Editor’s note: Brandon Seale, an energy executive as well as a published author and podcast producer, created his second podcast series, A New History of Old San Antonio, “to cover the history of San Antonio from its founding 300 years ago until the arrival of the railroad 150 or so years later,” he said.
He released the series earlier this year, and for the next seven weeks, the Rivard Report will host one episode every Saturday.
To listen to last week’s episode, click here.
Seale mispronounces the Spanish names: Santa Anna, San Antonio,
Bexar (Bear) and other anglicized pronunciations. And wasn’t Texas
part of Mexico and pronounced Tejas? And what gives him the authority
to be an expert on San Antonio history? Is he another Anglo passing himself off as a Mexican historian?
He also leaves out any reference to the Anglo settlers wanting to make
Tejas a slave state. While Mexico under Santa Anna had outlawed slavery.
Also Santa Anna was re-elected President three times. But we get nothing
but how awful he was and how wonderful the White Settlers were. Our heroes.
Please!
Why is the Rivard Report running this claptrap biased history?
Hi Elsa,
In general, we do pronounce Spanish names with Spanish pronunciations. With certain widely-known people (like Santa Anna) and place names (like San Saba, San Antonio, Bexar, Texas), however, we found the effect of insisting on the correct pronunciations jarring and that it distracted from the narrative.
Slavery IS an issue at this moment of Texas history. We have already discussed it in three episodes and will discuss it in at least three more. Yet ours is fundamentally a history of San Antonio, and slavery plays a different role in San Antonio history than it does in East Texas history, so we approach it differently in this series.
Further, the political events in Mexico of the 1820’s and 30’s (many of which were precipitated by Santa Anna) are more influential on San Antonians’ attitudes at this time than are any other issues. As a San Antonio-centric history, we have to analyze these events to understand why 80% of San Antonians (by one contemporary estimate) will support the Texas Revolution of 1835-6 and why a higher proportion of Tejanos than Anglos (according to historian Raul Ramos) will fight in that Revolution.
We’ve laid some of that framework already in the early episodes. Episode 13: Sons of Libertad is my favorite in that respect. Keep listening and see if we succeed in the later episodes.