addington1950

@Article{ addington1950,
	author = {Wendell Addington},
	title = {Slave Insurrections in {T}exas},
	journal = {Journal of Negro History},
	volume = 35,
	number = 4,
	month = {October},
	pages = {408--434},
	year = 1950,
}

http://www.jstor.org/stable/2715525

Cites Olmsted as saying that “any great event having the slightest bearing upon the question of emancipation” affected the slave population greatly (410).

Indicates, using the Austin Papers, a long-standing tradition of fear about what would happen if Mexican forces came too close to Negros (p. 412)

p. 414: Another notice from an 1845 Houston newspaper expressing fear that a group of runaways from Bastrop were headed South. “It is supposed that some Mexican enticed them to flee to the Mexican settlements west of the Rio Grande.” Another notice the next week reported that some were apprehended in Gonzales County, but that seven or eight were feared to “have escaped to the Mexican settlement on the Rio Grande.”

Reports of an insurrection in Colorado County in 1856, sent to the Galveston press, included rumors that slaves were planning to “fight their way on to a ‘free State’ [Mexico]. . . . Without exception, every Mexican in the county was implicated. They were arrested, and ordered to leave the county within five days, and never again to return, under the penalty of death. There is one, however, by the name of Frank, who is proven to be one of the prime movers of the affair, that was not arrested; but we hope that he may yet be, and have meted out to him such reward as his black deed demands. [p] We are satisfied that the lower class of the Mexican population are incendiaries in any country where slaves are held, and should be dealt with accordingly. And, for the benefit of the Mexican population, we would here state, that a resolution was passed by the unanimous voice of the county, forever forbidding any Mexican from coming within the limits of the county.” (Signed John H. Robson, H. A. Tatum, J. H. Hicks.)

Other newspaper reports of plans to flee to Mexico are included.

Both Olmsted and Galveston News noted that an uptick in insurrections in 1856 was probably tied to the candidacy of Fremont for president, which, according to the news, gave “the general impression among the negroes that his election would, in some way, result in setting them all free.” (419)

Ends by talking a lot about the 1860 scares. At least one of these in LaGrange again included rumors of a plan to head to Mexico, though this doesn’t come up as often in the brief clips of reports on 1860 scares.

p. 432: “At the very first house Olmsted visited in Texas, he was told that the Mexican population aided the slaves ‘in all their bad habits, married them . . . and ran them off every day to Mexico.’” Olmsted emphasized the treatment of Mexicans as outlaws. Addington provides some other sources reporting that there were hundreds of thousands of runaway slaves in Mexico.