Talking Texas History

Texas Documents, Part I: Cabeza De Vaca

• Gene Preuss & Scott Sosebee • Season 4 • Episode 2

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A shipwreck on a hostile shore. A handful of survivors. And a narrative that forced an empire to look again. We kick off a new series through the eyes of Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, the first European to leave a detailed account of life among indigenous peoples along the Texas Gulf Coast.

This conversation isn’t about polishing heroes or condemning villains; it’s about evidence. We trace how a survivor’s testimony pushed some Spaniards toward empathy and accommodation without erasing conquest, and how contact changed both sides in subtle, enduring ways. If your last Texas history class stopped at seventh grade, this is your invitation to revisit the beginning with sources that restore nuance and humanity.

We mention Documents of Texas History. The citation and link are below:

Enjoyed the start of this series? Follow the show, share it with a friend who loves history, and leave a review with the one moment that challenged what you thought you knew.

SPEAKER_01:

This podcast is not sponsored by and does not reflect the views of the institutions that employ us. It is only our thoughts and ideas based upon our professional training and study of the past.

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to Talking Texas History, the podcast that explores Texas history before and beyond the Alamo. Not only will we talk Texas history, we'll visit with folks who teach it, write it, support it, and with some who've made it. And of course, all of us who live it and love it. Welcome to another edition of Talking Texas History. I'm Gene Price.

SPEAKER_01:

And I am Scott Sunsby. Gene, it's been a long time since we have been on the air with people, hasn't it?

SPEAKER_00:

I I know, and I feel really bad about that. But you know, it was a really weird last semester that uh we had plans where there were things we're gonna do. Um, but but life got in the way.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, you know, that's the one of the I guess the the barriers of uh of our day job uh that we do is sometimes we just get into these situations of semesters and things going on that keep us from doing what we want to do, what's fun, and that's doing things like this. But it's a new year, and so our new year's resolution is hey, we're gonna give back on schedule and we're gonna do something, and we're really looking at doing something different, aren't we, Gene?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, we are, and I'll and I'll tell you, it's it's one of the things that I was asked to do is uh, you know, Mary works up at Lone Star College, and they have a senior learning program. Uh people who live in in that part of Houston or Montgomery County um can uh sign up and take these classes if they are retired. And uh I taught a class um last semester, taught a few uh, you know, five sessions. It's not not a real class, it's more like you know, just discussion and and whatnot. Um no grades. But they were asked to do another one, and I said, Well, what do you want me to teach? And they said, Texas history. Everybody's taking Texas history, a lot of people have grown up, not everybody. There's a lot of people out there who are new to Texas. But when was the last time most people took a Texas history class?

SPEAKER_01:

Seventh grade. So for for some people like me, that was a long time ago.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, you know, the funny thing is, is I'm not, you know, people say, well, you know, how long have you been interested in Texas history? I'm not really, I'm not really a Texas historian, right? I am a historian of the South. I am a historian of the West and the 19th century, although I do a lot on Mexican American, which I only took one class on, and and you know who my professor was, Camila Martinez. Um, and as far as Texas history, so uh funny story is uh Frank de la Teja, when he first came to teach, he was at the general land office, right? When he came to teach at what was then Southwest Texas State University, now Texas State and San Marcus, um they had hired him and they told me, Price, you're gonna be his teaching assistant for Texas history. I'd never taken Texas history course. And I said, um, oh, okay. Uh and so I was his first teaching assistant. And so that was really my introduction to um a class on Texas history.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I you know, I guess I'm in the same boat. I've I to some extent. I mean, I have done made Texas history my primary research focus on everything. But as far as college courses, I took one Texas history college course with Camelio Martinez uh at Texas Tech. And in the other regards, I mean I took a graduate class in Texas historiography with Don Walker, and that's really it. And so, and that's kind of the you know, but that's kind of the basis of uh of your Texas history training to some extent. Which I think the point is a lot of people I don't want to offend anybody by saying this, think they know Texas history, but a lot of what they think they know may be more of Texas, not necessarily mythology, but the legend of Texas history, or maybe just the superficial gilding of Texas history, when we know that the realities of Texas history are things deeper, because as a historian, you get your, you know, you get what your narrative of Texas history is from the primary documents, from things contemporary people at the time wrote. And I think that's a lot of what people maybe don't quite understand. Don't you think that's right?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I I I do think that that's true. I I don't know about you. I mean, I use and I'm sure you do too. I, you know, we use primary documents in class. And I don't know how many you use. I don't know which ones you use. I know which ones I use. Um, and you know, uh if you're interested, there's a great book uh on Texas history documents that were edited together. Uh TSHA published them and they're available on the website, The Portal to Texas History. That was a great introduction that I used as a graduate student. Oh, yeah. Uh the tech, you know, Texas History Documents. And and it was uh it was good. Um, so I mean there's a lot of good ones out there. And one of the nice things is that um about Texas history, you know, we talk about um TSHA being the oldest learned association in Texas, you know, back in the early, you know, the the time other associations were getting started. Well, one of the things like Eugene Barker and those other guys were doing is they were taking original documents. You know, Carlos Castañeda, uh the librarian at the University of Texas, was going in and translating Spanish documents and making them accessible to English-speaking people.

