Many slaves continued to escape from their Texas nightmare throughout the antebellum period by fleeing to Matamoros. Contrary to the patriotic rhetoric that continued to echo across the United States, the land of liberty for America’s slaves lay south of the Rio Grande border, where people of African descent were fully incorporated into everyday life with an ease and smoothness unimaginable in the United States, especially in the Deep South.
– America’s Forgotten First War for Slavery and Genesis of The Alamo, Phillip Thomas Tucker