WI: Santa Anna freed the slaves in Texas

The Texans would have ignored the law, just as they did IOTL.

I'm assuming the OP meant in the context of the Texan Revolution. Even if the macro result is the same as OTL, there might be butterflies.

(Brutal re-enslavement and killing leading to more opposition to the annexation of Texas and the Mexican War, for example, or slaves fleeing re-enslavement accidentally bringing diseases earlier than OTL to Indian tribes, etc.)
 
???? but the slaves WERE free, legally. How could he 'free' slaves that are already free? No law or proclamation would suffice, and the alternative is to send in an army, which would spark the Texas revolution, and quite possibly draw in US support for the rebels...
 
If the slaves managed to hear the "proclamation" and then decided to run to Santa Anna, he would have to arm and train less than 4000* slaves to fight against their Owners.

This Site is a great source for Slavery in the Republic of Texas
*in 1837
 
slavery was a tangled legal issue in Mexico and Texas. While out and out slavery was technically illegal, Mexican law did have 99-year indentured servant contracts, which was used to paper over some of the slaves in TX. However, it has to be realized that Mexican control over TX was so thin that quite a few slaves were there because the law was simply ignored. Santa Anna made a lot of noise about freeing the slaves in TX, but as far as I can tell, he freed only one; Travis' slave Joe (IIRC), whom he wanted to go up the road and spread panic about the Mexican force after the fall of the Alamo.

Of course, we're talking about Santa Anna winning the war here, so a lot of slaves would have been freed by default. SA was fairly brutal to the American expatriates he captured, massacring a lot of them. So if he had beaten Houston at San Jacinto and done the same thing to the captives, a lot of the slaves in TX wouldn't have owners anymore...
 
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