SPEAKER_01:

That's right. And of course, and that becomes the foundation of what we know about each of these epochs, if you want to talk about them that way, of Texas history and the various things. You know, what was what were those documents saying at the time? What was going on at that time and such? So we want to make that a basis of what we're talking about for the next you know five weeks or so and everything. And we're gonna start off today with some of the earliest uh uh Texas history there is, the Spanish settlements and the Spanish incursions into Texas. And we have a document uh to that, uh, because you may uh you know be able to pronounce Spanish names better than I do. Uh when I try to speak Spanish to to native Spanish speakers, they they tell me, you know, you have an accent, right? Uh and I go, no, I don't have an accent, but you can introduce the documents we have, and we're gonna talk about them here today, and we'll start with those.

SPEAKER_00:

So so we're gonna look, I I so for for this class, and these are these are seniors uh who are who are I'm gonna introduce these documents to, and these are edited versions of these documents, so it's not the full story, but we're gonna look at the first document written about Texas, and that is from Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, and it's called The Relation, right? Which is the story, the tale, right? He's giving an account of what happened. Um and so I want to start, I want to introduce this to them, um, and looking at uh chapter 14. If you wanna, if you're uh if you want to follow along, I'm not gonna read this, but so you'll know where we're where we're starting from. Chapter 14 of his relation, of his account. Um, he lands on this island. Now, we don't know a lot about this, right? This is the 1540s that he's telling this. This happened in the 1520s and 1530s. So a long time ago, he didn't have a map. And and maps were were terrible. Even if he would have had a map, we probably wouldn't have been able to read it today.

SPEAKER_01:

And again, like you say, he's written it long out. I mean, he probably didn't get around to writing this until long after he returned from his long journey across Texas.

SPEAKER_00:

So he's on this island, and he calls it the island of misfortune. And if you know anything about Kavesa Devaka, we'll come back to him in a few minutes uh and talk a little bit about his background. But if you know anything about him, you'll understand why. Uh right, because it's a tale of woe, and you know, probably probably a story that that was repeated many, many times in the age of exploration, even today, right? Um so they land a lot of his a lot of the other Spanish people who were with him uh on this expedition died or were lost at sea. Um, and so they land, and the island, of course, is inhabited by indigenous uh Texan people, people who were living here. We don't know who they were, because we don't know where he was. But he talks about them and he tells about their explanation and uh he explains what they're doing, their culture, he explains why they do things as best as he can tell. And you know, he lives with the Indians, he and his companions live with them, a handful of companions, live with them what, six years?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yeah, six, seven years, and I'm real sure exactly, you know, and it he goes between different villages and such. Of course, eventually they get off the island uh and make their way back down into New Spain, Mexico. Uh, but yeah, it's actually, I've always said there's so many things in the Texas district, particularly the early Texas district, would make great movies. And Cabeza de Vaca's whole experience would make a fantastic movie for someone. And if you just you could write a screenplay just from what he wrote about what he was doing here when he landed, you know, it's no surprise to me he called it the Isle of Misfortune, since you know they were uh, you know, the whole expedition, they're part of the Nunez expedition, and they're hit by a hurricane, and their ships break up and they have problems with natives. And Devoca's one of, are there six of them that uh finally get on basically the remnants of one of the ships, ships, and drift on the Gulf of Mexico for days before they run aground on this island, and they are basically naked and sunburned and malnourished and everything else, and the natives actually take them in. Uh, and you know, they somewhat pitied them at the time. Uh and even do it. But it's interesting when you read the document to me, Gene, and you probably know more about this than me, they are so focused on the rituals of the natives. And, you know, what they did because we I think we sometimes forget this. The Spaniards were an extremely devout people. They were they were very, very devout Catholics, and that was a huge part of their life, that was a huge part of their settlement, that was a huge part of why they're coming to the new world, is to actually spread their religion, the Christianity, do it. So it was only natural that they would actually take notice of the rituals, for example, what they did with their uh, you know, what how how the ritual around what they did with their dead, for example, that they do and things. So and so don't you think that that's a very natural thing for them to look at?

