alt Hacker NewsThe Mexican government and especially Santa Anna were not even close to saints and were not primarily fighting the Texans for reasons of slavery. The Mexican empire carved out slavery as being explicitly allowed in the Mexican state that become known as Texas.
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criddell • today at 9:42 PM
Mexico was about to end that carve out. But slavery was only one of the causes (and you're right about Santa Anna).
The myth is that Bowie and Crockett battled until their last breathes. The truth is that Bowie was sick and died in bed. Crockett gave up and was executed.
That's all from the 2021 book Forget the Alamo.
This is no different than what happened in the Civil War.
Each side had a list of grievances. A big one on one side, was the preservation of slavery in perpetuity. The other side wanted to preserve the unity of the nation as a whole.
You are right that Mexico was not fighting to ban slavery. But it was clear that eliminating slaver was still in their roadmap. Texas had only gotten an extension.
Similarly the election of Lincoln wasn't an immediate threat to slavery in the Confederacy. But the Confederacy still was motivated to head off the long-term threat to their economic system.
So the fact that Mexico wasn't fighting to end slavery, doesn't contradict the fact that Texans were fighting to preserve it.