{She Said} Ahh the Joys... Sometimes They Get It

A little Texas History lesson for today:

After Mexico(which, at the time, included Texas) won its independence from Spain and had established a constitution of its own, a centralist president was not necessarily following the constitution in Texas and was creating some laws that limited the freedoms of Texans. Texans began to become outraged and thus the road toward the Texas Revolution was paved. One event along that road was the disturbance at Anahuac. There was a Mexican official, Bradburn, that had come across some slaves and refused to return those slaves to their owner until he provided proof of ownership. The owner then hired a lawyer, William B Travis, to fight to get his slaves back. Travis had a law partner, Patrick Jack who was also involved in these shenanigans and Travis and Jack basically tricked Bradburn into releasing the slaves to their owner. Bradburn, infuriated, arrested and imprisoned Travis and Jack. This caused a huge uproar among the colonists in Anahuac. There were protests on the streets etc. Finally, Bradburn told the angry mobs that if they retreated and left the town that he would release Travis and Jack. They did and, of course, Bradburn did not release the lawyers, only stabilized troops for when the mob came back. Eventually, a higher Mexican official arrived on the scene and, trying to maintain order, fired Bradburn and released Travis and Jack. In the mean time, the colonists gathering outside of town were forming resolutions, gathering weapons, and getting ready to fight for their rights…


I tell that story so that you understand the greatness of this story:

Yesterday in class, I had the students participate in several small debates over events leading to the Texas Revolution. Each group represented either the Texas or Mexican side of the debate over why the event happened and whether the groups actions were reasonable. One such event was this Disturbance at Anahuac. I told each group to prepare a short opening statement to start off their end of the debate on. When I got to the groups covering the different sides of the disturbance, I told the Mexican side that they would go first. One gentleman stood up and very confidently gave his opening statement:

“Ladies and gentlemen, I only have one thing to say about this event: we don’t got Jack.”

The whole class was in an uproar, myself included, and I was proud because they all got the joke. I am raising a bunch of little history nerds that all got the joke. It was a beautiful moment.