Talk:Texas Revolution

Reverted removal of sourced material as "dubious"

I have reverted the edit which has the summary Removed dubious statement without citation. That material absolutely has a citation at the end of the next sentence that applies to both sentences. Wikipedia does not say we need to stick a citation at the end of each and every sentence. But for proof, dig out the Haley book Lone Star Rising, and look at pp 60 and 64, exactly as the citation lists it. You will see that it sources those statements. — Maile (talk) 17:58, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

"Texian"

The article repeatedly uses this odd phrase. I had thought that, like the NFL team, something from Texas was Texan and not Texian. Perhaps it's an academic distinction separating the Republic of Texas from the US state of Texas? If so it should be explained. 86.139.252.111 (talk) 13:28, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

The term has its own article, linked the first time you see it. Click on that link, and you'll have your answer. — Maile (talk) 14:10, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Garbage "source" that needs removal

Please see confirmed sockpuppets of SkepticAnonymous

Who the hell let this (Redacted) be a source for this article? (Redacted) Scott, Robert (2000). After the Alamo. Plano, TX: Republic of Texas Press. ISBN 978-0-585-22788-7. This book is a complete pile of lies - there's an excellent review of it by a REAL historian here. http://www.tamu.edu/faculty/ccbn/dewitt/adp/central/books/reviews/after_alamo.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.6.213.166 (talk) 16:36, 24 February 2017 (UTC) Hmm. We went through this about the same time last year, and it was all posted by (now blocked) socks of a known sock master. Not that this is the case here. But nevertheless, one Texas A&M employee's opinion/review of a book ... is just one person's POV. The "review" is not a verifiable source, and cites no credible sources for the opinion stated there in. How is somebody whose title is "Books editor" a "REAL historian"? The same source was cited last year by the socks with the same review URL. Content was removed without consensus last year by one of those socks, using the link you have above in the edit summary. But we can ping Karanacs who did the research on the book. — Maile (talk) 20:09, 24 February 2017 (UTC) And if it's helpful to anyone reading this thread Talk:Texas Revolution/Scott are Karanacs' notes from the book that she used for the article. — Maile (talk) 20:29, 24 February 2017 (UTC) Wiki has rules about WP:SCHOLARSHIP that a source has to pass before we call it a RS. here are two key ones that "After the Alamo" flunks: 1) Material such as an article, book, monograph, or research paper that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable, where the material has been published in reputable peer-reviewed sources or by well-regarded academic presses. and 2) One can confirm that discussion of the source has entered mainstream academic discourse by checking the scholarly citations it has received in citation indexes. A corollary is that journals not included in a citation index, especially in fields well covered by such indexes, should be used with caution, though whether it is appropriate to use will depend on the context. in this case the publisher specializes in children's books and not in scholarship--note that the scholarly literature on the "Republic of Texas" runs to hundreds of books and articles says google scholar. 2. Google scholar list zero reviews in any journal. the only cite is a one-line listing in a non-scholarly book entitled Historic Tales from the Texas Republic: A Glimpse of Texas Past. Rjensen (talk) 02:08, 25 February 2017 (UTC) I still say we need to hear from Karanacs on this, since I'm not the one who used that source and cannot explain for her. Also, Rjensen, I noticed that you deleted this article's FA rating with your edit. I like to believe that was just an error, since no one individual can remove FA status from an article. I have restored it above. — Maile (talk) 02:13, 25 February 2017 (UTC) thanks--yes deleted by mistake. Rjensen (talk) 02:46, 25 February 2017 (UTC) (Redacted) SPI adding for historical reference. Recurring, likely sock of the one causing the disruptive editing/deletions on this article before. Advice from SPI is to block any future IP edits here that follow the above pattern on this article. — Maile (talk) 18:16, 12 March 2017 (UTC) It may be worth pointing out next time that this article was reviewed by historians from The History Channel (including, I suspect, Stephen Hardin himself), who had nothing to say about the book or the content from it. I see that a lot has been removed from the article already but I haven't looked at it in depth. I'm still on a self-imposed break from fighting on Wikipedia, so I'll be concentrating on my own little corner of WP for now (blame the Houston rodeo - I seem to be a bit obsessed with cowboys). Karanacs (talk) 21:12, 4 April 2017 (UTC) The "Used To Be About History" Channel seems to have screwed up their own research on it though http://www.mysanantonio.com/entertainment/movies-tv/article/10-things-the-History-Channel-s-Texas-Rising-6299393.php#photo-7972816 — Preceding unsigned comment added by TexasHistory2017 (talk • contribs) 04:43, 11 April 2017 (UTC) So I'm doing some more looking and it looks like this violates the WIKIPEDIA:SELF-PUBLISHED SOURCES guideline. "Republic of Texas Press" looks to be a vanity publisher or "print for hire" publisher that was a subset or subsidiary of Rowman & Littlefield, BUT when I tried to locate the book in their catalog, R&L have delisted every single book that was published under that name. When I go in and try to find them elsewhere I find that the name has basically been nonexistent after publishing a whole lot of dodgy books around the year 2000. The last thing it "published" was in 2009, and that was a work-for-hire tourist book "Exploring Dallas With Children" 4th Edition. https://openlibrary.org/publishers/Republic_of_Texas_Press When I try to find the author I come up with a few other books "Blood at Sand Creek", "Plain Enemies" and "Glory, Glory, Glorieta: The Gettysburg of the West". Each of these is full of historical errors, map errors, and general incompetence. Also, the guidelines state that to even consider a SELF-PUBLISHED SOURCE for usage, they have to be a credentialed expert in their field. Copied direct from Amazon, the background of incompetent writer Robert Scott is "Bob Scott lives in north central Michigan with his son and a cat. He is a past resident of several Texas cities," and that is the extent of his supposed qualifications. If I tried to use this shoddy excuse for a book in my classes, my profs would flunk me and with good reason!!!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by TexasHistory2017 (talk • contribs) 05:04, 11 April 2017 (UTC) I went and bought the book off amazon. It's a fucking joke. 1st page, the author claims that Cherokees (located nowhere close to Texas) were fighting with settlers instead of the Comanche. His references to maps are all over the place too, at one point he seems to think that San Antonio is east of Austin. Maybe the author took one too many hits with a crack pipe or something? — Preceding unsigned comment added by TexasHistory2017 (talk • contribs) 01:04, 13 April 2017 (UTC) You are edit warring. This is not a controversial fact. If you want to remove the book, find an alternative source for the information.Karanacs (talk) 13:20, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Siete Leyes

