On Juneteenth

Stephen F. Austin (1793-1836) is known as the “Father of Texas,” given that he led the colonization of the region with 300 Anglo-American families and the enslaved people they owned. Born in Virginia and raised in Missouri, Austin received an empresario grant from the newly independent Mexico. As Gordon-Reed explains in Chapter 1, the antislavery Mexican government welcomed Anglo-American settlers to develop the area, but Austin’s vision was to re-create the cotton plantations of Mississippi. Although exceptions were made for Austin’s settler colonialists, the Mexican government did not cease pushing for the abolition of slavery, prompting the Anglo-American settlers to rebel. Austin led forces in the Texas Revolution, and after this revolution established the new Texas Republic, he was appointed Secretary of State and Commissioner to the United States. There are numerous places and institutions in Texas named after Austin, and Gordon-Reed uses his story to illustrate the centrality of slavery to Texas’s history.

Joe Winters was a Black man burned alive in 1922 in Conroe, Texas as a public spectacle after a teenage girl accused him of rape. Bob White was accused in 1836 of a raping a white woman in Livingston, Texas. Found guilty and sentenced to the electric chair, he appealed to the Supreme Court. During the retrial in Conroe in 1941, the woman’s husband came into the courtroom and murdered White. The husband was acquitted of White’s murder after two minutes of jury deliberation. Gregory Steele was an 18-year-old Black student, who was murdered by a policeman in 1973 after being arrested for a school fight. Steele was in a secret relationship with a white girl, whose father was friends with the police officer who murdered Steele and was ultimately acquitted. Winters, White, and Steele are important figures in Chapter 2 because they illustrate white people’s extra-legal violent response to efforts at Black advancement and equality, which is ultimately perceived as a loss of white power. Furthermore, they bring in the important element of patriarchy and its interaction with white supremacist ideology. As Gordon-Reed points out, patriarchy is not simply about the subjugation of women, but in the context of white supremacy, it is also about access to women as a sign of power. Therefore, Black men’s access to white women is perceived as a threat. For each of these men, the nature of their relationship with these white women is in question. What is implied is that the relationships were consensual, but because of the combined pressures of white supremacy and patriarchy, the women were either coerced into claiming that they had been raped, or it was perceived as rape by white men because white women’s agency must be denied.

Sojourner Truth (1797-1883) was an abolitionist and women’s rights advocate. She was born into slavery as Isabella Baumfree in Dutch New York, and after escaping in 1825, an abolitionist family bought her freedom. She began working for a minister before going on to become an itinerant preacher herself. Meeting abolitionists and women’s rights advocates on her preaching tour, she delivered sermons about the evils of slavery, including the famous “Ain’t I A Woman?” speech at a women’s rights conference in Akron, Ohio. In Chapter 3, Gordon-Reed discusses Truth and the “Ain’t I A Woman?” speech. Gordon-Reed notes that although Truth “almost certainly spoke English with a Dutch-inflected accent” (64), written reproductions of the speech used “the stereotypical dialect universally chosen to portray the speech of enslaved Blacks” (64). This exemplifies Gordon-Reed’s point that language, specifically the idea that African Americans naturally speak in that particular way and lack the ability to learn languages and engage in complex communication, has been used to connote Black people’s perceived inherent incapacity. Reproducing Truth’s speech in the stereotypical Black Southern dialect ignores the actual complexities of Truth’s life and the fact that Dutch was her first language and would have influenced the inflection of Truth’s speech. 

Sally Hemings (1773-1835) was an enslaved woman with a diverse racial background who was owned by Thomas Jefferson. Having traveled with Jefferson to France where slavery was illegal, Hemings worked as a paid servant and learned to speak French. She also gave birth to six of Jefferson’s children as they had intimate relations over the years. The Jefferson-Hemings debate, specifically the dispute over whether Jefferson fathered Hemings’ children, has been a topic among historians over the years. Gordon-Reed herself has been integral in bringing to light historical evidence to suggest that Jefferson and Hemings did indeed have children together, and she discusses the topic extensively in her book Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy. Hemings is a key figure in On Juneteenth as well because Gordon-Reed discusses Hemings, her brother, and her children in Chapter 3, regarding language acquisition and complex communication and the varied experiences of enslaved Black people outside of the typical plantation image. For Gordon-Reed, the story of Hemings and her family refute the idea of Black people’s inherent incapacity for language acquisition and complex communication, as Hemings herself spoke French, and some of her children left Monticello to live as white people. They also refute the idea of Black people’s experiences being limited to plantation life.

