The republic of Texas; a brief history of Texas from the first American colonies in 1821 to annexation in 1846

BANCROFT LIBRAKf

An Engraving by Davignon, made in 1853 while Houston was in
the United States Senate. (Original copyrighted by W. L. Hollings-
worth, and heretofore unpublished.)

THE REPUBLIC
OF TEXAS

A Brief History of Texas from the First

American Colonies in 1821 to

Annexation in 1846

By

CLARENCE R. WHARTON

Published by
C. C YOUNG PRINTING COMPANY

Houston, Texas, January, 1922
Copyrighted 1922 by Clarence R. Wharton

"Give me a land where the battle's red blast
Has flashed to the future the fame of the past.

Give me a land that hath legends and lays,

That tell of the memories of long vanished days,

Yes, give me a land with a grave in each spot,
And names on the graves that shall not ~be forgot.

FATHER RYAN.

77

CONTENTS

Page

The Colonies _ 7

The Revolution 81

The Republic 157

Annexation of Texas ... . 195

PREFACE

When the Austins came in 1821 and opened the way for
people from the States, Texas history had its real begin-
ning. Fifteen years later San Jacinto was fought and won
and for ten years more Texas was a Republic. Then after
one of the greatest political battles in American history,
it became a State. This twenty-five years is the heroic
period of Texas history.

When the Democrats met in convention in Baltimore in
1844, the Whigs had nominated Henry Clay and declared
against the annexation of Texas and ignored the acquisi-
tion of Oregon. Powerful forces among the Democrats, led
by Van Buren and aided by Benton, worked to commit the
party to the same course. But the Southern leaders seized
the machinery of the convention, overthrew Van Buren,
and named James K. Polk, of Tennessee, and boldly de-
clared for the annexation of Texas and the acquisition of
Oregon. The election of Polk committed the American
people to both propositions. The advent of Texas into the
Union was followed not only by all the country west to
the Pacific, but North to the present Canadian border.
San Jacinto set the tide of Saxon supremacy toward the
Pacific and was indeed one of the decisive battles of the
world.

CLARENCE E. WHARTON.
Houston, Texas.
January 1, 1922.

I have consulted every work bearing upon Texas History
which has ever been published as far as I know, and many
original sources of information as well. I desire to make
special acknowledgment of material and from valuable in-
formation collated by Mr. Justin H. Smith in his elaborate
work upon the annexation of Texas published by the Mc-
Millan Company in 1919.

C. R. WHARTON.

THE COLONIES

i.

FIRST COLONIAL GRANT TO MOSES AUSTIN.

January 17, 1921, marked the one hundredth year since
the first colonial grant in Texas to Moses Austin.

At the beginning of that year Spanish authority still
nominally prevailed over Mexico, or New Spain, as it was
much called, though the war .for Mexican independence had
been raging since 1810.

Mexico, which for three centuries had been governed by
Spanish viceroys, was a vast country greater in area than
any nation of the world save Russia and China. It was
divided into twelve Intendencies, the sixth of which was
San Luis Potosi, which was itself divided into four prov-
inces and four districts, one of which provinces was Texas.
Texas was practically uninhabited except by roving bands
of warlike Indians. There were squalid Spanish or Mexi-
can settlements at San Antonio, Nacogdoches, La Bahia
and a few other -places, remnants of the old missions which
had failed.

The seat of government for this province, if it could be
so dignified, was at San Antonio, which had been founded
nearly a century before. The Spanish policy was one of ab-
solute exclusion of all foreigners. There was considerable
doubt about the Spanish title to Texas and this Government
determined to permit no intrusion by people from the States
or elsewhere.

Philip Nolan, who came into Texas in 1812 for the very

FIRST COLONIAL GRANT TO MOSES AUSTIN

peaceful purpose of hunting wild horses, was killed by
Spanish soldiers. Such of his comrades as survived were
carried into captivity. The Mexican or Spanish people had
made no headway in settling here because of the hostility of
the Indians, and because there were no rich mines in Texas
which would lure the gold hunters who made the first set-
tlements in Mexico, and who later filled California.

In December, 1820, Moses Austin, a native of Connecti-
cut, came on horseback from Washington County, Missouri,
where he then resided, and presented himself to the Spanish
Governor at San Antonio, seeking permission to found a
colony in Texas. He was ordered to forthwith leave the
country, and when about to obey this mandatory instruction,
he met upon the Military Plaza the Baron de Bastrop, a
Belgian soldier of fortune then temporarily in the service of
the Spanish Government. Bastrop and Austin had met in
a restaurant in New Orleans years before and renewed their
chance acquaintance upon the Plaza just as Austin was
about to resume his long, doleful journey back to the States.

Austin was in fact a Spanish subject, he having been
naturalized as such while living in Missouri in 1799, at
which date Louisana, which included Missouri, was under
Spanish dominion. Bastrop interceded with the Spanish
Governor, and that dignitary being convinced that Austin
was not a foreigner accepted his petition for permission
to settle three hundred families in Texas. The Governor
at San Antonio, however, could not act upon this petition,
and on December 26th, 1820, he forwarded it with a letter
recommending its acceptance to the Superior Government
at Monterey. This memorial was granted by the Spanish
authorities at the latter place representing the Supreme
Government of the Eastern Internal Provinces of New
Spain on the 17th day of January, 1821.

8

FIRST COLONIAL GRANT TO MOSES AUSTIN

Just what caused the Spanish authorities to revoke their
policy of nearly two centuries with reference, to allowing
foreigners to come into Texas is a matter of much interest.
Some students of those times say that it was because there
had been a permanent boundary settlement between the
United States and Spain at the time of the Florida pur-
chase in 1819, which lead the Spanish authorities to feel
that the United States had permanently recognized the Sa-
bine as the boundary between the two countries. Stephen
Austin himself stated in after life that the purpose of the
Spanish and Mexican Governments in making these grants
was to get American colonists into Texas who would reclaim
the country from the wild Indians. The vast importance
of this event, the granting of this first colonial privilege,
one hundred years ago, is not always fully understood.
It can be said with much emphasis that it was as
important in American history and even in the his-
tory of the world as the landing of the Pilgrims at
Plymouth two centuries before. It made the way for
American colonization and civilization in Texas, and de-
termined that the vast country between the Rio Grande and
the Oregon should be Saxon rather than Latin.

Moses Austin started back to the States about January
1st, 1821, going by Nachitoches, Louisiana, where he met his
son Stephen. The long journey across this trackless country
with the hardships incident thereto so imperiled Austin's
health that he reached home an invalid, and died early the
the following June.

The Spanish authorities at Monterey, after granting Aus-
tin's petition on January 17th, sent Don Erasmus Seguin to
the United States to communicate to Austin the result of his
petition, and to officially conduct Austin and his three
hundred families into Texas. Moses Austin received the

THE LAST OF THE VICEROYS

information that this petition had been accepted while on
his death bed and passed to his son, Stephen F. Austin,
the legacy of fulfilling the commission.

II.
THE LAST OF THE VICEROYS.

The act of the Spanish Commandant at Monterey in ac-
cepting Moses Austin's petition and according him the
privilege of colonizing three hundred American families
in Texas, was the first and last of its kind ever made by
the Spanish authorities of Mexico or New Spain. It was
a complete reversion of. the Spanish policy of more than
two centuries. Very recently Texas historical students
have found an old decree of the Spanish Cortes passed in
1820 authorizing the Spanish authorities in Mexico to
grant colonization privileges. This decree does not seem to
have ever been published either in Mexico or Texas, but
evidently instructions with reference thereto had been sent
to the Spanish authorities in Mexico, and this may account
for the granting of Austin's petition. But this grant to
Austin of January 17, 1821, was among the last acts of
Spanish sovereignty in Mexico. The war for Mexican inde-
pendence had been raging for more than ten years.

Augustin de Iturbede was a Spanish officer of great
ability and lead the royalist forces. He had been called the
Prince Rupert of the Spanish Army. On Febuary 24th,
1821, he suddenly changed allegiance and announced him-
self in favor of the patriot cause. On that date he pub-
lished the celebrated plan of Iguala, which is regarded as

10

THE LAST OF THE VICEROYS

the official beginning of Mexican independence. From
that time on it was obvious that the Spanish authority in
North America was practically at an end. In August, 1821,
Don Juan O'Donoju, the 62nd, and last of the Spanish
viceroys (and he was an Irishman), arrived at Vera Cruz
to assume the Government of Mexico. He at once saw the
futility of further effort to maintain Spanish sovereignty,
and set about to arrange a peace in which there would
be some advantage to Spain, and sought a compact by
which some member of the Spanish Royal family would be-
come ruler of Mexico.

On August 23rd, 1821, Santa Anna arranged a meeting
between the new viceroy and Iturbede, and on September
23rd, mounted on a black charger, Iturbede entered the City
of Mexico amidst a scene of wild enthusiasm. He was ten-
dered golden keys upon a silver platter by the first Alcalde
of the city, and Mexico in point of fact became on that date
an independent nation and began that long, pitiful career of
anarchy which with slight intermission has prevailed for
a hundred years. On the 7th of October, 1821, O'Donoju
(O'Donohoo), scholar, gentleman and diplomat, broken in
health and spirit by the loss of New Spain to his country,
died in the City of Mexico and was interred in the Chapel
of Los Reyes. Bancroft observes that with the celebration
of his funeral rites the last shadow of vice regal presence
and power passed forever.

While these events were going forward in Mexico, Stephen
P. Austin, the first of the Empresarios, was pushing the
enterprise begun by his father, and He did not learn of the
change of sovereignty that was taking place until he
reached San Antonio in August, 1821. He went to New
Orleans early in the year and began preparations for carry-
ing out his great plans. Upon hearing that the petition had

11

STEPHEN FULLER AUSTIN

been granted lie left New Orleans in June, 1821, and went
up to Nachitoches to meet Seguin, who came there as the
special envoy of the Spanish Government to convey official
notice of the grant of January 17th to Moses Austin.

III.

STEPHEN FULLER AUSTIN, THE FIRST AND
GREATEST EMPRESARIO.

Stephen F. Austin can easily be recognized as one of the
great colonial leaders of the English speaking people.

When we reflect that it was less than fifteen years from
the advent of his first colony in December, 1821, until the
Battle of San Jacinto and the Republic, one must look in
vain for so great an achievement in so short a time else-
where on this continent.

The Spanish Commandant at Monterey had dispatched
Don Erasmus Seguin to the States to inform Austin that
his petition iiad been granted, and Don Erasmus, with a
small party of Spaniards from San Antonio, had proceeded
along the Old Spanish Trail to Nachitoches, Louisiana,
where they waited to meet Moses Austin. Austin's failing
health had warned him of his approaching death, and he
arranged for his son, Stephen, to come from New Orleans
and meet Seguin and take charge of the enterprise. Ste-
phen left New Orleans on June 18th, 1821, and proceeded
to Nachitoches, where he met Seguin and received formal
confirmation of the Spanish grant to his father.

On July 2nd, 1821, Austin and his small party, along
with Seguin 's party, left Nachitoches for San Antonio by

12

STEPHEN FULLER AUSTIN

way of Nacogdoches. Austin was accompanied by a few
daring spirits who, hearing of his proposed plans, had
joined him on his first journey to Texas. Among those
who rode with him were Doctor James Hewiston, well known
in the early colonial days. A few years later Doctor Hewis-
ton joined with James Powers in founding the Powers and
Hewiston Colony of Irish immigrants in southwest Texas.
The last glimpse we get of Doctor Hewiston was in 1842,
when he was practicing medicine at Saltillo and adminis-
tered mercies to the unhappy men of Mier.

William Little, from St. Louis, accompanied Austin. He
afterwards located his headright league in Fort Bend Coun-
ty, where he lived for many years, and his plantation be-
came a steamboat landing in the later days of Brazos Navi-
gation. On July 10th, as the party proceeded towards the
Texas frontier, a message overtook them bringing to Austin
the melancholy news of the death of his father, which had
occurred in Missouri on June 10th. The party pressed for-
ward and on Monday, July 16th, 1821, entered the province
of Texas and rode on to Nacogdoches, which they reached
on July 20th. In Austin's report of their visit to Nacog-
doches he says: "This place was in ruins. There yet re-
mained one church, seven residences, and a total population
of thirty-six inhabitants." The whole of this thirty-six
were assembled and received instructions from Don Eras-
mus representing his Catholic Majesty, the King of Spain.
He advised the people of Nacogdoches that it was the King's
pleasure that the whole community move further east to-
ward the Louisiana line, and they one and all acquiesced
in this modest request, and agreed to migrate eastward upon
short notice. Don Erasmus advised that he would return
from San Antonio in the early autumn and complete the
details for this exodus. These matters of state having been

13

SAN ANTONIO ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO

properly dispatched, the whole party proceeded on towards
San Antonio, which was the next habitation.

IV.
SAN ANTONIO— ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

From Nacogdoches to San Antonio is not so far in these
Pullman days, but it was quite a journey one hundred years
ago.

Austin and Seguin, along with their little party, left
Nacogdoches on July 21st, following the old San Antonio
road. They supplied themselves with meat by killing deer
and buffalo as they went along.

On Sunday, August 12th, they reached the Guadaloupe,
where they went into camp, and a messenger from San An-
tonio met them there bringing news of the independence of
Mexico. There were fifteen or twenty Spaniards in the
party, and they received this information with manifesta-
tions of great joy.

The party arrived at San Antonio three weeks after leav-
ing Nacogdoches and considered that the journey had
been made in a very reasonable time.

Old San Antonio, the most interesting city in Texas,
is rich with rare traditions dear to the student of history.
It had its beginnings more than one hundred years before
the advent of the Austins, and had been the most important
place in Texas during the last century. The chain of mis-
sions, now in ruins, which one yet sees along the river, are
evidence of futile efforts of Spain to evangelize and colonize
north of the Rio Grande. Authorities vary as to the popu-

14

SAN ANTONIO ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO

lation of San Antonio at this time, but from the best in-
formation obtainable the population varied about as much
as the reports that we now get. It was a floating and more
or less transient populace and varied from 3,000 to
5,000. A few years before, Colonel Zebulon M. Pike, of
the United States Army, had come through Texas charged
with a mission from President Jefferson, and he gives a
very interesting account of his short visit in San Antonio,
where he reports having met some very refined and cul-
tured Spanish people. For the most part the inhabitants
dwelt in miserable houses with mud walls and grass thatched
roofs. During the more than two centuries which had pre-
ceded, the Spanish title to Texas had been in much
doubt and the policy of rigid exclusion which had pre-
vailed was due to the fear that either French or English ex-
plorers would traverse the country and lay claim to it.
Spain was very much in the position of a man who claims
a tract of land with a doubtful title and who is depending
upon its possession alone to supply the defects in his
title.

When it was evident that the Spanish missions would
fail, the whole colonization scheme seems to have been
abandoned.

In 1730, nearly one hundred years before the time about
which we write, the Spanish Government made an effort
to transplant people from its island colonies to Texas and
actually brought fifteen families from the Canary Islands
who were permanently located in San Antonio. This plan
was not carried further because of the great cost of trans-
planting these people. The feeble and futile efforts of
Spain to reclaim and colonize the vast territory are shown
in remarkable contrast when we contemplate that it was
just fourteen years from the time that Stephen Austin

15

AUSTIN IN SAN ANTONIO

first rode into San Antonio in August, 1821, until he lead
the patriot army of 1835 which drove the Mexicans out
of that city. Austin and his American colonists did far
more for Texas in the first few years than had been accom-
plished by Spain and the Spaniards during more than three
centuries. Austin remained in San Antonio from August
12th to the 21st, in conference with the local authorities.

Martinez, who had been Governor in Decembe when
Moses Austin was in San Antonio, was still Governor in
August when Stephen reached there. While it was gener-
ally recognized that Mexico had become independent, yet
the actual transfer of authority did not occur until Iturbede
made his entrance into the City of Mexico in September
following.

V.
AUSTIN IN SAN ANTONIO.

While in San Antonio from August 12th to 21st, 1821,
Austin and Governor Martinez reached a general under-
standing as to such details as seemed required under the
original grant made by the Spanish authorities at Mon-
terey in the preceding January. In the letter of acceptance
which Martinez had written Moses Austin in February,
1821, he referred to the fact that some of the immigrants
might come by sea, and called attention to a port which the
Spanish Government had recently opened on the Bay of
San Benardo, and he advised Austin that this port be used
as a place of entry. While Stephen Austin was in San
Antonio, Governor Martinez gave him a formal letter under

16

AUSTIN IN SAN ANTONIO

date of August 14, 1821, giving him meagre instructions as
to the country he might explore, and asking that when he
had explored it and decided upon his exact location, that he,
Austin, report to the Governor. In this letter Martinez
says:

"You can proceed to the River Colorado and examine
the land on its margins which may be suited for the loca-
tion of your Louisiana families, informing me of the place
which you select in order that when they arrive a competent
commissioner may be sent out to distribute the lands, and
inasmuch as they may come by sea, they must be landed
in the Bay of San Benardo, where a port has been opened
by the Superior Government."

The letter continues, giving Austin authority to take
soundings of the Colorado River to its mouth. The infer-
ence is that this port was at the mouth of the Colorado,
and the San Benardo Bay referred to in these letters must
have meant Matagorda Bay.

Martinez requested Austin to furinsh a plan for the dis-
tribution of land to the new settlers. Austin proposed one
which would give the head of each family and each single
man over age 640 acres, 320 acres in addition for the wife,
should there be one, 160 acres in addition for each child,
80 acres in addition for each slave. This plan was presented
in writing, and Austin received authority from the Gover-
nor to promise that guaranty to his settlers. This plan
was afterwards materially changed but is interesting as the
first plan accepted and the one first advertised by Austin in
the United States.

There is much that is interesting and romantic when one
contemplates Austin as he left San Antonio August 21, 1821,
and went out into a vast and to* him unknown country to
seek and locate his empire. The facilities for travel were

17

AUSTIN EXPLORES THE GULF LITTORAL

so meager, the guides so ignorant and the trails so indis*
tinct, that it was indeed a plunge into a wilderness.

If one will take the map of Texas and study for a mo-
ment the large area between San Antonio and the coast
and thence to the north and east toward the Sabine, he will
get a glimpse of the great land which lay before the am-
bitious young adventurer as he rode out of Bexar on that
August day one hundred years ago. It is the great Gulf
hinterland traversed by the San Antonio, Guadaloupe, Colo-
rado, Brazos and various rivers which flow down to the
sea through one of the fairest countries in all of the world.
Unlike all the latter colonial grants, there were no fixed
boundaries to the first one and Austin was left with few
restrictions to select his own territory in which to locate
the first three hundred. The nearest definite destination
which Austin seems to have had when he left San Antonio
was the mysterious port on the Bay, San Benardo.

VI.
AUSTIN EXPLORES THE GULF LITTORAL.

The Spanish Governor, Baron de Bastrop, Don Erasmus
Seguin and other local dignitaries bade Austin a formal
good bye with many protestations of Castillian friendship
as he left San Antonio on the morning of August 21, 1821,
following the road to Goliad.

In those days there still remained a fragment of the La
Bahia mission settlement which had been undertaken in the
last century. An indistinct Spanish trail reached from
the Gulf through La Bahia on toward Nachitoches, Louisi-

18

AUSTIN EXPLORES THE GULF LITTORAL

ana. It had been used by traders and smugglers for more
than one hundred years. At La Bahia Austin divided his
company, sending all surplus horses and mules on to Nachi-
toches, after which he explored the coast country. He
reached the head waters of Matagorda Bay on September 6,
1821, and continued skirting the coast toward the Colorado.
On September 10, he passed the site of La Salle 's settlement,
where 135 years before the French had made a sad effort to
locate a Colony. There is indeed an interesting picture,
when one contemplates the young American standing at the
ruins of the old fort which told of the failure of the bold
and brilliant La Salle. It was a wild, desolate spot one
hundred years ago, and the nearest human habitation was
the squalid little settlement at Goliad which he had passed
a week before. The Frenchman's dreams were to discover
and claim the vast realm west of the Mississippi for his
King. He gave his young life in this hopeless quest and
sleeps in an unknown grave somewhere in South Texas.
Austin, though less romantic than the French cavalier,
had hopes as high and ambitions as vast as those which
lured La Salle, and had the far better fortune to live long
enough to see his dreams realized.

After passing the grave of the French enterprise, Austin
rode on to the Colorado to seek the port of entry which had
been so warmly pressed upon him by the Spanish Governor.
He reached the Colorado on September 15, 1821, and ex-
plored it down to the Bay, and having also explored the
lower Brazos he felt that he had found his land of promise
and hurried back to Nachitoches in order to complete ar-
rangements for leading his Colony into the wilderness. Few
men in our history have a higher claim to greatness than
Stephen F. Austin both from the standpoint of character
and merit as well as material achievement.

19

AUSTIN'S RETURN TO THE STATES

A latter day writer who has summed up his career and
understood his hardships, has said of him, ' ' He carried out
his father's enterprise with a patience that amounted to
genius and fortitude which was the equivalent of the favor
of Heaven."

VII.
AUSTIN'S RETURN TO THE STATES.

Austin reached Nachitoches on his return from his first
trip to Texas, October 3, 1821, three months to a day from
the time that he and Seguin with their company had left
that place for Bexar. He felt that everything was per-
manently arranged for his advent into Texas with his three
hundred. There had been considerable notoriety given
to his proposed Colony during the summer of 1821;
while he was yet in Texas. Louisiana and Mississippi pa-
pers widely published the reports which he gave out upon
his return to Louisiana in October, and the spirit of adven-
ture which was rife in those days turned wide atten-
tion to the new country, which during the farthest recol-
lection of men then living had been closed to all the world
save the Spaniard and the wild Indian. Fairy stories of
the great land west of the Sabine had been told throughout
the States for many years. It was known that its prairies
teemed with millions of wild horses. It was known that
cattle and buffalo abounded there, and little was needed
to arouse universal interest in a land so vast that no man
knew its boundaries.

Moses Austin's plan to colonize Texas was not a spas-

20

AUSTIN'S RETURN TO THE STATES

modic impulse. It is known that he had cherished such an
ambition for years, though what fed his hopes of ever get-
ting Spanish permission is difficult to say at this remote
date.

After the Spanish treaty in 1819, in which Florida was
ceded to the United States and that country had recog-
nized Spanish sovereignty in Texas, Moses Austin felt that
all objection to American colonization should be removed
and he planned applying to the Spanish Government at
Madrid for this permission. He was told, however, he
should make his application to the authorities in New Spain,
and this occasioned his first journey to San Antonio in
December, 1820. Like most men who nourish a great en-
terprise, Moses Austin had faith in its success and faith
in himself. He began to plan for taking his Colony into
Texas even before he first applied himself to the Spanish
authorities for permission. He believed his application
would be granted, and early in 1820 he had sent Stephen
Austin with equipment and men necessary to open a large
plantation on Red River just across from Texas in Arkansas
at a place called Long's Prairie. He planned to establish
a kind of gateway here through which immigrants would
pass and to furnish supplies and facilities for forwarding
people who would apply for entrance into Texas. As early
as June in 1821, there were families in Arkansas and Mis-
souri waiting the word from Austin to move into Texas,
and in that month, while Stephen Austin was yet on his
way to Bexar, several families left Pecan Point, Arkansas,
for somewhere in Texas, and reached the Brazos in what is
now Washington County, in December, 1821. Upon Steph-
en Austin's return to Louisiana in October, 1821, he ad-
dressed himself with his usual industry to organize expedi-
tions to move into Texas by land and by sea. While the

21 '

THE NEW YEARS CREEK COLONY

first contingent of Arkansas and Missouri immigrants were
coming across the country through a trackless wild, a ves-
sel with people and supplies was sent out from New Or-
leans in November, 1821, bound for the Texas Coast.

VIII.
THE NEW YEARS CREEK COLONY.

While the first overland immigrants were plodding their
way into Texas in the autumn of 1821, the schooner * * Live-
ly,'7 which Austin had fitted out in New Orleans, made its
way to the Texas coast. There is a mystery about the
ce Lively" which one hundred years has not cleared up, but
there is no uncertainty as to the identity of the little ad-
vance guard which reached the La Bahia crossing on the
Brazos late in December, 1821, camped on what they called
New Years Creek in what is now Washington County,
January 1, 1822.

Austin had left New Orleans after arranging for the
voyage of the "Lively," and hurried up to Nachitoches,
from whence he had joined these overland immigrants and
was with them when they lighted their New Year's camp
fires in the wilderness which was to be their homes and
the homes of their children for the centuries to come.

When Austin and his wagon train halted here at the
La Bahia crossing, they found two American families who
had preceded them just a few days. These first arrivals
were Garrett and Higgins, but more than this we have
no detail as to who they were or whence they came. Many
years later, Guy M. Bryan (1852) gave the name of Andy

22

THE NEW YEARS CREEK COLONY

Robinson, then living in Brazoria County, as the first
settler in Austin's Colony in Washington County. The
names of the first three hundred who constituted Austin's
Colony are well known and are preserved both in Austin's
records and in the records of the land office. If there are
descendents of this New Years Colony yet living who can
from family tradition give any detail as to the first year
of this Colony, they would supply information much needed
in Texas history. Such descendents, wherever they
are, are entitled to all of the glory that comes from a
splendid heritage — as much entitled to that distinction as
the descendents of those who came on the Mayflower.

The people of Texas should ever feel a deep interest and
perpetual pride in the memory of those simple pioneer
folk who laid the cornerstone of the commonwealth on
New Years Creek one hundred years ago. Within. a few
weeks James B. Austin, Stephen's brother, and Josiah H.
Bell of South Carolina joined this settlement. In after years
Bell and his honored family became well known in Texas.
He located his headright grant of two leagues of land on
the west bank of the Brazos River, in Brazoria County, and
the great Columbia oil field is largely on his grant. Bell's
landing was an important place in the navigation of the
Brazos River for many years. Judge James H. Bell, son
of Josiah, was born in the Colony and was a member of the
Supreme Court of Texas at the outbreak of the war be-
tween the States.

As soon as the first details were arranged and the New
Years Creek colonists had begun hewing their houses, the
tireless Austin hurried down the river to meet those who
had come by sea on the ''Lively."

23

THE SCHOONER "LIVELY"

IX.
THE SCHOONER " LIVELY"

The first expedition of Austin's colonists by sea left
New Orleans on the ill-fated schooner "Lively."

Joseph Hawkins, who had been a college mate with Aus-
tin and who was a prosperous Southern lawyer, enthused
over Austin's Texas plans, financed this expedition. Aus-
tin and Hawkins stood on the dock at New Orleans and
saw the little boat, freighted with its immigrant passengers
and a miscellaneous cargo, sail for Texas on the morning
of November 22, 1821. The next day Austin left New
Orleans by boat for Nachitoches to join the overland party
with which he came on to the Brazos.