SPEAKER_00:

You know, um people who study these things, anthropologists, uh, say that Kavesa Devaca's account of what happened and what he saw is the one of the first, one of the earliest of what we would call ethnographies, the study of people and what people do and how people behaved in the new world. And you know, a lot of times we think about well, what did the Aztecs, what did these other people do? A lot of those people died off long before you know we came around. So, so to have this account is really significant, uh, because it tells about the people. And the other thing is in his in his accounting of the people, you see, as he goes on, he becomes attached to these people. He becomes part of them. And of course, at the very end, you know, um, he's rescued by other Spaniards who are basically slave hunters. They're out there trying to round up, you know, people to enslave them and bring them back. And um and they were get they captured him and they thought he was indigenous. Um, you know, this is kind of this the heart of darkness, that Joseph Conrad Heart of Darkness, or um what was the name of that Vietnam movie with Marlon Brown. Apocalypse now. Apocalypse now, right? Where where he becomes so embedded with the people that he one of the purposes is he's trying to show that these people are human beings. Let's not enslave them.

SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely. That's and that's one of the you know, one of the most telling things, I think, is as, you know, I don't think we think about when the Spanish in the New World, and anybody else that came in the New World, we don't think about this long time that it takes for them. And we just kind of like, okay, you know, Cortez lands in Mexico, he conquers the Aztecs, and the Spanish start building missions and presidios, and they proceed up and they conquer and take over the whole thing, and it's just like, you know, all these Spanish. No, that's things that happened over the span of hundreds of years. Hundreds of years in moving it up and things, and all the time this is happening, there are other forces working to make them think about the the the indigenous people who live in this area and how they look towards them. And I don't know that we've given enough credit to Da Vaca and his journey on the uh you know on the Norteno Frontera about, hey, when he gets back to Mexico City and he begins telling the Bijanists, look, these people have souls. These people are, you know, they're actually people who have some sort of a spiritual sense, and they deserve, you know, to be treated as such. And I think that does begin to filter into Spanish society and starts framing how the when the missions are built and things. I mean, the Spanish do definitely begin to change from an ex almost an extermination party, uh uh extermination policy to I'm not gonna say completely assimilation policy, but at least some sort of accommodation for indigenous people and and how they are and how they live their life. I think debacle and his account in these uh uh uh in La Vene Sion it actually has something to do with that.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, let's let's um uh let's cover some basics for for people who um who may be like, well, what are these guys talking about? Uh and I know people ask that about us a lot of times. Obstantly. But let's talk a little bit about this. So 1530s. Um, you know, we start talking about exploration, the age of exploration, uh, the late uh 1400s, uh, you've got Columbus, right? Columbus really inaugurates this period of exploration uh for Europe, for the Spanish, especially. Uh, and he wants to see if he can get to Asia by way of the Atlantic. And there's a lot of legends, there's a lot of stories, a lot of mythology that that goes into this in sailing across the sea. Now, one of you know, and people say, well, uh nobody knew that the world was round. No, that is not true. Everybody knew the world, I mean, the Greeks, the ancient Greeks, several thousand years earlier, knew the world was round. They just didn't know how big it was. And so they didn't know there was another continent in the way. So by the 1500s, you've got Henry the Navigator in Portugal, who's uh, you know, got this, uh gathered all the great minds of Europe and the Muslim world together to design new ships. And by the late 1400s, they have an ocean-worthy sailing capacity. Columbus takes advantage of this. Magellan goes the other direction. He wants to go around Africa. Columbus goes across the Atlantic. And when he runs into this land, there's some debate over whether or not he knew he was in the right place or not, but he calls this the Indies, right? The he thinks he's in India and he or he wants people to believe he made it to India. Well, I think that may be closer to and so he calls these the indies and he discovers there's people living. That was a big, a big shock to a lot of the European mind because they didn't know, hey, this is a new, you know, where did where do these people come from? And um, you know, i even if you look at at William Shakespeare, Shakespeare wrote a book, uh, wrote a play on the new world, right? It's Caliban, uh, which was a kind of a takeoff of of um cannibal, right? So Shakespeare in the 1600s is writing about this new world and these wild people that nobody knew about before and what they were doing. And so it it struck the whole European world as being new. Now, um, and certainly, you know, we were talking about earlier uh enslavement of people. They were certainly doing that. This I mean, look, Europe, Europe had been at war for hundreds of years. They had been, you know, they had been fighting against the Muslims, they had been fighting against the Vikings for at least 400 years by the by the 1400s, right? So uh, well, you know, you go back to the 700s, the uh Muslim invasions of Iberia. So they had been at war, and so now you've got all these soldiers that are kind of calmed everything down a little bit. Let's send these soldiers to explore this new territory. So, yes, there's militarism, yes, there's attacks, yes, there's uh brutal attacks in some of these villages. In 1536, an interesting thing happens. First of all, the Catholic Church, the Pope, issues a statement, uh, a papal bull called Sublimus Deo, the Sublime God. And it says these people in the New World are human beings. The Pope has to tell people this. They're human beings, right? You if they become Christians, you cannot enslave them. Because in the Catholic Church's teachings, uh Christians. Could not enslave other Christians. And so if these people convert, they can't be enslaved. They have to be welcomed in. Around the same time, 1536, in Mexico, what's what they call Mexico City, the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, a indigenous convert to Catholicism says, This woman has been appearing to me. And the local bishop said, you know, yeah, you're right. And this is the story behind the uh apparition of the Lady of Guadalupe, uh, Virgin of Guadalupe, which today it still exists today, right? One of the most venerated spots in America, in the Americas, is going down to Mexico City to see the basilica of the Lady of Guadalupe, right? People do it all the time. So what did that do, right? That so a lot you have a lot of converts. So many people are joining the church from church history. It's interesting, because this is the same time as the Protestant Reformation. Millions of Europeans are leaving the church. In the New World, many indigenous people are joining the church. So this is what's going on in the 1530s. And then we get this story from Cavesa De Vaca.