Estebanico (c. 1500-1539) was the first African to explore North America. Originally named Mustafa Azemmouri, he was enslaved in 1522 by the Portuguese and sold to Spain. He came to the Americas on an expedition to Florida, which eventually led him across Texas along with Cabeza de Vaca. In On Juneteenth, Estebanico serves as an example to refute limiting conceptions of Blackness imposed by dominant Anglo-American historical narratives. In Chapter 3, Gordon-Reed makes the point that the dominant Anglo-American narrative has emphasized “agreed-upon fictions” (67) about Black people’s incapacity by exaggerating a stereotypical dialect. This exaggeration denies Black people their human complexity, a part of which is the acquisition of language. Estebanico serves as a counterpoint to this dominant narrative because he was so gifted at language that he served as chief translator between the Spanish and the Indigenous as he and Cabeza de Vaca’s camp traveled from Florida to the Pacific. Having learned about Estebanico in school would have presented a more rounded narrative of Africans in North America, a narrative that would have been attentive to the full humanity and complexity of Black people.

Quanah Parker (c. 1845-1911) was a Comanche chief known as the “Last Chief of the Comanche,” because after his death the leadership title was “Chairman.” Parker is an important figure in Chapter 4 where Gordon-Reed discusses Indigenous people and the manufactured illusions created by the dominant Anglo-American narrative that Indigenous people belong only to Texas’s past, and Anglo-American conquest of the area involved bilateral cooperation and intermixture between Anglo-Americans and Indigenous peoples. Parker’s father was Peter Nocona, a Comanche Chief, and his mother was Cynthia Ann Parker, a white woman who was kidnapped by the Comanche as a child and assimilated into their way of life. As the story is taught in Texas history classes, it promotes the idea of cooperation and intermixture while obscuring its patriarchal underpinnings and power dynamics. Quanah Parker also remains an important figure in Texas and American history because the federal government appointed him as Chief of the entire Comanche Nation and as emissary of Southwest Indigenous Americans to the US legislature.

Jim Bowie (c. 1796-1836) is revered as a legendary and heroic figure in Texas and American history because he was one of the Americans to die at the Battle of the Alamo during the Texas Revolution. A pioneer, slave smuggler and trader, and soldier, he figures prominently in Chapter 5 where Gordon-Reed discusses the role origin stories and myths play in giving people a sense of themselves and community in the present. While Bowie is presented as a heroic figure and indicative of the image of “Texan” that white Texans would like to have for themselves, the centrality of slavery to his life is not discussed as often. As Gordon-Reed explains, Bowie inherited enslaved people from his father and made a living as a slave trader. He profited from enslaved people laboring on a plantation he bought and then sold before moving to Texas (103). The idea that enslaved people, some of them belonging to Bowie, were present at the Battle of the Alamo challenges the way Black people have been written out of Texas history, even though they are central to the development of the region, the republic, and the state.

William Barret Travis (1809-1836) was a lieutenant colonel in the Texas Army, commander of the Republic of Texas, and among the Americans to die at the Battle of the Alamo during the Texas Revolution. Like Bowie, he is revered as a Texas and American hero for his role in the Texas Revolution. Also, like Bowie, he figures in Chapter 5 where Gordon-Reed acknowledges these powerful white men’s involvement in slavery implies that not only were enslaved people present at the Alamo, but also that Black people are central to the Texas and American story, despite narratives that have obscured their presence and centrality. To acknowledge a more rounded picture of Black people, as well as all people of color’s involvement in Texas history, would stand at odds to the legendary and heroic narratives that white Texans have sought to preserve and present as the only true history.

