Chapter Two: Too Far from Heaven, Too Close to America

Americans yearn for freedom, but refuse to grant it to black slaves.

The Mexican Herald, Mexico's largest newspaper, dedicated an entire issue to reporting the atrocities committed by American immigrants, fiercely condemning the heinous acts perpetrated against the slaves, and calling upon all people of conscience and faith to unite in the fight against the evil slaveholders.

[They treat human beings like beasts! Stripping away human freedom, they force those wretched souls to perform unpaid labor. Those pitiful people are beaten with clubs, lashed with whips, and forced to wear handcuffs and foot shackles, living lives worse than dogs and pigs.

Even after enduring such agony and torment, the slaveholders still refuse to spare them, tearing families apart, scattering loved ones to the ends of the earth, knocking out their teeth, and branding their bodies with the humiliating, inhuman marks of ownership.

They use starvation and torture to break the wills of these wretched souls.

This is wrong! This is evil! This is shameless!

Must I spell everything out?

No! There is no need whatsoever!

Our time and energy should be spent on matters of greater worth.

As things stand, those slaveholders have already taken up arms, poised at any moment to turn our free Mexico and the entire civilized world into their slave plantation.

We can no longer harbor hopes of softening them with mercy; instead, we must take up our swords to defend our homeland, shatter the chains of slavery, and cast those fetters once and for all into the furnace of the ages so they may never again plague our descendants.

God is with us!]

This newspaper caused a tremendous stir throughout Mexico. Not only within Mexico, but through deliberate dissemination, newspapers in Europe and the United States also reprinted the article.

Now the entire Western world knew that a group of Americans intended to re-establish slavery in a nation that had already signed an abolition decree.

How shameless, how barbaric! Even within the United States, opinions were divided into two factions, yet both conceded that those attempting to resurrect slavery in a country where it had been abolished were evil forces.

For a time, Mexico held the moral high ground in public opinion, and domestic factions achieved unprecedented unity. With Catholicism serving as the cohesive bond, everyone intended to send these damned Protestants and slavers packing back to where they came from.

However, an advantage in public opinion alone could not bring about true victory.

On September 27, 1835, Gonzales fell without the Mexican army firing a single shot.

On October 21, 1835, Goliad fell, and the entire Mexican garrison was wiped out.

On October 2, 1835, San Antonio was besieged.

On December 9, 1835, San Antonio fell.

On December 30, 1835, the entirety of Texas fell.

Goliad was the most crucial water and land transportation hub; whoever seized it would control San Antonio.

At that time, San Antonio was the capital of Texas, as well as its most vital agricultural base and economic center.

Therefore, Antonio López de Santa Anna targeted Goliad for his first strike.

On February 23, 1836, Santa Anna marched toward Goliad at the head of an army of 8,000 men, equipped with 20,000 rifles and 30 artillery pieces.

Santa Anna loved the feeling of being hailed as a hero. To cater to this vanity, Franz had specially prepared an Emancipation Proclamation tailored for him.

Every time Santa Anna conquered a town, he would gather the local black slaves to listen to his speeches, which caused his march to be slow and punctuated by frequent halts.

Constantly, black slaves requested to join Santa Anna's army. With plenty of rifles on hand, Santa Anna quickly organized three black rifle companies.

At the same time, following Franz's instructions to unite all forces that could be united, Santa Anna sent emissaries to contact the nearby Indian tribes.

Santa Anna promised that as long as the Indians aided Mexico and obeyed Mexican laws, they would be treated as Mexicans and would face no discrimination.

In truth, American pioneers had made the exact same speeches and similar promises to them in the past, but the Indians had been deceived by white men far too many times; they demanded tangible proof of Santa Anna's sincerity.

Santa Anna directly ordered his soldiers to distribute rifles to them, but issued only five rounds of ammunition per rifle, establishing an agreement that as long as the Indians honored the alliance and helped Mexico attack the Americans, they would receive a fresh supply of bullets every week.

This immediately endeared the Mexican people to the Indian chieftains. Naturally, expecting them to fight to the death against the Americans was out of the question, but they were quite willing to provide intelligence and harass American supply lines.

And this was precisely the effect Franz desired. In truth, maintaining Indian neutrality was already a victory for the Mexican expeditionary force.

If the Indians could help gather intelligence, raid American pioneer supply lines, and hunt down straggling deserters, it would be nothing short of perfection.

Meanwhile, in another theater of operations...

Sam Houston, the American plantation speculator, currently serving as the Commander-in-Chief of Texas and the future first president of the Lone Star Republic, faced a difficult situation. Because the pioneers were divided into several factions and his own troops were stationed too far from San Antonio, Houston wished to avoid pointless sacrifices and decided to abandon San Antonio. He ordered the garrison at San Antonio to withdraw from Goliad and fall back into the countryside, awaiting the arrival of the main Texan force.

In truth, long before Houston's orders arrived, many militiamen and temporarily enlisted soldiers had already deserted the fortress under various pretexts.

The most common excuse was the need to go home and harvest wheat. Since they were all farmers, going home for the wheat harvest seemed completely reasonable, right?

Yet, winter wheat was what they grew in Texas—typically planted from mid-to-late September to early October, and harvested from late May to mid-to-late June of the following year. Furthermore, it was currently February, and given the plantation economy of the region, all such labor was performed by black slaves...

Only Colonel William Travis and his 150 men remained, yet he stubbornly resolved to defy Houston's orders.

William Travis understood how vital Goliad and San Antonio were to the entire fledgling nation of Texas.

Once San Antonio fell into Mexican hands, it would provide a ceaseless flow of supplies to Santa Anna and his Mexican legions.

In William Travis's eyes, the military strength of Texas was woefully inadequate. The regular army numbered fewer than 2,000, and even counting volunteer reinforcements rushing in from the United States, the total would not exceed 3,500.

In contrast, Santa Anna's expeditionary force boasted 8,000 men, backed by local Mexican armed loyalists, alongside those damned black slaves, Indians, and traitors who were continually swelling Santa Anna's ranks.

William Travis pinned his ultimate hopes on the United States, praying that America would intervene directly in the war. For this reason, he could not afford to lose San Antonio under any circumstances.

To hold Goliad, William Travis began dispatching letters seeking reinforcements from every direction; he needed more soldiers and more weaponry.

However, the Texan leadership was likewise fractured into multiple factions, the heads of which were predominantly leaders of colonization associations. Because these groups had long been locked in fierce competition, the majority chose to turn a blind eye to William Travis's desperate pleas for help.