade our own rights as citizens of the U.S. have been manipulated and jeopardized by profiteers who seem to hold our lawmakers in their pockets.
It also seems that we are focused more on our southern borders with Mexico rather than on our northern borders with Canada. Perhaps it doesn’t seem likely that any Canadians would consider leaving their nation to come into the U.S. where they would have to stand on endless unemployment lines and pay for their own health care. Canadians as a whole seem to be taken care of better by their government than ours. So, why leave Canada? No need to build fences there. In fact, Canadians don’t want Americans to come into Canada to live and work there. So, the Canadian government may soon opt to build its own border wall to keep us out.
In reality and historically, border walls do not work, at least for the long term. For many years the Berlin Wall created a division of East and West Germany; finally it was torn down. Not even The Great Wall of China (parts of which are 25 feet high) could keep out invaders indefinitely and within many parts of the Great Wall are the buried remains — the hearts and souls — of millions of workers who died building it. However, we are told that the Great Wall failed, especially in 1644, when the gates at Shanhaiguan were opened by Wu Sangui, a Ming border general who disliked the activities of rulers of the Shun Dynasty. The Manchus quickly seized Beijing, and defeated the newly founded Shun Dynasty and remaining Ming resistance to establish the Qing Dynasty. It also took millions of guards to monitor the Great Wall. So, these days some in the U.S. may say the only positive aspect of building border walls is to create new jobs, but even more jobs may not be a good enough reason to build border walls.
Do we have the tax dollars needed to build the walls and will Americans apply for and be given those jobs, or should we have lower wage earners from Mexico build the walls and leave themselves on the Mexican side when they are finished?
In truth, border walls send out a terrible message. It is received by humans and animals, who are forced to accept them as a new part of life, which then creates many other difficult issues. Walls create unnatural prisons that force different patterns of living and create additional “walls” of hate and fear. The world does not need more “walls” along various borders. Along the border, walls between the U.S. and Mexico, depriving access to the Rio Grande River for humans (farmers, ranchers, residents) and animals is another difficult issue.
However, even if the American people managed to persuade Washington officials to approach the Mexican government to provide its citizens with jobs, human rights and a better standard of living, will that government move to do so? It’s doubtful.
And what if we persuade our Congress to remove all border walls along our two nations? Would that benefit both nations significantly? That’s doubtful too.
So, we have 20 million immigrants who have arrived in the U.S. illegally. They have all committed a crime: they are here illegally. To do nothing about this illegal population is to permit the crime. What do we do about this illegal population? Permit them to remain? Encourage more illegal movement? Why then do we have immigration laws and regulations? With millions of unemployed U.S. citizens, do we continue to permit illegals to accept jobs first? Or do we mandate that only Americans be employed first? And then how do we enforce these actions? These are tough questions to answer.
While most of the Mexicans who come into the U.S. illegally arrive at great risk seeking jobs, better living conditions and better lives for themselves and their families, there also is a small percentage of that population who arrives with criminal records and adds to the criminal population, who then work in the shadows of freedom as parasites within our society. While certainly not the majority nor even a large number who come, they do become part of an unaccountable negative infringement on our daily lives.
However, contrary to popular belief, many illegal immigrants working here are paying U.S. taxes. How many pay and how much they are paying is not clear. In reality, the illegal population in this nation pays a large chunk of social security taxes. In fact, for this and other reasons our government may secretly want more illegals. If so, why then build and maintain those border walls?
In addition, it is obvious that as long as businesses hire illegals for a fraction of what is paid to U.S. citizens for the same job, why not hire illegals? After all, this is a capitalistic society out to make large profits. In addition, another perk for businesses is that illegals do not get health care and other benefits. Since they are illegally in this nation, there are no laws to protect them.
Bottom-line: How do we handle the 20 million illegals in this nation? Why build border walls and how do we get the Mexican government to provide its citizens with a better life so that the ever-increasing population does not continue to enter the U.S. illegally? Should we aggressively enforce our current immigration laws? If so, how do we do it?
The direction is not clear. We can communicate to our lawmakers that they should contact the Mexican government to initiate positive change, pushing for human rights; however, the history of that nation highlights that the Mexican government owns production and reaps vast fortunes at a large cost to its people. How do we force change that certainly will impede the future fortunes of the Mexican government and wealthy private citizens, change that will cut its enormous profiteering?
Furthermore, how do we encourage our government to enforce our current immigration laws? We can’t even get our own government to enforce punishment (already provided for in our immigration laws) on American companies who hire illegal immigrants and who force that population to work in hostile conditions, with no benefits and at cheaper wages then are offered to U.S. citizens? Now that there are 20 million illegal immigrants living and working in the U.S. is it practical, and would we be able to enforce our immigration laws, to extradite that huge number? And at what price (dollars, self sense of worth and world image) to do so?