The "Lively" carried seed for planting, various imple-
ments of husbandry and eighteen immigrants, several of
whom had been with Austin on his journey into Texas in
the preceding summer. The boat had instructions to go
to the mouth of the Colorado and into the mythical port
of entry which had been so highly recommended by Gover-
nor Martinez in his official correspondence with the Aus-
tins. After many days floundering about in the Gulf,
the vessel unloaded its cargo and most of its passengers at
the mouth of the Brazos in December, 1821, some days be-
fore the New Years Creek Colony pitched camp 150 miles
up the river. As the ( ' Lively ' ' came through Galveston Bay,
it encountered a pirate ship which ran away, and saw the
ruins of a schooner which had been scuttled and beached
on the Island. Piracy on the high seas flourished in those
days and had been a rather romantic pastime for gentlemen
of adventure since the Spanish ships had first begun bring-
ing home Mexican gold three hundred years before. This

24

THE SCHOONER "LIVELY"

manly art, however-, was in its last stages, and the exodus
of Lafitte from Galveston Island under pressure from the
United States Government only a few years before marked
the beginning of the end of robbery on these seas.

When the Captain in charge of the "Lively" unloaded at
the Brazos, he went further west to find the Spanish port
in the Bay of San Bernardo and to await the coming of
Austin, who was to meet the vessel there. The available
data leaves much doubt as to the course and career of the
"Lively" after it left the little company of immigrants at
the mouth of the Brazos and spread sail for the west. Some
say it found entrance to the Colorado River and reported a
fine harbor. Others that it never found the river. Others
say that it returned to New Orleans and brought out a
second cargo early the next year and was wrecked on the
end of Galveston Island. (This is the most likely version.)
There are others who say that the Captain sailed away with
the boat to some Mexican port and sold it and spent his
thirty pieces of silver in riotous living. And there was
even a rumor among the pioneer folks that it turned
pirate and roved up and down the Spanish Main.

The immigrants left at the mouth of the Brazos River
made their way up the stream on foot and in a small row
boat, and after weary weeks reached a place where the
prairie to the west came down to the river's edge, and lo-
cated themselves and began a first settlement upon the
spot which is now the town of Richmond on the Brazos.
Richmond may well lay claim to the honor of being the
first settlement in Austin's Colony, and the first Anglo-
American town in Texas. Before they left the mouth of
the river, they were joined by one William Morton and
members of his family, who had come in a small boat from
Mobile. His boat had been wrecked, and he and those with

25

THE SCHOONER "LIVELY"

him were thrown ashore to begin life with the ''Lively'7
immigrants. In going up the river the immigrants were on
constant lookout for Austin 's overland colonists, whom they
expected to come down the river. William Morton re-
mained at the site of this first settlement, and at a later
date located his headright grant of two leagues on the east
side of the Brazos River across from Richmond. The
Southern Pacific bridge across the river spans the stream
at a point where Morton's leagues touch its margin. In
the meantime Austin left his New Year's Colony and went
across to the Colorado and down the river to meet the
1 'Lively" at the "Spanish port in the Bay of San Ber-
nardo." He remained in this vicinity for nearly three
months waiting and watching for the ship that never came.
It was a long, tedious wait in an inclement winter, but
this tenacious, patient man never wearied in his watch
as long as there was any hope that the vessel would come.
The cargo that it carried seemed indispensable to his first
Colony and its loss seemed insuperable. After these weary
weeks of waiting, he mourned the loss of his entire merchant
marine and hastened on to San Antonio to report progress
to Governor Martinez. He went up the Colorado River to
where the Bahia road crossed the stream and there met a
party including his brother, J. E. B. Austin, and Josiah
Bell and others, and they proceeded on to San Antonio.
He had been almost continuously in the saddle for more
than a year and the trails and hardships that he had en-
dured, including the loss of the "Lively," were indeed
severe, but all these things were meager when compared with
the trials and tribulations that awaited him in the immedi-
ate years to come.

26

AUSTIN GOES TO MEXICO

X.
AUSTIN GOES TO MEXICO.

Austin reached San Antonio the second time on the 22nd
of March, 1822, and reported immediately to Governor Mar-
tinez. It had dawned upon the Governor in the interim
since Austin went away in the preceding August, that the
change of sovereignty in Mexico might affect his authority,
and it had also been suggested to him that he had gone too
far in agreeing with Austin upon the quantity of land Aus-
tin could promise his settlers. In any event this worthy
Spanish gentleman was reticent and more or less disturbed
when Austin called to see him, and advised Austin that he
go to the City of Mexico forthwith and take up the further
details with the new Mexican Government. Iturbede had
been acknowledged as the executive head of the Govern-
ment since he entered the City of Mexico in the preceding
September, and had called a Congress which was about to
meet, and it was to this new authority that Austin was di-
rected to apply himself. He did not speak the Spanish
language. He had not come prepared for such a journey,
his presence seemed indispensible to his colonists, but with
his characteristic promptness, he left immediately for the
City of Mexico, leaving Josiah H. Bell in charge during his
absence.

A journey from San Antonio to the City of Mexico in
those days was one of hardship and peril. It was a dis-
tance of 1200 miles through a wild country infested with
Indians and brigands of all kinds. He rode out of San
Antonio accompanied by Doctor Andrews, who went with
him a portion of the way. On the second day out they were
surrounded by Comanche Indians, but Austin knew enough

27

AUSTIN GOES TO MEXICO

of the Indian language to make his peace with them. They
got away, however, with some of his chattel effects, among
them a Spanish grammar that he carried on his saddle so
that he could study the Spanish language as he went along.
Just what the Comanches wanted with this Spanish gram-
mar is not clear, but at any rate it was found in the pos-
session of a roving band of Indians north of the Red River
several months later. Austin 's name and address were writ-
ten in it, and the rumor got back to his home in Missouri
and to his relatives there that he had been murdered by the
Comanches.

After crossing the Rio Grande, he was advised it was
not safe to proceed without an armed guard, but he and
his companion, Christie, left Monterey on foot disguised as
beggars. They improvised a story that they were poor pa-
triots who had served in the revolution that had lately suc-
ceeded, and that they were making a pilgrimage to the
Capital to ask the new Government to remunerate them for
their services. On the 29th of April, 1822, after thirty-six
days spent on the way, Austin the first time saw the City of
Mexico. He found the capitol in a turbulent, noisy mood,
for Iturbede was concluding his arrangements to assume
the title of Emperor.

The plan of Iguala under which Iturbede had operated
since the preceding February, tendered the Mexican throne
to Ferdinand VII, then the Bourbon King of Spain, con-
ditioned, however, that he would remove to Mexico and
bind himself to support a constitution to be promulgated
by the Mexican people. Ferdinand declined the honor un-
der the onerous conditions named, and it occurred to Itur-
bede that it would not be well to let the proffered crown go
by default, so he contrived with much shrewdness to have
himself proclaimed Emperor. Austin was present in the

28

THE EMPEROR ITURBEDE

city and saw this done on the 18th day of May, 1822, when
Iturbede annexed the euphonious title of Constitutional
Emperor of the Mexican Nation and Grand Master of the
Imperial Order of Guadaloupe.

The first Mexican Congress had assembled at the call of
Iturbede in the previous February, and was in session when
these things occurred, and though the Congress was sum-
moned by him and supposed to be composed largely of his
creatures, it did not approve of his imperial designs, and
immediately after he assumed or usurped this high author-
ity, there began a many cornered fight between the Em-
peror and the Congress and various other factions which has
proceeded with remarkable regularity even unto this day.

In the midst of these scenes of national chaos, Austin,
a perfect stranger in a wild, weary land, without money and
without friends, and bereft of his Spanish grammar, en-
tered the City of Mexico seeking the proper authority to
confirm his grant.

And back on the Brazos fifteen hundred miles away, the
advance guard of the old three hundred, as his first colonists
were called, fought hardships unspeakable as they waited
his return.

The season was unfavorable and the venison lean that
year in the Colony, and Austin's persistent patience at the
Mexican Capital was no greater than that of his people
whom he had left behind.

XI.
THE EMPEEOE ITURBEDE.

When Austin first reached Mexico in the last days of
April, 1822, the first Mexican Congress was in session, and

29

THE EMPEROR ITURBEDE

the supreme authority was supposed to be vested in a Junta
or committee with Iturbede at its head. Within a very
few days after his arrival, he saw the Junta, or the regency,
as it has sometimes been called, converted into the Empire.
Iturbede, who had himself declared Emperor in May, 1822,
assumed the title of Augustin I, and many other high
sounding titles. The Empire over which he figuratively
ruled was the third in territorial extent of all the nations of
the earth. It reached from Yucatan in the tropics to the
far north along the Pacific, probably to Oregon, and its
eastern and northern borders between it and the United
States included with Texas nearly seven of our present
western States.

The first Congress continued in session for some months
after the Empire was proclaimed, and at the urgent instance
of Austin and other persons from the United States who
were there seeking similar concessions, a colonization com-
mittee was appointed for the purpose of framing a suitable
colonization law. At that time no active opposition to per-
mitting colonization in Texas seemed to have manifested
itself, although it is now known that many prominent
Mexican leaders doubted the wisdom of this plan from the
beginning, and in a very few years they succeeded in bring-
ing about legislation which was designed to stop further
immigration from the north. The publication in the papers
of the United States of Austin 's first concession in the sum-
mer of 1821, caused a number of more or less prominent and
adventurous Americans to flock to the City of Mexico for
the purpose of getting similar concessions, and the presence
and activity of these persons materially embarrassed Austin
in his plans. Austin immediately filed a memorial with
the colonization committee giving the history of his and his
father 's activities, and pointing out that he had gone so far

30

THE EMPEROR ITURBEDE

as to bring his first colonists into Texas, and urging im-
mediate ratification of the grant made to his father on
January 17, 1821. This concession would probably have
been promptly ratified but for the presence of these other
persons seeking similar concessions, and on this account it
was thought best that the Congress pass a colonization law
governing all such grants, and in the usual tedious, tardy
way that such things have from time immemorial been han-
dled in all countries, the matter dragged itself along through
the entire summer. There were many committee meetings
and proposed drafts and redrafts of a colonization scheme.
Austin was present at many of these meetings, and had
made such progress in learning the Spanish language dur-
ing the first few months, despite the loss of his Spanish
grammar en route, that he was enabled to materially assist
the committee in drafting the first colonization law. In
fact there is a pretty fiction that during this time he made
a tentative draft of a constitution of the Republic of Mex-
ico which was used as a model in the formation of the Mex-
ican constitution of 1824. This may, or may not be, a pure
fiction, but it is well known that he assisted in forming
the first colonization law, and that he got the first and only
national colonization grant.

The first Mexican Congress, however, was a very un-
stable institution. It seemed to sit more or less during good
behavior, and the pleasure of the Emperor, and though
Austin sought to hasten his matters, haste was not an at-
tribute of the first Congress and especially of the coloniza-
tion committee of that Congress. His first efforts were
directed toward a special act confirming his grant for the
reasons set forth in his memorial. But failing in this, he
succeeded in having matters so advanced that the commit-
tee all but finished a colonization law in October, 1S22.

31

THE EMPEROR ITURBEDE

Austin's frankness and persistent patience had won him
not only the respect of the congressional committee but the
warm friendship of some of the more substantial Mexican
leaders, including Hererra and Andres Quintana. The
proposed colonial enactment was completed all but the
last few sections in the latter part of October, 1922, and it
was promised passage through Congress within a few days.
Austin now saw what he deemed the end of his labors in
Mexico, and after six months of weary waiting, expected
to take his way homeward within a week. But the storm
which had been brewing between the Emperor and the first
Congress burst in all its fury in the latter days of October,
and on the last day of the month, an officer from the Em-
peror's Army entered the Congressional Chamber and
read a message from his Imperial Highness, Augustin I,
dissolving the first Congress sine die and giving the members
thereof ten minutes, Mexican time, in which to disperse.
And within this incredulously short time it did disperse.
In parliamentary language, his decree of dismissal or dis-
persal had the emergency clause attached. This incident
is without parallel in Mexican history. The only thing the
Mexican people have ever since been known to do in ten
minutes was to start a revolution. With the going of the
Congress went the colonial committee, and went also the
first draft of the proposed national colonization law, fin-
ished all but the last three articles.

Poor Austin was left to begin all over again and doomed
to other long weary months of work and waiting. And
back on the Brazos there was a deep malarial gloom.

32

THE END OF THE EMPIRE

XII.
THE END OF THE EMPIRE.

The reign of Iturbede was short, but while it lasted he
was an Emperor of the old school. He dissolved the first
Congress on the last day of October, 1822, attaching the
emergency clause to his decree of dissolution giving the
members ten minutes to vacate and with positive instruc-
tions to remain vacated.

The American colony in the city which had been lobby-
ing for the passage of a colonization law, with the hope of
getting colonization contracts, were much discouraged, and
some of them left the city and abandoned the enterprise.
When the Emperor had dissolved the Congress, he deter-
mined that Mexico should be ruled by himself with the as-
sistance of a Junta, the members of which he would ap-
point, and he proceeded to name this committee or Junta,
called in Mexican literature, the Junta Instituyente, and
this high sounding institution, composed of the Emperor's
select men, proceeded to administer the affairs of Mexico
for a few brief weeks.

Austin made naste to address himself to the Junta Institu-
yente, to whom he presented his memorial and urged his
suit. He went over again the long story that he had told
the congressional committee. The Emperor's Junta In-
stituyente was less unwieldy than the Congress, and through
the influence of Herrera and Quintana and others whose
friendship Austin had made, his petition had a favorable
hearing, and the matter proceeded with unusual dispatch
for Mexican affairs. The draft which had been all but com-
pleted at the time of the dissolution of the ten minute Con-
gress, was resuscitated and the last three articles added,

33

THE END OF THE EMPIRE

and on January 14, 1823, almost two years from the date
his father had received the first grant (January 17, 1821),
Austin received a favorable report from the committee
recommending the historic colonization law of 1823. But
the committee could not pass the law, only the Emperor
could give it final sanction, and it went to his Majesty with
a favorable recommendation.

On February 18, 1823, Augustin, by divine providence
Emperor of Mexico, etc., etc., formulated his decree per-
mitting the law to become effective insofar as a grant to
Austin was concerned but no further. In view of the special
merit and the equitable reasons that surrounded Austin's
case, his grant or concession was ratified, but the Emperor's
decree did not put the law into general effect or permit
other colonial grants.

Now at last it seemed that Austin's hopes were realized,
and again he was ready to start to the north, but before
he could get out of the city, the fall of Iturbede's Govern-
ment was manifest.

Santa Anna, Bravo and others had begun a revolution
against the Empire which was thundering away in many
parts of Mexico. On the 19th of February, the very next
day after Austin got his decree, Herrera, his friend and
counselor, and who stood high in the Emperor 's Government,
fled from the city in the night and joined the revolution.
Before Austin could get away, the storm broke in all its
fury and on the 21st of February, 1823, Augustin, Emperor
of Mexico and Grand Master of the Imperial Order of
Guadaloupe, who had a few short months before entered
the city in a blaze of glory, mounted upon a black charger,
and had received from the first Alcalde a golden key upon
a silver platter, marched out the Puebla Road never to re-
turn.

34

AUSTIN'S GRANT CONFIRMED

XIII.
AUSTIN'S GRANT CONFIRMED.

The fall of the Empire left Austin in much uncertainty
as to the status of the colonization law and of his grant.
The Junta Instituyente had passed it on the 14th of Jan-
uary and the Emperor had approved it in so far as Austin's
concession was concerned on February 18, but no man knew
what the status of any of the legislative or executive acts
of the late Government would be upon the incoming of the
new regime. There was nothing that Austin could do but
watch and wait. Still more of the members of the American
colony who were there urging their claims for grants be-
came discouraged and went away.

In March, the National Congress met, the same which on
the last day of the previous October had been dissolved by
the Emperor under the ten minute order. One of the first
acts of the new session was to nullify everything that had
been done during the enforced recess of the Congress. A
triumvirate was named and vested with supreme power.
Austin lost no time in presenting himself again to the new
Congress. He had now become almost a perpetual petition-
er. Governments had risen and fallen so rapidly during
his stay in the city that one could scarcely keep account of
the swift changes, but he found some of his old friends in
the new session, with whom he had labored on the colonial
committee at the previous session. In course of time the
law which had been passed by the Emperor 's Junta In-
stituyente was resurrected and the new congressional com-
mittee determined to approve it far enough to authorize
Austin 's concession, and then suspend it as to all other ap-
plicants until further notice. Both Congress and the new

35

AUSTIN'S GRANT CONFIRMED

executive triumvirate approved the concession to Austin
that had been made by the late Emperor in the preceding
February, their approval being given April 14, 1823. The
concession to Austin thus finally approved by the National
Government was the first, last and only national grant ever
made to lands in Texas. After this concession was approved
it was the policy of the National Government to place upon
the Mexican States the responsibility of colonial legislation,
and under the system subsequently adopted all future
grants were made by the legislature of the State of Coahuila
and Texas. Thus for the fourth time in two years Austin
had seen the ever-changing Governments approve his con-
cession, and he hurried out of Mexico, and remembering
the fate of Lot's wife, did not dare look back for fear that
he would see another revolution on the horizon, and indeed
he did live to see many more, though his career was brief.
Many strange and adventurous characters had foregathered
in the Mexican Capital in those days, lured by the hope of
getting grants similar to that made to the Austins.

When Stephen first reached the city in April, 1822, he
found a group of this gentry, some of whom remained dur-
ing the entire time that he was there. Among them were
Haden Edwards, a prodigal Kentuckian who afterwards
made history and trouble in and about Nacogdoches ; Green
DeWitt, who in later years founded DeWitt 's Colon}' on the
Guadaloupe; General James Wilkinson, who at one time
had been Commander-in-Chief of the Armies of the United
States, and whose name has always been more or less mixed
with Aaron Burr in his supposed conspiracy. But the most
pathetic of all the supplicants who gathered there was a
committee of Cherokee Chiefs who came from East Texas
to urge their claims upon the new Government, and to beg
a home for their wandering people. The Cherokees were

36

AUSTIN'S GRANT CONFIRMED

a relatively docile and semi-civilized people, who at one
time had occupied a vast region from Virginia to Georgia,
but who had been driven west of the Mississippi. These
poor people had come to know that a man must have some
kind of a paper title in order to hold land, and they con-
ceived the idea that if they could get a grant from the
Mexican Government that they might hold their hunting
grounds in the land where they had located north of the
old San Antonio Road and east of the Trinity. There is
yet in existence a pitiful letter written by Richard Fields,
Chief of the Cherokees, voicing their woes. It is interesting,
yet pathetic, when we reflect that it comes from a people
lately and rightfully Lords of the continent. It is so unique
that this generation might well read it, the last wail of a
now vanished race :

"Feburey the fust Day 1822 Apacation mad to Sub-
sprem Governer of Provunce of Spain.

"Dieor Sur I wish to fall at your feet and omblay ask
you what must be Dun with us pur Indians. We have som
Grants that was give us when we live under the Spanish
Govt and we wish you to send us news by next mal whether
tha will be reberst or not and if wer committed we will
com as soon as posble to persent ourselves befor you in a
manner agreeable to our talants, etc.

" Richard filds
"A Chaf of Charkee Nation/'

But the Chief of the Cherokees, Edwards, DeWitt and
the various other applicants who presented their claims at
Mexico during these troubled times, were made to await the
colonization law passed the next year, 1824, and only
Austin, out of all the petitioners, was permitted to enter.

37

THE TERMS OF THE FIRST GRANT

XIV.
THE TERMS OF THE FIRST GRANT.

A study of the first Mexican colonization law finally
passed by Iturbede's Junta in 1823, though subsequently
suspended, is one of the most interesting chapters in Texas
history. It never actually became operative, but it formed
the groundwork of subsequent legislation covering land
grants during the whole colonial period. Many of the
terms and expressions found in the act of 1823 have come
down to us as household words.

Governor Martinez had no instructions -from any supe-
rior authority giving detail as to the lands Austin could
offer his colonists. In fact this subject never seemed to
have been considered in the earlier correspondence or at
any time prior to Stephen Austin 's first visit to San Antonio
in August, 1821. Martinez at that time asked Austin to
outline a plan for distribution of land, and he proposed
for each single man or head of a family, a section one mile
square, or 640 acres, and 320 acres additional for the wife,
160 additional for each child, and 80 for each slave. Mar-
tinez acquiesced in this proposal, and Austin seems to have
had no doubt as to its authenticity, and advertised it ex-
tensively, and this was the bounty which the first colonists
expected. When Martinez reported these things to the
Superior Commandant at the City of Mexico the question
was at once raised as to his authority to make this arrange-
ment, and the Governor urged Austin to go on to Mexico
and straighten the matter out when the latter reached San
Antonio the second time in March, 1822. All of the va-
rious Governments and Departments of Governments with
whom Austin dealt during the more than one year he re-

38

THE TERMS OF THE FIRST GRANT

mained in the City of Mexico on his first visit declined
to ratify Martinez's agreement as to the quantity of land,
though they were all willing to recognize the merits of Aus- .
tin's claim, and anxious to facilitate him in carrying out
his colonial scheme. This promised to embarrass Austin
very much, as his word had gone out to his colonists, and
his plan had been widely advertised in the United States.
He urged and explained these things to the colonial com-
mittee of the first Congress, and yet it was obdurate in
refusing to accede to his wishes. The colonial committee
named the labor, which was a survey 1,000 varas square
and containing 177 acres, as the unit of quantity. This
quantity was the amount to be assigned to each person who
proposed to engage in agriculture. It was explained to the
committee that this would be inadequate for those who pro-
posed to engage in stock raising as well, and some ingenious
person made a motion that the act be so drafted as to permit
a larger quantity to be given to those who proposed to be-
come herdsmen and engage in the ancient avocation of
stock raising. This suggestion found favor, and the act
was so drawn that while a person who would engage in
farming alone should be given a labor and no more, yet if
the colonist also contemplated stock raising he should have
in addition to his labor a sitio or a league of land, as
we have come to call it. It may be remarked in
passing that Austin's colonists seem to have been stock
raisers and took the league along with the labor.
They developed a wonderful predilection for this pastoral
profession. There is much humor in this situation. Aus-
tin urged the colonial committee to ratify a plan under
which he had offered 640 acres of land to each head of fam-
ily, and a possible additional quantity of several hundred
acres which in no event could amount to more than half a

39

THE TERMS OF THE FIRST GRANT

league, and though the committee stubbornly refused to
authorize such an arrangement, it nevertheless provided for
a plan by which each colonist could and practically all of
them did get a league and labor. He asked for a sec-
tion and they gave him a league. In fact the act was so
drawn that if the colonist proposed to raise much stock, he
could have more than a league, and in many instances
two leagues and even larger grants were made. The John
Austin survey, upon which a very large portion of the City
of Houston is located, is a two league grant, and William
Morton, whose headright lay on the Brazos opposite the
City of Richmond, had a two league grant. There were
many such in the Colony.

There were many other interesting provisions in the
law of 1823, not the least of which was one regulating
slavery which provided, "after the publication of this law,
there can be no sale or purchase of the slaves which may
be introduced into the Empire, and the children of slaves
born in the Empire shall be free at fourteen years of age. ' '

This act of 1823 is the one which was finished all but
three sections on the last day of October, 1822, when the
Emperor dissolved Congress under his emergency order.
It was completed and adopted by Iturbede's Junta in Jan-
uary, 1823, and sanctioned by him in February. The
Congress which assembled on the fall of the Empire in
March thereafter first revoked this law by general order,
then recognized it for the purpose of confirming the grant
to Austin, then suspended it after ratifying Austin's con-
cession under it with the notation, "that hereafter said
colonization law passed by the Junta Instituyente shall be
suspended until a new resolution on the subject. ' '

This new resolution on the subject was a national coloni-
zation law passed in 1824. It will be seen, therefore, that

40

AUSTIN'S GREAT ACHIEVEMENT

the law of 1823, with its unusual stormy career at birth,
all but passed in October, adopted in January following,
ratified by the Emperor in February, set aside by the ten-
minute Congress in March, reaffirmed by the same Congress
in April, in order to authorize Austin's grant, suspended by
tKe same Congress immediately after Austin's concession
was adopted, and thereafterwards postponed, though it
never became a law, nevertheless constituted the framework
of subsequent Mexican legislation, and its provisions had a
material bearing upon all of the Texas colonies.

XV.
AUSTIN'S GREAT ACHIEVEMENT.

One cannot follow the course of events narrated in these
articles without developing the greatest admiration for
Austin and the highest respect for his character and
genius.

He went to Mexico in April, 1822, without money, with-
out acquaintances, unable to speak the language, and even
robbed of his Spanish grammar, and at a turbulent time
when no man's mind was normal. He found the city full
of adventurers using influence and intrigue to get colonial
concessions in Texas. Without any of these blandishments,
he alone succeeded. Every department of every Govern-
ment which he approached during the many changes of the
eventful year when he was there, heard him with approval
and ultimately granted his concession. At the time he
reached the City of Mexico, he was only twenty-eight years
old. He had left school at seventeen, and when scarcely

41

AUSTIN'S GREAT ACHIEVEMENT

twenty-one had been elected a member of the Legislature
of Missouri Territory, in which body he had served for six
years.

In 1820 he was appointed Federal Judge in Arkansas,
and in 1821 was about to engage in a newspaper venture in
New Orleans, when called to take up his father's enter-
prise. There was nothing in his education and training
which fitted him for the unusual mission upon which he
went to the City of Mexico. When he rode north in
April, 1823, with his grant finally approved, he was not
yet thirty, but all other suitors who had not abandoned
the quest remained behind to await later legislation. No
greater tribute to Austin's genius can be paid than by the
simple recital of these historical facts. Since the grant
which the Government made to him alone and affected his
his first Colony only, arid since it differed materially from
those of later date made both to him and other Empres-
arios, it is of peculiar interest.

Governor Martinez, in August, 1821, sent Austin away
into the Gulf Coast country with a wave of the hand to find
a location for his first Colony along the Colorado River.
There was much discussion between Austin and the au-
thorities in Mexico while he was there in 1822-23 as to
what should be the boundaries of his first Colony. It was
finally settled in the Emperor's decree of the 18th of Feb-
ruary, and later approved by the Congress as follows :

"With respect to the demarkation of limits for the new
establishment described by Austin in his memorial, the
council are of the opinion that it need not be granted be-
cause there is not sufficient data to ascertain the extent of
the territory and because the Colony will be composed of the
land granted in full property to the colonists."

