Where do Austinites consider Austin to be regionally?

[inthecut]

Originally Posted by doctorjef

Again, in Texas the statues of Confederate heroes were put up a century ago. They don't have much relevance today. The Confederacy just isn't celebrated in Texas the way it is in every other state you would consider to be Southern. The question is: what region does Austin fall into? The question was in regard to Austin, not in regard to other areas of Texas. The legacy of the Old South has lost its sway everywhere in Texas other than the true areas of East Texas and Southeast Texas (the latter being mainly Jefferson and Orange Counties, including Beaumont, Port Arthur, Orange, Vidor, Port Neches and a few other little places).

You can also add that they are stuck in the 1860's, with the rest of the old south, as well.....to sum, Austin is hermetically sealed, AND still fighting
the WBTS........but has great live music, which makes up for the rest..

[ATX Homeboy]

Originally Posted by doctorjef

Again, in Texas the statues of Confederate heroes were put up a century ago. They don't have much relevance today. The Confederacy just isn't celebrated in Texas the way it is in every other state you would consider to be Southern. The question is: what region does Austin fall into? The question was in regard to Austin, not in regard to other areas of Texas. The legacy of the Old South has lost its sway everywhere in Texas other than the true areas of East Texas and Southeast Texas (the latter being mainly Jefferson and Orange Counties, including Beaumont, Port Arthur, Orange, Vidor, Port Neches and a few other little places).

You're right that we don't celebrate our southern heritage the same as other southern states. I have already said in this post that Austin is a more southwestern city than southern, but I won't totally reject the fact that Austin has been shaped by southern culture and history.

Fact is as someone pointed out earlier and including yourself, there are buildings, places, and monuments to the south in and around Austin. You just have to look for them. Like the Confederate Women's home in Hyde Park, there was also a confederate soldiers' elderly home located in south Austin. Further, there are several monuments to confederate soldiers and leaders at UT and the State Capitol. Someone mentioned Hays HS, but William B. Travis High in south Austin are the Rebels and James Bowie who has a school named for him was a slave holder. Finally, someone mentioned segregation and racism both of which occured in the north and south. More so in the south but just to point out the effects of them on education in Austin and Texas, the US Supreme Court in 1954 ruled separate but equal was unconstitutional. It wasn't until the Texas State Supreme Court ruled in 1972 and mandated the desegregation of all Texas public schools. This indicates to me that Southern culture still had a choke hold on politics, society, and education until the 70's. I mean that was 28 years before REAL change came. Another example would be Juneteenth. As a celebration of freedom, it is a sad historical side note that African-Americans in Texas didn't find out they were free until two years after their cousins in other southern states.

I think largely, Travis and Caldwell Counties did not vote for seccession but all of the surrounding counties did. That too is a fact that indicates many in Austin all the way back to the Civil War did not want to partake in it, and as I said earlier a new way of life/culture surrounding cattle and cowboys helped to separate Texas from the King Cotton Culture of Mississppi, Alabama, and Georgia.

[doctorjef]

By the time of the Civil War, German settlement of the Hill Country/Central Texas was already underway. German settlers in Fredericksberg did not support secession and were of suspect loyalty to the Confederate regime. I don't know what slaveholding in Travis County might have been, but as a general rule, large-scale slaveholding only existed in areas that were suitable for large scale farm agriculture. Certainly that would not have included the Hill Country, but might well have included the black land farming area of northeastern Travis County (around Pflugerville, for instance). You can contrast the historically small African-American population in Austin with what seems on casual observation to be the much higher percentage of African-Americans living in rural Bastrop County.