Sadly, this featured article seems to miss the Siete Leyes by Juan Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna which effectively abolished the current federal republic and established a dictatorship-like central republic. --SamWinchester000 (talk) 23:54, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

It's there—Santa Anna soon revealed himself to be a centralist, transitioning the Mexican government to a centralized government. In 1835, the 1824 Constitution was overturned; state legislatures were dismissed, militias disbanded. The reason you can't find any references to "Juan Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna" in the article is that Juan wasn't Santa Anna's name. ‑ Iridescent 09:54, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Reworking the lead - some thoughts

@The ed17: and User talk:141.131.2.3 when redoing the lead, we need to take into consideration that the Texas Revolution was not just a bunch of white guys from America. One of the issues I had before @Karanacs: reworked the article, is when I ran a search through the text and it was absent of any Texas-Mexican participation on the Texas side of the revolution, Let's please not accidentally lapse back to that. The Mexicans in Texas were it in for many reasons, but it's doubtful Texas would have ever broken with Mexico without participation of an armed force of Mexican-ancestry soldiers/scouts. Both American colonists and native Texas Mexicans had different views for why they participated. Erasmo Seguín, Juan Seguín – their families had come from the Canary islands and settled San Antonio. Also, José María Jesús Carbajal was mentored by Stephen F. Austin, and became a guerilla fighter who hated Santa Anna, but he loved Mexico. Even among the American colonists, not all of them wanted a break with Mexico. Plácido Benavides from Victoria brought about 200 Mexican men to oust General Cos during the Siege of Béxar, but he never wanted a break with Mexico. Take a look at List of Alamo defenders. There were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Mexicans who fought against Santa Anna, with different goals in mind. We can't eliminate them, and it wasn't as clear as most wanting a break with Mexico. There were a hefty number of Mexicans under Juan Seguin who were not only scouts at the Alamo, but also fought with Houston all the way to the final Battle of San Jacinto. Many issues. Maybe it's not as easy as it looks to rewrite the lead. Discuss here, OK?