In other words, the lands granted to the individual set-

AUSTIN'S GREAT ACHIEVEMENT

tiers wherever they might locate would constitute the ex-
tent of the first coionial grant. Three hundred and seven
separate colonial land grants were made under this decree,
and they were scattered over the wide area now known as
the following counties: Fayette, Burleson, Austin,
Washington, Waller, Grimes, Harris, Chambers, Fort
Bend, Brazoria, Matagorda, Wharton, Colorado and
Brazos. The outside limits of this territory are as
wide as the boundaries of the State of Massachusetts,
and show the aversion „ that our ancestors had against
being crowded. The only limitation imposed was a
restriction against any grant within the " littoral border"
or within ten leagues of the Gulf Coast. None of the
grants of the first Colony were within this zone. It was
reserved from settlement for the time being with the idea
that the Government should control the coast line. This
policy was relaxed a few years later, and Austin's fourth
Colony covered the entire Gulf littoral from the Lavaca to
the San Jacinto. It is evident now when looking back upon
events which transpired one hundred years ago, that but
for two things there would have been no colonial grant
prior to the national law of 1824, and possibly not then.
There is even a possibility that there would have been no
national law authorizing colonization but for the influences
which brought about the first concession. These two things
were: First, the character and personality of Austin and
the great impression he made upon all the official bodies
with which he came in contact during his year 's stay in the
Capital.

Second, there was a spirit of fairness involved which these
Governments were willing to recognize. The Spanish
sovereignty had made a concession to Austin and his fa-
ther which he spent a year in fulfilling. It was far

43

AUSTIN'S GREAT ACHIEVEMENT

performed on his part and his reputation and fortune were
wrecked if it were not carried out. The Mexican officials
manifested a spirit of fairness and equity toward Austin
in these matters which is indeed commendable. The other
would-be Empresarios who haunted the ante-chambers
of these Mexican Governments did not inspire so much
confidence, nor did they have any claims upon the Gov-
ernment as Austin did. There was even in those days a
current of grave suspicion among many Mexican leaders
against the wisdom of allowing colonists from the United
States to settle in Texas, and looking back upon the situ-
ation now one is lead to wonder at the great stupidity of
the Mexican Governments in ever permitting this move-
ment. In less than six years from this very time
Mexican leaders boldly spoke out against it and would
have undone all that had been done, if it were possible.
Had it not been for the ever-recurrent revolutions which
followed each other in Mexico during these years, it is
more than likely that the first Colony would have been
wiped out long before it reached a point where it could
maintain itself.

It was manifest to those Mexican leaders who gave the
subject much thought that these American colonists could
never become Mexicans, either in sentiment, politics or re-
ligion, and these thoughts may well have turned the scale
against colonization entirely but for the great interest
and confidence that Austin inspired and the masterful way
in which he urged the justice of a ratification of his first
concession. His name and influence and character gave
a coloring as it were to the whole colonial scheme, and in
the wake of his coming the other Empresarios crept in.
And now, after the lapse of one hundred years, it is not
too much to say that the hand of Stephen F. Austin, raised

44

THE FIRST COLONISTS

at this time and under the circumstances here detailed, de-
termined the fate of all the country north of the Rio
Grande, and that Texas and the Western States were to be
Saxon rather than Latin. This is not merely fulsome
praise. It is rather a tardy acknowledgment of the real
merit and great work of this remarkable man.

Surely very few men in American history have wrought
so much, and his achievements and their effect upon our
history class him as a national figure — a national hero.

XVI.
THE FIRST COLONISTS.

The first colonial grant to Austin, of February 18, 1823,
afterwards confirmed by the ten-minute congress on April
14, 1823, directed him to collaborate with the Governor of
Texas or a Commissioner appointed by the Governor, to
designate and divide the land among the colonists. Austin
was authorized to locate a town at a place central to the col-
onists, which should serve as the Seat of Government for
the Colony. Above all, the colonists must be Roman Cath-
olics of steady habits. This was supposed to be indispensable.
He was authorized to organize the colonists into a militia,
and until the Government was further organized, he was
charged with the administration of justice, a settlement of
all differences which might arise among the inhabitants, and
the preservation of good order and tranquility. It must
be remembered that this first grant, with its broad powers
conferred upon Austin, was made before the Mexican Con-
stitution of 1824, and more than three years before there

45

THE FIRST COLONISTS

•

was a Constitutional State Government for Coahuila and
Texas.

Austin stopped at Monterey on his return, for a confer-
ence with the State authorities, and was designated as a
Lieutenant Colonel, and was afterwards known as Colonel
Austin, until he was elected Commander-in-Chief of the
colonial forces at Gonzales, in 1835, after which he was
called General Austin.

The Governor of Coahuila and Texas, Don Luciano Gar-
cia, appointed that genial soldier of fortune the Baron de
Bastrop Commissioner to issue the titles to the colonists,
and in 1823, Austin and Bastrop arrived in the Colony.
This same Don Luciano issued a letter of instructions to
Bastrop on July 23rd, asking him to locate and lay out
the town called to be established in the colonial concession,
and named San Felipe de Austin.

During the year which lapsed since the first colonists ar-
rived, and while Austin was in Mexico, some progress had
been made toward permanent settlements. Emigrants had
come singly and in companies, by land and by sea, and had
squatted at various places, from LaGrange to the mouth
of the San Jacinto. There is a poetic interest when one
reflects upon the prospect which confronted these ances-
tors of ours, as they wearily wended their way into a vast,
strange, virgin land and selected sites for their homes,
as convenience, or fancy, or accident suggested. One
family would be attracted by a beautiful grove, another by
a charming landscape. All of them kept an eye singled to
fertile lands and gravitated to the alluvial river fronts.
One hardy Tennesseean, who had come overland nearly a
thousand miles, stopped on the Brazos early in 1822, and
was about to make his permanent location. After a few
days, he heard that a fellow from Alabama had located five

THE FIRST COLONISTS

miles below him, and in disgust at such unseemly crowd-
ing, he folded his tent and moved across to the Colorado.

The details of surveying and locating the lands and is-
suing the titles called for a vast amount of work. The
names of Samuel M. Williams and Horatio Chrisman should
ever be remembered in connection with the location of the
first Colony. Williams came from Maryland, in 1822, and
in his application for a land grant it is recited that he
spoke both the Spanish and French languages, as well as
the English. He was made Secretary of Austin's Colony
and labored with Austin throughout all the colonial period.
The volumes of land records made during these years were
all in Williams' handwriting. Chrisman and Ingram and
the other surveyors who made the first locations would write
their field notes as the work progressed, in English. These
field notes were often written on odd scraps of paper. But
before the grant could issue, the field notes had to be trans-
lated into Spanish and all of the official records, including
the grants themselves, were in the Spanish. Williams,
however, preserved the original field notes, and they have
been bound into a volume, which has been kept even unto
this day.

The first survey in the Colony is said to have been the
one made for Josiah H. Bell, on the west side of the Brazos,
a few miles below the La Bahia road. This work was done
on the tenth of February, 1823, by Horatio Chrisman. In-
gram's first survey was made for Sylvanus Castleman, on
the west side of the Colorado above LaGrange.

The first year in the Colony was a very hard one, and
this eight-cylindered generation can never know the hard-
ships and privations which these people suffered during the
first years. Many families were without bread until the
first corn crop was matured. The talented Horatio Chris-

47

THE GOVERNMENT OF THE FIRST COLONY

man wore a leather hunting jacket all summer because he
had no shirt. The family of William Morton lived largely
on lettuce for months. But the mustang ponies were fat
and more easily killed than deer and meat was reasonably
abundant.

XVII.
THE GOVERNMENT OF THE FIRST COLONY.

While Austin was yet in Mexico in 1822, the first colonists
having settled on the Colorado and Brazos Rivers, Governor
Trespalacios, who had succeeded the Spanish Governor,
Martinez, took authority to divide the new Colony into two
districts, that of the Colorado and of the Brazos, and named
an Alcalde for each district. This was the first political
recognition of the new Colony, and James Cummings, Pro-
visional Alcalde of Colorado, appointed by Don Felix Tres-
palacios, in 1822, was the first Anglo-American civil officer
ever named in Texas.

When Austin and Bastrop returned to the State in
1823, a letter had preceded them from Saucedo at Bexar,
advising the Alcaldes of the appointment of Bastrop.
The letter to Alcalde Cummings is printed among Aus-
tin's papers and directs him to assemble his people at
the house of Sylvanus Castleman, on the Colorado, to
hear instructions regarding the grant to Austin and
Austin's authority. The Alcalde is a petty Spanish judi-
cial officer. The office is one of great antiquity and the
Alcalde is supposed to be as indispensable to a Spanish
community as a justice of the peace is found in an English
neighborhood.

THE GOVERNMENT OF THE FIRST COLONY

Austin accepted the Alcalde arrangements made for him
in advance, and set about the location of his Capital and
the promulgation of a civil and criminal code, which were
published in 1824. These codes, entirely written by him,
remained the law of the Colonies, until the first Ayunta-
mientos were established in 1828 and Constitutional Alcaldes
chosen. His criminal code consisted of twenty-six articles,
and is dated January 22, 1824. The five first articles are
devoted to the proper handling of Indians, and provide
that if Indians are found in a neighborhood and their con-
duct leads to the suspicion that they intend to steal, they
should be apprehended and taken before the nearest Al-
calde, who is given power to punish them if he deems it
necessary. Article five concludes the treatise on Indians,
in this unique language :

"No person in the colony shall ill treat or abuse any
Indian without just cause, under a penalty of one hundred
dollars, but shall treat them at all times in a friendly
manner, so long as they deserve it."

After thus disposing of the Indian question, the law-giver
proceeds in article six to fix the status of other criminals,
making it the duty of all persons to apprehend them be-
fore an Alcalde. If the criminal makes a resistance, it is
lawful to kill him. Gambling of every description is pro-
hibited under a heavy fine, but horse racing, "being cal-
culated to improve the breed of horses, ' ' is not classified as
gambling.

In article nine he made it a high misdemeanor for a
man and woman to live together without being married,
but suspended this section until sixt}7 days after the arri-
val of the first priest, who was expected to take up his
residence in the Colony in due time.

Five sections of the penal code were devoted to offences

49

THE GOVERNMENT OF THE FIRST COLONY

concerning slaves and slavery and by slaves, and it was
made a heavy offence to steal a slave. The code named the
crimes of theft, assault, slander, counterfeiting, and pro-
vided for a jury trial in the Alcalde's Court. All fines col-
lected were to go to the benefit of a school fund and other
public purposes.

This miniature code, promulgated by Austin in Jan-
uary, 1824, was the law of the land for more than four
years, and is interesting as the first English code ever
written in Texas.

In his civil code, Austin provided for a constable in
each district, to serve the process of the Alcaldes. Here
was a rare blending of the English and Latin forms of
jurisprudence. Think of an English Constable serving
the process of a Spanish Alcalde. The civil code provides
for the form of the Alcalde's docket, and there are yet
in existence a number of these old dockets, which bear some
very interesting recitals. I have examined the old Al-
calde registers of Brazoria, which bear the names of the
attorneys who practiced in those remote days, and fre-
quently among them appear such names as John A. Whar-
ton, R. J. Townes, Elisha M. Pease, and others afterwards
well known in the early history of Texas.

The twenty-third section of the civil code provides that
in case no property of a debtor can be found by the Con-
stable, that his body should be seized and the Alcalde
should examine into his circumstances, and in case it should
be found that he had fraudulently conveyed away or con-
cealed his property, then the Alcalde may hire out the de-
fendant to the highest bidder, until his wages pay the debt.

During these four years, Austin's life was an extremely
busy one. In a sketch recently written by Eugene Barker,
the following glimpse is given of his unusual activities:

50

THE GOVERNMENT OF THE FIRST COLONY

"It would be impossible to exaggerate Austin's labors in
the early years of the Colony. A letter to the political
chief, in 1826, gives a clue to their character and variety.
He had left San Felipe on April fourth, to point out some
land recently conceded to one of the State officials, and
had been detained by excessive rains and swollen streams,
until the twenty-ninth. On May first, he began the trial
of an important case, that lasted seven days. At the same
time, he had to entertain a delegation of Tonkaway In-
dians and make preparations for a campaign against another
tribe; to talk to and answer questions of many foreigners
who had come to look at the country, explaining and trans-
lating the Federal Constitution and laws for them; to re-
ceive and pass upon applications for land, hear reports and
issue instructions to surveyors; and to correspond with
superior civil and military officers at San Antonio and
Monterey. Much of his time was consumed in settling
neighborhood disputes about cows and calves. During
these years, he gathered, by painstaking surveys and per-
sonal observation, data for a map of Texas, published by
Tanner, in 1829, charted Galveston Bay and the harbors
and navigable rivers of the State, promoted trade with
the United States, and kept a stream of immigrants flowing
into the Colony; encouraged the erection of gins and saw
mills and the establishment of schools; exercised through-
out a most remarkable influence over the legislature at
Saltillo, in matters affecting the interests of the colonists. ' '

In addition to the affairs of his own Colony, he was
called upon in every critical situation that arose in the
other Colonies, and especially De Witt's and Edwards'
Colonies. His high standing with the Mexican officials and
the great deference they paid to him gave him an influence
that was sought, not only by his own colonists, but all other

51

EMPRESARIO GRANTS

Empresarios. He established the Seat of Government for
his Colony at a site located on the Brazos River, now in
Austin County. A tentative location was first made on the
Colorado, but this was • abandoned for San Felipe,
and a five-league grant of land was made by the Mexican
Government, on which to locate the town. San Felipe re-
mained the Seat of Government until the advance of Santa
Anna 's army in 1836.

XVIII.
EMPRESARIO GRANTS.

Austin's first grant was finally approved on the four-
teenth day of April, 1823, but the same Act which ap-
proved it provided that no other grant should be made until
the passage of a State Colonization Law for Coahuila and
Texas, and that all subsequent grants should emanate from
the State Government. The other Empresarios (or con-
tractors) were therefore compelled to await the organiza-
tion of the State Government. These would-be Empresarios
who foregathered at Mexico in 1821 migrated to Saltillo,
the little Capital of Coahuila, and in March, 1825, when
the first State statute was passed authorizing such grants,
there was no dearth of applicants at Saltillo. On the fif-
teenth day of April, 1825, the first State grants were made.
On that day, Green De Witt received the contract to locate
four hundred families between the Guadaloupe and the
Lavaca; Robert Lef twitch, four hundred families north of
the San Antonio Road and between the Brazos and the Col-
orado ; Frost Thorne, four hundred families in East Texas ;
and on the eighteenth, Hayden Edwards, who had been
waiting and watching four years for such a concession, had

52

EMPRESARIO GRANTS

permission to locate four hundred families in East Texas,
in the neighborhood of Nacogdoches. On the twenty-sev-
enth of the same month, Austin received a concession for
his second Colony, which gave him permission to locate
three hundred families, within the bounds already occupied
by his scattered first colonists.

Many other grants were made during this and succeed-
ing years, so that between 1825, when the Land Office was
opened at Saltillo, and 1835, when it was closed by the
Revolution, there had been thirty two grants, covering al-
most the entire territory now embraced by the State of
Texas. The great majority of them were never fulfilled. Aus-
tin afterwards received two other colonial grants, his third
Colony covering the territory between the Brazos and the
San Jacinto. During the first few years, no grants were
made within the Gulf littoral, which included a strip ten
leagues in width, from the mouth of the Rio Grande to the
Sabine. When Austin came to locate his fourth Colony,
however, he got permission to locate it entirely within this
Gul£ littoral and it extended from the mouth of the Lavaca
to the mouth of the San Jacinto. Of all the other Empre-
sario grants that were made during these years, only those
to Austin were entirely fulfilled. De Witt's was probably
more nearly fulfilled than any of the others.

Martin DeLeon, a Mexican, procured permission in 1825
to locate a Colony, and did locate it, founding the City of
Victoria, which was settled at first by Mexican colonists.

McMullen and McGloynes procured a grant, between the
Nueces and San Antonio Rivers, south of the San Antonio
Road, and located an Irish Colony there. Some of these
grants were early forfeited and re-locations made. Many
of them were made the basis of wild land speculation in the
United States.

53

THE HAYDEN EDWARDS GRANT

Three large contiguous grants, covering practically all
of Southeast Texas east of the San Jacinto River, were
made to Burnet, Vehlein and DeZavala. The land cov-
ered by these grants extended from Galveston Bay along
the Sabine River to the Nacogdoches Road, and Burnet 's
grant lay north of that road. The three grants embraced
1000 leagues, a territory almost as vast as one of the
Southern States. These gentlemen conveyed their holdings
to trustees, among whom were William H. Sumner, of
Boston, United States Senator from Massachusetts; and a
Company was formed, known as the Galveston Bay and
Texas Land Company, which took the title of the Em-
presarios to the property, and stock was issued and offered
for sale. They procured the opinion of no less an authority
than Chancellor Kent as to the validity of these grants, and
their plan of operation, and started on a scheme of rather
wild land speculation. Austin protested very bitterly
against these things. It created a bad impression in Mexico.
He had started out to bring in bona fide colonists, people
who would settle and develop the country. This land specu-
lation, which began as early as 1826, is often given as one
of the causes of the Revolution.

XIX.
THE HAYDEN EDWARDS GRANT.

Edwards was in Mexico, seeking a grant, when Austin
went there in 1821. Yoakum says of him that he kept
open house and entertained very lavishly. It appears from
Austin's correspondence some years later that Edwards

54

THE HAYDEN EDWARDS GRANT

operated a roulette wheel in this open house, which prob-
ably increased the lavishness of his entertainments. Ed-
wards was an impetuous, quick tempered person, the very
kind of a man that would not be calculated to get along well
with Spaniards or Mexicans. He made his headquarters
at Nacogdoches, where he found a very small settlement at
the time of his coming. Nacogdoches had been a sub-
stantial settlement years before, but had been destroyed
in 1818, and when Austin came there in 1821, the town did
not contain but half a dozen houses and thirty or forty
inhabitants. The news of the opening of Texas to Amer-
ican emigrants, however, caused a great influx of people
into all East Texas, and Nacogdoches soon became a rela-
tively important place.

During 1825 and 1826, there was a gathering of renegade
Mexicans in East Texas and about Nacogdoches — refugees
who had left Mexico for its good — and the same class of
gentry from the States soon foregathered there and formed
a congenial society for evil. Edwards and his emigrants
soon came into conflict with this element, and as is usually
the case, there was a harmony between the bad elements,
both American and Mexican, which came into direct an-
tagonism with Edwards and his well-meaning colonists.
Nacogdoches was the only place in Texas, except San An-
tonio, where there was any Mexican population worth men-
tioning, and of course the only place where there could be
any friction between the inhabitants and the newcomers.
That such friction was inevitable must have been ap-
parent to everyone, and that it manifested itself at the very
beginning is but natural.

A Mexican rogue named Sepulveda, more or less skilled
in forgeries in general and in land forgeries in particular,
and an American rogue named Norris, skilled in many

•

55

THE HAYDEN EDWARDS GRANT

forms of villainy, conspired together so that Norris was
chosen Alcalde of the new settlement.

Edwards, with a frankness, and in good English, informed
Governor Blanco at San Antonio of the deeds and mis-
deeds of Sepuleveda and his gang. Governor Blanco thought
a bad Mexican was much better than a good American,
and on this score sided with the renegades and cancelled
Edwards' Empresario grant and expelled him from the
Colony. Colonists were coming in in great numbers to lo-
cate under Edwards' concession and he had spent almost
a fortune in the enterprise, and this turn of affairs meant
his ruin. He and his brother, Benjamin, determined to defy
Blanco 's authority, and on December 16, 1826, Benjamin
Edwards rode into Nacogdoches and declared the exist-
ence of the Republic of Fredonia, and unfurled its flag,
in the grim wake of a Texas norther, which howled in the
East Texas pines that night.

In desperation for an ally in this emergency, the Ed-
wards turned to the Cherokee Indians, who dwelt in the
woods north of the San Antonio-Nacogdoches Road, and
an offensive and defensive alliance was formed, by which
the Fredonians and the Cherokees were to work their inde-
pendence and then divide East Texas equally.

There was a rather celebrated globe trotter named John
Dunn Hunter, whose journeys and voyages through the
world had been more thrilling, if possible, than those of
Sinbad the Sailor. At this particular time, he was in some
way connected with the Mexican Government, as an agent
among the Cherokees. Hunter and Richard Fields, the
Cherokee Chief, manipulated this new alliance with the
Fredonians.

Austin had foreseen this trouble and as early as March
of this year, 1826, he had written Edwards a long, scathing

56

THE FREDONIAN REBELLION

letter, frankly telling him that his course of dealing and his
indiscreet utterances would get him into serious trouble.
After reviewing various rumors as to Edwards' doings and
sayings, the young Empresario warned the old man thus:
"One moment's reflection will show you the imprudence
and impropriety of such utterances as those attributed to
you." Edwards and those associated with him, foreseeing
this crisis, had sent letters to many influential men in Aus-
tin's Colony, urging them to join in resistance to the Mex-
ican authority, and most of these letters had been for-
warded to Austin, or called to his attention. Austin knew
the utter folly of Edwards' course, and foresaw that if any
suspicion attached to him or his colonists, that the whole
colonial scheme would be wiped out. He therefore used
every endeavor, not only to suppress the rebellion, but to
show the Mexican authorities that he was in accord with
them, and that he had no sympathy with the Fredonian
movement.

XX.

THE FEEDONIAN REBELLION.

When news of the arrival of Edwards, with his Fre-
donian army «of fifteen persons, was carried to the au-
thorities in Mexico, there was a great hurrying to and fro,
and military preparations to suppress the rebellion were
begun on a large scale. It was confidently believed by
the people of Mexico, and by many of the Mexican leaders,
that this was the first effort of the United States of the
North, as they called our country, to claim Texas, and

57

THE FREDONIAN REBELLION

they confidently believed that they would be at war with
the United States, as soon as their forces reached Texas.

The Mexican Congress voted a large sum of money to de-
fray the expenses of the campaign and an expedition of
troops was arranged to be sent by Vera Cruz, to land in
Galveston Bay and march overland to Nacogdoches. Ar-
rangements were put on foot to send an army across the
Rio Grande. Long before these ambitious plans were under
way, however, the rebellion had collapsed with its own
weight and under the pressure of the local military au-
thorities.

Colonel Ellis P. Bean, who had come into Texas with
Nolan in 1812, and who had spent several of the interven-
ing years in a Mexican dungeon, and had in this way be-
come a naturalized Mexican citizen, resided near Nacog-
doches in those days. The story of Bean is an interesting
and romantic one, but I will not stop to relate it here. He
carried the title of Colonel of Militia under the Mexican
Government, and had authority to look after matters per-
taining to the Indians. Being an American, he was mis-
trusted by the Mexican authorities, and being a Mexican
official, he was mistrusted by the American colonists. But
Colonel Bean assumed authority to take action against the
Fredonian rebels and moved on to Nacogdoches.

Saucedo, the Mexican Political Chief at Bexar, sent a
detachment of two hundred men by way of San Felipe.
From San Felipe, and after a conference with Austin, Sau-
cedo issued a mighty manifesto to the colonists, reviewing
the entire Nacogdoches trouble and advising that on the
morrow, January 22nd, 1827, he would march on to Nac-
ogdoches. Austin felt that the fate of his Colony was at
stake and that if there was the least suspicion of his loyalty,
or his sympathy with Edwards, that all was lost. There

58

THE FBEDONIAN REBELLION

were no more than a thousand American families in all
Texas at that time, and the destruction of the entire colo-
nial venture would have been an easy matter. Then, too,
Austin was under the deepest obligations to the Mexican
Government. Whatever the treatment of Edwards might
have been, yet the authorities at Mexico had been fair to
Austin, and held him in high esteem. In order to give
public evidence of his position in the matter, he raised a
detachment of men from his Colony, to accompany Sau-
cedo's Army. In addition to this, Austin sent a commit-
tee to Nacogdoches, composed of Richard Ellis, James
Cummings and James Kerr, with instructions to investigate
and report, and to use their influence to induce the revo-
lutionists to forbear. Austin's committee made an inter-
esting report, advising that they had met Edwards and
John Dunn Hunter, and that they were unwilling to accept
amnesty, but would insist upon absolute freedom of all the
country north of the Rio Grande.

On January 4th, before Saucedo's men, along with the
colonial troops, could reach Nacogdoches, Alcalde Norris
had raised an army of sixty-seven loyal men, and with
this force, marched into Nacogdoches to give battle to the
Fredonian forces. The Fredonian army had disbanded
for the day, not expecting any hostile activity, and when
Alcalde Norris' army appeared, only eleven white men and
nine Indians were available for defense. They rallied, how-
ever, and defeated the Government forces, this being the
only active engagment that was fought. One Fredonian
was wounded and one of Norris' men killed.

In the meantime Colonel Bean had started a counter in-
trigue with the Cherokees. Austin and Saucedo wrote
letters to Fields and Hunter, but these leaders were bent
on revolution. Through Bean's influences, however, dis-

59

THE EFFECT OF THE FREDONIAN REBELLION

sention was brought about among the Cherokees and they
held a council of war and decided to rescind their late agree-
ments with the Fredonians and ally themselves with the
Mexican authorities, and as evidence of their good faith in
this new alliance, they ruthlessly slew Dick Fields, the
Cherokee Chief, and John Dunn Hunter, the celebrated
globe trotter.

After some skirmishing, and shorn of their Indian al-
lies, the Fredonians fled, and the Mexican flag again
floated at Nacogdoches. The revolution was at an end be-
fore Saucedo's army arrived, and that doughty warrior was
denied the pleasure of military triumphs.

Edwards and the Fredonians, and their premature, ill-
starred revolution were gone, but like the song of John
Brown of Ossowatomie, their souls went marching on.
Men of more judgment and descretion wrought what they
so wildly aimed at.

XXI.

THE EFFECT OF THE FREDONIAN REBELLION.

The rise and fall of Fredonia, though apparently a small
matter, of local significance only, was in fact far otherwise.
It was the first skirmish in the trouble which ended at
San Jacinto, to be renewed again in the Mexican war with
the United States, twenty years later. Its importance was
not overlooked at the time, either in the United States or
Mexico. There were wild rumors all through Mexico that
it was an instigation of the Government of the United
States, with designs to claim the Rio Grande as a boundary.

60

THE EFFECT OF THE FREDONIAN REBELLION

So strong was this feeling in Mexico that in 1827 Henry
Clay, Secretary of State in the Cabinet of John Quincy
Adams, addressed a letter to Obregon, the Minister from
Mexico to the United States at that time, expressing regret
at the occurrence and disavowing any sympathy with it.
Mexico was so profoundly stirred that great preparations
were made to invade Texas by land and by sea, for the pur-
pose of putting down the Fredonians and warring with
the people of the United States, whom they confidently be-
lieved would come into the fray. One thousand men were
marshaled to come by sea, and ten thousand were designed
to march overland. When the news of the fall of the Fre-
donians was received in Mexico, this contemplated army of
invasion turned its attention to an internal revolution which
was brewing. The strange aspect of the Mexican colonial
policy, which invited and admitted people from the United
States to settle in Texas, becomes stranger still when we
fully understand the eternal feeling of suspicion and mis-
trust which existed toward the United States in Mexico
during these years, and one must candidly admit that sub-
sequent events seemed to justify this suspicion. Those
were the days when the Democratic party, committed to
the domination of the slave-holding element in the South,
was in the ascendency, and designed to rule the fortunes
of this country and shape its policies, until the outbreak of
the Civil War, in the next generation.

