Talk:Mason County War

Lack of References

I'm not enough of a busybody to try to get anything done about it, but the primary author of all this has included many, many things that are not referenced, nor do the external links verify all that much of the content (including the link that has since gone bad). To avoid the charge of "original research" there should be at least a regular reference to a book or something! This primary author seems to have been "Charliecow7" who no longer seems to be a valid user. I am too grateful for this article to be too critical, but for one thing it would be nice to know how to obtain the sources he used. Carlw4514 (talk) 11:49, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

"Anglo"

Surely there must be a better term. It's not even commonly used in the U.S.. --UnneededAplomb (talk) 03:10, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually Anglo was and is commonly used in Frontier history works to mark the distinction between more recent settlers of European origin and Hispanics or Native Americans. It's most commonly seen in discussions of Texas and the Southwest.Intothatdarkness (talk) 16:19, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Intothatdarkness is right. I remember from southern history courses at University.A. Ward (talk) 17:55, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

"Anglos" is the accurate historical term the Texas-Germans used for the English-speaking majority in Texas/the US. It's comparable to the Pennsylvania Dutch use of "the English". SOURCE: Daniel Hoerster was my great-great grandfather, and I grew up with these stories and this history. 104.181.156.250 (talk) 06:33, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Rewrite

This article needs a re-write by someone who has done (or is willing to do) substantial research and can provide verifiable sources. While there appeared to be racial tensions in this war, and Germans were targeted by non-Germans, such "Us vs.Them" tensions exist in society as an excuse for bad behavior, regardless of the time and place. The non-Germans were also victimized by the cattle rustlers and murderers. The war was about cattle rustling, and about the wild west lawlessness of the era and vigilante mentalities and murder. It involved the Texas Rangers and Johnny Ringo, local farmers and ranchers. In order for a re-write to be up to Wiki standards, someone is going to have to spend a lot of time in research to bring this article up to Wikipedia credibility. Maile66 (talk) 12:07, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. The narrative is difficult to follow and the theme of "Americans" versus "Germans" is not explained or illustrated. It reads like various facts were plucked from a book without an coherent exposition.Jtcarpet (talk) 00:42, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Daniel Hoerster, the Cattle Inspector murdered in the Hoo Doo War, was my great-great grandfather. My grandmother always talked about him and his demise, but always in veiled and generic ways.

My grandmother also claimed that her oldest brother was specifically targeted for death as cannon fodder in WWI by people who were related to those involved in the Hoo Doo War AND as a direct result of his Texas-German heritage/ethnicity. The draft board was apparently made up primarily of Anglos, and she said that they lied and listed my great uncle as a criminal (which he was not) so that he would be ranked higher for the draft, AND so that he would be sent directly to the front lines in WWI. He was killed in Germany, and the family was notified by another cousin who stumbled across my great-uncle as he lay dying in a military hospital.

I recently asked an older cousin who still lives in Mason for more information on the Hoo Doo War, and he clammed up immediately and acted like it was dangerous to even acknowledge such a conflict ever happened.

I asked some other older relatives, and they, too, became very anxious and advised me that "some things are better left alone" and would not say anything else.

You're going to have an exceedingly difficult time finding any good primary sources on this, because no one from my grandparents' generation, who would at least have heard the stories directly from witnesses, remains, and none of the other elders will speak on it. There are some books, but they were very small printings, and they don't really explain the causes clearly or in depth, either.

As for the skepticism expressed about the racism of the Anglos vs. Texas-Germans, part of the impetus had to do with the Texas-German's stand against slavery and support of the United States instead of the Confederacy during the Civil War. The vast majority of the Germans who emigrated to Texas and became the Texas-Germans were NOT wealthy or powerful. Even the ones from noble families (like my grandfather's family) were the second sons or otherwise essentially disinherited/impoverished "poor relations", and therefore naturally firmly allied with the other laborers in society, regardless of skin color.

Additionally, the Texas-Germans believed in strict law-and-order regimentation, and that included fences to mark and protect the boundaries of their property. Anglo cattlemen were used to freely grazing and driving their livestock anywhere and everywhere without any impediment or concern about trespassing, and so they were also perfectly happy cutting/destroying the Texas-German fences and intermingling their herds willy-nilly, and thereby walking off with plenty of Texas-German cattle, plus leaving randomly impregnated cows behind (destroying the work of sometimes decades-long breeding plans for healthy herds), as well as leaving a lot of unrecompensed damage to fencing AND the land itself due to overgrazing of sparsely covered pastures! I've you've never dealt with ranching and raising cattle, you really don't understand how bad this behavior was, and it happened over and over. This was part of a massive, decades-long conflict between the Anglos and the Texas-Germans that directly contributed to the Hoo Doo War.

Oh, and despite the racism and murderous hatred against them, the Texas-German people, language, and culture were rich and thriving for the FIVE and SIX GENERATIONS they had been in Texas until World War II. There were newspapers, schools, church services, restaurants, and all kinds of other businesses that functioned either primarily in Texas-German or fully bilingually. The last vestiges (some church services) finally dwindled away in the 1970's.

Most Texas-Germans up until 1945 spoke Texas-German at home with a little English, but didn't become fully bilingual in English until kindergarten. However, the last native speakers of Texas-German were born in the early 1940's, and no children have been taught the language since, so it's very nearly extinct, with perhaps a few hundred native speakers left alive. Parents of my grandparents' generation suddenly and deliberately stopped speaking Texas-German (their native/first language along with English) at home to their children circa 1945 because of the dangerous racism that had been increasing all along, but particularly flourished during the two World Wars.

My great aunt from the Brenham, Texas, area told a story from the late 1940's about a Texas-German attorney named Hodde who was aggressively warned off from speaking Texas-German as he conducted legal business with his Texas-German clients in the Brenham courthouse. Being as stubborn as the stereotype of Germans would have you believe, he refused to comply with such a ridiculous "order" and continued conducting his affairs bilingually. As a result, he was kidnapped, coated in hot melted asphalt tar, and then smashed with feather pillows - quite literally "tarred and feathered". My great aunt didn't say whether he survived those burns or not. However, that and similar vigilante violence, as well as the longstanding and blatant racism from the Anglos that was only exacerbated by the two World Wars, went a long way toward the current demise of the Texas-German culture and language.

Dr. Hans Boas of the "Texas German Dialect Project" has recordings and transcriptions of this story and many like it in the original Texas-German. The records he's made will soon be all that's left of half of my family heritage and a significant part of Texas history and culture. 104.181.156.250 (talk) 07:22, 27 December 2023 (UTC)