Recollections of a Tejano Life: Antonio Menchaca in Texas History
2016; Duke University Press; Volume: 96; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1215/00182168-3423940
ISSN1527-1900
Autores Tópico(s)Cuban History and Society
ResumoTimothy Matovina and Jesús F. de la Teja offer this tantalizing volume about Antonio Menchaca, a military veteran from San Antonio, Texas, whose larger-than-life story moves beyond the Alamo. Menchaca originally dictated his recollections with the help of a transcriber around the mid-1870s, but only the first part from his youth on the northern frontier of New Spain through Mexican and Texas independence appeared in English by 1907 and again in 1937. Matovina and de la Teja surgically edit the whole manuscript and publish the second half continuing the Battle of San Jacinto through the Mexican-American War, suturing both parts with razor-like precision and placing it among other testimonios, or self-narratives, about conquest in the US-Mexican borderlands.Matovina and de la Teja acknowledge the many challenges of editing both the published and unpublished halves of Menchaca's manuscript, especially the thorny issue of the transcriber's influence. We do not know for certain who this transcriber was or even if Menchaca knew enough English near the end of his life to give his story without the need for translation from his native Spanish. Apparently, both the transcriber and the publisher of the first English version were local newspaper reporters for the San Antonio Express interested in relating to their audiences anything about the lives of early famous Texans. Menchaca fit their billing, as he not only provided gripping details about such important events as the Battle of Medina (1813) and the Texas Revolution (1835–1836) but also personally knew the great leaders from diverse groups in conflict with each other. Parenthetical notes make it appear that his transcriber invented facts such as Jim Bowie having left San Antonio in 1832 to search for the San Sabá silver mines when he encountered “his fiercest fighting with the Indians” (p. 61), reflecting perhaps reader interest in more recent California and Colorado gold rushes as well as Indian wars than just in an Alamo hero without any meaning or lessons for the present.Matovina and de la Teja also remain cautious about Menchaca's recollections that undercut Juan Seguín's role as the ranking Tejano by inserting Menchaca himself at the center of unfolding events. For example, Menchaca claims that he personally confronted Sam Houston about allowing Tejanos to engage Mexican troops directly at the Battle of San Jacinto and then conversed nonchalantly with Antonio López de Santa Anna after his capture as if there were no hostilities. The editors remark that there are no corroborating accounts that such talk even took place. The same doubt applies to Menchaca's purportedly close relations with famed Texas Ranger Jack Hays, who fought off General Adrián Woll's invasion of San Antonio in 1842, and with Chief Casimiro of the Comanches, whom Menchaca supposedly convinced not to burn down San Antonio because his hometown had always been good to Casimiro's people. Any embellishment or misstatement of facts is not the point, however, as Matovina and de la Teja place Menchaca's perspective within broader historiographical significance for “his portrayals of the Tejano legacy and the Tejano character” (p. 27), which include remembering their ancestors as the founders of San Antonio who maintained an internal balance amid vast changes and an unceasing endurance to survive. In this manner, Menchaca's reminiscences subtly challenge the new order under Anglo-American rule even while Tejanos appear as collaborators.What holds this splendid, concise volume together and makes it ultimately successful is the editors' painstakingly written introduction, which is as lengthy and bountiful as the edited and unedited parts of Menchaca's manuscript, making it useful for all audiences. Matovina and de la Teja firmly establish Recollections of a Tejano Life as a must read alongside Seguín's and José Antonio Navarro's memoirs, A Revolution Remembered and Defending Mexican Valor in Texas, respectively. Menchaca's recollections reveal not only Tejano contributions to Texas history prior to 1836 but also Tejano resiliency after the battles of the Alamo, Goliad, and San Jacinto in the collision of empires and nationalism.
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