The eternal quarrel as to the boundary line between the
Spanish and French possessions in America, or between
Louisiana, which was nominally considered French, and
Texas, which was considered Spanish, had lasted for two
centuries, and when the United States acquired Louisiana
from Napoleon, it succeeded to this boundary line dispute.
There was much reason for France to have contended that

61

THE EFFECT OF THE FREDONIAN REBELLION

Louisiana extended to the Rio Grande. In fact, the French
title, based on the explorations of La Salle, was about as
good as any title which Spain could assert. The United
States, as successor to the French title, could have insisted
upon the Rio Grande as the boundary between Louisiana
and the Spanish possessions in Mexico, but prior to 1820,
the American people were more interested in the navigation
of the Mississippi River and in possession of Florida and
the elimination of all Spanish claims in that quarter than in
the remote western boundary of Louisiana. This accounts
for the De Onis Treaty, of 1819, concluded during the first
administration of Monroe, by the terms of which Spain ced-
ed all claim to Florida and the United States recognized the
Sabine and the Red River as the southwestern boundary of
Louisiana. Within two years after this Treaty was ratified,
Mexico achieved its independence, and the question arose as
to whether it was bound by the Treaty or could insist upon
its recognition by the United States. Just how there could
be any question about it, I cannot see, but nevertheless it
seems to have been much debated and it was currently be-
lieved in Mexico that the United States would make the
contention that the Treaty was not binding upon it as
against the new Mexican Nation, that country not having
been a party to it. Then, too, there was a general feeling
in the United States that in some way the Treaty would
either be abrogated, or ignored and set aside, and the United
States would acquire Texas.

The very first Minister from Mexico to the United States,
in 1822, discovered this feeling and hastened to warn his
Government of it and to exaggerate it into a widespread
conspiracy to occupy all the country north of the Rio
Grande. As early as October, 1822, Zazaya, first Mexican
Minister, wrote his Government, after he had been in the

THE EFFECT OF THE FREDONIAN REBELLION

United States only a few weeks, that he had discovered am-
bitious designs with reference to Texas, and this letter and
similar warnings were in the hands of the Mexican officials
when Iturbede and his committee, as well at the Ten-Min-
ute Congress, approved Austin's first grant, in April, 1823.
In that year, Torrens, who had become Mexican Minister
at Washington, continued his warnings, and in August,

1823, sent specific recommendations against allowing the
American population to become predominant in Texas.
These reports were so frequent and so alarming as to cause
the Mexican Government to take urgent steps to have the
De Onis Treaty so recognized as to make it binding on the
United States and to work out the boundaries with great
precision.

On April 15, 1824, the Political Chief at San Antonio
wrote to the Government at Mexico : ' ' The American Gov-
ernment counts Texas its own and even included it on its
maps, tracing its boundaries to the Rio Grande. " Yet
on this very day, April 15, 1824, the authorities at Sal-
tillo granted Green De Witt, Hayden Edwards and Frost
Thorne vast colonial tracts, covering large portions of
Texas. The fears of Mexico in this behalf were fanned into
white heat by the Fredonian outbreak, and after it sub-
sided, they were continuously kept aroused by repeated ef-
forts of the United States to purchase Texas. From the
beginning of the John Quincy Adams Administration, in

1824, until the Revolution, in 1836, the State Department
at Washington never ceased its efforts to induce the various
governments, which abode their destined hour in Mexico,
to sell Texas. Joel Poinsett, our Minister to Mexico during
the Adams Administration, was instructed to buy Texas,
and Henry Clay, Secretary of State under Adams, wrote
him volumes upon the subject. He was told to make an

63

THE EFFECT OF THE FREDONIAN REBELLION

effort to get the Kio Grande as a boundary, failing in that
to try for the Lavaca or the Nueces of the Colorado, or even
the Brazos, and was given a scale of prices for these various
boundaries ; but every offer made to every one of the rapidly
changing Governments in Mexico was met by a flat refusal.
At one time, Poinsett wrote Clay, in 1825, that if the
United States would let up on its efforts for a few years,
the American settlers then pouring into Texas would be-
come so boisterous and troublesome that Mexico might be
more willing to sell Texas, to get rid of them. In one of
Clay's letters to Poinsett, he suggested that it be called to
Mexico's attention that the United States was better
equipped to take care of the Comanche Indians than
Mexico, and that if it acquired Texas, it would take it over,
Indians and all, and would look after these troublesome
people.

With the incoming of the Jackson Administration, in
1828, these activities were renewed or accelerated. Jackson
sent one Anthony Butler, of infamous memory, as Min-
ister to Mexico, and he began a six-year course of treacher-
ous intrigue which became the scandal of the day, all de-
signed to beg, bribe or steal Texas away from the Mexican
Federation. Mexican leaders during these years became al-
most hysterical about the designs of the United States, and
they had much indeed upon which to found their hysteria;
but all of the time, new grants were being made to Em-
presarios and the stream of colonists continued unabated,
until 1830. Mexican papers from time to time published
attacks on this Government, and in the Mexican Congress
it was openly charged that the United States and its peo-
ple were natural and deadly enemies to Mexico. These con-
tradictory things are hard to understand a hundred years
after.

64

GENERAL MANUEL MIER y TERAN

XXII.
GENERAL MANUEL MIER y TERAN.

There is an interesting and pathetic glimpse of the times,
1828 to 1832, found in the biography of this brilliant and
gifted man. General Teran had been a leader in the
patriot cause during the war for independence, 1810 to
1821, and followed the varying fortunes of the rebel army
during these long, bitter years. He was a man of great
intellect, splendidly educated and of sterling character.
The earlier Texas historians have contented themselves
with rude flings at Teran, and indeed he was not a prime
favorite with the Texas colonists, but at this date we can
look back upon his character and career and realize in him
a really great and patriotic man, who tried to serve his
country with as much fairness to the Texas colonists as
seemed consistent with his own country's safety.

When the boundary question with the United States be-
came acute, the Mexican Congress passed numerous reso-
lutions and acts and imposed treaties designed to adjust it,
and a Commission was created, to go upon the ground and
mark the boundary with proper monuments. In 1827,
shortly after the Fredonian incident, General Teran was
sent to Texas on this Commission. The purpose of his mis-
sion, however, was much broader than the mere locating and
marking of the Texas boundaries. Among the specific
instructions that he is known to have received from the
Minister of Relations in the Mexican Cabinet, was to make
a report upon the desirability of maintaining garrisons and
troops at various points in Texas. He journeyed to Bexar
and after a visit there, stopped for a time at San Felipe
and visited other points in Austin's Colony. Here he

65

GENERAL MANUEL MIER y TERAN

formed an acquaintance and intimate friendship with
Austin, who seems to have won Teran 's confidence and ad-
miration. From San Felipe, he proceeded on to Naeogdo-
ches, where he tarried for some time and studied the local
situation.

General Teran wielded greater influence in Texas affairs
than any other Mexican of his day, prior to Santa Anna,
and his activities wrought much in our destiny. From the
time of his visit to the date of his tragic death, in 1832, he
was the eyes and ears and brains of Mexican officialdom in
Texas. His reports to his Government about Texas form a
chapter of intense interest and can be better understood
now, in the light of subsequent events. Every law and de-
cree, as well as every movement or policy towards or affect-
ing Texas during these years emanated from him, or from
suggestions and recommendations that he made to his Gov-
ernment. At the time of his arrival at Nacogdoches, a
small garrison was located there, under the command of
Colonel Piedras, who had been stationed there in June,
1827, after the Fredonian fiasco, to keep the peace and
resist the aggressions of the United States of the north.

Guadalupe Victoria was the first Constitutional President
of Mexico, and Teran was his intimate friend. From Nac-
ogdoches, Teran made a lengthy confidential report to
Victoria, which is a very interesting and important docu-
ment, showing a Mexican's insight into Texas affairs. One
reading this letter sees in it seemingly strange contradic-
tions, but they are the struggle of a strong man with a fate
which he foresees, but will not admit. In his communica-
tion he says that Mexican influence has about ceased in
Texas, in fact that it is scarcely felt at all in East Texas,
where the American population is both aggressive and
thrifty, and the Mexicans poor and ignorant and the very

66

GENERAL MANUEL MIER y TERAN

lowest class. That the Americans maintain a school for
their children, where they are taught in English, but there
is no school for Mexican children. That it would cause his
enlightened countrymen chagrin to see the contempt in
which Mexicans are held by the foreigners, who have never
Been or known any other Mexicans save these low, ignorant
and thriftless fellows about Nacogdoches.

After recounting these things in great detail, he pro-
ceeds thus: "I tell myself that it could not be otherwise
but that from such a state of affairs an antagonism will arise,
which is not the least of the smoldering fires which I have
discovered. ' ' He then points out the governmental difficul-
ties of the colonists and states their grievances fully and
fairly, and suggests the location of an appellate court at
Nacogdoches. He is free in his expressions of admiration
for the honest, industrious colonists, and points to their
love of land ownership as a "strong virtue," but he fore-
saw the loss of Texas and made many suggestions to avert
the disaster, which one can tell from his whole communica-
tion he knew was inevitable. The most urgent of his sug-
gestions was the strengthening of the Mexican colonies in
Texas.

During the next few years, Teran was Comandante
General of the Eastern Provinces of Mexico, which included
Texas, and he kept an eternal vigil on Texas and the Tex-
ans. In 1829, he wrote his Government (a revolution had
changed its personnel in the interim), giving his grave sus-
picions as to the intentions of the United States. In this
letter, he suggests that the Empresarios are instruments of
the United States Government, and he grows almost fran-
tic, declaring he who consents to the loss of Texas is an ex-
ecrable traitor, who ought to be punished with death. He
hints that war may break out, and that if so, the colonists

67

GENERAL TERAN'S GARRISONS

should be suppressed in a single campaign, and urges upon
his home government plans to colonize Texas with Mexi-
cans. He makes many other recommendations, all more or
less visionary, yet in the face of all these facts, he did not
recommend cessation of immigration, though he probably
hinted at it. He would have immigration from the States
restricted, though just what restrictions he would have
were not clearly stated. He would not have Texas left an
unpeopled wilderness, for then it would revert entirely to
the Indians, and the United States might occupy it and
claim it. He would not have it populated wholly by Ameri-
can colonists, for he feared they would turn it over to the
United States. He seemed to want a limited immigration
from the States, to act as a buffer against the Indians, and
an immigration from Mexico so that Texas might have an
increasing Mexican population.

And all the while that Teran visited, and wrote and
planned, the stream of immigrants from the States con-
tinued.

XXIII.

GENERAL TERAN >S GARRISONS— MOEE PEOPLE
FROM THE STATES.

General Teran 's recommendations with reference to Texas
found favor with the several governments which followed
each other in quick succession in Mexico, for he was a friend
of all the leaders until the ascension of Santa Anna in 1832.
Teran found a strong ally in all of his activities and sus-
picions in Lucas Alaman, the ambitious young Minister of

68

GENERAL TERAN'S GARRISONS

Relations under the Victoria Government. Working in
harmony with the administration, Teran hastened plans for
establishing Mexican garrisons at various places in Texas,
and Mexican convicts were impressed for this military ser-
vice, and forces were stationed at Velasco, Anahuac, Nacog-
doches and LaBahia. On April 6, 1830, the Mexican Con-
gress, urged on by Teran and Alaman, passed the celebrated
decree which forbade further emigration to Texas from the
United States. It was the inevitable friction between the
colonists and these military authorities which provoked the
first trouble and which kept trouble going until the revolu-
tion in 1835-36. Garrisons of soldiers in charge of such
men as Col. Piedras at Nacogdoches and the celebrated
and infamous John Davis Bradburn at Anahuac, precip-
itated the strife which verified the worst fears of poor
Teran. In the meantime, however, while Teran wrote fran-
tic letters and Alaman wrought powerfully to save Texas,
American colonists continued to pour into the country by
the thousands. There were estimated to be a thousand
families here in 1826 when the Fredonian trouble arose;
ten thousand people in 1828, and probably thirty thousand
people in 1832. A great many strong and influential men
came to Texas during the period from 1828 and 1832, men
who became leaders during the succeeding years. Among
those who came as early as 1828 were R. M. Williamson
from Georgia, familiarly known as "Three-legged Willie/'
and as the "Patrick Henry of the Revolution ;" Gail Borden,
who came from New York; David G. Burnett from New
Jersey ; John A. and William H. Wharton from Tennessee,
and many others whose names have become household terms
in Texas. There was soon a wide-spread feeling among the
colonists, and especially the new arrivals, in favor of a more
positive policy, and following the advent of Teran 's mili-

69

GENERAL TERAN'S GARRISONS

tary garrisons there were many murnmrings and much sub-
dued talk of independence. The colonists continued to
prosper, however, and the prosperity was in no small meas-
ure due to the slave-holding element, who were able to
raise large crops of cotton for export.

After the organization of the Mexican Government un-
der the Constitution of 1824, Texas had remained a part of
Coahuila, and whatever semblance of a State Government it
had depended upon the authorities at Saltillo and Mon-
clavia and such other Mexican places as were from time to
time the capitals of Coahuila, a thousand miles away from
the Colonies.

Prior to 1828, Austin was the Government of the Colonies.
In 1827, a constitution was formed for Coahuila and Texas,
and in the following year there was an organization of the
State Government under this constitution. The first elec-
tion ever held in Texas was for members of the Ayuntamen-
to of San Felipe in 1828. This council, when chosen, had
jurisdiction between the Lavaca and San Jacinto Rivers
and the sea. It composed all of Austin's Colony, and the
new municipal body became the first authoritative local
government, succeeding to many functions which had there-
tofore been exercised by Austin alone. Two hundred thirty-
two votes were cast, and when the ballots were sent to
Austin at San Felipe, it was found that Thomas M. Duke
had been chosen Alcalde; Thomas Davis and Humphry
Jackson, Regidores, and Rawson Alley, Sindico.

These officials with strange sounding names composed a
local council with such functions as are necessary for local
government. But in point of fact this council did very
little, for the colonists required little government.

There was no system of taxation, for the colonists were
never required to pay a direct or advalorem tax to the

70

BRADBURN AT ANAHUAC

Federal or State Government, and the effort later to col-
lect customs at the ports of Anahuac, Velasco and elsewhere
on the coast met with such violent opposition that it was
in effect abandoned after 1832.

XXIV.
BRADBURN AT ANAHUAC.

One of Teran's garrisons was in charge of Col. John
Davis Bradburn at Anahuac at the eastern end of Gal-
veston Bay. This Bradburn was a renegade American, who
began life as a small merchant, but his mercantile business
languished somewhat and he was caught in an effort to
steal some slaves from a Tennessee planter and incarcerated
in the Columbia, Tennessee, jail. He escaped prison -by the
assistance of a saw which someone smuggled in to him, and
found his way to Mexico, where he joined the revolution
and gained some distinction as a patriot, and the favor of
Iturbede, under whom he fought. At a later date he got a
commission from the legislature of Coahuila giving him the
monopoly of operating steamboats on the Rio Grande River,
but his efforts at navigation prospered little better than
his endeavors at slave stealing. In the meantime he had
become a Colonel in the Mexican Army, and we find him
now in charge at Anahuac, where there was a considerable
settlement of American colonists. Early in 1832 the popu-
lation at Anahuac embraced a number of persons who
afterwards became well known in the Colonies, among them
Monroe Edwards, William Barrett Travis, R. M. William-
son and Patrick C. Jack. Bradburn, who was a low-flung

71

BRADBURN AT ANAHUAC

fellow, soon began a series of intolerable tyrannies. He
went up to Liberty suspended the functions of the local
Ayuntamento, and strolled up and down the coast country
with a great show of military authority. Travis and Jack
were heard to say something unkind about him, or something
derogatory to his greatness, and he sent a squad of soldiers
to arrest them and had them incarcerated, announcing that
he intended to send them to Vera Cruz or some remote Mex-
ican place to be court martialed. This act of tyranny
brought on what was probably the first political meeting
or gathering designed to protest against Mexican tyranny
ever held in Texas. There was a gathering at Brazoria,
where it was decided that a committee should be sent to
Anahuac to demand the release of Travis and Jack. A
committee composed of William H. Jack and Branch T.
Archer went over to Anahuac and demanded a surrender of
the prisoners. Negotiations for their release were unsuc-
cessful and a small company was raised at Brazoria, for
the purpose of going over and forcibly effecting their re-
lease. At that time there was a Mexican garrison stationed
at Velasco at the mouth of the Brazos in charge of a Mexi-
can Colonel by the name of Ugartechea. The Brazoria
committee waited on this military person and told him that
they intended to go over to Anahuac and have a settlement
with Bradburn, and requested that he remain quiescent
and offer Bradburn no assistance during their absence.
Among those who went from Brazoria were John Austin,
Warren D. C. Hall, William H. Hall, William J. Russell,
and others. On the way they were joined by Wiley Martin
from Fort Bend, and F. W. Johnson and other persons from
along the Brazos. Bradburn heard of the approach of the
colonists, and that they intended to affect the release of the
prisoners, and dispatched a small company of cavalry to

72

BRADBURN AT ANAHUAC

intercept them. The men from the Brazos, however, sur-
prised and captured all of the cavalry and then proceeded
to Anahuac, where they made an armistice with Bradburn
which he hastened to violate. As they approached Ana-
huac, William J. Russell saw a Mexican sentry standing
under a tree some hundred yards away and by crawling in
tHe grass he got close enough to him to kill him at a single
shot ; and this was the first blood shed in the long series of
conflicts that ensued between Texas and Mexico. The men
from the Brazos, however, were without artillery and fell
back to Turtle Bayou, while they sent over to Brazoria for
a small cannon. While they were waiting at Turtle Bayou
they had an opportunity to ponder over the situation. Here
was a small handful of colonists about to bring on a con-
flict with a Mexican garrison which would bring down upon
the people of Texas the entire Mexican Nation. News had
reached Texas about this time that Santa Anna had started
a revolution in Mexico and that he had proclaimed himself
the friend of the constitution of 1824, and while this little
company awaited the return of the men sent for the ar-
tillery, the happy thought possessed R. M. Williamson that
they should put in writing the causes for which they were
contending, and he then and there presented to those with
him for adoption the celebrated " Turtle Bayou Resolu-
tions. ' ' These resolutions set forth that the people of Texas
were loyal to Mexico, that the taking up of arms was against
the tyranny of Bradburn and other small military tyrants,
and they declared against the Bustamente Government and
in favor of that great champion of the liberty of people,
General Santa Anna. These resolutions served a very
useful purpose, as we shall later see. In the meantime re-
enforcements arrived and the men from the Brazos moved
on to Anahuac, captured the town and sent the Mexican

73

THE BATTLE OF VELASCO

soldiers back home and put Bradburn in the road to Louisi-
ana, giving him a very limited time in which to reach the
frontier.

XXV.

THE BATTLE OF VELASCO.

The men of Brazoria had put business before pleasure
and had gone over to clean up Bradburn at Anahuac, before
doing the same honor to Colonel Ugartechea and his com-
mand at Velasco, at the mouth of the Brazos. They ex-
acted a gentlemen's agreement from the Colonel that he
would "stay put" and would not send any reinforcements
to Bradburn, or as it were, that he would be dormant while
they captured Bradburn and ran his garrison out of the
country. After this they planned to come back and do the
same thing to Ugartechea, but it is not recorded that they
told him in so many words that this was their plan, al-
though he well may have surmised it. After they had
gotten away and sent back for the cannon that was to be
brought up while the men of Brazoria waited at Turtle
Bayou, Ugartechea repented of his inactivity and refused
to allow boats carrying guns to Anahuac to pass out of the
river. In addition to this, the Colonel showed some signs
of activity about his fort, which indicated that he was put-
ting himself in a high state of defense, and as soon as the
business at Anahuac was done, these same Brazoria per-
sons turned their attention to Ugartechea 's garrison at
Velasco. William J. Russell, who had shot the Mexican
sentinel at Anahuac, was one of the leading spirits in the
Velasco Campaign.

74

THE BATTLE OF VELASCO

The volunteers who enlisted for the siege of Velasco
selected John Austin Captain. He was no kin to Stephen,
but had come to Texas from New England, at the beginning
of the colonies. The fort was attacked by land and by sea.
The navy was a small schooner which was temporarily an-
chored in the harbor, and which Admiral Russell impressed
into the service for the occasion. They turned this simple
little three-master into a man-of-war, placing two small
cannon on its deck and eighteen rifle-men mid-ships, who
under the command of Admiral Russell, opened a bombard-
ment from the river side of the fort. After the battle had
raged for a night and a day, the fort surrendered. Seven
Texans were killed and twenty-seven wounded. The Mex-
ican losses were forty-two dead and more than seventy
wounded. The terms of the surrender were, that Colonel
Ugartechea and the small remnants of his forces able to
migrate were to go back to Mexico. A few weeks Inter,
Colonel Piedras of Nacogdoches, who commanded the only
remaining garrison in Texas, was subjected to considerable
trouble by the colonists in East Texas ; and after some forty
of his men had been killed, and as many wounded, he ac-
ceded to the suggestion that he go south, and moved out
with the remnant of his garrison. With the passing of Pie-
dras, the last of poor Teran's men were driven from Texas.
This spontaneous uprising on the part of the colonists, and
the bloody expulsion of the Mexican garrisons from Texas,
would undoubtedly have brought disaster to the colonists,
had it not been for the miraculous intervention of a timely
revolution in Mexico.

Upon the fall of Iturbede, in 1823, the ten-minute Con-
gress assumed authority, until the formation of the con-
stitution, in 1824, and Guadalupe Victoria, a great and good
man, had been chosen first Constitutional President. Near

75

"LONG LIVE SANTA ANNA"

the close of his term, in 1828, a revolution, resulted in Don
Manuel Pedraza being named President; but he was not
permitted to hold the office. Before he could get comfort-
ably seated, another revolution, fomented by Santa Anna
and headed by Guerrera, took the Presidency vi et armis.

Bustamente was Guerrera 's Vice President, and he
promptly started a new revolution which in the following
year raised him to the Presidency, and with the ascension of
this boisterous usurper, Guerrera, one of the purest of all
the Mexican patriots, was shot as a traitor.

It was during the term of Bustamente that the Decree of
1830 was promulgated, prohibiting the further immigration
of people from the States into Texas. In 1832, Santa Anna,
who had backed Guerrera against Pedraza, and who had
secretly backed Bustamente against Guerrera, and who had
consistently plotted against every Government that had pre-
vailed in Mexico since he was old enough to bear arms,
started the annual revolution against Bustamente. News
of Santa Anna's revolution reached Texas about the time
the men of the Brazos were on their way to Anahuac. The
people of Texas hoped and probably believed that Santa
Anna was an improvement on those who had been President,
and that he would keep his promise to maintain a Constitu-
tional Government. At any rate, they declared for him and
this was the excuse that they offered for the expulsion of the
Mexican garrisons.

XXVI.
"LONG LIVE SANTA ANNA."

The four years which followed the expulsion of Teran's
military men from Texas were the most interesting and im-

76

"LONG LIVE SANTA ANNA"

portant in all Texas history. Before entering upon an out-
line of things which happened between the exodus of Brad-
burn from Anahuac, in June, 1832, and the fall of Santa
Anna at San Jacinto, in 1836, we can properly take an in-
ventory as it were of the year 1832.

The news of the forcible expulsion of the Mexican sol-
diers from Texas made a terrific impression in Mexico. • It
was received there with the same apprehension that was
felt at the Fredonian outbreak in 1826. Though Santa
Anna and Bustamente were in the death struggle for the
mastery of Mexico, both parties and all factions took a
moment's armistice at the receipt of the ill news of the
uprising in Texas. Teran had remained true to Bustamente
and commanded his forces in the Eastern Division. Santa
Anna sent Montezuma to assume command in that Division,
and a battle between him and Teran, fought in 1823,
gave Montezuma the advantage. Teran saw the sure suc-
cess of Santa Anna, and ill news was coming to him from
Texas, all his worst fears now came upon him, and this tal-
ented and valiant man fell on his sword at Perdillo, in June,
1832. Montezuma assumed charge of affairs in the East-
ern Division, in the name of Santa Anna, and since this
Division included Texas, he gave anxious heed to the wild
rumors of rebellion which came thick and fast from Texas,
in the midsummer of that year. Like all the other Mexican
leaders, he assumed that the long looked for rebellion had
come to pass in Texas, and he saw behind it the wicked
schemes of the United States of the North. A temporary
truce was arranged between the warring factions in Mex-
ico, who were so strenuously striving for each other's utter
extermination, while Montezuma organized and dispatched
a strong detachment to quell the rebellion in Texas.

Colonel Jose Antonio Mejia (Mexia) left Tampico in July

77

"LONG LIVE SANTA ANNA"

with a squadron of six ships and four hundred men and
with plenary powers to restore order and Mexican sover-
eignty in Texas. As he came past Matamoros, he stopped
to confer with his arch enemy, Colonel Manzamores, who
still held that small corner of the earth for Bustamente, and
that worthy bade Mejia God-speed in his crusade against
the common enemy.

During these troubled days, Stephen F. Austin was down
at Saltillo, in Coahuila, where he was attending a session
of the Legislature, of which he was a member from Texas.
Poor Austin was not in sympathy with many of the hot
headed leaders in Texas, who were bent on war and separ-
ation from Mexico. He had been absent from home some
weeks and had not followed the trend of events. He was
picked up at Matamoros by Mejia 's fleet and came on with
them to the mouth of the Brazos, which they reached on
July 20th, a few weeks after the battle of Velasco. This
afforded Austin a splendid opportunity to impress upon
Mejia his fidelity to Mexico, and as was ever the case where
the Mexican leaders viewed Texas through an acquaintance
with Austin, the impression of Texas and the Texans was
decidedly improved.

The approach of Mejia 's fleet, supposed to bring with it
the ire of Mexico, seemed to forebode dark days for the
colonists, and indeed there was much apprehension through-
out the country during these summer days of 1832.

Colonel John Austin, Admiral Wiliam J. Russell, Wil-
liam H. Wharton, and others who were awaiting the com-
ing of Mejia's fleet, artfully met the situation by hastening
to meet and receive the Colonel as an accredited envoy of
Santa Anna, for whom they proclaimed in loud terms. In
order to duly impress Mejia with their sincerity, they or-
gnaized a mass meeting at Brazoria and with much cere-

78

"LONG LIVE SANTA ANNA"

mony read in a loud tone of voice the ' ' blessed Turtle Bayou
resolutions." Stephen Austin and Colonel Mejia were
everywhere received with transports of great joy and were
wined and dined up and down the Brazos. A banquet of
great dimensions was held at the plantation home of Wil-
liam H. Wharton, at Eagle Island, just below Brazoria,
where there was rhetoric, both in Spanish and English, and
music, and many good things to drink. Under these felici-
tous environments, they gave cheers for Santa Anna and
the constitution of 1824, of which he was heralded as the
champion and preserver. Of course they did not know
that in trading Bustamente for Santa Anna, they had
swapped the devil for the witch, or possibly I should say
the witch for the devil, but at any rate this turn of affairs
gave the colonists a respite of three or four years, during
which many things happened to improve their situation and
opportunities for successful resistance.

