OPINIONSrnThe Nationalist Imperativernby Wayne Allensworthrn”Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.”rn—^Albert EinsteinrnEthnonationalism: The Questrnfor Understandingrnhy Walker ConnorrnPrinceton: PrincetonrnUniversity Press;rn226pp.,$M.95rnWhen James Bowie took his considerablernreputation as a brawlerrnand duelist, along with the famous knifernhis brother Resin had fashioned for him,rnto Mexico, married the daughter of thernvice-governor of the province of Texas,rnand became a respected citizen of thatrnrepublic, he would have considered itrnpure hogwash had sonreone suggestedrnthat he had ceased to be an American.rnBowie, like most Americans of the firstrnhalf of the 19th century, did not think ofrnhis Americanness as a mutable quality, itrnbeing something as unquestioned, andrnas unreflected upon, as the stages of thernmoon or the points of the compass. Itrnhad nothing to do with either politiesrnper se, or legalistic notions of civic membership.rnHe was an American by language,rnculture, and worldview, as well asrnby all those qualities, including the way arnpeople walk and talk, that set them apartrnfrom all others. I le was an Anglo-CelticrnWayne Allensworth writes fromrnPurcellville, Virginia.rnadventurer, tall with fair skin, red hair,rnand blue-gray eyes, who could mix easilyrnwith either the best of Southern gentilityrnor the toughest of frontier roughnecks,rnan example of a particular type that thernMexicans would learn to fear and hate.rnThis is not to say that Bowie was not,rnat least for a time, a loyal citizen of hisrnadopted country. He was lord and masterrnof thousands of acres of Texas lands,rnwealthy and apolitical. His troubles withrnMexico, the ones that brought about hisrnviolent death a scant three years later, beganrnfollowing the deaths of his wife andrntwo young children in the great cholerarnepidemic of 1833. Bowie had little contactrnwith the Anrerican colonists of Texasrnbefore that, but now—as the foremostrnbard of Texas’s heroic age, T.R. Fehrenbach,rnwrote in his narrative history cumrnfolk epic Lone Star—”blood called tornblood,” and the legendary frontiersmanrn”drifted into the Revolution.”rnBowie was not alone in thinking therncolonists’ rebellion his own: Cincinnati,rnOhio, supplied the rebels with the “TwinrnSisters,” a pair of field cannon that SamrnHouston deployed in the final showdownrnwith Santa Anna at San Jacinto;rnNew Orieans supplied the Texans with arnvolunteer contingent, the New OrleansrnGrays; and Stephen F. Austin, the greatrnempresario of Texas colonization, wentrnto the United States, hoping to rouse thernpeople of Kentucky and Tennessee to thernAmerican cause in Texas. They respondedrnas he had hoped they would, bringingrntheir vaunted long rifles, as well as theirrnnatural love of a good scrap, with them.rnWilliam Barrot Travis, commander ofrnthe garrison at the Alamo after Bowie fellrnill, saw nothing strange in addressing hisrnfamous letter of February 24, 1836—rnboth a call to arms and a statement ofrndefiant intent to fight to the last man—rnto the “people of Texas and All Americansrnin the World.” True to his word,rnTravis died there together with Bowiernand Davy Crockett (himself born in thern”State of Franklin”), and 180-odd comrades-rnin-arms, on March 6, four daysrnafter the Republic of Texas had beenrndeclared.rnThe fact that none of these men perceivedrna particularly strong connectionrnbetween formal citizenship and theirrnpersonal and collective identities asrnAmericans is bound to be puzzling tornmany citizens of the modern Americanrnmulticultural state. The America thatrnthey belonged to was not something thatrnmany of us would recognize as such.rnThe spacious, seemingly endless leaguesrnof territory that stretched before them tornthe Pacific stirred the American imaginationrnwith mythical tales of Eldoradornjust over the next rise. The inevitablernmarch of the Americans to unsettled areasrnitself worked against a purely territorialrnsense of Americanness, and theirrn30/CHRONICLESrnrnrn