I'm readying "Hocus Pocus" for the first time, and Vonnegut has made two references so far along the lines of: "I might have added, but didn't, that the martyrs at the Alamo had died for the right to own black slaves. They didn't want to be a part of Mexico anymore because it was against the law in that country to own slaves of any kind. I don't think Wilder knew that. Not many people in this country do. I certainly never heard that at the Academy. I wouldn't have known that slavery was what the Alamo as all about if Professor Stern the unicyclist hadn't told me so." - Chapter 36 of "Hocus Pocus", K. Vonnegut I had never heard this before either. Is this an exaggeration of the circumstances of the Texas revolution simply used here for satiric effect, or was the ability to own slaves really a factor in Texas' declaring independence from Mexico?
Edit: Originally posted in /r/skeptic
Edit: Thank you /u/Gama_Rex and /u/Bodark43 for your concise and helpful answers! It seems Vonnegut was exaggerating/limiting the scope of the conflict for effect, but none-the-less making a great point regarding how we are taught/interpret our past conflicts in the forming of our country. Continue to live in the grey my friends (also a shout out to my fellow shades at /r/thebutton).
Kind of a perfect storm.The Texans wanted slave ownership legal and church attendance voluntary; the Mexican government forbid slave ownership and had mandatory Catholic church membership. Not a few Texans had "absquatulated" from Mississippi and the South, losing their plantations and fleeing their debts when Jackson took down much of the US banking system, so there was an element that would have felt it had no where else to go. And of course General Santa Anna is generally reviled in Mexico today for his ability to make terrible decisions, and many were made in dealing with the Texans.
The Texans rebelled under the pretext that Mexico's liberal Constitution of 1824, under which they had immigrated to Mexico, had been repealed in 1835 by Santa Anna's dictatorship. However, the specific issues of the end of slavery (alienating those settlers who saw Texas' cotton potential) and the establishment of the Roman Catholic Church as the state church were the driving force for many rebels.
It's worth noting that Texas wasn't the only entity to secede from Mexico in this period, as both the Yucatan and the Rio Grande republics made short-lived bids for independence.