Welcome to The Man for Texas.

Episode 6. The Conscience of a Republic.

I'm Brandon Seal.

18 votes.

Robert Erion had defeated Isaac Burton by only 18 votes in the race to become Nacadochus' first senator to the Republic of Texas.

The great and bloody and not a little bit surprising victory of San Jacinto, at which the loser,

Isaac Burton, had seen action, was still raw in people's minds. As were, for that matter,

the massacres at the Alamo and Goliad.

Burton had played into it all during the election, and Burton decided to wave the bloody shirt now.

He appeared in front of the first Texas Senate in October 1836 to protest the circumstances of Irian's victory.

In particular, he claimed that Irian owed his victory to votes from the so-called, quote-unquote, Mexican population of Nacadoches, whom he accused of being,

quote, posed to this government, and consequently not entitled to citizenship, end quote.

Where would Techanos fit into the racial hierarchy of the New Texas Republic?

The United States had three very clear categories, whites, blacks, and Indians,

the latter two of which were, at least in most of the southern states,

from which most of the early Anglo-Texians came,

not considered citizens, and hence not entitled to vote.

Dechanos, however, particularly on this mixed-race frontier, were a little bit of all three.

A little bit white, a little bit black, and a little bit indigenous, and so defied easy classification.

What tipped the scales, however, was most Anglo-Texians' realization that they couldn't have won

their independence, if not for the large-scale participation in support of Tejanos like Ruiz.

Longer-term residents of the state, like Eurion, remembered the critical role that Tejano's had played

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