• Teja, Jesús F. De la (2010). Tejano Leadership in Mexican and Revolutionary Texas. Texas A&M University Press. ISBN 978-1-60344-303-6 – via Project MUSE. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |subscription= ignored (|url-access= suggested) (help)

— Maile (talk) 19:32, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

I have no issue with simply removing the ethnic discussion from the lead sentence. Those issues can be discussed later in the lead. Nevertheless, that was not the primary point of the edits. The lead does not conform properly to MOS. Please explain why the importance of deviating from WP standards.

Thanks.

-- MC

I don't actually have a problem with removing that either. Looking back on when this article achieved Featured Article status, it said "colonists" then. It could be said the revolution was fought by both colonists from North America, as well as Mexicans born in Coahuila y Tejas (or whatever existed when they were born). But I'm all for simplicity and not over-thinking this. Since @The ed17: has also some done some recent editing on the lead, let's see if he posts here about this. — Maile (talk) 21:35, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

@Maile66: Happy to defer to your lead. I was using or extrapolating from earlier article revisions, and I very well could have gotten it wrong! Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 05:46, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

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the Mexican government believed...

The statement "the Mexican government believed the United States had instigated the Texas insurrection with the goal of annexation" is probably false, especially if you factor in the fact that nearly half the other Mexican states openly rebelled and a huge number declared independence, that all of them, including Texas, were originally demanding the restoration of the Mexican Constitution of 1824 before declaring independence, and two actually succeeded in leaving the Mexican union (the Republic of Texas and the Republic of Yucatan). I'd love to see some evidence where the Mexican government thought that Texas was demanding the restoration of the Mexican Constitution of 1824 for different reasons than the other rebelling states. Texas and Yucatan and others only declared independence when their efforts to restore the Mexican Constitution of 1824 failed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wistex (talk • contribs) 14:52, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

Totally Ignores Larger Context of War / Bias Problem

This article appears to completely omit the context of the revolution, which totally slants the view. There probably should be more mentioned about how Texas had originally wanted to restore the Mexican Constitution of 1824, and that Mexico was a federal republic, modeled in part after the U.S., and that Texas was not the only state to rebel, but was also not the only state to actually successfully declare independence. The Republic of Yucatan also declared independence for the same exact reasons as Texas, but that is not what is usually written. Instead, you get a very biased view of history that ignore certain inconvenient facts.

• The Texans have a bias because they focus on everything Texas.
• The liberal Northerners often have a bias because they want to paint Texas as this evil slave-owning state, so they overemphasize the role of slavery in the revolution. (Hint: restoring the Constitution of 1824 would not have given Texans slavery, and restoration of the Constitution was originally what they were fighting for.)
• The Mexicans don't like talking about the fact that they had a civil war where a democratically elected government was overthrown, and the fact that half the Mexican states rebelled, and two actually seceded (the Republic of Texas and the Republic of Yucatan. (Yucatan later rejoined about 10 years later after Mexico agreed to reforms.) If they focus on Texas and the U.S., they can ignore the reasons the other Mexican states rebelled.
• Most Americans, especially those loyal to the federal government, would not want to admit that the Mexican Constitution of 1824 was modeled, in part, after the U.S. Constitution because that would mean that if a tyrant can overthrow the government in the Mexican federal union, it could happen in the U.S. too.
• Some people want the war to be about us vs. them (white people vs. brown-skinned people), so they downplay the roles of brown-skinned Mexicans and play up the roles of the white-skinned Mexicans in an effort to continue that narrative. But the reality is that rebelling against Santa Anna wasn't about race at all. It was about restoring democracy and over half of the Mexican states, including what is not Texas, rebelled specifically in an attempt to restore the Mexican Constitution on 1824, and only declared independence when it was clear that would not happen. But that does not fit their narrative.

Personally, instead of having each one of those biased groups keep overwriting the other biased group's points, I would like to see competing facts and information and theories posted, and let readers make up their mind, rather than people continually deleting inconvenient facts that do not align with their view of Texas and the revolution.