SPEAKER_01:

Devaca shows up and says, Hey, you know, I found all these other people up here. And he starts telling these stories. And I think it's interesting in that when he starts telling his story, I think it's very easy to see for the Spaniards to not. I mean, you think about it, I mean he probably shows back up very close to the same time that papal bull had been been issued. And of course, but these are all indigenous people who've had no contact whatsoever with Christianity or Europeans. And then when he starts telling the stories, I think that it's easier for the Spaniard to actually in in in New Spain, you know what? These are human beings. They do have a soul, they do have a sense of convergence, and there's probably even some convergence there. I think about the story that he tells of the ritual with the dead, and uh that they do on the anniversary of when somebody has died, where they, you know, they grind the, you know, they they they they burn the bodies, they keep the ash where they adorn themselves with it, but they also grind the bones to a powder, which they then mix with water and drink. Uh and I don't know, Gene. Sounds like a sacrament to me.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh and well, you know, and that's the thing. Um, you know, what Cavesa de Vaca does in this account is he's talking about, like you're saying, these rituals and these stories and these their culture. He's putting a face on these people, right? He's putting a face on them, and he's telling Europeans, he's telling the Spanish and the king, look, they have a religion. They're not irreligious people. Now, we don't agree with their religion, and we, you know, we but but they already have a basis. And so we talk about what were the Spanish after, right? Gold, glory, and God, that they were looking for gold, right? They they wanted to get rich off of this endeavor. Uh, they certainly wanted glory. Um, but also they had this obligation. We were talking about earlier, they were people of faith. They had this obligation that they needed to do things for God. And so if these people already have a religious aptitude, then maybe if we teach them quote unquote the right way, our way, they can be redeemed and we'll be doing something good. But let's let's talk about uh, you know, this is this is an interesting point. Um before the show, we were talking a little bit about this whole idea of glory. And in the European mind, right, it it you needed something because in in some of these big families, some of these upper class families, if you weren't the firstborn, there wasn't anything much for you in your future.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I mean, it's it when you think about those who come to the new world, it's always been a fascinating part of me. And I think DeVaca could be one of those when you talk about that. They go on these expeditions and coming. I mean, they're leaving everything in Europe behind. They're coming to New World. They know they're, you know, may not ever come back. Right. But we think about who's coming here. If you're an established, if you're the firstborn of a prominent family in Spain, you're not gonna come to the New World. There's no reason for you to, because you have everything in your future for you there in Spain. You're gonna inherit, you're going to have title, whatever. But it's those who come after, and also the also the children of the common people in Spain. The New World represented opportunity, a place where you could come and actually make a name for yourself, have an opportunity you would never have in Europe. And I believe we forget that when we think of the people who are coming, and we think of certain, come on, there's imperialism, there's conquest, there's all of that involved. But that's what's being made at the top of the political ladder. That's that's those decisions. I'm talking about the men who came. For them, this was an opportunity for them to have things that they would not have in Europe. And you know, what we were saying at the top of the show, this could be the genesis of the American dream, if you want to call it that. Uh, I don't really like exceptionalism, but this could be the part of this whole idea to remake yourself, then they do. And so when they come, they're looking at those opportunities uh to come. And part of that may be that they know they have to interact with the natives and that they have to uh uh, you know, I guess assimilate them into somewhat of the society. It makes for a completely different culture, is what it does.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I I think that is that is true. And and and certainly, I mean, history is rife uh in the age of exploration of mistreatment and prejudice and uh enslavement of people. And I don't want to downplay any of those, and I'm certainly not, but this idea that, you know, as you're saying, you know, we talk about push-pull factors, right, in immigration is what pushes people to migrate, what pulls them to a specific location. If you have things going your way and you've got a settled lifestyle, why in the world are you going to risk your life and everything to travel thousands of miles away for six months to a year back in those days to get across the ocean to endure all sorts of hardship if you've got it made already? These were people who were looking to make something. And whether, I mean, I'm not saying that they were saints, not all of them. Uh, many were sinners and many did some bad things, yes. But I I think this idea of what we uh like you were saying, the American dream, um, maybe, maybe it does start there. I think that's something worth thinking about. Um, you know, and and again, you know, neither one of us would would would paste over or paper over the tragedies that occurred.