Colonel Mejia visited San Felipe and Nacogdoehes and
other points in Texas and finding everywhere prepared
evidences of loyalty and devotion to Mexico and to the
constitution of 1824, and especially to Santa Anna, he went
home happy. One cannot but wonder what would have been
the result had this good natured, hard drinking Mexican
Colonel been a man of Teran's ability and foresight, but
' ' God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform. ' '

Though Colonel Mejia was in those days a champion of
Santa Anna, things changed about in later years, and in
1839 he lead an expedition outfitted largely at New Or-
leans against Santa Anna, who was again in power.

At the battle of Hcajete, near Pueblo, he was defeated
and captured, and Santa Anna sentenced him to be shot in
half an hour. * ' He is very kind, ' ' said General Mejia, ' ' had
I taken him I would have shot him in five minutes."

79

/

I
ta

OLD ETCHING OF SANTA ANNA, MADE IN 1837

THE REVOLUTION

i.

ANTONIO LOPEZ DE SANTA ANNA.

It is Eighteen Hundred and Thirty-Two. The scenes are
now set for the great drama of the Revolution. It has been
ten years since Austin and his little company of first colo-
nists camped on New Year's Creek and since William Mor-
ton burned away the cane brake and planted the first corn
crop on the banks of the Brazos across from where Rich-
mond now stands. Yet these ten years have seen won-
drous changes. In 1832 there were 30,000 people in Texas,
settled all the way from the Sabine to the Guadaloupe, all
for independence from Mexico, and many of them intem-
perate and outspoken in their plans and purposes. They
had a contempt for the prudence and patience of Austin
and were open in their criticism of him.

As we are about to study this very important quadren-
nial, 1832 to 1836, it is interesting to sketch an outline of
some of the remarkable characters who played upon this
stage. Biography must ever be one of the most important
forms of literature and history, for what is more interesting
to men than the romantic relation of the deeds of other
men of action who have been upon this mortal stage before
we came to play our petty parts ?

Of the many names we encounter in the drama of the
Revolution none is heard more often than that of Antonio
Lopez de Santa Anna, who was born in Jalapa, Mexico, in
1795, and who died in the City of Mexico in his eighty-sec-

81

ANTONIO LOPEZ DE SANTA ANNA

ond year, in 1876. Few men have had a more interesting
and varied career. He entered the Spanish army at fif-
teen, and fought against the patriot cause until he saw the
finish of Spanish sovereignty in 1821, when he, like Itur-
bede, turned patriot. He supported Iturbede at first, but
as soon as that person eame into power Santa Anna began
to plot against him, for plotting was ever his chief enter-
prise. As early as December, 1822, he openly revolted and
led the revolution which overthrew the empire and sent
Iturbede into exile. At the close of Victoria's term (he be-
ing the first constitutional President), Santa Anna led a
second revolution against the seating of Gomez Pedraza,
who had been declared elected by Congress to succeed Vic-
toria, and this revolution resulted in having Pedraza driven
out. Santa Anna played a leading part in placing the
patriot Guerrera in power instead of Pedraza. This was in
1828. The following year the Spanish Government made a
last feeble attempt to re-conquer Mexico, and landed a
force at Vera Cruz. Santa Anna led an army against the
Spaniards and defeated them, earning for himself the plau-
dits of his country. It was currently rumored that he had in
fact assembled this force to overthrow Guerrera, whom he
had only a few months before placed in the presidency ; but
the Spanish invasion gave him a timely pretense to turn his
revolutionary designs into patriotic purposes. After his
military success against the Spaniards he retired to his es-
tate at Jalapa, but renewed or continued his intrigues
against Guerrera. But Bustamente beat him to the next
revolution and made himself President in 1829. Naturally,
and very promptly, Santa Anna now turned his attention
and his designs to Bustamente, for he was perfectly impar-
tial in his plotting and consistently contrived against all
persons in power. In January, 1832, he declared openly

82

ANTONIO LOPEZ DE SANTA ANNA

against the government of Bustamente and led the revolu-
tion which culminated in this year, the effects of which were
felt throughout Texas. After his defeat of Bustamente
in December, 1832, he had himself elected President along
with Gomez Farias, Vice-President. Instead of going to the
capital and assuming the duties of the Chief Magistracy,
this strange, intriguing person invested Gomez Farias, the
Vice-President, with supreme power and again retired to his
estates in Jalapa to plot against his own administration.
His love of duplicity and intrigue were so great that he
relished such a role more than the realization of supreme
power. Then, too, he had in his campaign against Busta-
mente posed as champion of constitutional government and
had allowed his name to be linked with a desire to restore
the constitution of 1824.

This he had no notion of doing, and he did not dare
unmask at once after his elevation. Between 1832 and
1834, while he was President in retirement, he actively en-
gaged in several campaigns against spasmodic insurrections
here and there, always keeping the control of such military
orgnaization as the country possessed. In 1834 he would re-
sume the presidency, but though he were the lawful Presi-
dent and had the right to leave his estate and come into the
city and become President, yet force of habit was so strong
with him that he preferred to do so through the medium of
a revolution. So he led an insurrection against his Vice-
President, Gomez Farias, and took active charge of the
Government. During the two years he had been President
in retirement he had allowed all the odium of misgovern-
ment to accumulate against Farias. In January, 1835, he
had himself declared President by the Mexican Congress,
but almost immediately retired to his Jalapa plantation
and arranged for General Barragan to act as Provisional

83

THE FIRST TEXAS CONVENTION OF OCTOBER, 1832

President. He probably hoped that it would be necessary
to hatch a plot and start a revolution to put Barragan out.
From his estate in Jalapa he continued to arrange a plan
by which he would at the right time become absolute ruler
of Mexico, and gradually, but thoroughly, he had all forms
of constitutional government abolished, dismantled the
State Governments to the extent that the Governors were to
be appointed by, and dependent upon, him, and * ' scrapped ' '
the constitution. Some of the State Governments resisted
the open attempt at subversion and stood out against him.
Coahuila was one of the last to fall. All hope that he would
protect the constitution of 1824 was now gone, the mask
was off ; and in 1835 Texans knew that the hour had struck.
This was the man whom they hailed as their deliverer in
1832, and whom they faced and fought as a tyrant in
1836.

It would be interesting indeed to follow the forty years
of his career after the Texas Campaign; but this is the
history of Mexico for four decades.

Whatever else may be said of him we must concede that
he was a most remarkable man.

II.

THE FIRST TEXAS CONVENTION OF OCTOBER,

1832.

We come now to the interesting epoch when the people
of Texas first began to assemble in convention and to discuss
the common weal. The mass meeting and convention, as
these institutions had developed in the States, had become

84

THE FIRST TEXAS CONVENTION OF OCTOBER, 1832

a powerful medium of free speech. Such institutions were
unknown among the Latin people. In Mexico and the other
Spanish-American countries, a mass meeting where men
assemble and discuss principles without coming to blows,
was unknown and impossible. In August, 1832, Horatio
Chrisman, first Alcalde of San Felipe, joined John Austin,
the second Alcalde, in a call for a general convention of
all the Colonies of Texas. The call indicated that it was to
discuss the misrepresentations that had been circulated con-
cerning the purposes of Texas in driving out the garrisons
in 1832. The people wanted to go on record against the
rumor that Texas sought independence and to give some
public declaration of fealty to Mexico. It was also stated
in the call there was to be a discussion of Indian affairs.
Fifty-six delegates from sixteen districts assembled at
San Felipe, on the Brazos, Bexar alone being unrepresented.
The Mexican population of San Antonio could not be in-
duced to join in such enterprise. Austin and William H.
Wharton were nominated to preside over the convention
and Austin was chosen President. The delegates came all
tfie way from the Sabine to Bastrop. When the conven-
tion assembled it was discovered that there was a well-
divided and well-balanced division of sentiment, there
being a radical party that secretly favored independence
though they openly avowed the contrary, and a very con-
servative party that did not favor separation from Mexico.
Austin was in all respects the soul and leader of the con-
servatives. The Whartons were the representatives and
leaders of the more radical element.

The first topic which came up for discussion was the de
cree of 1830, which prevented the further settlement of
Americans in Texas. This had been the severest trial to the
colonists of all of the Mexican decrees. Though it had

85

THE FIRST TEXAS CONVENTION OF OCTOBER, 1832

been generally disregarded and people from the States
came freely during the period from 1830 to 1832, yet the
fact that they were denied the privilege of coming and ac-
quiring a status of citizenship was a matter of grave
concern to the colonists. A committee of five was appointed
to prepare a memorial to the Mexican Republic praying for
a repeal of the exclusion law and to set forth the trials and
dangers encountered in efforts to colonize the country, and
to emphasize the respect and attachment that the people
bore for the constitution and laws of the Republic.

William H. Wharton was made chairman of this commit-
tee and wrote its report. An executive committee was ap-
pointed to draft a petition for the reduction of the duties
on necessities. Another committee composed of Luke Leas-
sier, William McFarland, William Menefee, Samuel Bruff
and Thomas Hastings was appointed to prepare a petition
to the State Government for a donation of land to Texas
for the creation of a school fund for the maintenance of
primary schools. This is probably the first legislation, if
it may be so called, bearing upon the topic of public schools,
that was ever formulated in Texas. But it must be remem-
bered that this is the first public representative assemblage
that was ever held in Texas. The question uppermost in
the minds of those who sat in this convention was that of
separate statehood for Texas. It was discussed informally,
and there was an effort made to keep it from being brought
before the convention because there were those who foresaw
that a move in this direction would mean trouble. On the
third day, however, it was presented and debated with
much interest. A vote of 36 to 12 was registered in favor
of appointing a committee of two from each municipality
to report the expediency of petitioning for a State Govern-
ment. A memorial requesting a separate State Govern-

86

WILLIAM H. WHAETON

First Texas Minister to the United States, who was killed by the
accidental discharge of his pistol in March, 1839.

THE FIRST TEXAS CONVENTION OF OCTOBER, 1832

ment was prepared, and William H. Wharton was chosen
messenger to present it, and it was suggested that Juan
Raphael Monchola, of Goliad, accompany him. It was nev-
er, however, formally presented, and the question came up
again in 1833, and again in 1834, when Austin went to
Mexico to present such memorial and was imprisoned for
treason for having done so. After a six-day session the
convention adjourned. Before doing so, however, it ap-
pointed a standing central committee in San Felipe which
was to be subordinate to the local committees in the dis-
tricts represented in the convention. F. W. Johnson, whose
name is indeed conspicuous during the revolutionary period,
was made chairman of this central committee with author-
ity to call another convention, if necessary. The memorial
requesting separate statehood was couched in the most
respectful and genteel terms; its language was selected and
guarded. Yet strange it may seem, not only the Mexican
authorities but the Mexican citizens of Texas looked upon
this simple, respectful petition as a declaration of war and
as treason of the first order. The political chief at San An-
tonio, Don Jose de La Garza, wrote the Governor of Coa-
huila referring to it as a wide-spreading insurrection, and
suggested, "that a true Mexican could but bitterly deplore
his misfortune and feel sore at the foreign hand that had
come boldly to rob him of his rights, employing physical
force when even rational arguments from such a scource
ought hardly be tolerated. ' ' No clearer glimpse of the Mexi-
can mind can be shown than these chance expressions found
in Garza 's letter. A Mexican could not understand how it
were possible that there would be such a thing as a law-
ful loyal assemblage to voice public sentiment. Such a thing
seemed as paradoxical to him as a lawful riot or a peaceful

87

THE CONVENTION OF 1833

fight. To him all such meetings were per se treasonable
and revolutionary.

The central committee provided by this convention was
the first State Governmental machinery devised in Texas.
Through it another convention was called the following
year.

III.
THE CONVENTION OF 1833.

The news of the San Felipe Convention of 1832 produced
as great a commotion in Mexican political circles as the
Fredonian Rebellion had done six years before. All official
Mexico regarded it as seditious and treasonable that the
colonists should assemble in a public place and state their
grievances. The patriotic utterances found in the journal
of the convention seemed to have been accepted as a chal-
lenge to Mexican sovereignty. When the matter was called
to the attention of Santa Anna, who was at the moment in
supreme authority in Mexico, he wrote: ''I am satisfied
that the foreigners who have intruded themselves into the
province of Texas have a strong tendency to declare them- ]
selves independent of the republic, and their remonstrances
and complaints are but disguised to that end." He sug-
gested that General Filisola be sent into Texas with a suffi-
cient force ' ' to secure the integrity of our territory. ' ' The
Minister of State wrote the political chief at San Antonio :
4 Tour Lordship will make use of all means in your power
to cause these Texans to understand that such excesses
among them as have recently come to light must inevitably

88

STEPHEN F. AUSTIN

An ivory miniature painted by Howard, an English Artist," while
Austin was in Mexico in 1833.

THE CONVENTION OF 1833

bring ruin upon them." In the meanwhile the colonists
were utterly oblivious to the storm that the San Felipe Con-
vention of 1832 had produced in far away Mexico, called
and planned the second convention of all Texas, which as-
sembled at San Felipe on the Brazos in 1833. The central
committee which had been constituted by the convention
the year before, issued the call in January. This second
convention was in many respects a repetition of the first.
About the same number of delegates attended. Austin and
Wharton were again candidates for the presidency or chair-
manship of the convention, and this time Wharton was
chosen, showing a tendency towards a more radical course.
Sam Houston appeared in this convention as a delegate
from San Augustine, and this was his first appearance and
participation in public affairs in Texas. The conven-
tion the year before had approached the question of separate
statehood delicately and declared for it, and pointed out
provisions of the constitution of Coahuila and Texas which
had been adopted in 1827, which justified the setting
up of a separate State Government in Texas. These pro-
visions declared that as soon as Texas should be in a con-
dition to form a State it should make a declaration to that
effect to Congress for further action. The Convention of
1832 and the one of 1833 seemed, therefore, to have been
following this constitutional provision, and neither did
more than to make a declaration in favor of separate state-
hood. The Convention of 1833 went so far as to propose a
constitution for the new State. Stephen F. Austin and
James B. Miller, of Gonzales, and Juan Erasmus Seguin,
the same urbane gentlemen who had been sent twelve years
before to welcome Austin to Texas, were appointed messen-
gers to bear this petition to Mexico. Austin alone went
on this perilous mission, leaving Texas early in May, 1833.

89

THE CONVENTION OF 1833

His good faith and the good faith of his people seemed
sufficient to guarantee the integrity of his enterprise. The
people of Texas did not know the effect that these con-
ventions had upon the Mexican mind, else this journey
never would have been undertaken.

The most interesting thing which this convention did
was to form a proposed constitution for the proposed State.

The document is yet in existence and is the first of our
many constitutions. It contains a clause declaring that no
bank shall be established in Texas for 99 years. It is said
that Dr. Archer proposed a plan for creation of a State
bank, and that Sam Houston led the opposition to it. This
was but a reflex of the fight that had been raging in the
States, and that yet raged on during the Jackson Adminis-
tration over the Bank of the United States.

We all know that Jackson 's fight on the bank was the re-
sult of one of his petty prejudices and not from any prin-
ciple. But it became a conviction with him, one of his very
articles of faith, and he kept on with the fight until he
destroyed the bank and the credit of the country, and
brought on our first real financial panic. Houston was in
all things a devotee and follower of General Jackson, and
on his first opportunity in Texas he began a Jackson fight
on the phantom bank which was proposed for incorporation
in the proposed constitution. His arguments against the
bank prevailed, and it was outlawed for 99 years. As long
as Houston dominated in Texas affairs, there was no bank-
ing system, nor were there any banks in Texas until long
after it became a State in the American Union.

90

AUSTIN'S SECOND JOURNEY TO MEXICO, IN MAY, 1833

IV.

AUSTIN'S SECOND JOURNEY TO MEXICO, IN
MAY, 1833.

Eleven years had elapsed since Austin, a youth only
twenty-eight years old, had made his first visit to Mexico
and had gotten a confirmation of his father's colonial
grant. He had spent these years between in unremitting
toil and ha.d seen his colonial enterprise prosper and flour-
ish. It was against his judgment that he undertook the
mission thrust upon him by the Convention of 1833, but he
knew that no one else in Texas could do so with any assur-
ance of success. At Matamoros he had an interview with
General Filisola and was reassured by that gentleman, who
advised Austin that he was about to re-establish military
garrisons in Texas to enforce the revenue laws. After
this conference, Austin wrote back to Brazoria: "I have
pledged my honor that Filisola would have the full support
of Texas in sustaining the law, and I have full confidence
that the people will not forget my pledge." This letter
was written just before he took passage for Vera Cruz and
he assures his people of his faith in the Mexican Govern-
ment. He reached the City of Mexico in June, 1833, in the
midst of a terrible epidemic of cholera. After a long time
he was able to present the memorial of the San Felipe
Convention of 1833 to the Mexican Congress, then in session,
and he labored through the whole summer in an effort to
get some recognition of the plans for separate statehood.
He did succeed in getting a revocation of the Decree of
1830 forbidding further emigration from the States, and
when we understand the circumstances it is marvelous that
he accomplished this much. He continued his labors until

91

AUSTIN'S SECOND JOURNEY TO MEXICO, IN MAY, 1833

December of 1833, and was now convinced that Santa Anna
was at heart a despot and that Congress would deny to Texas
a separate statehood. He had not received the warm hand
of cordial treatment that he had been accorded in Mexi-
can official circles on his former visit to the city. He found
a general distrust against the Texans, and especially the
people and the Government of the United States. He then
suspected and we now know, that this was in part brought
about by the conduct of the American Minister to Mexico.
The Adams administration had sent Joel Poinsette of South
Carolina as Minister to Mexico, and had caused him to
labor unceasingly for the purchase of Texas. Although
his plan of procedure was not always commendable, yet
there was nothing particularly vicious or unseemly about it.
But with the incoming of the Jackson Administration and
the spoils system of public office which General Jackson in-
troduced, some strange personalities got into power, not
only in Washington but everywhere that political intrigue
could succeed in naming an office seeker to place. One
Anthony Butler had been made representative to Mexico,
and a student of Mexican and American history, after the
lapse of nearly a hundred years, is brought to blush at the
infamy of this individual. He intrigued against every
Q-overnment that prevailed in Mexico during his stay there.
He intrigued against Texas and the Texans, and he helped
circulate false rumors about Austin, and probably con-
tributed largely to the failure of Austin's mission, and to
his subsequent imprisonment. Shortly before leaving the
City of Mexico for his return home, Austin addressed a let-
ter to the Ayuntemento at San Antonio urging the peo-
ple of that jurisdiction to join the other districts of Texas
in requesting separate statehood. He, no doubt, felt that
if the Mexican population of San Antonio would join the

92

AUSTIN IN PRISON

other Colonies in such a request that it would have weight ;
and he also felt some chagrin that the San Antonio people
withheld their influence in this matter. This letter con-
tained an expression that was a little injudicious. He
wrote: "All the municipalities of Texas should come
without delay to an understanding and arrange a local
Government for Texas as a State of the Mexican Federation.
Things should be prepared with harmony, thus being ready
for the time when the Congress will refuse approval. ' ' He
left the City of Mexico December 10th. This letter which
he had dispatched to San Antonio in October was promptly
returned to the City of Mexico, and as soon as its contents
were made known to the Government officials there, orders
were issued for Austin's arrest, and he was overtaken at
Saitillo and apprehended and carried back to the City of
Mexico and incarcerated in a dungeon which had been left
over from the Spanish Inquisition.

V.
AUSTIN IN PRISON.

Austin has left among his papers a diary beginning with
the day he left the City of Mexico, on December 10th, and
covering a large part of the time that he was in prison. He
probably wrote his diary during the latter part of his im-
prisonment, when he was allowed some liberty and subjected
to less scrutiny. The first pages indicate that they may
have been written upon the dates they bear, as they give
no intimation of his impending arrest. He left the City of
Mexico traveling in a coach with several well known gentle-

93

AUSTIN IN PRISON

men. The party was in constant apprehension of brigands
and went well armed. On December 16th they reached
Quartero, where thirty years later Maximilliam met his
fate. He spent the day there and visited the churches and
other places of interest. That he had no forewarning of
the danger that awaited him seems obvious from the follow-
ing taken from his diary covering his stay in Quar-
tero:

"16th December.

"We remain in Quartero; visited convents. There are
many and very large. One has a large fountain constructed
by a marquis who has perpetuated his fame and piety by a
statue of himself of his own size which stands in the cen-
ter of the fountain on the base of stone. There are exten-
sive baths convenient to this fountain constructed by this
same marquis. One wonders how much sweat and tears
from the Indian slaves it cost which the marquis employed
in the construction of this fountain and baths, but he re-
ceived absolution from the monks and went to heaven. In
the orchard there are many pretty cypress trees. I col-
lected seeds from them to carry to Texas. They showed
me some of these trees planted by the hands of Rev. Father
Morfit, who had been a monk in this convent and was at
one time a missionary at Nacogdoches, in Texas. This
mon5 is very famous, for he has been a second Moses. At
Nacogdoches all the springs went dry and he went out
with images of the saints and necessary apparatus to per-
form miracles. He struck a blow with a rod of iron on a
rock which stands on the bank of Lanana Creek in Nacog-
doches and immediately a stream of water gushed out suffi-
cient to supply the inhabitants with water to drink. This
miracle was canonized in Rome and a print of engraving of
the Father was made. This same padre, when he left Nac-

94

AUSTIN IN PRISON

ogdoches for Bexar, lost a baggage mule which a tiger
killed, and in the morning as soon as the padre knew it he
made the tiger come and kneel at his feet and then he
was harnessed and loaded with the baggage of the dead
mule, which he carried to Bexar, and then having received
a pardon for having killed the mule was sent back to the
desert. All this is true because several old women told it
to me in Nacogdoches and in Bexar and we ought never to
suppose that Rome would order an engraving to be made of
the .miracle of the water only to deceive credulous people. ' '

The journal continues with this same delightful narra-
tive until his arrival at Saltillo on February 3rd, when it
contains the simple memorandum :

"On the third day I was arrested by General Lemus by
orders from the Secretary of War, dated in Mexico, De-
cember 21st."

Daily entries covered the return to the City of Mexico.

February 13th : ' ''In Mexico, where I was put in the In-
quisition, shut up in the dark dungeon I am not allowed
communication with anyone. ' '

"February 14th: Heard cannon fire during the day in
memory of Guerrera, who was shot on this day, 1831."

The entry of February 20th is interesting and has since
caused much comment : " Is it or not the interest of Texas
to separate herself even if she were at liberty to do sof
No, certainly not. Is it or not the interest of the United
States of the North to acquire Texas ? It is not, because she
would extend her territory too much. And what is worse?
She would annex a large district which would have no in-
terest in common with the rest of the republic. All the
rivers of Texas take their rise in Texas at a little distance
from each other and do not enter the territories of the
north so as to form bonds of union as does the River Mis-

95

AUSTIN IN PRISON

sissippi in Louisiana and other States adjacent. There is no
market in the north for the produce of Texas, and there
is in Mexico. Texas is more distant to the seat of Washing-
ton than from the City of Mexico. As regards the trade
with Europe, the Mexican flag is equal to that of the north.
What then is the true interest of Texas? It is to have
local Government, to cement and strengthen its union with
Mexico instead of weakening or breaking it. What Texas
wants is an organization of a local government, and it is of
little consequence whether it be a part of Coahuila or a
separate State or Territory, provided the organization be a
suitable one."

Whether Austin expressed his real sentiments or whether
he was writing this for the eye of his inquisitors has been
a matter of much speculation, but I am inclined to believe
that he meant what he wrote, for I do not think that he
was capable of duplicity even though he were in the dun-
geon of the Inquisition facing trial for treason.

"February 26th. What a horrible punishment is soli-
tary confinement, shut up in a dungeon with scarcely light
enough to distinguish anything! If I were a criminal it
would be another thing, but I am not one. I have been en-
snared and precipitated, but my intentions were pure and
correct. ' '

"February 23rd: Philanthropy is but another name of
trouble. I have labored with pure intentions to benefit
others, and especially to advance and improve my adopted
country. What have I gained? Enemies, persecution, im-
prisonment, accused of ingratitude to Mexico, which is one
of the most unjust accusations which can be brought against
me."

There are many things in this interesting diary which
every Texan should read. Broken in health from the ar-

96

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND THIRTY-FOUR

duous labors of the last decade, and now confined in this
dark, solitary dungeon, poor Austin indeed had a right to
feel that his philanthropy was the cause of all his troubles.

VI.

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND THIRTY-FOUR.

There was no convention or general assembly in Texas
this year. Austin 's imprisonment had cast a gloom over the
Colonies. There had been high hopes that when he reached
Mexico bearing the worthy memorials of the San Felipe
Convention of 1833, that the difficulties of Texas would
find solution.

To all thoughtful men his incarceration was the last
challenge, but both popular expression and open action were
arrested for fear that any action or outburst in Texas would
cost Austin his life. In the meantime every semblance
of State Government in Texas and Coahuila was going to
pieces. There was a civil war raging in Coahuila between
two factions, one declaring that Saltillo was the capital of
the State and the other holding forth at Monclovia.

Oliver Jones was the delegate from Texas to the State
Congress or Legislature, and in September he wrote from
Monclovia that the State Government was gone and that
anarchy prevailed. Though Texas had no State Govern-
ment, yet the people of the Colonies were industrious and
orderly and the local Ayuntementos in the different dis-
tricts furnished a substantial local government for the
time being. The year before the State had been divided
into the departments of Brazos and Nacogdoches, and Henry

97

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND THIRTY-FOUR

Smith of Brazoria had been named political chief of the
Department of Brazos, he being the first American Honored
with such an appointment. His elevation placed him in
leadership during the absence of Austin. Upon the receipt
of Jones' letter, Smith issued a long address, the gist of
which was, that since there was no State Government in
Coahuila, and since Texas must have a government, there-
fore it should take the initiative and organize one. He
suggested another convention. Henry Smith was indeed a
worthy patriot. The year following he was chosen Provi-
sional Governor of Texas, and the portrait of the old fron-
tiersman hangs in our State capitol today as the first of
the American Governors of Texas. But as- a political leader
in troublesome times, he was a sad failure.

The people of Bexar had never co-operated with the other
Colonies in any movement looking to the common good,
but there were some splendid men among the Mexican citi-
zens there. Seguin wrote Smith this year suggesting a
convention at Bexar. Since this was the first time that
any offer of co-operation had been made from that source,
the invitation was seized upon, and there was for a time
considerable hope that a convention could be held at San
Antonio which could probably find avenues of access to
Mexican political life not open from San Felipe. The peo-
ple of San Antonio, however, did not act upon the sug-
gestion and nothing definite came of it.

