Emily D. West (c.1815–1891), also known as Emily Morgan, is a

folk hero A folk hero or national hero is a type of hero – real, fictional or mythological – with their name, personality and deeds embedded in the popular consciousness of a people, mentioned frequently in folk songs, folk tales and other folklore; an ...

ine whose legendary activities during the Texas Revolution have come to be identified with the song " The Yellow Rose of Texas".

Biography

West was a free woman of color, of mixed race, or a "

high yellow High yellow, occasionally simply yellow (dialect: yaller, yella), is a term used to describe a light-skinned person of white and black ancestry. It is also used as a slang for those thought to have "yellow undertones". The term was in common use ...

". She was born in

New Haven New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,02 ...

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...

. In 1835 she was contracted to James Morgan in New York to work as an

indentured servant Indentured servitude is a form of labor in which a person is contracted to work without salary for a specific number of years. The contract, called an " indenture", may be entered "voluntarily" for purported eventual compensation or debt repayment ...

for one year in

Morgan's Point Morgan's Point is located 30 miles east of Houston in Harris County, Texas, United States, located on the shores of Galveston Bay at the inlet to the Houston Ship Channel, near La Porte and Pasadena. As of the 2010 census, it had a population ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

, at the New Washington Association's hotel as a housekeeper. Several months into her year of indentureship, on April 16, 1836, West and other residents were kidnapped by Mexican cavalry. West was forced to travel with the forces of General

Antonio López de Santa Anna Antonio de Padua María Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón (; 21 February 1794 – 21 June 1876),Callcott, Wilfred H., "Santa Anna, Antonio Lopez De,''Handbook of Texas Online'' Retrieved 18 April 2017. usually known as Santa Ann ...

as they prepared to face the army led by

Sam Houston Samuel Houston (, ; March 2, 1793 – July 26, 1863) was an American general and statesman who played an important role in the Texas Revolution. He served as the first and third president of the Republic of Texas and was one of the first two i ...

, and was in the Mexican camp on April 21 when Houston's force attacked. The Texans won the

Battle of San Jacinto The Battle of San Jacinto ( es, Batalla de San Jacinto), fought on April 21, 1836, in present-day La Porte and Pasadena, Texas, was the final and decisive battle of the Texas Revolution. Led by General Samuel Houston, the Texan Army engaged ...

in 18 minutes. According to legend, Santa Anna had been caught unprepared because he was having sex with West. No contemporary accounts indicate that Santa Anna was with a woman at the time, but the story was recorded in the journal of Englishman William Bollaert in 1842, who was told the story by Sam Houston during a steamer trip. After Bollaert's diary was published in 1956, amateur historians began to expand the tale, with Henderson Shuffler suggesting that West fit the description of the girl in the then-popular folk song "The Yellow Rose of Texas." The story continued to grow, with many references to West's beauty, as the legend took hold by the 1986 Texas Sesquicentennial. Historian Philip Thomas Tucker questions the reliability of the tale pointing out that "Santa Anna possessed a distinct aversion to the intermingling of races." Santa Anna held that much of Mexico's political troubles were due to this, holding that "We have failed because of our deplorable racial mixture, and the responsibility for this sad state of affairs lies with the Spanish missionaries who saved the Indian from extinction." After the Battle of San Jacinto, the real Emily West wanted to leave Texas, but the papers that declared her "free" had been lost. Major Isaac Moreland, commandant of the garrison at

Galveston Galveston ( ) is a coastal resort city and port off the Southeast Texas coast on Galveston Island and Pelican Island in the U.S. state of Texas. The community of , with a population of 47,743 in 2010, is the county seat of surrounding Galvesto ...

, vouched for Emily in her application for a passport. Emily possibly returned to New York in March 1837.

Name controversy

It is unknown if she did carry James Morgan's surname, as was supposed, although this was the custom for indentured servants and slaves at the time. Also, arriving coincidentally in Morgan's Point on board Morgan's schooner from New York was Emily West de Zavala, the wife of the interim vice president of the

Republic of Texas The Republic of Texas ( es, República de Tejas) was a sovereign state in North America that existed from March 2, 1836, to February 19, 1846, that bordered Mexico, the Republic of the Rio Grande in 1840 (another breakaway republic from Mex ...

Lorenzo de Zavala Manuel Lorenzo Justiniano de Zavala y Sanchez (October 3, 1788 - November 15, 1836), known simply as Lorenzo de Zavala, was a Mexican and later Tejano physician, politician, diplomat and author. Born in Yucatán under Spanish rule, he was clo ...

, and grandmother of Adina Emilia De Zavala. The widowed Mrs Lorenzo de Zavala had returned to New York in 1837 at about the same time as Emily D. West, although West de Zavala returned to Texas in early 1839. Denise McVea suggests that the Emily West of the Yellow Rose of Texas legend was Emily West de Zavala.McVea, Denise (2006), ''Making Myth of Emily: Emily West de Zavala and the Yellow Rose of Texas Legend''. Auris Books, San Antonio, Texas. There is no contemporary or primary evidence that Emily D. West and Emily de Zavala were the same person.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:West, Emily Dickinson. African-American people People from New Haven, Connecticut People of the Texas Revolution 1810s births 1891 deaths