SPEAKER_01:

But absolutely not.

SPEAKER_00:

But but let's look at the motivations and what they hoped. You know, why is it why do people want to endure hardships because they want to build a better life? Maybe not tomorrow, but certainly in the foreseeable future, and even if not for yourself, for your children.

SPEAKER_01:

Exactly. And that's you know, and those are the motivating things. You know, and there's all other kinds of currents when you read these documents stuff. And I think we should spend the last part we have here because we'd be remiss if we're overlooking it. Looking at the unique role of women in both Spanish and indigenous societies, and it's something that's very different. I mean, if you want to compare the Spanish-French Catholic society to English Protestant society, there's big differences in this, and one of those is the role of women. That women in uh Spanish and French Catholicism have a role. They are given a role in that, that are not given in Protestantism. They're not given this. And also, as Devaca actually uh chronicles, women in indigenous societies in his uh in his tribals are also given a very prominent role in those societies. And there are the intercepts of that. You talk about the uh the vision of the uh of Guadalupe uh and the Virgin uh in that vision in uh deep into New Spain, there's the role of the lady in blue that appears to the to the to the natives uh on the northern frontier that happens. And that would have been a natural thing for them, and that a woman is someone who's coming to be let's call it the bridge between societies, as she was, as as we both were talking about again for uh Juliana Barr has written a whole lot about how women were that kind of connection in that the women were not seen as an oppressor, they weren't seen as a conqueror, they were a symbol of peace, they were a symbol of cooperation between the two groups. And that's one thing that began to resonate throughout New Spain to give that uh do. I think so. The role of women in this are very it's very large in this, and I think we sometimes forget that when we look at these.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think I think there is so much to digest. I I, you know, and I I look, we're you and I are both 20th century historians. Uh, but when even looking at these early documents from from 500 years ago, we can see kind of the threads and some some similarities, and we can understand um to an extent of what they must have been thinking. I mean, putting ourselves in their in their moccasins, right? Their sandals, their their their shoes. Um and that's one of the beautiful things I think about what we do as historians is trying to understand the past, even though it was a long time ago and people were different, culture was different, but we can still see the humanity in it today.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, that's what we do, right? That's why it is a humanity, it's not a social science, because we looked at the humanity. You know, when you go back to the document and you look at uh Davaca's travels, and when they do this, think about how the religious, the spirit, what's called the spiritual aspects overlapped each other when they're doing this. Davaca, amongst many of the the indigenous people, which uh, given the time and stuff, probably amongst the Covel Tecans that he visited, and that he came in and they were a poor people, and they got the idea that he could cure illnesses, uh, for example. And of course, for Devaka, he was simply following uh you know the ritual of Catholicism, making the sign of the cross and praying over people who were ill and praying for intercession uh from God uh to make a but they did get better quite often, and this opened up, but but also that meant that you could take two very widely divided, desperate religions and find common ground, just like with the women that they did.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think it's that that finding of common ground that uh we sometimes ignore. And you know, well, you know, to be honest with you, we're we're politics, we were politically trained historians, right? We look at what leaders and governments and and and they do. That's just that was our training at Texas Tech. However, one of the things uh that I've been doing more work on is on culture, uh looking at the history of religion, which was something we never did, uh except, you know, I do um education, so there was a lot of that in the 1830s and the second great awakening. And that's kind of what introduced me to looking at that aspect. And it's it's a big world out there in the history of religion, the history of culture.