In the meanwhile Juan Nepomuceno Almonte, a bril-
liant Mexican officer and leader, well known in that day
and generation, visited the Colonies as the representative
of Santa Anna and assured the people of the benevolence
of this great Republican Chieftain. Almonte came again to
Texas in 1836 and was in the battle of San Jacinto. A Mex-
ican subaltern who afterwards wrote an account of the bat-

98

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND THIRTY-FOUR

tie, says that when he reached a bayou where the fleeing
Mexican soldiers were struggling to get across, that he saw
Almonte plunge into the water and swim across holding his
sword in his hand above the water as though to keep it
dry. A few days following the battle, a Texas lad picked
up a sword on the bank of the bayou and in years later
a son of this boy, then a very old man, gave me the sword,
and I have it. It may be Almonte's sword, but it may not.
At the time of his first visit to Texas in 1834, he was only
thirty years old, and was a man of splendid appearance and
address, was just entering upon a long, stormy career
in Mexican political life. Almonte was the natural son of
the Mexican patriot priest Morelos, who started a revolu-
tion for independence against Spain in 1811. On one oc-
casion when there was grave doubt as to the fidelity of his
followers, Morelos appeared before a mass meeting or mob
and tried to make an address. As soon as he came and
looked into the faces of those around him, he saw his doom.
Standing at a distance in the audience he saw the eager
face of his son, for whom he had a deep affection. Pointing
to the youth he exclaimed shrilly, "Almonte, Almonte " (to
the mountain; to the mountain). He was warning the
lad to flee for his life, and the boy made his escape. And
when this genial gentleman came to a man's estate he car-
ried with him the name Almonte with which he was thus
tragically christened. When Waddy Thompson was Amer-
ican Minister to Mexico in the forties, he became a close
friend of Almonte, and often visited in his home, where he
saw the portrait of Morelos, represented in the uniform of
a Mexican General, but with the priest's mitre on his head.
Almonte was active in Mexican political affairs for thirty
years and went down with the ill fated Empire in the late
sixties. While he was in Texas in 1834, Austin was in

99

THE LAND SCANDALS OF 1835

prison in Mexico, and he promised his assistance for his
liberation upon his return, and it is said he made His prom-
ise good.

On October 5, 1834, Santa Anna called a council ,to dis-
cuss the state of affairs in Texas. Among those present
were Lorenza de Zavala, then high in Mexican official cir-
cles and about to be sent as Minister to France, and they
brought Austin out of prison to sit in this council. Santa
Anna, with his usual urbanity, treated Austin with great
consideration, and Texas' affairs were discussed with con-
siderable freedom. It was, however, decided that Texas
should remain attached to Coahuila, and Austin was sent
back to prison. It was also decided at this conference to
send a garrison of four thousand troops to Texas to keep
away the Indians. The end of this year found Texas with-
out a government and Austin yet in prison.

VII.
THE LAND SCANDALS OF 1835.

The year 1835 was an unhappy and turbulent one in
Texas. Austin was still in prison. By midsummer all sem-
blance of Mexican authority had disappeared from the
Colonies. The State Government down in Coahuila hacl
been torn into rival factions openly at war with each other,
and this furnished some pretext for Santa Anna's inter-
vention. Before the State Legislature was entirely sup-
pressed, it loaned itself to a series of land acts which were
tEe legislative scandal of those days, and which have come

100

THE LAND SCANDALS OF 1835

down to us with a forbidding odor even after nearly one
hundred years.

We find in these "land grabbing" enterprises the names
of some of our most sterling patriots. It is a story as old as
Egypt, for:

"Who can doubt the secret hid
Under Cheops pyramid,
Is that the contractor did
Cheops out of several million?"

Land speculation was rife in those days and the millions
of acres of open domain which lay unclaimed was a tempta-
tion which would have mislead any generation of our an-
cestors and which might even tempt us today. But it
must be remembered that the acquisition of real estate has
ever been one of the strong characteristics of our tribe.
There is a story of how two itinerant Saxon Chiefs came
to North England centuries ago and bought an oxhide of
earth, and how they cut the oxhide in strips and in the
rainy season stretched it around what is now a large parr
of an English shire.

Well, the oxhide trick was worked overtime down at
Monclovia in 1834 and 1835.

In the colonization law of 1825, there was a provision
which was construed to give the State Government authority
to sell land to Mexicans upon such terms as it might see
fit, as much as eleven leagues of land in a single grant.
Eleven leagues of land — how that term sounds to us who
Have seen a city lot sell for five hundred dollars a front foot,
or a single oil acre for tens of thousands. Eleven leagues
of land; this is nearly fifty thousand English acres. Enter-
prising Mexicans were not long in learning of this privilege,
and soon after its passage, one Juan Antonio Padilla pro-

101

THE LAND SCANDALS OF 1835

cured the first grant, which was located in 1828. There
were numerous grants which sold for as low as $100.00
per league. In 1830, the patriot James Bowie, who is said
to have been the inventor and a skillful operator of the
knife which bears his name, journeyed down to Saltillo
and induced various Mexicans residing there to apply for
eleven league grants, and when they had been made Bowie
purchased the certificates and they were trafficked about and
locations were made under them. These transactions much
disturbed many of the Colonies, for the locations under
these large grants bearing Mexican names often conflicted
with the little land holdings of a stockman farmer who only
had a petty league and labor.

They threatened to hinder Ben Milam 's Red River Colony
in a serious way, and he undertook a trip to Mexico in 1834
to protest against them, and was returning from that long
perilous journey in '35 when he joined the patriot army
on its way to Bexar. In the troubled days of 1834 and '5,
when the State Government of Coahuila was in confusion,
there were a series of these acts which reflect no credit
upon the times.

In 1834, an act was passed designed to grant a bounty
to soldiers who would enlist for service against the Indians,
and under this act Samuel M. Williams, Robert Peeples
and F. W. Johnson obtained a grant for one hundred
leagues. The last Legislature which met in '35 was un-
usually active in this regard. An act was passed on March
14th, which gave the Governor authority in the ''present
emergency" to dispose of lands about as he saw fit, and
under it, certificates for about 400 leagues were issued.

S. M. Williams and John Durst got one hundred and
twenty-four of these certificates which they resold. The last
of these land statutes were passed in April, 1835, just before

102

THE LAND SCANDALS OF 1835

Cos' army reached Monclovia on its march north for Texas
via Coahuila. It was known that the army was approaching
with authority to suppress the Legislature, and in its dy-
ing hours on April 7th, it passed a final enactment which
gave the Governor yet more authority to sell land.

Doctor James Grant, who perished in the Revolution
only a few months later, came away with certificates for
100 leagues which he sold and after his death his estate
listed unlocated and unsold certificates for 300 leagues. As
Cos' army approached there was a wild exodus of legis-
lators and land speculators.

Governor Viesca decided to cast his lot with the Texans
and left for the Rio Grande along with a company of Texans
who rode out of Monclovia just before the Mexican army
rode in.

These land transactions were seized upon by Santa Anna
as a cause for his attitude towards the State Government
of Coahuila and the Texans. It was declaimed that a cor-
rupt Mexican Legislature connived with a worse coterie of
Texans in schemes to exploit the public domain, and that
severe military measures were necessary to prevent these
wholesale frauds. Hence these land speculations are often
given as one of the causes of the Revolution, though in
fact we know they were an incident rather than a cause.
But nowhere were they more severely condemned than in
Texas. Almost every public gathering during 1834 and '35
denounced them in terrible terms. The Provisional Govern-
ment organized at San Felipe in the autumn of 1835,
closed the land office until affairs should become more set-
tled. The Congress of the Republic in 1840 conducted a
thorough investigation of these so-called land frauds, and
a vast amount of information was gathered and much of it
written in the legislative journals.

103

GONZALES

But for the most part those whose names were connected
with these ventures, earned absolution in the Revolution.

Bowie fell at the Alamo, Grant at Refugio.

Frank Johnson was in the siege of Bexar. They were
not bad men merely because they coveted land in large
quantities.

" Their bones are dust,
Their good swords rust,
Their souls are with the saints,
We trust."

VIII.
GONZALES.

After reducing the State Government in Coahuila Gen-
eral Cos came on to Bexar with a considerable army, where
he stationed himself among fairly congenial Mexican pop-
ulation. Through the military authorities there, an order
was issued for the arrest of some of the more outspoken men
in the Colonies for seditious utterances. R. M. Williamson
(three-legged Willie), had made a very patriotic 4th of July
address which was considered treasonable. Colonel Travis
had lead a small force which had forcibly expelled the
Mexican garrison at Anahuac in July. Lorenza De Zavala
had fled from Mexico and taken up his residence on
Buffalo Bayou below Harrisburg. These men and others
were to be arrested and sent to Mexico for trial. Some let-
ters which were sent from Cos to Colonel Ugartechea told
of active plans to punish the Colonies, and all was at white
heat as the early autumn approached. A general consulta-
tion was called to meet at San Felipe in October. The

104

GONZALES

militia was being organized everywhere, and no man now
doubted that war to the death was inevitable. Amid these
stirring scenes so full of apprehensions when the convention
was about to assemble and men were everywhere leaving
their homes for military service, a tremendous comet sud-
denly appeared and filled the evening skies with a wierd,
sinister light.

In the lonely plantation homes where the husband and
father was away in the gathering army this strange astral
wanderer left a feeling of terror and awe which was daily
augmented by the wildest rumors of Mexican invasion and
Indian uprisings.

The storm broke down at Gonzales in October, when
Colonel Ugartechea, the same who was driven out of
Velasco in 1832, came with a small detachment of men to
take away a cannon which the Government had furnished
the settlement some years before for defense against the
Indians. Anticipating this attempt several hundred Texans
nad hurriedly gathered, and the first skirmish, sometimes
called our Lexington, resulted in the very hurried return
of the Mexicans to Bexar without the cannon.

There were stirring scenes on the Guadaloupe in these
October days. Colonel John H. Moore with a company of
men from LaGrange was among the first to arrive. Fannin
was there with the Brazoria guards. R. M. Coleman was
there with men from Bastrop. A small detachment from
the Colorado under Thomas Alley were the first to come.
Austin, who had been released from prison a few months
before, had landed at the mouth of the Brazos in September,
and had ridden by San Felipe, thence on to Gonzales, where
he arrived on October 10th.

The two Whartons, Wm. J. Russell and Wm. H. Jack
came across from Brazoria.

105

GONZALES

Years later Russell told of an interesting incident he
witnessed between Austin and Wm. H. Wharton. They
had been estranged and for some years were not on speak-
ing terms. Wharton had been a bitter critic of Austin and
had attacked his pacific policies in public print.

When Russell and Wharton reached the log house in
Gonzales where they were to spend the night, they were
told that Colonel Austin had preceded them a few hours
and was in the next room. Russell, with Wharton 's permis-
sion, went in to speak with Austin and offer reconcilia-
tion.

He says that when he entered the room Austin was lying
on a blanket utterly exhausted from a long day's ride in
the rain, that his thin, pale face showed ghastly in the faint
light of a candle by which he was writing.

The buoyant boy who fourteen years before had ridden
to Bexar to begin his Colonial enterprise was at forty-one a
broken, dying man.

When Russell addressed him he was glad to forget all dif-
ferences and in almost sepulchral voice bemoaned the plight
of "poor Texas."

The next day they chose him Commander-in-Chief of the
"Federal Army." When he was returning to Texas from
his first visit to Mexico in 1823, the military commandant
at Monterey had commissioned him a Lieutenant Colonel so
that during the colonial days he had been Colonel Austin.

He was now General Austin, with an army of 600 men,
and the first order he issued on the day of his election was
to cross the Guadaloupe and on to Bexar.

The most interesting picture of these Gonzales days that
has come to us is found in the delightful narrative of Noah
Smithwick, a young man who was one of these volunteers,
and marched with them to San Antonio. Sixty years later

106

GONZALES

the old man dictated his recollections to his daughter, who
wrote in pleasing style, and they have given the most inter-
esting sketch of that period which has come down to us.

The remainder of this article is literally quoted from
Smithwick 's recollections :

* ' Colonel Milam joined us at Gonzales. He had recently
escaped a Mexican prison and his wardrobe was much
depleted. He was more than six feet and his pantaloons
and sleeves were far too short for his stature. Buckskin
breeches were the nearest approach to uniform, and they
were of every variety and complexion — some too short,
others too long. Here a broad brimmed sombrero over-
shadowed a military cap and a tall bee gum would ride
along with a coonskin cap with tail hanging down behind as
all well regulated tails should do. Here a big American
horse loomed above a Spanish pony or a skittish mustang
pranced along with a methodical mule. Here a bulky roll
of quilts jostled a bundle of blankets or more apt a buffalo
robe, or a gaudy counterpane woven by tender hands with
no shadow of presentiment that it should be a winding
sheet.

' ' In lieu of canteens each soldier carried a Spanish gourd.
So with the old cannon flag flying and the artillery (the
one cannon) mounted on a wooden wheeled wagon driven
by teams of oxen, we filed out of Gonzales and took up our
march on to San Antonio. At the Cibola Creek, Sam Hous-
ton came up with us. It was my first sight of him. I have
a vivid picture of him now as he rode into our camp alone
mounted on a small yellow Spanish stallion, his feet almost
touching the ground. He almost immediately returned to
San Felipe to attend the convention. ' '

And now we must leave the buckskin army on its way to

107

THE CONSULTATION

Bexar and foregather with those who sat in the consulta-
tion.

IX.
THE CONSULTATION.

In the midsummer of 1835, the local committee of safety
at San Felipe had proposed that each jurisdiction through-
out Texas send one member to San Felipe, and that these
members compose a temporary committee of safety pend-
ing the general convention which was to assemble in the
autumn. This suggestion was acted upon, and E. R. Royal
of Matagorda was chosen to preside over this council. It
acted as a kind of clearing house for revolutionary activi-
ties and was the nearest approach to a governmental body
which prevailed in the interim.

When the consultation met and was organized, the Gen-
eral Council, as the Central Committee was called, wound
up its affairs and made a final report to the convention,
which assumed governmental functions.

It met on October 15th, but was adjourned from day to
day to November 1st, awaiting the arrival of the delegations.
R. R. Royal called the convention to order, and on motion
of Sam Houston, of Nacogdoches, Doctor Branch T. Archer
was chosen to preside.

It fell his lot to make what we now call the keynote
speech, which he did without unnecessary rhetoric. His
address is copied in the journal of the Consultation, and
one reading it now after the lapse of years is impressed with
it's calm dignity. He recommended,

108

THE CONSULTATION

(a) A declaration of causes.

(b) The organization of a provisional Government.

(c) A military organization.

(d) A conciliatory arrangement with the Indians.

(e) That the recent fraudulent land grants be looked
into.

The first brisk discussion arose over the declaration of
causes. The convention was much divided as to whether
there should be a declaration of fealty to the Mexican con-
stitution of 1824, and a last final effort to maintain rela-
tions with the Republic, or a declaration of independence.

John Austin Wharton, delegate from Brazoria, lod the
fight 'for an immediate declaration of independence, but
Sam Houston and other older men urged a last stand for
the Federal constitution. Austin favored this course.
There was a hope among the Texans even at this late hour,
that there would be a faction in Mexico opposed to Santa
Anna's usurpations, who would join Texas in a fight to
preserve the constitution, and to this more than any other
influence the convention yielded in the last sad effort to
uphold the Mexican constitution after every Mexican State
had succumbed.

Texas was soon undeceived in this vain hope, and when
the next convention met in the following March, a declara-
tion of independence was adopted at the opening hour and
after that they proceeded to other business. In many re-
spects the Consultation of 1835 was the most interesting
convention which ever assembled in Texas. It was the
third All Texas Convention that had met at San Felipe
and the last, for the one in March met at Washington, on
the Brazos.

A plan for a provisional government was made with
great care and it provided for a Governor, a Lieutenant-

109

THE CONSULTATION

Governor and a General Council with a member from each
municipality. The names of Henry Smith and Austin were
placed before the convention for Governor. Smith was
chosen, for it was designed to send Austin as a commission-
er to the United States. James W. Robinson, of Nacogdo-
ches, was made Lieutenant-Governor. Article 14 of the
Plan for Provisional Government closed the land office
" during the unsettled and agitated condition of the coun-
try/' so that no land grants could be made, and none were
made until after the organization of the Republic in 1836.

Among the many worthy things done in this year, none
speaks louder in the commendation of that generation of
men tHan this precautionary act of closing -the land office
to protect the public domain.

The new Government was without money or credit, and
its land was the only possible source of revenue, and though
they were in a death struggle and knew not where financial
support was to be had, they placed the public domain in
safe keeping for their children. How nobly they discharged
this trust should ever be told to their praise.

Only a few years ago a wild scheme was proposed to
found the Bank of Texas upon the credit of the school fund
which came from this domain, but the hallowed memory
of the fathers who kept it intact in the dark hours of the
revolution frustrated the design.

Stephen F. Austin, William H. Wharton and Doctor
Branch T. Archer were chosen commissioners to the United
States and urged to proceed there at once and use every
means to arouse sympathy and procure assistance in the
States.

The convention adjourned on November 14th, but issued
a call for another to meet at Washington, on the Brazos,
on March 1, 1836. The difficulties which confronted the

110

THE SIEGE OF BEXAR

new Government are aptly stated in a single sentence of
Governor Smith's first message to the Council on Novem-
ber 16th :

1 ' We have to call system out of chaos, to start the wheels
of governments clogged by discordant interests. Without
funds, without munitions of war, with an army in the
field contending against a powerful foe, these are the aus-
pices under which we are forced to make a beginning. ' '

In the meantime while the Consultation deliberated and
the General Council sat, the Federal army, as General Aus-
tin called it, was investing Bexar.

X.
THE SIEGE OF BEXAR.

The patriot army reached the suburbs of San Antonio
in the last days of October, 1835. There were at that time
about seven hundred men in the command. Austin divided
them in two divisions, one of which was stationed below the
city in the command of James Bowie, the other up the
river under Edward Burleson.

There was much division of opinion as to whether the
city should be stormed, and one studying the military tac-
tics of the campaign is impressed with the entire want of
discipline or vigorous command. Austin's health was bad
and he had no military experience. While he was neither
lacking in courage or firmness, yet he was by no means an
ideal commander. Then, too, the volunteer army was an im-
promptu affair. Many of the men had left their families
on exposed frontiers and would go home the first opportun-

111

THE SIEGE OF BEXAR

ity. The whole army was in a fair way to have disbandoned
and gone home, but was much encouraged by the arrival of
the New Orleans Grays on November 21st. Though there
were only sixty-four men in the company, yet it was the
first installment of the effective help which came from the
States to take part in the Eevolution. Their arrival marks
such an important and interesting chapter in our affairs
that 1 feel justified in copying a page from the interesting
history of John Henry Brown describing the event :

f'Late in the afternoon of November 21st, the New Or-
leans Grays, afterwards so distinguished for gallantry, the
first to join the standard of Texas from the United States,
arrived in the vicinity, and on the 22nd, reported themselves
for duty. They numbered sixty-four men and had sailed
from New Orleans in October on the schooner 'Columbus'
for the mouth of the Brazos with a supply of provisions and
military stores contributed by the people of New Orleans.
They were received with great enthusiasm at Velasco and
Quintana, where ladies waved their handkerchiefs and men
fired artillery. At Brazoria they were received with a yet
more intense enthusiasm — flowers were strewn along their
line of march and they were entertained there by Mrs.
Jane H. Long, widow of General Long, often called the
Mother of Texas. From Brazoria they marched on foot all
of the way to San Antonio, stopping for a day at Victoria.
Of all the companies which come out from the States,
they stand out preeminently. Many of them were mur-
dered with Fannin 's men four months later. ' '

On November 24th, Austin and William H. Whartou
left the army to accept the mission to the United States to
which they had been chosen by the Consultation a few days
before. The army balloted for a Commander-in-Chief to
take Austin's place, and Colonel Edward Burleson was

112

THE SIEGE OF BEXAR

chosen. Burleson was not a great commander, but he was
a great fighter, and was long identified with Texas, and a
glimpse of his eventful life will be interesting to this gener-
ation, for the name of Burleson has been an honored one
in Texas history. He was born in North Carolina in 1798
and lived on the frontier all his long life. His grandfather
and an uncle were killed by Indians in Eastern Tennessee,
and an aunt was shot, tomahawked and scalped in the Wild
West where the City of Nashville now stands.

The following interesting episode is told of him by his
kinsman, the late Doctor Rufus C. Burleson: "When
Edward was fourteen years old, he accompanied his father
on an expedition into Alabama in pursuit of a roving band
of Cherokees. The party was commanded by Jonathan
Burleson, his uncle. The Indians planned to deceive their
pursuers into a pow wow and massacre them, and each war-
rior concealed a knife under his garments ready for this
wholesale homicide. As Burleson 's men approached, they
were met by an Indian warrior with an invitation to drink,
which was the highest hospitality. The Captain reached
out to take the proffered hand, when the Indian, quick as a
flash, drew his knife and made a lunge at Captain Burle-
son, who sprang away and escaped injury. The Indian and
the white man stood face to face, but the troopers could
not fire for fear of hitting their Captain. It was a tragic
moment when an instant meant eternity for some one. The
boy was quicker to think and act than any of them and
sprang forward firing as he did so and the Indian lay
dead. The lad accompanied his father through the Tecum-
seh wars and was at the battle of Horseshoe Bend, where
Houston won a wound which he carried all his life. ' '

In 1826 he came to Texas and settled on the Colorado

113

BEN MlLAM AND THE FALL OF BfiXAR

just below Bastrop, which for thirty years was the most
dangerous of Texas frontiers.

He was at the Battle of San Jacinto , and lived for many
years after these stirring days, and served one term as
Vice-P resident of the Republic. Doctor Burleson was at his
death bed when the old frontiersman had his summons, and
relates his last conversation : ' * My life has been a rude one,
and I have been a man of blood from my boyhood, but I
have never fought for revenge. I have been in thirty-two
battles but have lived to this old age and go now to meet my
Maker." Burleson was chosen commander on the 14th of
November, and on the 4th of December an attack was be-
gun which resulted in the capture of San Antonio after
three days assault. But the world will always give the
chief credit for this victory to Ben Milam, who lead the
attack and fell in the fight.

XI.
BEN MILAM AND THE FALL OF BEXAR.

It may be an exaggeration to ascribe to a single man the
victory won by thousands, but we have come to link the
name of the successful commander or bold leader with the
battle won so that their names become synonyms.

Houston has so thoroughly monopolized the fame of
San Jacinto that for years while he was in the United
States Senate he was called "Old Sam Jacinto."

And so it will be, as long as the story of our colonial days
is told, that Ben Milam will be known as the hero of the
Battle of Bexar. He was a man of wonderful personality,

114

BEN MlLAM AND THE FALL OF BfiXAR

taller than his fellows, powerful in mould and as hand-
some as one of Arthur's fabled knights.

On December 4, 1835, he returned from a successful
scouting expedition towards the Rio Grande, and found
much indecision as to whether the city should be stormed or
the siege continued.

He walked among his countrymen and heard their quib-
blings and how some would fight, and others would wait
and go home and renew the campaign in the spring, and
without a council of war he made the bold defiance, * * Who
will go into San Antonio with Old Ben Milam?" And hav-
ing thus advertised the excursion, he was quick to capitalize
the enthusiasm it produced, and that very day the battle
began which raged for six days and resulted in the capitu-
lation of the Mexican Army.

On the third day Milam was killed, and was buried where
he fell. And now thousands pass each day along the
busy street of the city just off which stands the soldier's
sepulcher.

And as we go on in this narrative and leave behind us
the ashes of our hero dead, I cannot refrain from relating
something of the life of Milam, for we shall not meet him
again in these pages.

He was born in Kentucky in 1791, a year older than
Austin and two years older than Houston. He was a sol-
dier in the war of 1812, and as early as 1817 he and David
G. Burnet were alone among the Comanches out on the
headwaters of the Brazos. In 1819 he joined General
Long and Felix Trespelacios in the ill fated Long's ex-
pedition into Texas. He was in Mexico at the close of the
war for independence, and was among the first to apply for
an Empresario contract, but had to await the organization
of the State Government and got his grant in 1825 (along

115

BEN MlLAM AND THE FALL OF BfiXAR

Red River). In an effort to finance his project, he went
to England in 1827. A nephew of his who was a very
small boy at that time and who lived to be a very old man,
once told me the story of Milam's romance. He had a
sweetheart when he left for England and she was to await
his return. But when he was away another frontiersman
rode that way and persuaded her to break her vows with
the absent lover. She had some grounds for apprehen-
sion, for Ben was such a rover, and she did not know but
that the next news of him might be that he had embarked
in some enterprise on the other side of the world, or had
gone to war with the Turks.

When Milam returned to his Red River Colony, he
brought with him silks and laces and much feminine finery
he had bought for his bride, and this nephew told me how
his Uncle Ben gave all these treasures to his (the lad's)
mother, and took another journey down into Mexico.

In 1835 he was again among his colonists on the Red
River. In those days there was much confusion caused by
the Eleven Leaguers who were abroad in the land locating
eleven league grants which were being handed out by the
Coahuila Government, and which often conflicted with the
earlier Empresario grants.

Milam undertook his last trip into Mexico in an effort
to settle these tangled affairs, and left Red River with a
few cold biscuits and some parched coffee to ride to the
City of Mexico. He was at Monclovia when the State
Government collapsed in 1835.

I cannot better close this narrative of Milam than by a
literal quotation from the address of William H. Wharton
delivered at the Hall of the Academy of Music in New York
City on April 26, 1836. Wharton, with Austin and Archer,
had gone as Commissioners from the United States in the

116

BEN MlLAM AND THE FALL OF BfiXAR

preceding December. They had gone through many of the
States rousing sympathy and urging assistance for Texas.
They made addresses in the leading cities. Two of these
have come down to us and are classics of the period of the
Revolution. One is the address of Austin made at Louis-
ville, Kentucky, in February; the other Colonel Wharton's
New York speech just referred to, and indeed it is the
great masterpiece of our colonial history. The hall was
crowded with an audience of thousands, for interest in
Texas was very great everywhere in the States. News of the
fall of the Alamo and the Massacre of Goliad had reached
the East and had been published in the daily papers. At
the time this address was delivered, only the most awful in-
formation from Texas had reached the .outside world,
though the battle of San Jacinto had been fought five days
before. But neither Wharton nor his hearers knew this,
and they hourly expected news of even greater disaster than
the Alamo or Goliad.

Wharton sought to arouse his great audience and all
who would read his address to active support for Texas,
for he knew that his people were in the death struggle, and
he knew of no more stirring story than that of the last days
of Ben Milam.

Here is his narrative : Governor Viesca of Coahuila was
overtaken by Cos and imprisoned. It was the misfortune
of the lamented Milam, who was returning from Mexico
City to his home in Texas, to be found in company with the
Governor. For this dreadful offence, he too was put in
prison.

After some months imprisonment, he escaped and started
for Texas. In order to elude pursuit, he travelled six hun-
dred miles without a road, prosecuting his journey by night
and secreting himself during the day.