One of the largest activities of the Mexican illegals is to send a large part of their earnings to their families still in Mexico. This becomes one of the largest exports we provide to Mexico — our U.S. dollars.
We can also question our success in pushing for democracy and human rights in Iraq, Afghanistan and in other areas of the world (Africa, Far East). After we leave that region will the governments we have helped support provide their respective populations with long-needed human rights and jobs with reasonable wages? It is doubtful.
Until we consider appropriately how to engage the Mexican government and other governments around the globe to change historical and abusive political, social and economic ways, the population of those nations will continue to be undermined and treated poorly by their own governments. They will continue to do anything and risk everything to leave their land of poverty and enslavement to search out better lives, under the dark of night, to live and work illegally here in the U.S. It is a vicious cycle that must be stopped, but how to do so intelligently and successfully remains a question.
So, what is the real purpose for building border walls? Do border walls serve a legitimate, positive purpose? Or do they send out a signal of hate and desperation?
Do border walls really work? No. They work only for the companies and people that build them, via earning money to do the job. Otherwise, “Walls are for climbing over, digging under, or going through.”
While we are on the topic of building walls, perhaps we should build a wall around our nation’s Capitol to protect U.S. citizens from their leaders.
Peter Stern, a former director of information services, university professor and public school administrator, is a disabled Vietnam veteran who lives in Driftwood, Texas.
The Good Ol’ Days?
People – let’s call them “friends” and “relatives” – are always forwarding useless tidbits of trivial data, ersatz humor, and rose-colored reflections on life, circa 1955, to me via e-mail over the Interweb. The unifying premise among most of these communiqués is the lament, “Why can’t things be like they were in the good ol’ days?” Because, that which people remember after they reach middle age and beyond (okay, elderly status) as “better” or “simpler” times occurred while they were children.
People – let’s call them “friends” and “relatives” – are always forwarding useless tidbits of trivial data, ersatz humor, and rose-colored reflections on life, circa 1955, to me via e-mail over the Interweb.
The unifying premise among most of these communiqués is the lament, “Why can’t things be like they were in the good ol’ days?”
Because, that which people remember after they reach middle age and beyond (okay, elderly status) as “better” or “simpler” times occurred while they were children.
And, in most cases, childhood is a simpler time. At least, it’s supposed to be.
During childhood, we generally choose to not concern ourselves with politics or world events. Even when we are aware of such adult concerns, we tend to let them roll off our shoulders and accept the life that’s playing itself out in our own environment.
About the only things youngsters really care about are the end of the school day, playing baseball or whatever, and avoiding anything remotely resembling responsibility.
People who were in their youth during the Great Depression might talk about how hard life was, yet they always seem to reflect upon that period as “the good old days.”
Those (on the North American continent) too young to be drafted while World War II was wreaking hell on Earth, reducing South Pacific paradises, Europe and, eventually, Japan to massive infernos and incalculable devastation, generally accepted rationing and the extended absences of fathers and brothers (in far many instances permanent) as “the way things are.”
Despite being inundated throughout the 1950s with bullshit like “duck and cover” (as if that would save your ass when the missiles came), the sight of Civil Defense shields on public buildings did not freak us out. No one much fretted over the end of the world.
Actually, we learned to freak out all by ourselves as the 1960s rolled along its own hallucinogenic course.
It’s rather curious, and certainly no coincidence, that the carnage in Vietnam, an upswing in marijuana usage, and a broader experimentation with psychedelic substances began in earnest after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Nor is it coincidence that the open and often turbulent protestations against America’s governmental policies, especially with regard to war against non-aggressor peoples, escalated after Robert f. Kennedy was assassinated.
As much as I enjoy watching classic 1950s television such as “Superman,” “Have Gun-Will Travel,” “Cheyenne,” “Leave It To Beaver,” “Dragnet,” “M Squad,” et al., I take them for what they are – good storytelling (okay, so “Superman” is often just silly, but it’s early-50s silly).
The production values may not hold a candle to today’s television fare (after all, early television producers were still fumbling around in the dark), the stories these shows tell, the values presented therein, remain – more than 50 years after their initial presentations – as apropos in the 21st Century as they did back then.
Any way one looks at it, life was complex “back in the day.”
As it always was, and always shall be.
Thus is the inescapable nature of man.
It was 50 years ago that President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us of the great evil growing like a cancer in our midst, the “military-industrial complex” to which we have become subservient.
