The runaway Scrape: a pivotal event in the Texas Revolutionary adventure
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Date
2013-02-22
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Texas A&M University
Abstract
In accord with the constantly emerging study of women's history, the research and focus of this thesis centers on the contribution of pioneer women to nineteenth-century United States continental expansion and their role in defining a nation. Hardships, increased responsibilities, and shifting gender roles posed a significant challenge to women as they participated in migration West and South. Trials, triumphs, and tragedies overcome in pursuit of frontier settlement redefined, and reinforced, the social, cultural and territorial boundaries of America. This thesis does not attempt to reconcile ongoing debates regarding the justice of continental expansion, nor does it seek to completely discredit the passionately embraced, though controversial, heroes of nineteenth-century America. Instead, this paper attempts to juxtapose the female frontier experience and the development of the modern United States territorial and social map. With particular focus on the Runaway Scrape (April, 1836) of the Texas Revolution, this thesis investigates the contribution of Texas women, children, and elderly to the growth of a nation and its institutions. The research, namely personal correspondence, journal entries, newspaper accounts, military records, and scholarly secondary sources, shifts attention away from historically male dominated pioneer studies and focuses on the pioneer experience as a family affair. Though this paper does not refute the role of the male in accomplishing his goals of Manifest Destiny, it does provide ample evidence of a prominent role for women in determining the social, cultural, and geographical criterion of Texas and the United States. This paper draws attention to specific events of the Texas Revolution that provide evidence of the struggle of pioneer women to the liberation and development of Texas. Their allegiance to Texas and the men who fought for its independence, along with their inadvertent actions, bought valuable time for reconnaissance efforts and provided the foundation for the outcome of the revolution and the communities of the generations that followed. Through the lives of eleven-year-old Dilue Rose Harris, the scrappy Noah Smithwick, and many previously unfamiliar pioneer women, the story of Texas independence and continental expansion comes to life through the Runaway Scrape of the Texas Revolution.
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Includes bibliographical references (leaves 53-57).
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 53-57).
Keywords
history and political science., Major history and political science.