I assume the less labour intensive nature of ranching likewise lowered the incentive for slaveholding. My maternal ancestors came to North Texas, west of Ft Worth, before the Civil War with a single nuclear family held in slavery. They were ranchers who introduced some of the first Hereford cattle into the state. At least in Texas they never held more than this single small family in bondage and did not aquire more slaves. I should think that's because the occupation of cattle ranching didn't call for numerous slaves and one would imagine that the nature of relatively small-scale ranching (less than 1,000 acres in the original homestead) would have meant that male ranch-hands held in bondage and their owners would have had to work together more cooperatively and intimately than would have been the case on Southern agricultural plantations. Anyway, just some reflections on the nature of what we are discussing here as it applies to Texas historically.

BTW, the Emancipation Proclamation could only be enforced in areas that were already occupied by federal troops, so there were significant areas of the Confederacy where African-Americans held in bondage were not freed until the final collapse of the Confederate government. It just took federal troops a couple of months after Lee's surrender to land at Galveston. I would imagine there were lags in actual liberation elsewhere in the former Confederate States after the collapse of their central government and military.

[polo89]

Originally Posted by doctorjef

Segregation didn't exist only in the South! Again, I don't think the appeal to history is persuasive. Austin isn't the same place it was 50 years ago. Geographically, it has always been where it is: in a Southwestern semi-arid rugged hill country. Culturally I'm sure it has changed quite a lot since the 1950s. The influx of Hispanics and people from out of state has made a major difference. The zeitgeist generally has changed a lot, no doubt. There has always been something of a looking toward the West that has characterised the city. Indeed, President Lamar wanted the capital of the Republic to be on the Western frontier, and in the 1970s Austin was all about the cosmic cowboy thing and a glorification of the Western - not the Southern - identity of Texas. UT has a monument or two to Southern heroes, but UT isn't synonymous with Austin and the monument of Lee was planted there a long time ago. Further, by the late 1970s/early 80s, UT and Austin apparently thought so little of Civil War-related history that they basically tore down the old brick barracks that had housed the federal occupation troops and which when I was at UT were the home of the Extension School (correspondence courses). What was left of the barracks was made unrecognisable and turned into that funky looking visitors centre up on the south side of MLK, just west of I-35. Over in Hyde Park there's a former Confederate Widows home that is barely marked, has no monument, and which I bet almost no one knows about. There's no collective memory or memorialisation of the Confederacy and the Lost Cause in Austin. You may contrast that with any other city that really is geographically and culturally in the South.

Very good point.

[polo89]

Originally Posted by doctorjef

By the time of the Civil War, German settlement of the Hill Country/Central Texas was already underway. German settlers in Fredericksberg did not support secession and were of suspect loyalty to the Confederate regime. I don't know what slaveholding in Travis County might have been, but as a general rule, large-scale slaveholding only existed in areas that were suitable for large scale farm agriculture. Certainly that would not have included the Hill Country, but might well have included the black land farming area of northeastern Travis County (around Pflugerville, for instance). You can contrast the historically small African-American population in Austin with what seems on casual observation to be the much higher percentage of African-Americans living in rural Bastrop County.

I assume the less labour intensive nature of ranching likewise lowered the incentive for slaveholding. My maternal ancestors came to North Texas, west of Ft Worth, before the Civil War with a single nuclear family held in slavery. They were ranchers who introduced some of the first Hereford cattle into the state. At least in Texas they never held more than this single small family in bondage and did not aquire more slaves. I should think that's because the occupation of cattle ranching didn't call for numerous slaves and one would imagine that the nature of relatively small-scale ranching (less than 1,000 acres in the original homestead) would have meant that male ranch-hands held in bondage and their owners would have had to work together more cooperatively and intimately than would have been the case on Southern agricultural plantations. Anyway, just some reflections on the nature of what we are discussing here as it applies to Texas historically.

BTW, the Emancipation Proclamation could only be enforced in areas that were already occupied by federal troops, so there were significant areas of the Confederacy where African-Americans held in bondage were not freed until the final collapse of the Confederate government. It just took federal troops a couple of months after Lee's surrender to land at Galveston. I would imagine there were lags in actual liberation elsewhere in the former Confederate States after the collapse of their central government and military.

Exactly.