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it really is. Uh, and that's when these things happen. So I think when you read, and we're we go back to our concept on trying to discern and interpret the past and have a narrative of the past based on primary documents, when you read La Relacion by uh Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, you start to get this picture. I mean, I always think when you read these things, and you know it's good when you start thinking, okay, let me picture this. Here's De Vaca. I mean, essentially, some of the time by himself, one time with one other Spaniard, he's making this trek all the way across Texas and northern Mexico to try to find his way back to the to uh Spanish settlements deep into Mexico and New Spain, and he comes across all these different people. But when you read this, it almost had this picture in your mind, okay, what was the vaca like? What was going on with him? And of course he had to start taking on many of the cultural affectations of the natives in order to survive. And that gave him a much, much more clear actual picture of the natives. And when he goes to write about them, you see, hey, he's again, we'll go back in full circle. He's recognizing their humanity, and he's able to relate that back to the people and probably made a difference in how the Spanish approached it. If you go afterwards, yes, okay, look, they never get away from the concept of conquest, all right? Because that's the Spanish concept. That's what they learn from you know the long reconquista against the Muslims on the Iberian Peninsula, that we conquest territory. And so it never goes away. And when Coronado comes, we know that he treated indigenous people very poorly. But later, when the movement up is placed more in the hands of the clerical parts of New Spain, and the missions become actually the center part of that sort of settlement, some of that is tempered. And as we start on this concept of conversion, and if you read about the concepts, uh you mentioned Castaneda earlier, if you read upon Castaneda and if you figure out, you know, the Spanish began to make accommodation. They began to actually, you know, understand the indigenous culture, and that becomes part of their conversion. They weren't that that successful at conversion in what we would come to call Texas, but they did introduce at least some idea that this is not all conquest, and this is not all complete domination, if you will. There has to be some sort of accommodation with native cultures. And I think Cabeza de Baca is part of that.

SPEAKER_00:

And he is So you're saying you're saying that the Spanish weren't just converters, but they also were converted themselves.

SPEAKER_01:

Just say, yeah, I guess so. That's exactly right. They actually converted in some ideas like that. And that's the thing, and I think that's the point we would try to make as we're going to look at these things as we go on, is that historians look at these sorts of episodes, and we can, you know, take from it and make our interpretation and make a narrative that is gives us nuance, gives it texture that is somewhat of a big mosaic uh of the past. And that's what we do for a living, and that's what we're trying to do, I guess, with these casts and the classes you'll be teaching there at Lone Star College.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, next episode, we're gonna get in something probably gonna get us in trouble because this is there is nothing more Texan than talking about the next document. And we're gonna be looking at do we want to tell them or do you want to Yeah, let's do it.

SPEAKER_01:

So, you know, that's not you know, leaving the cliffhanger for the next thing to do. Yeah, we're gonna be looking at Travis's letter from the Alamo and looking at it from how we see it today and how even term today, and how Travis probably intended it at the time he sent it out, and how that would have affected the people at the time. So there'll be some people who will like it, there'll be some people who won't.

SPEAKER_00:

But get ready to get mad. Uh, I'm glad we've got all of our uh social media closed up. Do we have social media? I don't know.

SPEAKER_01:

No. Well, well, we do. We don't we don't update it as much as we should.

SPEAKER_00:

All right. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you again in a few weeks. Thanks.

SPEAKER_01:

We'll be back on a more regular schedule, people.

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Gene Preuss

Co-host
Head Shot

Scott Sosebee

Co-host