117

BEN MlLAM AND THE FALL OF BfiXAR

Throughout this dangerous and protracted journey, he
subsisted on some few articles of food which he had con-
trived to obtain on his escape from prison, for he dared not
show his face at any habitation. Early in October he had
gotten into Texas, and as he limped along the road he
heard the approach of soldiers, and thinking he was about
to be overtaken by his enemies, he hid himself by the road-
side. To his great joy he heard them talking his own
tongue, and saw a company of Texas volunteers sweeping
on their way to Goliad. He made himself known to them
and went with them to Goliad and Gonzales. Though he
had been an officer in the Army of the United States and
a soldier in the war of 1812, he joined the .ranks as a private
and went on with the patriot army to San Antonio. On
the evening of December 4th, he stepped from the ranks
and beat up for volunteers to storm the Castle of San An-
tonio, and began an attack against heavy odds.

"They entered the town to conquer or die,
Firm paced and slow, a fearless front they

formed,
Still as the breeze, but dreadful as the storm. ' '

For six successive days and nights, they grappled with
the foe, but the life of their leader was the price of their
victory.

"Oft shall the soldier think of thee,
Thou dauntless leader of the brave,

Who on the heights of tyranny,

Won freedom — and a glorious grave.

"And o'er thy tomb shall pilgrims weep,
And utter prayers in murmurs low,

118

SAM HOUSTON

That peaceful be the Hero's sleep,
Who conquered San Antonio.

* ' Enshrined on honor 's deathless scroll,
A nation's thanks shall be thy fame,
Long as her beauteous rivers roll,
Shall Freedom's votaries hymn thy name."

This simple but beautiful poem dedicated to Milam had
been published in a New York paper a few weeks before.
The surrender of Cos' army left Texas free from Mexican
soldiers. They were paroled and sent south. It was now
December, but in a few short weeks they came again, Cos,
with Santa Anna, Sesma, Filisola and Almonte, for now
we are at the threshold of Eighteen Hundred and Thirty-
six.

XII.
SAM HOUSTON.

Houston will ever be the outstanding name in Texas his-
tory. It would be useless to attempt to have it otherwise,
though the student of our annals should reach a different
verdict as to the merit of the men who wrought in the
scheme of our destiny. His tragic appearance into our
affairs and the critical hour of his coming, the great suc-
cess of the campaign of 1836, his long and eventful career,
which only ended with secession, which he bitterly opposed
a quarter of a century later — add to all these a stern, ster-
ling character and a personality rarely found among the
heroes of any age, and one will not wonder why Sam Hous-

119

SAM HOUSTON

ton has become by universal consent the hero of our his-
tory. He was an actor of great skill, a spectacular man
wholly unlike the modest, reticent Austin. When Houston
came, Austin was dying. Fourteen years of privation,
labor without ceasing, days and nights on horseback across
-trackless wilds, had written deep traces in the sad, white
face which William J. Russell saw in the flickering candle
light that October night at Gonzales. Houston came with
the flush of victory in 1836, and December of that year
Austin died.

In 1832, when the first rumblings of the coming Revo-
lution were heard, Houston, who was yet under forty, was
living among the Cherokee Indians in Arkansas.

He had resigned the governorship of Tennessee and sought
this voluntary exile three years before, and during all this
retirement he is known to have entertained thoughts of com-
ing to Texas. Wild rumors of his intentions to lead the
Cherokees in an attack upon Mexican authority in Texas
assumed such proportions as to cause President Jackson,
always his devoted friend, to write him a personal letter of
remonstrance. There has been and will be much specula-
tion as to whether there was any understanding between
Houston and Jackson which preceded Houston's coming.

While many circumstances would suggest this, yet I do
not believe it existed. That they both hoped for just such
a result as obtained, is but natural.

Franklin Williams, grandson of General Houston, has
the original passport issued to Houston for his first journey
into Texas, which was then a foreign country, in 1832.
The document has never before been published as far as I
know.

"SAM HOUSTON PASSPORT

' ' I, the undersigned, Acting Secretary of War, do hereby

120

-

JB

m

i

OLD ETCHING OF GENERAL HOUSTON, MADE IN 1837

SAM HOUSTON

request all the Tribes of Indians, whether in amity with
the United States, or as yet not allied to them by Treaties,
to permit safely and freely to pass through their respective
Territories, —

— General Sam Houston —

a citizen of the United States, thirty-eight years of age,
six feet two inches in stature, brown hair, and light com-
plexion ; and in case of need, to give him all lawful aid and
protection.

' ' GIVEN UNDER my hand and the impression
of the SEAL of the DEPARTMENT OF WAR, at the
City of Washington, this Sixth day of August,
(SEAL) in the Year of OUR LORD One Thousand eight
hundred and thirty- two, and of the Indepen-
dence of the UNITED STATES, the fifty sev-
enth.

" (Signed) JOHN ROBB,

" Acting Secretary of War."

Armed with this passport, he came from Arkansas via
Nacogdoches and San Felipe to San Antonio in December,
1832, where he had a conference with the Mexican author-
ities and with a delegation of Comanche Indians, who were
sometimes roving residents of the States. I have never
been able to find any tangible reason for this strange visit
of Houston under a commission from the American Secre-
tary of War. Upon his return to Nachitoches, Louisiana, in
January, 1833, he wrote President Jackson, advising, ' * Hav-
ing been as far as Bexar in the Province of Texas, I had an
interview with the Comanche Indians ; I am in possession of
information which will be of interest to you and may be cal-
culated to forward your views if you should entertain any
touching the acquisition of Texas, etc." The entire letter

121

SAM HOUSTON

is devoted to a discussion of Texas' internal affairs and the
anxiety of the Americans in Texas for union with the
States, with a mere mention of the ostensible mission which
had taken him to Texas. He advised that a convention
would be held in Texas in April, and ' * I expect to be pres-
ent and will advise you of the course adopted." He did
attend the 1833 convention as a delegate from San Augus-
tine. In 1834 he was back among the Cherokees in Arkan-
sas, but late in that year he took up his residence at Nacog-
doches, and we find him a delegate from that municipality
to the consultation which convened at San Felipe in Octo-
ber, 1835.

Just before the consultation met, he rode down to the
Guadaloupe for a visit to the patriot army, then on its
way to San Antonio. Noah Smithwick, who was with the
army, tells of his arrival mounted on a yellow Spanish stud,
and that he made a speech and rode back to the Brazos for
the convention.

He was a strong person in the consultation ; a man of rare
experience in governmental matters, and looked upon as
the confidential friend of the President of the United States.
He had now definitely decided to cast his lot with Texas
and aimed at leadership. On November 14th, the day be-
fore Edward Burleson was elected viva voce to command the
army at Bexar, when Austin left for the United States, the
General Council sitting in San Felipe selected Houston Com-
mander-in-Chief of the Texas armies. But this high sound-
ing phrase was a bitter mockery for Texas had no govern-
ment, no war chest, no army.

After the fall of Bexar in December, the volunteers took
leave for their homes, only a small garrison remaining. The
months which followed were full of confusion and gloom.
The General Council at San Felipe degenerated into a vi-

122

SAM HOUSTON

cious quarrel, poor old Governor Smith writing philippic
messages of denunciation, and a majority against him re-
fusing to act upon any plan he would suggest. There were
those in Texas 'who yet entertained the fond hope that a
party in Mexico would rise to co-operate in resistance to
Santa Anna, and there was considerable sentiment imme-
diately following the success at Bexar for an invasion of
Mexico.

James Fannin, whose martyrdom a few months later
silenced criticism, was the chief in the proposed Mexican
invasion. Instead of a concerted action for defense against
the large Mexican army now known to be mustering for ap-
proach by way of San Antonio, Fannin and Doctor John
Grant and others with authority from the General Council,
and without co-operation with Houston, wasted the early
months of 1836 and frustrated Houston's plans for an or-
ganized defense.

In the mad political strife of the late fifties, when Sena-
tor Houston would not go with the extreme secessionists and
left the Democratic party, bitter attacks were made on him
and much effort was made to show that he was a coward,
that the battle of San Jacinto was won in spite of him, and
volumes of invectives were written against him.

I have read all the evidences that are available and am
persuaded that no case is made against the old hero. Those
best able to judge him were his comrades in the 1836 cam-
paign. The first presidential election was held within
four months after the battle. By common consent he was
nominated and elected to the presidency almost by acclama-
tion, although both Austin and Henry Smith were his op-
ponents. He was again chosen President of the Eepublic
after Lamar's term; and when Texas was admitted to the
Union he was chosen U. S. Senator almost without dissent,

123

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND THIRTY-SIX

when the Legislature which elected him was filled with men
who went through the San Jacinto campaign.

And as the ages come and go, in remote years yet to be,
when other names of the colonial epoch are forgotten, this
strange, stalwart, tragic man will stand out not only the
most interesting character in our history but one of the most
remarkable men of all time.

XIII.
EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND THIRTY-SIX.

This is the all-eventful year in Texas history.

The Declaration of Independence was made at Washing-
ton on the Brazos on March 2nd.

The Alamo fell on March 6th.

Fannin fell at Goliad March 27th.

San Jacinto was fought on April 21st.

The first presidential election was held and Houston
elected President in September.

The first Congress of the Republic met at Columbia Oc-
tober 3rd.

Austin died December 27th.

The dawn of the year saw a small garrison of about 150
men at Bexar, and though it was known that a large Mexi-
can army was being organized for invasion, there was no
plan or concerted action for defense.

The quarrel between Governor Smith and the. Council
had reached the riot stage, and he had been deposed and
James W. Robinson, of Nacogdoches, Lieutenant Governor,
reigned in his stead. And in passing I must say a word
about * * Lawyer Robinson. ' '

124

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND THIRTY-SIX

After the Council had ceased to function, when the con-
vention met in March, he joined the army and was at the
Battle of San Jacinto. He was one of the first District
Judges under the Republic, and in 1842 was attending court
at San Antonio when a Mexican marauding force, under
Woll, captured the city, court and all, and Judge Robinson
found himself in a Mexican prison. Tiring of prison life,
he opened an intrigue with Santa Anna, who happened to
be in power again at that particular interval, and wrote the
Mexican President a letter advising that since he (Robin-
son) was a lawyer of some prominence in his own country,
he might be useful if allowed his freedom in persuading the
people of Texas to return to Mexican sovereignty. Santa
Anna seemed impressed with the idea and allowed Lawyer
Robinson, yet in prison, to open negotiations with President
Houston, who was then serving his second term. Houston
seems to have humored the joke, and Robinson got out of
Mexico to complete his negotiations, which were dropped as
soon as he got home. Shortly after the discovery of gold in
California in 1849, both Robinson and Henry Smith joined
an emigrant train across the desert, and these veteran
enemies travelled together in a wagon train for a thousand
miles, each nursing his old time hatred for the other. Judge
Robinson's wife, Sarah, a beautiful and accomplished wo-
man, who had come to Texas with him in 1828, went with
him to California and was still living there fifty years
later. They had gotten their headright league in Vehlein's
Colony and after Robinson 's death in California many years
later, Sarah sold this league. About twenty years ago I
represented one of the owners of this land in a suit brought
by the descendants of James W. Robinson of Ohio. They
alleged and proved that he had eloped from Ohio in 1827
with Sarah, leaving a wife and children, and these grand-

125

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND THIRTY-SIX

children came to claim their inheritance from their prodigal
ancestor. Maybe this little bit of scandal should remain
untold. But it is part of the judicial history of San Jacinto
County, where depositions were filed proving these facts.
At the beginning of 1836, Lieutenant Governor James W.
Robinson dominated in general council. James Fannin and
Doctor John Grant and Frank Johnson were planning an
invasion of Mexico by Matamoros. They had fewer than
500 men, and were without means of transportation or sup-
plies. General Houston was unable to exercise any author-
ity, though he was in name Commander-in-Chief of the
army. He bided the assembling of the convention, which
was called to meet in March, and used, the interval in a
series of conversations with the Indians, whose attitude was
a matter of much concern at this juncture. If the Comanches
and Cherokees had gone on the war path against the colo-
nists early in 1836, the Americans would have been wiped
out. All available men were being pressed to join the army
to repel the Mexican invasion. Families were left unpro-
tected on a wide frontier, which reached from San Antonio
to the Sabine. There were bands of Indian warriors all
along this frontier who could have swept over the settle-
ments in a week. Houston went in person among these
people and held thirteen councils with them. He was a
Cherokee Chief, and all his life loved and was loved by the
Indians. To him we owe the fact that these warriors did
not draw the bow during the campaign of 1836.

Franklin Williams, a grandson of General Houston, re-
cently related in my hearing an account of a pow wow be-
tween Houston and the Indians which had been told him by
his mother. A delegation of Cherokees came several days'
journey to see him. They had ridden day and night for
several days. They came within a few hundred yards of

126

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND THIRTY-SIX

the house, and after hobbling their tired horses they sat
in a circle under a tree, leaving an open or vacant space in
the circle. They did not look towards the house or make
any pretense of seeing Houston. Nor did he see them, but
pretended to ignore them for a time. After a while
he moved and occupied the vacant place in the circle, but
no word was spoken, or glance of recognition given. The
pipe was passed from hand to hand and they all puffed it.
And after a long dignified silence, their spokesman began
the conversation and made known the purpose of their
journey. The President heard their story, and promised
them redress, and then he bade them kill a beef for their
refreshment, for they had not eaten during the long jour-
ney in which they had ridden day and night, nor had they
slept.

After they had gorged the beef without the detail of
cooking it, the entire delegation lay under the trees and
slept for a day and a night, and then they silently mounted
their horses and retraced their long way whence they came,
riding without rest until they reached their people.

One cannot but wish that the white brother had some-
thing of this great gift of golden silence.

It would be hard indeed to picture a darker prospect
than fronted our people at the dawn of the year 1836.
The President of Mexico, with an army of most ten
thousand men, was moving towards the border. Fannin,
Grant, Johnson and other visionary incompetents were
trying to lead five hundred men to an invasion of Mexico.
A mere handful of volunteers garrisoned the outpost at
San Antonio.

The General Council, our governing body, had gone to
pieces. There was not 1000 men under arms in all Texas.
Without a government, without an army, without a treas-

127

THE CONVENTION OF MARCH, 1836

ury, without credit, the Colonies faced dire disaster at the
dawn of 1836.

XIV.
THE CONVENTION OF MARCH, 1836.

For the fourth time in our history, a convention of all
Texas met on March 1, 1836, at Washington on the Brazos.
Without a moment's delay, a permanent organization was
had with Richard Ellis, from Red River, as Chairman.
The General Council was still in session at San Felipe, but
its conspicuous failures earned it the contempt of the new
convention. An effort was made to have the convention
go into merits of the quarrel between Governor Smith and
the Council, but the convention hurried to the tasks be-
fore it and declined to take any notice of the controversy,
and the whole pitiful farce passed into history. It is fair
to Governor Smith to say that that generation exonerated
his fidelity and integrity, but probably not his judgment.

As soon as the convention was ready for business, George
C. Childress, of the Red River country, moved the appoint-
ment of a committee of five to draft a declaration of inde-
pendence. Tradition tells that he had already prepared
the draft of the declaration and that it had been approved
by Houston and others to whom it had been submitted. The
committee brought in the draft the next morning, and when
it was read on motion of General Houston, it was unani-
mously adopted early in the morning of March 2, 1836,
which by the way was his 43rd birthday.

On the 4th Houston was again chosen Commander-in-

128

THE CONVENTION OF MARCH, 1836

Chief, and on Sunday morning, March 6th, the same hour
the Alamo fell, he left Washington with an escort of four
men riding towards San Antonio. At that time it was
known to Houston and to the convention that there was no
hope for Travis, and that no help could be expected from
Fannin and Grant and those mad, mislead men who had
lately moved towards remote Matamoros while Santa Anna 's
army inarched directly into the heart of Texas.

In a cold March rain, the five horsemen rode west
while saa, sober faces bade them good-bye and turned to
the business of the convention.

Speaking of this occasion, General Houston said many
years later: "The only hope lay in the few men assembled
at Gonzales. The Alamo was known to be under siege, Fan-
nin was known to be embarrassed, Ward, Morris and John-
son destroyed. All seemed to bespeak a calamity of the
most direful character. It was under these auspices that
the General started with an escort of two aides, a captain
and a boy, yet he was sent to produce a nation and defend
a people. ' '

Travis' last message sent from the Alamo on March 3rd
reached Washington on Sunday morning, just before Hous-
ton left, and about the hour the Alamo fell, and was read
in the convention at its opening session on that day, but
there was nothing the convention could do except to adopt
a resolution that "1,000 copies of the letter ~be printed," and
this they arranged for.

With independence declared and Houston on the way
west, the convention addressed itself to the formation of
our first constitution, for our fathers were firm believers in
constitutional government. With them it was as natural
for a new government to have a solemnly written constitu-

129

THE CONVENTION OF MARCH, 1836

tion as for an infant to be christened and bear his father's
name.

In these awful environments, the constitution of March,
1836, was written, debated and adopted, and prepared for
submission to the people for ratification. But no man knew
when if ever there could be a submission at a general elec-
tion, and until this was done a government ad interim was
provided. David G. Burnet was chosen President and the
Mexican-Spaniard Lorenza de Zavala, lately fled from
Mexico to escape Santa Anna, was chosen Vice-President.

The last hours of the convention, which finished its la-
bors late on the night of March 17th, were hastened by a
rumor that, a Mexican army was near at hand. News of
the fall of the Alamo had come by a courier on the 15th,
but there was no unseemly haste on the part of the con-
vention.

The constitution which was formulated by this convention
was never formally enrolled or engrossed, and the original
draft was taken away by H. S. Kimball, the Secretary, who
was instructed to enroll it for presentation. He took it to
Nashville, Tennessee, where it was published in one of the
papers, from which it was republished in a Cincinnati pa-
per, and from this Cincinnati publication it was copied in
the first issue of Borden's paper, which was printed after
the Revolution at Columbia on August 2nd. Late in the
afternoon of the last day, the President left for Harris-
burg, and there was only one -family left in Washington on
the Brazos.

There are fifty-eight signers of the Declaration of In-
dependence which this convention promulgated on March
2nd. Forty of them were under forty years of age. Many
of them were men highty educated and of rare experience.
Nearly all of them came from the Southern States, eleven

130

THE ALAMO

from the Carolinas. There were two native Texaiis, Jose
Antonio Navarro and Francisco Ruis, both from Bexar.
There was an Englishman, a Canadian, a Spaniard born
in Madrid, an Irishman and a Scotchman.

The leaders in Texas during all these years were for the
most part slave-holding planters, and though that oft-called
slave-holding oligarchy paid the extreme penalty in the
next generation, yet its aggressiveness and love of dominion
and empire won Texas and the great southwest for the
American Uuion.

XV.
THE ALAMO.

At the beginning of the Revolution and for many years
theretofore, an old Spanish Mission fortress stood on the
San Antonio River about a mile from the center of the
little city. It derived its name from the cottonwood trees
which grew about it. Adjoining the chapel was a stone
walled enclosure of about two city blocks, which had been
erected as a protection against the Indians. After the
patriot army had captured the city in December, 1835,
many 01 the volunteer soldiers had gone home, and those
remaining were disorganized and without supplies.

Colonel Neill remained nominally in charge of the gar-
rison quartered in the Alamo, which, on January 14th,
consisted of eighty-six men.

Immediately following the fall of the city to the Texas
army, the wild scheme was advanced for the invasion of
Mexico by Matamoros, and Frank W. Johnson, and the ill

131

THE ALAMO

fated Scotchman, Doctor John Grant, persuaded a large
number to join them in this fool's enterprise, and they
forgathered at Goliad, San Patricio, and other places in
that direction.

All Texas knew at the dawn of 1836 that a large Mex-
ican army was being formed to march upon Texas, and al-
most daily rumors and confirmed reports came that these
armies were approaching the Bio Grande. In the face
of this deadly disaster, a sad state of affairs presented it-
self.

Governor Smith wrote letters and sent couriers and did
his utmost to get reinforcements to the Alamo, but the
council deposed him and commissioned Fannin, Grant,
and Johnson to invade Mexico, though there were not 500
men in sight for such an enterprise. Houston, Commander-
in-Chief, had no army to command nor prospect of any.
He advised that the garrison at the Alamo destroy the
fortress and retreat east of the Guadaloupe, but his advice
was ignored. Q^e urged Fannin, who with several hundred
men was near Goliad, to retreat to Victoria, but Fannin
refused to recognize his authority!} In January, Governor
Smith sent Colonel Travis, who w£s recruiting on the Colo-
rado, to relieve Colonel Niell in command at the Alamo, and
in this way conferred on this young officer the boon of
martyrdom and immortality. In February, as the Mex-
ican army approached, Travis and James Bowie, who w-as
now with him, began sending out couriers begging franti-
cally for help, but always declaring that whether relief
came they would defend to the last.

As late as February 12th, after Travis knew that Santa
Anna's army was approaching, he wrote Governor Smith,
"With two hundred men I believe this place can be main-
tained."

132

THE ALAMO

On February 23rd, Travis reported the enemy in sight,
and on that day a large army camped on the main plaza, a
mile away, and the siege began and continued in a desultory
way for ten days, during which time a bombardment was
kept up, and the Mexican forces entirely surrounded the
beleaguered fortress.

In the early morning of March 1st, Captain Albert Martin
with thirty-one men came through the Mexican lines from
Gonzales, and took their places with the defenders, and
near noon on March 3rd, the gallant James B. Bonham, who
had been sent as a messenger to Fannin, rode back through
the enemy lines to report no aid from that source. So that
there were something more than one hundred and eighty
men in the command at the end. Almost the same hour that
Bonham came Travis sent John Smith with the last of his
series of bold messages, which reached the Colonies only
after the Alamo had fallen.

A council of war was held on March 4th, at which the
Mexican Command decided to storm the fortress at dawn on
Sunday morning, March 6th. General Castrillion was put
in command of the immediate assault. The silence of the
early dawn was broken by a shrill bugle blast which sum-
moned the charge, and as the tramp of the on-rushing
troops filled the March morning, a band from a nearby bat-
tery struck up a Spanish air which was known as the assas-
sin's song, and meant no mercy. In sight of the besieged
men, a black flag floated from a steeple. Less than an
hour elapsed from the first assault until the last defender
had fallen.

Castrillion led the assault, and Santa Anna remained with
a battery from Toluca camped to the south and safe from
gunshot, where the band played the assassin's song while
the assault went on.

133

THE ALAMO

On the same day and after the fort had fallen, he made
an official report to the Secretary of War from which I
take some interesting passages:

* ' The scene offered by the engagement was extraordinary.
Twenty-one pieces of artillery was used with most perfect
accuracy and illuminated the interior of the fortress. The
fortress is now in our power and the corpses of more than
six hundred foreigners were buried in the ditches. A great
many who escaped the bayonet of the infantry, fell under
the sabres of the cavalry. I can assure your Excellency
that few are those who bore their associates the tidings of
the disaster. Among the corpses are those of Bowie and
Travis, who styled themselves Colonels, and also that of
Crockett. Nor will we hereafter suffer any foreigners,
whatever their origin may be, to pollute our soil. I shall
in due time send your Excellency a circumstantial report
of this glorious triumph. ' '

It is not related whether the band with the Toluca Bat-
tery continued to play the assassin's song while his Excel-
lency wrote this report, but one would surmise so as the
strains of that song and sentiment abound in his dic-
tion.

We first meet and part with Crockett at the Alamo.
He had only come to Texas a few weeks before from Ten-
nessee. He had been a member of Congress from Tennessee
two terms and had gained a national reputation as a whig
and opponent of President Jackson, who came from his
own State. In the recent elections he had been defeated and
in his characteristic style said his constituents could go to
hell and he would go to Texas. He was a stalwart, pictur-
esque frontiersman, and those who have looked upon his
portrait as it hangs in the entrance to our State House

134

GOLIAD

at Austin can but be impressed that he was a splendid
specimen of frontier manhood.

The outstanding feature of this great tragedy was the
grim determination of the defenders to sell their lives in
what they knew was a futile effort to hold the fort.

Travis and his followers could have escaped to Gonzales
and retreated with Houston, but this fact, though obvious
to them, was never given a serious thought. They were
determined to die in the Alamo at the threshold of
Texas.

But the nearly two weeks they delayed the advance of the
Mexican army was as valuable to Texas as the sacrifice of
Belgium in the path of the Kaiser's armies which saved
Paris. It allowed the settlers between the Guadaloupe and
the Brazos time to escape. While the Alamo was falling,,
the convention at Washington was forming a government
to take place of the poor, miserable General Council.

And as night fell on San Antonio on that beautiful
March day, the roar of battle and the sounds of the assas-
sin's song died away, and the mangled forms of our dead
were piled like debris in the shadow of the old Mission.

The invading army, over seven thousand men, waited or-
ders to march on east and exterminate the ' * foreigners who
were polluting the soil. ' '

XVI.
GOLIAD.

The most terrible atrocity of the Revolution was the mas-
sacre at Goliad. One who studies this awful tragedy after

135

GOLIAD

the lapse of years is alternately moved with pity and con-
tempt for poor Fannin. If his blunders had cost him only
his life we could well forget his stubborn stupidity. He had
a little West Point training, and is a conspicuous example
of the very old truth that ' ' a little learning is a dangerous
thing."

But the blood of those who fell with Fannin may well
be upon the heads of the Council at San Felipe which de-
posed Governor Smith and loaned the semblance of au-
thority to an invasion of Mexico by way of Matamoros.
Or, as Fannin put it, " carry the war into Mexico to keep
it out of Texas."

After the capture of San Antonio in December, Fannin,
who was with the army, visited San Felipe and succeeded
in getting a commission from the General Council which
authorized him to concentrate forces at Copano, a port on
Aransas Bay, and in January he issued a call to volunteers
to join him in such an enterprise. Just at this time Major
William Ward, with the Georgia battallion, arrived at
Velasco, and Fannin being a Georgian and known to many
of them, they hastened to join him. In the meantime Doc-
tor John Grant, who was with the army at Bexar, conceived
the idea that he would lead an invasion into Mexico on his
own account, and not desiring to march with Fannin, he
got permission from the Council and moved to Goliad
with fewer than two hundred men bent on carrying the
war into Mexico.

Several hundred volunteers had arrived at the mouth of
the Brazos since the opening of hostilities, and they were
being diverted to Copano and other places towards the
southwest for this enterprise. All supplies and munitions
^vhich were being shipped by sea for the patriot army were
bt;ng landed at points along the Gulf, and for the most

136

GOLIAD

part, they were being taken over by Fannin or concentrated
for use in his campaign.

The small garrison at the Alamo remained isolated while
Johnson, Grant and Fannin rushed their mad schemes for
a descent upon Matamoros. In January, General Houston,
who had been named Commander-in-Chief by the. General
Council in the previous November, went down to Goliad
and San Patricio in an effort to organize these wild, dis-
cordant elements, but nearly every man he met had a
commission from the General Council at San Felipe to act
independently, and none of them would act with the others
or with Houston.

