By Juan Montoya
With the nationwide furor over removing the confederate imagery from public places, it may surprise many Brownsville residents to know that smack in the middle of downtown Brownsville – Washington Park to be specific – sits a monument to Jefferson Davis, the president f the Confederate States of America.
The plaque on the monument states it was erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy.
Davis, who has some ties to Brownsville when he landed at Point Isabel and joined up and served under Zachary Taylor as a colonel of a volunteer regiment from Mississippi, was a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He was also Taylor's son-in-law.
His regiment became known as the Mississippi Rifles and fought in the siege of Monterrey and Buena Vista.
From 1853 to 1857 he served as the U.S. Secretary of War under President Franklin Pierce. He was later a Democratic senator from Mississippi.
His biographer wrote that he was an operator of a large cotton plantation in Mississippi with over 100 slaves, and was well known for his support of slavery during his time in the Senate.
Although opposed to secession, while back in the Senate, he continued to defend the rights of southern slave states. Davis remained in the Senate until January 1861, resigning when Mississippi left the Union.
Davis was imprisoned at Fort Monroe in Virginia from May 22, 1865, to May 13, 1867, before being released on bail paid partly by abolitionist Horace Greely.
Other U.S. military men who came during the U.S.-Mexico war also ended up serving in the confederacy.
Although opposed to secession, while back in the Senate, he continued to defend the rights of southern slave states. Davis remained in the Senate until January 1861, resigning when Mississippi left the Union.
In conjunction with the formation of the Confederacy, Davis was named president of the Confederate States of America on February 18, 1861. On May 10, 1865, he was captured by Union forces near Irwinville, Georgia, and charged with treason. Davis was imprisoned at Fort Monroe in Virginia from May 22, 1865, to May 13, 1867, before being released on bail paid partly by abolitionist Horace Greely.
Davis was not the only future CSA officer who served here with Taylor before the Civil War.
Within the army that Taylor commanded were no less than 37 future generals who would participate on both sides in the in the Civil War, not to mention two future presidents, U.S. Grant and Taylor. A third future president – Franklin Pierce – was an officer in the forces of Winfield Scott when he invaded Mexico through Veracruz, as was Robert E. Lee, the future military leader of the Confederate States of America.
Robert E. Lee, who participated in the fighting in Mexico was not at Palo Alto, but was part of a force that left with Winfield Scott to invade Veracruz. He would later serve here in the Civil War chasing Juan Cortina. But 23 future Union generals were, as were another 14 generals who would eventually join the Confederacy.
During the siege of Ft. Brown, nine future CSA generals were also there.
Many critics of displaying the confederacy imagery would probably not agree that a monument exist at Washington Park, noting that Davis was an advocate of slavery and served as president of the rebels.
Because of the Union blockade of southern ports, men like Charles Stillman, Mifflin Kenedy and Richard King were able to build empires smuggling confederate cotton through Puerto Bagdad under the Mexican flag made possible by the original Francisco Yturria.
An Palmito Hill was also the scene of the last battle of the Civil War fought a month after the surrender of the CAA under Lee to Ulysses Grant.
With the controversy surrounding the Confederate flag and its imagery, is having a monument dedicated to the president of the rebellion defending slavery appropriate in Brownsville?
18 comments:
Don't fall for the fallout Juan. This too will pass and that ugly rock isn't going anywhere unless you can get enough idiots to make a big deal about it but I doubt that. Not all Christians are bad - nor Muslims - nor cops - or Mexicans crossing the border - nor Southerners and Civil War aficionados in Brownsville, Texas. It's just an Obama's bitch-slap.
The vast majority of Brownsville residents do not even know who is the current vice president of the US. Do you think they care for a piece of rock with a guy's name on it?
fuck'em. This is Brownsville, home of the Mexicans!
Merely a passé historical personage who served on both sides . The South wanted to maintain Slavery as an institution and continue with an idyllic agricultural way of life. Whereas the North evolved into an industrial might contrary to the South's interests.
how soon will it be, before we hear the cry of "Down with the Alamo"
I take it moron KBRO dude is impaired.
So Whites say Blacks are "raping" their women. There is no substance to the charge. “The world knows that the crime of rape was unknown during four years of civil war, when the white women of the South were at the mercy of the race which is all at once charged with being a bestial one,” she writes. In reality, these accusations of rape were often covers for consensual - and taboo - relationships between black men and white women. “Whites could not countenance the idea of a white woman desiring sex with a Negro, thus any physical relationship between a white woman and a black man had, by definition, to be an unwanted assault,” writes historian Philip Dray, describing Wells-Barnett’s argument in his book At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America. In one instance, found Wells-Barnett, a black man in Indianola, Mississippi, was lynched for raping the local sheriff’s 7-year-old daughter. When Wells-Barnett went to investigate, however, she found something very different:
Wells traveled to Indianola and met the alleged rape victim, who was no girl but a grown woman in her late teens. The “brute,” Wells learned, had worked on the sheriff’s farm for a number of years and was acquainted with every member of the family. The woman had been found in her lover’s cabin by her father, who led a lynch mob in order to save his daughter’s reputation.
Anonymous Anonymous said...
The vast majority of Brownsville residents do not even know who is the current vice president of the US. Do you think they care for a piece of rock with a guy's name on it?
June 24, 2015 at 3:20 PM
In agreement. Even if Tony Martinez won re-election, the vast majority of Brownsville residents don't know who their mayor is much less who a white southerner from the civil war was.
In a high school history class, one in 10 students knows something about Jefferson Davis. In a general assembly with mostly regular citizens and the mayor gives a speech, you hear "who is that guy?", HE is the mayor!!, he speaks horrible!!"
This is SALACIOUS, RAPACIOUS, TENACIOUS, MENDACIOUS, VORACIOUS, PERTINACIOUS, FUGACIOUS, AND OUTRAGEOUS!!!
I pity the fool who is not utterly OUTRAGED by this OUTRAGEOUS OUTRAGE!
Shut the fuck up Valadez! Quit wasting time posting crap on taxpayers dime you ugly simpleton !
Down with Slavery. !! What we need is 10cent beer an 5 cents cigars, one dollar an hour Minimun wage. !!.
I hope the negros in brownsvillle don't find out.
How about the Mexican flag? Gawd awful things have been done there. Let burn that sumbitch also. Oh hell, let just burn everything. Pendejos of the world arise.
Not a centavos difference between a peon on a estancia or a slave on a plantation.
We need Slavery in order to balance the budget; or better yet a dollar an hour would suffice. A recent Republican capital idea .
you can't erase history
No podéis borrar la historia. Sólo haste Pendejo .
Da Mayor owns 10 slaves to do his bidding .
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