Three years later, his successor — our President — was murdered in a coup to advance the madness of power that has wrought myriad wars and global unrest; this act and its official overlay of veneer deposited the seat of power to a self-selected few that has made them wealthy beyond all conceivable acuity while strangling Americans with the demolition of our tenuous economic system.
Driven to distraction by a woefully underreporting corporate media, wherein opinion and insinuation masquerade as “news,” which is conspicuously abetted by five extreme Right-wing activist Supreme Court justices, the American public, undereducated for generations, is just sucker enough to accept such forced feeding.
Even though he was born after this shitstorm began, those who fear our “negro president” – for no reason other than he’s not of the white privileged class – blame Mr. Obama for everything that’s wrong with the United States of America.
Why? Because, instead of educating the unwashed masses, the aforementioned media focuses only on the negative, and provides no support whatsoever for movement in a forward direction.
Where we once had reason to “hope,” even that has been turned into a four-letter word.
So, please don’t tell me about how wonderful life was back “in the good ol’ days,” because keeping the blinders on is what got us here.
Shalom.
(Jerry Tenuto is an erstwhile Philosopher and sometime Educator. A veteran with seven years of service in the U.S. Army, he holds a BS and MA in Communications from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Depending upon your taste in political stew, you can either blame or thank Jerry for his weekly “Out Of The Blue” feature in The Lone Star Iconoclast. Visit his blog Blue State View at illinoiscentral.blogspot.com)
The Texas Perimeter Hike — Caprock Canyons State Park
I wake up around dawn, and I know something has changed. My nose feels it, then my hands as I unzip my sleeping bag. The air is crisp as I twist around and look outside my tarp. Then I see it coming down, slow and unhurried, falling silently and muffling the sounds of the world. It’s my first Texas snow.“I was born upon the prairie, where the wind blew free and there was nothing to break the light of the sun. I was born where there were no enclosures and where everything drew a free breath.” — Ten Bears of the Yamparika Comanches
I wake up around dawn, and I know something has changed. My nose feels it, then my hands as I unzip my sleeping bag. The air is crisp as I twist around and look outside my tarp. Then I see it coming down, slow and unhurried, falling silently and muffling the sounds of the world. It’s my first Texas snow.
I’m volunteering at the magical Caprock Canyons State Park, where in one week it has snowed, rained, and been sunny about evenly. After hiking so much road it is a gentle relief to be in a natural area. I’ve been here almost a month now, though most of the last week I’ve been sick. I came wanting to explore the canyons, learn about the plains and its history, and perhaps give my feet a break. I haven’t been disappointed.
To get here, I hiked south along the Caprock Canyons Trailway, a separate 64-mile stretch of park property running from Estelline to South Plains. I ran into a lot of wild pigs, several deer, and one armadillo. One evening I heard strange noises nearby, like dumping water from a small-lipped container. In the morning I woke up to the same noise, accompanied by the flapping of dozens of wings. I looked up and saw over 100 wild turkeys just a few yards away.
Winter is the slow season at Caprock Canyons, slow for volunteers at any rate. Because of the weather, it’s hard to plan on anything other than the day at hand. I found myself doing odd tasks, running a children’s discovery center, helping to take out nails from an old fence, assembling some armoires. The most official task I had was to give a few Saturday talks about my hiking trips to visitors.
The people that work at Caprock are a family unto themselves. The guys harass one another, and the women ask how everyone is doing. The rangers usually have enough computer work to keep them busy all day, but they are more than happy to answer questions and help someone out. Many times, that has been me.
One day in the park office, I told the staff that I heard an unusual noise the night before. Sort of like a horse whinnying but not quite, I said. It was hard for me to be more precise. A ranger and a volunteer both gave me their best guesses, but neither was certain. Then Park Manager Donald Beard said from his office, “Did it sound like this?” I heard the noise again, a little high-pitched and shaky, almost eerie. That’s it, I said. “Screech owl,” he added simply, returning to his work.
I explored the park during other days. A friend visited, and we found our way to the top of Haynes Ridge Trail. The weather was cloudy and subdued, but we had a great time swapping stories and eating dinner. In the morning, we hiked to the overlook and spent an hour and a half admiring the canyon views while eating breakfast. We sat on top of the world.
One hundred thirty-five years ago, the last of the free Comanches roamed these plains and wintered in these panhandle canyons. You don’t have to look hard to find what they were fighting for. Their reasons are still here. They are in the water, animals, and open air; they are in the very dirt.
Smatt is the penname of S.Matt Read. A writer, inventor, baker, and hiker, he is currently hiking the entire outline of the state. Follow his adventure here and at www.texasperimeterhike.blogspot.com and www.twitter.com/perimeterhiker.
Eagle Point, a well-known Caprock Canyons land formation. The author hiked the Eagle Point Trail multiple times.