Emily West (c. 1815-1891), also known as Emily Morgan, was a free woman of color with a diverse racial background. She worked as an indentured servant for a year at Morgan’s Point, Texas before she and other residents were kidnapped by the Mexican cavalry during the Texas Revolution. The cavalry was led by General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, who was defeated swiftly by Sam Houston’s men at San Jacinto. Emily West is considered a folk heroine in Texas Revolution lore because legend has it that Santa Anna’s defeat was so easy because he was preoccupied with West during a sexual liaison when Houston and his men arrived. Gordon-Reed discusses West in Chapter 5, noting her story is believed to be the inspiration behind the song “The Yellow Rose of Texas.” Gordon-Reed also points out that West’s story is not one she learned in Texas history classes, partly because of the sexual and interracial aspects of the story, but also because bringing people of color into the Texas narrative would complicate the myths and legends that depict white Texan revolutionaries as heroic and infallible as well as the idea of the Texas Republic being a whites-only settlement.

Sam Houston (1793-1963) was an American general and politician. He settled in Texas in 1832 and served as a top-ranking official in the Texan Army. He was the 1st and 3rd president of the Texas Republic and represented Texas in the US Senate. He is a key figure in On Juneteenth because he led the Battle at San Jacinto, which helped secure Texas’s independence from Mexico during the Texas Revolution. In Chapter 5, Gordon-Reed discusses him in relation to Emily West, given that one version of the West story is Houston himself commissioned West as a spy to “charm the president of Mexico and top general of the Mexican army on behalf of the Texian revolt” (112). For Gordon-Reed, this historical narrative/myth must be considered in terms of the purpose it serves—not only to bolster the idea of Houston’s military prowess and heroism, but also to reinforce stereotypes about women of color as naturally licentious.

William A. Dunning (1857-1922) was an American historian and political scientist at Columbia University, known for his work on the Reconstruction Era. Having an extensive academic career that involved the publication of his Ph.D. dissertation, numerous scholarly articles, and book reviews, as well as the direction of much graduate work in US History and European political thought, Dunning was influential in promoting a particular interpretation of Reconstruction that was white supremacist and sympathetic to white Southerners. In the Dunning School interpretation, white Southerners are seen as having their rights stripped after 1865 by white people from the North and by Black freedmen, so they were correct in responding to Reconstruction efforts by trying to restore antebellum social and political order. Gordon-Reed discusses Dunning and his interpretation of Reconstruction in Chapter 6, noting that many historical narratives about Reconstruction adhere to his non-neutral interpretation. Therefore, the Dunning School represents the kind of biased history that does not account for the experiences of Black people and presents white people’s interpretations as neutral and factual.

Oliver Howard (1830-1909) was a US Army officer and Union general during the Civil War. After the Civil War, he was placed in charge of the Freedmen’s Bureau as well as labor policy and legal affairs for formerly enslaved people. He was stationed in Galveston, Texas. Gordon-Reed discusses Howard in Chapter 6, noting that he “found Texas the most difficult of all the regions under the Bureau’s jurisdiction, its White citizens the most resistant to efforts to effect changes in the position of Blacks in the state” (130). Howard, then, exemplifies Reconstruction efforts to fulfill the promise of Black equality and citizenship, hampered by the adherence of white Southerners, in this case particularly white Texans, to their belief in Black inferiority and subjugation. The story of Howard, the Freedmen’s Bureau, and Reconstruction successes, although in the face of Reconstruction’s ultimate failure, counter the white supremacist narrative and interpretation put forth by Dunning and his successors.

George Ruby (1841-1882) was a prominent Black Republican and educator in Reconstruction Era Texas. He moved to Galveston, Texas in 1866 as an agent of the Freedmen’s Bureau. He organized the new Republican Party there (which bolstered Black support for the Party), was elected to the State Constitutional Convention, served in the Texas Senate, and served as delegate to Republican Party national conventions. He was also active in labor union efforts and founded the Texas Colored Labor Convention. Gordon-Reed discusses Ruby in Chapter 6 as an exemplary figure of the positivity for Black people that came out of Reconstruction Era efforts to situate Black people on an equal plane with their white counterparts. Like Howard, Ruby’s story counters the Dunning School interpretation that the idea of Black equality and citizenship was overreaching and radical.