texasjohn
Super Member
I've been there...at least vicariously. I published a book of the translated, from Spanish, minutes of the Goliad town Council during the 15 years IMMEDIATELY preceding the Texas Revolution.
The Spanish inhabitants were about as low on the technology scale and as high on the individual responsibility scale as you can get. Let me recount some highlights from those Camelot days:
passed laws about slaughter houses and bemoaned the residents who failed to keep their pigs from wandering around the town...sanitation was a priority
Continuously sought help from the national government, far away in Mexico City, which regularly ignored their pleas...they desperately WANTED government help and military protection
4 soldiers and 10 citizens went out to demand the Indians stop stealing their horses and selling them back to the owners....Indians laughed and ran them back to town.
So may died from cholera that they stopped ringing the church bells at each death to avoid panic.
Indian raids caused a law to be passed to not leave town without carrying a gun...those doing so and surviving were FINED!
Starving conditions frequently caused people to self deport back to Mexico, leaving the home of the Texas Longhorn and rich coastal plains with lots of wild game and fish in the abundant waters.
they sought continuously and unsuccessfully to find and fund a teacher and educate their kids
their guns deteriorated such that they used their prisoners to clean and repair them
They had limited ammunition, at one point they had only 15 rounds of ammo in the whole town and rationed it among 10 individuals, some got several shots, some none
the post master and 2nd highest elected official brutalized his wife, cut her ears off, ran off with all the meager city and Post office funds
wife, now a fem sole with no resources, was sent to live with the priest.
Ah, yes, those were the good old days....you can get a copy of Voices from the Goliad Frontier and discover how the good life without high technology really is!
Fantasize all you want, but go read the reality...then decide which life you want to choose to pursue... we won't even discuss life expectancy or quality of life during those years..........AND, trust me, overpopulation in our usual sense of the word was NOT a problem in those days. Peak census was about 500 people in Goliad extended community.
The Spanish inhabitants were about as low on the technology scale and as high on the individual responsibility scale as you can get. Let me recount some highlights from those Camelot days:
passed laws about slaughter houses and bemoaned the residents who failed to keep their pigs from wandering around the town...sanitation was a priority
Continuously sought help from the national government, far away in Mexico City, which regularly ignored their pleas...they desperately WANTED government help and military protection
4 soldiers and 10 citizens went out to demand the Indians stop stealing their horses and selling them back to the owners....Indians laughed and ran them back to town.
So may died from cholera that they stopped ringing the church bells at each death to avoid panic.
Indian raids caused a law to be passed to not leave town without carrying a gun...those doing so and surviving were FINED!
Starving conditions frequently caused people to self deport back to Mexico, leaving the home of the Texas Longhorn and rich coastal plains with lots of wild game and fish in the abundant waters.
they sought continuously and unsuccessfully to find and fund a teacher and educate their kids
their guns deteriorated such that they used their prisoners to clean and repair them
They had limited ammunition, at one point they had only 15 rounds of ammo in the whole town and rationed it among 10 individuals, some got several shots, some none
the post master and 2nd highest elected official brutalized his wife, cut her ears off, ran off with all the meager city and Post office funds
wife, now a fem sole with no resources, was sent to live with the priest.
Ah, yes, those were the good old days....you can get a copy of Voices from the Goliad Frontier and discover how the good life without high technology really is!
Fantasize all you want, but go read the reality...then decide which life you want to choose to pursue... we won't even discuss life expectancy or quality of life during those years..........AND, trust me, overpopulation in our usual sense of the word was NOT a problem in those days. Peak census was about 500 people in Goliad extended community.
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