He returned therefore to await the action of the con-
vention, which was to assemble in March. But the invading
army would not await the action of the convention. Santa
Anna was early advised of the purpose of the Texans to at-
tack Matamoros, and sent General Urrea there with a sub-
stantial force, and while the main army marched from La-
redo towards San Antonio, Urrea, with probably 1500 men,
came into Texas from Matamoros. On February 27th,
only three days after the Mexican army reached San An-
tonio and began the siege of the Alamo, the advance guard
of Urrea 's division reached San Patricio, where they at-
tacked Frank W. Johnson's small command, who were
scouting about the country in an aimless fashion. John-
son was one of the commanders commissioned by the un-
happy council at San Felipe to lead an invasion into Mexico.
All of Johnson's men were killed except himself and four
others who escaped. Urrea 's men next located Doctor
John Grant and his men.

On March 2nd, the very day the convention at Washing-
ton declared independence, Grant's command was attacked
about twenty miles from San Patricio, and all but one were

137

GOLIAD

killed or captured. Urrea reported forty-one killed and six
prisoners.

A story has long been told in Texas that the Mexicans
bound Doctor Grant to a wild mustang, and that he was
dashed to death in that fashion.

The surviving witness tells that he saw Grant fall and
several Mexican soldiers running their swords through his
body. Grant was a Scotchman, but had lived long years in
Mexico, and they seemed to have a particular enmity to-
wards him. These commanders, Johnson and Grant, had
been styled the advance division of the volunteer army for
the invasion of Mexico, and their early annihilation was a
sad blow to Fannin's men at Goliad.

On March 10th, Pannin sent Captain King with twenty-
eight men to relieve some families at Befugio, and hearing
two days later that King's men were surrounded in the
Mission there, he sent Colonel Ward with his one hundred
and fifty Georgia volunteers to aid King. King 's command
was destroyed and about one hundred of Ward's men suc-
ceeded in retreating to Victoria, where they were cap-
tured on March 22nd, and sent back to Goliad to be shot
with Fannin's men.

After making many plans and abandoning them all, poor
Fannin attempted at the last hour to retreat from Goliad,
and succeeded in getting some miles when they halted in an
open prairie, in a depression away from shelter or water,
and were surrounded by Mexicans and attacked on all
sides.

Here the battle of Coleto Was fought, where the Texans
defended themselves with great bravery, but without ammu-
nition or artillery, they were soon at the mercy of Urrea 's
men, and a parley was opened for their surrender. On
March 20th they surrendered, the terms being :

138

GOLIAD

1. That they surrender at discretion.

2. That the wounded and their commander Fannin be
treated with all consideration possible.

3. That the whole detachment be treated as prisoners at
the disposal of the Supreme Government.

They were removed to Goliad, where they were held in
captivity along with a command of men from Nashville,
Tennessee, under Colonel Miller, who had been captured as
they landed at Copano.

Urrea, who had gone to Victoria, left orders that the
prisoners be treated humanely, but His Excellency remem-
bered that the Supreme Government had passed a decree
that all foreigners taken in arms should be excuted as
pirates, and under his orders the entire command were
marched out at dawn on March 27th, and shot to death.

The gruesome details of this massacre have so often been
told that they need not be repeated here. About twenty of
them were spared, most of whom were physicians and who
were thought of some possible use. Thirty-four escaped in
various ways — three hundred and sixty-four fell.

J. C. Duval, who escaped by dashing away as they fired,
wrote a very interesting account of it in later years, and re-
lates that among the prisoners in the Kentucky Company to
which he belonged, was a young man who had been a room-
mate at college in Kentucky with a Mexican officer in Ur-
rea's command, that these young men found each other
and the Mexican officer professed sympathy and kindness
for his former boyhood friend, but made not the slightest
effort to assist him or save him, and saw him shot to death
without any apparent concern.

139

THE RUNAWAY SCRAPE
XVII.

THE RUNAWAY SCRAPE.

The colonists returning to their homes after the battle in
April always spoke lightly of the retreat as the " Runaway
Scrape."

An eyewitness who was in Gonzales on the evening of the
eighth of March tells of the terror which was inspired by
the news of the butchery at the Alamo. Many of the vic-
tims were from DeWitt's Colony, and the twilight was
filled with the screams of women and fatherless children
bereft by that disaster. When General Houston reached
Gonzales on March llth, he found three hundred and seven-
ty-four men half fed, half clad, half armed and unorgan-
ized. Every wagon available but one was employed in mov-
ing the women and children, for all Texas began to move
eastward. One wagon with four oxen was devoted to tht?
removal of the munitions of war, and it was not over-
loaded.

As the retreat from Gonzales proceeded, one hundred and
twenty-five reinforcements came up at Peach Creek, but
news of the Alamo caused twenty-five of them to desert the
same night.

When the retreat reached the Colorado, there were five
hundred men with Houston, but they had no artillery, not
a cartridge or a ball. When they reached Nevada Creek
they heard that a blind mother with six children had been
left some miles below and a detachment was sent to bring
her away.

The "army" halted at the Colorado until all fugitives had
crossed. On the Colorado news came of Fannin's fall at
Goliad, and a detachment of the Mexican army under Ses-

140

THE RUNAWAY SCRAPE

ma came in sight on the western bank of the river. There
was an expectation that certain ordnance from the mouth
of the Brazos would reach the camp at the Colorado. With-
out it Houston dared not risk a battle, and we now know
that a battle with Sesma would have decided nothing. The
army as well as the whole population of Texas fell back
to the Brazos. The men with Houston were in a bad hu-
mor. He had taken no one into his confidence, and in fact
never did do so until the very last. At times it seemed as
though there would be open mutiny and that the whole
command would go to pieces, and this would no doubt have
resulted but for the constant pressure of the invading army,
whicE now approached San Felipe. In fact there was very
little command, and heavy April rains retarded both armies.
Houston effected a crossing of the Brazos some miles north
of San Felipe, but the Mexican army could not follow for
the awful condition of the ground and dropped down to
Richmond, where an advance guard under Santa Anna
crossed.

There have come down to us some graphic pictures of
tHose days which intervened between the fall of the Alamo
and San Jacinto. In the first volume of the Texas Histori-
cal Quarterly, Mrs. Rosa Kleburg, who was, at the time she
related the incidents, eighty-five years old, tells a story
which will fairly illustrate the plight and flight of all
Texas. Her husband and brothers joined the army, and the
women in the family, with the father, migrated towards the
east.

"Most of the families travelled separately until they
reached the Brazos, where all were compelled to halt for a
crossing. I helped drive the cattle and carried my infant
daughter in the saddle before me. When the families and
their horses and cattle reached the crossing, the noise was

141

THE RUNAWAY SCRAPE

terrible. There was only one small ferry boat, which would
carry one vehicle at a time. Deaf Smith 's Mexican wife was
in a truck wheeled cart, a cart with two wooden wheels made
from an entire cross section of a large tree, with her two
pairs of twins, but had no team to pull her cart. My
brother carried her for a distance with his yoke of oxen.
The next day after we crossed over the Brazos, we camped
near Clear Creek, where Louis V. Reader, my brother's
child, was born in a corn crib."

The Government ad interim which was organized at
Washington on the Brazos left for Harrisburg, hurried by
the report that Sesma's army was aproaching. President
Burnet sent back hurried messages to Houston to stop his
retreat and fight, but continued to retreat until he reached
Galveston Island. And indeed he only escaped by a hair's
breadth, for as he pulled off from Lynchburg in a skiff,
Mexican soldiers were in sight and hastened his voyage
with some target practice.

Gail and Thomas H. Borden published a paper at San
Felipe known as the Texas Telegraph & Register. It played
a conspicuous part in those troubled days. As the Mexican
army approached San Felipe, the town was deserted and
destroyed, and the Borden printing business, loaded on an
ox-wagon, started across the water logged prairie for Har-
risburg, following the fugitive footsteps of the fleeing Gov-
ernment ad interim.

On April 14th, it was temporarily housed at Harrisburg,
and as there was no hostile army in sight, the plucky pub-
lishers, delayed by this removal, started their weekly paper
with an apology for the delay and the reassuring salutation,
"Our subscribers on hearing the ruin of San Felipe and
seeing the delay in the appearance of our paper, have per-
haps thought it at an end."

142

THE RUNAWAY SCRAPE

After recounting the difficulties in the way and the great
need of a newspaper just at this time the weekly publica-
ion under date of April 14th, was begun. It recounts the
doleful news that the Mexicans had scoured the country as
far as the Brazos, with an army at San Felipe, and one at
Brazoria, while the central division had crossed at Rich-
mond. Just here the April 14th edition of the paper stops,
for at this point advance scouting parties of Santa Anna's
army were reported near Harrisburg, and Borden took a
few copies of so much of the paper as had been struck off
and moved on. There are a half dozen or more copies of
this half finished edition of April 14th: yet in existence.
His press was destroyed, and I have it from the Borden
family that they threw it in the Bayou* to prevent its fall-
ing into Mexican hands.

There was a further suspension of the publication from
April 14th, but on August 2nd, these same indomitable
Bordens published the next issue at Columbia, where the
Government ad interim was then sojourning and the next
year they followed the new Government to Houston, where
the paper was published for many years.

All Texas was now east of the Brazos. The Mexican
army had been divided into divisions, which swept the
country north as far as the San Antonio-Nacogdoches Road,
south along the coast, while His Excellency with what he
called the flower of the army hurried along in advance and
crossed the Brazos at Fort Bend, and pushed on after the
fleeing provisional Government.

The only armed force which the Texans had, if indeed it
could be called such, was the disorganized, unhappy, for-
lorn few hundred with Houston, who were pulling across
the muddy prairies from San Felipe.

General Houston, grim and silent, seemed heading for

143

SAN JACINTO

the Red Lands, and thousands of fleeing families hurried
their weary way on across the Trinity. These fugitives
returned home in April, after the battle, and most of them
planted a crop and reaped a harvest in that year.

XVIII.
SAN JACINTO.

After the fall of the Alamo, Santa Anna planned to re-
turn to Mexico and leave the minor incidents of the fur-
ther campaign to Filisola, but was dissuaded by Almonte,
and decided to come on further east. He sent Sesma's di-
vision after Houston's retreating army on the Colorado,
with instructions to march via San Felipe and Harris-
burg to Anahuac, where they would be embarked for home
by sea. He sent Gaona direct to Nacogdoches. He did not
seem to contemplate any serious opposition anywhere.

Colonel Morales, with four companies, were sent to Goliad
to join Urrea's army, which had come into Texas by Mata-
moros, and which was then engaged with Fannin, Grant,
Johnson and King. His Excellency left Bexar for San Fe-
lipe March 29th, where he arrived on April 7th. Houston's
little army had abandoned San Felipe a week before going
up the river to Groce 's. The Mexicans would have followed
but for high water. The Brazos bottom was as kind as the
Ked Sea, in that it allowed Houston's army to retreat but
was impassable for the invading army to follow. Santa An-
na, unable to follow or cross the river at San Felipe, moved
down to Richmond. Houston crossed at Groce 's on the 13th,
and took up his march across the wet roadless prairie al-

144

SAN JACINTO

most south towards Harrisburg. On the 14th, Santa Anna
crossed the Brazos at Richmond, riding hard with six hun-
dred picked men for Harrisburg, where he hoped to cap-
ture President Burnet and the Government ad interim.

He was in great good humor, and as they crossed Oyster
Creek near where Sugarland now stands, he enjoyed the
noise and confusion that the cavalry made as it floundered
in the "Muddy Squshy Creek." As the mules and mule-
teers floundered in the mire and the drivers swore as mule
drivers have always done, His Excellency sat on his horse
and laughed as though it was all improvised for his amuse-
ment.

One cannot overlook the contrast in these two armies as
they converged across the prairies. His Excellency, flushed
with victory, rode with a shining staff accompanied by such
men as Almonte and Castrillion. It was a kind of holiday
excursion for him, for this was his first (and last) visit to
Texas. The little Texas army, if in fact it can be called
such, consisted of fewer than 1,000 tired, hungry men,
many of whom had not eaten an adequate meal for weeks.
On the night before they crossed the bayou, Houston slept
on the ground in his wet clothes, with a saddle for a pillow,
while a keen April norther added to the discomfort.

The Mexicans reached Harrisburg on the night of the
15th, and left the next day to scour the country down to
the bay, intending to cross the bayou and the river above
their confluence and go on to Nacogdoches or Anahuac.
Santa Anna sent Houston word by a negro that as soon as
he cleaned out the land thieves, meaning the Government
officials, and probably the people east of the Trinity, he
would pay his respects to Houston.

A more foolhardy plan than Santa Anna had devised
could not well be imagined. He had come into Texas with

145

SAN JACINTO

more than seven thousand five hundred men, and the morn-
ing of the sixteenth when he rode out to Harrisburg going
down to the bay with only about six hundred men, his forces
were scattered in small divisions all the way to Bexar.

Urrea was coming along the coast from Goliad with
one thousand five hundred men. Gaona was near LaGrange
with seven hundred and fifty. Sesma was on the Brazos
at Fort Bend with one thousand. Filisola, with nearly
two thousand, was coming down the river from San Felipe
seeking a crossing. Cos with five hundred was trying to
keep up with the mad fool who with his fleetest cavalry
was dashing across the prairie after the Government.

Houston learned definitely on the 18th that the advance
force had passed Harrisburg, and that Santa Anna was
with it, and the Texas army crossed from the north side
of the bayou on the 19th and pushed on down to the conflu-
ence of the bayou with the San Jacinto River, where it
camped.

This point was chosen to prevent Santa Anna from cross-
ing further up.

It has been charged that General Houston never in-
tended to fight; that he expected to continue his retreat
to the Red Lands with the hope of getting help from the
troops under General Gaines of the United States army,
who were camped at the border, and many of whom were
eager to get into this fight. It is evident that Houston
hoped for help from East Texas which never came. Just
before crossing the bayou for the purpose of going after
Santa Anna, he wrote a letter to Henry Rouget of the
Committee of Safety at Nacogdoches, deploring the fact
that no help had come from the Red Lands and announcing
that he was now about to cross the bayou for the purpose
of attacking Santa Anna 's army. It has been charged that

146

SAN JACINTO

the battle ground was selected by accident, and the most
disadvantageous point that could have been found along the
bayou. This is not true. In the first place it is high ground
on the banks of the river. Then again it was in the edge
of a woods which gave a commanding view of the prairies
across which it was necessary for the Mexican army to ap-
proach.

On the morning of April 20, that portion of Santa Anna 's
army which had been scouring the bay shore, turned back
toward the bayou and came in sight of the Texas army
camping in the woods, which can be seen probably a mile
away from the monuments on what we call the battle ground.
On the morning of the 21st, Cos with his detachment of
something more than five hundred men, joined the com-
mand, swelling the Mexican forces to something over one
thousand five hundred men. There was much complaint
and criticism among Houston's men and no little distrust
of him had arisen among his under officers. From the
time he left Gonzales until this hour, he had communicated
his designs to no one, and his silence gave weight to the
thought that he had no defined plans and that he did not
intend to fight. He held a council of war with his under
officers on the forenoon of the 21st, in which it was warm-
ly debated whether they should attack the enemy or await
the enemy's attack. It was urged that the Mexican army
was composed of veteran soldiers, and it was known that
very few of the Texans had ever seen other than Indian
warfare. Houston got the ideas of those present, but did
not express himself at this council meeting. It was nearly
4 o'clock on the afternoon of the 21st before he finally
gave the order to Colonel John A. Wharton, the Judge
Advocate General, and instructed him to form the army for
an immediate offensive. If this order had not been given

147

SAN JACINTO

at 4 o'clock, there would have been a mutiny before sun-
down. The army and its leaders were on the point of forc-
ing the issue. The excitement was intense, and if in-
deed the grim old Cherokee Chief had a design to work his
men up to a point of frenzy for a fight, he managed it
extremely well.

There were seven hundred and eighty-three men in the
battle line when it was formed on the high ground within a
few hundred feet of the banks of the bayou. These forces
facing each other across the distance of no more than a
mile, were alien races that had clashed before in the cen-
turies gone by.

As they fronted each other this day, they were in the
struggle for the boundary line of distinct civilizations.
Upon the discovery of the Americas, the Spaniard, by his
explorations and bloody conquest, had fastened his domin-
ion, his language and his laws on all South America,
and at one time his claims covered more than half of North
America. Even after the Spanish cession of Louisiana to
France and the relinquishment of Florida to the United
States, Spain yet held Mexico, and it included Texas and
the vast country to the northwest to the 42nd parallel upon
the Pacific. In North America, England had become the
dominant power, and here on this April day there came the
clash of Latin with Saxon sovereignty.

Sam Houston, Sidney Sherman, Tom Rusk, Edward Bur-
leson, John Wharton and hundreds bearing English names
and of English ancestry, were opposed to Antonio Lopez de
Santa Anna, Castrillion, Juan Nepomuceno Almonte, Pedro
Delegado and others bearing high sounding Spanish names.
The ancestors of these combatants had fought each other
when the Spanish Armada sailed into the northern seas to
work the destruction of England. And now they were

148

FAREWELL TO SANTA ANNA

come to grips in the contest for a land larger than the
Continental Empire of Charles V, with the British Islands
thrown in. One million square miles of river and forest,
mountain and plain were lost to his Imperial Highness at
sundown that day.

The destruction of the Mexican army was complete. San-
ta Anna, Almonte and Cos were captured, and Castrillion,
who led the charge at the Alamo, was among the slain.
Houston, on the 25th, made his official report advising that
our losses were two killed and twenty-three wounded, six
mortally.

Among the severely wounded was Alphonso Steele, who
was shot through the lungs. Seventy-four years later,
I met him on the battle field — then the last survivor of the
conflict. He related to me how he was shot down and
thought his wound mortal, and that with a dying madness
he took a fallen gun and killed a Mexican soldier who came
within his range and then crawled to the rear to die, which
he did seventy-five years after.

XIX.
FAREWELL TO SANTA ANNA.

Santa Anna was a coward, and however much one searches
his long career of more than seventy years of active life
for evidences of personal bravery or integrity, little trace
of either will be found. One of his staff officers who after-
wards wrote an account of the battle describes the Texas
charge, and says :

' ' Then I saw His Excellency running about in the ut-
most excitement, wringing his hands, unable to give an

149

FAREWELL TO SANTA ANNA

order." Unable to give an order, nevertheless he did not
wait for one to retreat, but left the field mounted on a
splendid black stallion which had been taken from the
Vince Ranch a few days before. In an effort to cross Vince
Bayou, the horse was mired so that the President had to
abandon him and continue his journey on foot. Houston
had sent Deaf Smith just before the battle began to destroy
the Bridge over Vince Bayou, across which the fleeing
Mexicans now tried to escape ; but for this Santa Anna on a
fresh horse would have escaped and joined Filisola's com-
mand on the Brazos. In a report which was made to his
government some years later, he says, "I alighted from my
horse and concealed myself in a thicket -of dwarf pines.
Night came on and I crossed the creek with water up to my
waist. I found a house which had been abandoned and
some articles of clothing which enabled me to change my
apparel. At 11 o'clock a. m. (the next day) I was crossing
a large plain and my pursuers overtook me."

The next morning various parties were scouring the
prairie picking up Mexican prisoners and all on the lookout
for Santa Anna and Cos.

James A. Sylvester, who had come with volunteers from
Ohio and who had worked as a printer on a Cincinnati pa-
per, relates that, " We were near the bridge on Vince Bayou,
and I saw some deer and rode nearer to get a shot at them,
when they started. I looked to see what had frightened them
and saw a Mexican going toward the bayou."

Not suspecting who he was, they took him into the camp,
but his fellow countrymen recognized him in his disguise
and from their exclamations when they saw him, his iden-
tity became known.

He readily agreed to issue an order to General Filisola,
next in command, to retire to Victoria. "I have agreed

150

FAREWELL TO SANTA ANNA

with General Houston for an armistice until matters can
be so regulated that the war shall cease forever. ' '

The Government ad interim, which retreated as far as
Galveston Island, now reported for duty, and on May 14th
concluded two treaties with Santa Anna, one of which
was published, the other being a secret treaty. The open
treaty provided that all hostilities should cease and that
Santa Anna would not * ' exercise his influence to cause arms
to be taken up against the people of Texas during the pres-
ent war for independence."

In the secret treaty, he bound himself to ''so prepare
things in the Cabinet of Mexico that the mission sent thither
by the Government of Texas may well be received, and that
by means of negotiations all differences may be settled and
independence acknowledged." The Rio Grande was to be
the boundary, and Santa Anna was to be sent home at once
via Vera Cruz.

These treaties were executed at Velasco and within less
than three weeks after they were made, plans had been
completed for sending the captive President home, and on
June 3, 1836, he and his suite had embarked on the schooner
"Invincible" at the mouth of the Brazos and were ready
to sail, and he had issued a friendly farewell to Texas and
the Texans.

Just before the vessel sailed, a steamer arrived from New
Orleans bearing two hundred and fifty volunteer soldiers,
who had come to take part in the Revolution. They at
once determined that Santa Anna should not be liberated,
and forcibly took him in charge, defying the Government
and setting aside as it were the treaties of Velasco. He was
taken up to the Phelps plantation at Orozimbo, where he
was held until the following November.

This ruffianism of our new friends is a chapter in our

151

FAREWELL TO SANTA ANNA

history which, like the land frauds of 1835, we would like
to forget.

When the first Congress met in October, what to do with
Santa Anna was one of the live questions, and one can well
imagine how a legislative assembly would approach such
a topic. He was prosecuted in the Senate and the House,
and the speeches of Mosely Baker, Stephen H. Everett, the
Senator from Jasper, Vice-President Lamar and others, who
would have hanged him, are powerful arraignments of his
high crimes and misdemeanors. While the debate still ran
high, President Houston assumed authority to cut it short
by sending the captive home via Washington. On Novem-
ber 20, 1836, he and Almonte left the Brazos for New Or~
leans escorted by Bernard E. Bee, George W. Hockley and
Wm. H. Patton. At New Orleans, Bee arranged for Santa
Anna to cash a draft on Mexico for $1,000.00 to pay his ex-
penses, and he permitted this draft to be protested, nor
was it paid after his return home.

He went to Washington and conferred with President
Jackson. While he was in the Capital, the Mexican Minister
formally advised the Washington Government that Santa
Anna was no longer President of Mexico, and that his coun-
try would not be bound by any act or agreement of his.

After a very short stay in Washington, he sailed for
Vera Cruz, and once at home he promptly resumed his ca-
reer of intrigue, and with varied fortunes he figured in
Mexican matters for many a year.

152

THE PASSING OF AUSTIN

XX.
THE PASSING OF AUSTIN.

The construction of a new Government involved a vast
amount of labor and detail, and a very large part of this
work fell to the Secretary of State, and he entered upon
his labors with his usual industry.

It was now fifteen years since he first rode down into
the Colorado-Brazos country to select a site for his first
Colony, and since he lead the advance of his old three hun-
dred into the wilderness. He was only twenty-eight then.
He had given these fifteen years to the enterprise, to the
neglect of all else. For years he was the law of the Colonies,
and his firm, modest manhood had won for him and his
people the respect of Mexico. He hoped to live in peace
under the Mexican Government, and was one of the few
men in Texas who cherished the hope that Texas could
and would remain a part of the Mexican Republic. A free
people have ever been prone to cruelty and ingratitude to-
wards those who have served them best. Athens banished
Aristides the Just, as one of the Athenians put it, because
he was tired of hearing him called the Just.

The Romans drove Cicero into exile, though the very
best that now remains of the Roman literature and thought
comes to us from the tongue and pen of Cicero. The history
of our own country teems with conspicuous examples of men
who have given their lives to the public service, and have
been scourged into poverty and neglect in their old age.

Austin had been abused for ten years because he would
not lend himself to mad schemes for a separation of Texas
from Mexico. He was a reticent, silent man, and often
misunderstood. William H. Wharton was his bitter enemy,

153

THE PASSING OF AUSTIN

and had often said ugly things about him. They were rec-
onciled at the outbreak of the Revolution, and went to-
gether as Commissioners to the States and became fast
friends.

Upon their return in June, 1836, Wharton solicited him
to become a candidate for the Presidency. He was a man
of prodigious energy. Almost at once after his return in
June he took active steps to protect East Texas against
Indian depredations, and was the instrument of procuring
soldiers from the American Army to be stationed at Nacog-
doches.

He was not disgruntled by the fact that he only received
a few hundred votes for the presidency, and- gladly accepted
a place with the administration, willing to help work
out the national destiny of Texas, for Texas was his life
labor and love. He had no family, and like Washington,
Providence left him childless that his people might call him
" Father."

During his long imprisonment in Mexico in 1834, and
1835, Santa Anna was in power, and on one occasion during
this time had Austin brought out of prison for a conference
regarding Texas affairs, and when the conference was over
the jailer escorted him back to the bastile. And now a short
year later when Austin returned from the States, Santa
Anna was a prisoner at the Phelps plantation down in
Brazoria, and Austin went to Orozimbo to confer with him
about Texas affairs. When the conference was over, Austin
rode back to his home at Peach Point and left his Imperial
Highness in captivity.

As Secretary of State, his work required a vast amount of
correspondence, which he conducted without the aid of an
assistant. There were no typewriters or stenographers in
those days, and when papers were written in duplicate as

154

THE PASSING OF AUSTIN

State papers must be, they were most laboriously copied just
as they were first written.

The old State House at Columbia was little better than
a barn, and here in a bare room, by the dim light of a flick-
ering candle, he worked and wrote far into each night, pre-
paring papers with instructions to our ministers and en-
voys, who were being sent on various missions far and wide.
He sat on a chair with a rawhide bottom, and when the chill
of the December night crept into the fireless room he gath-
ered his cloak about his frail form and worked on, for there
was much to do, and no other man living knew as much of
Texas needs and affairs as the Secretary of State.

Just before the close of the year he sickened, and on
December 27th he died of pneumonia. In the hours of his
dying delirium, he lived over again the years that had gone
before and his last words were, ' ' Texas has been admitted. ' '

And this brings us to the close of his eventful life, and the
all-eventful year in Texas history. The Alamo had fallen
March 6th; Fannin fell at Goliad on March 27th; San
Jacinto was won on April 21st. Houston was elected Presi-
dent on September 3rd. The first Congress met on Octo-
ber 3rd. And in the last days of the year the great white
soul of Austin went back to God who gave it.

155

THE REPUBLIC

i.

THE REPUBLIC OF TEXAS.

How strange and romantic the name sounds to this gener-
ation. Legally it began with the Declaration of Indepen-
dence on March 2, 1836, but its existence was not assured
until the Battle of San Jacinto in April. The span of
its life ended on February 19, 1846, when it became a
State in the American Union after a national life of ten
stormy years.

When Santa Anna was brought in a prisoner the morn-
ing after the battle, he issued an order to his scattered gen-
erals to fall back, pending negotiations for peace. The
Provisional Government chosen by the Washington conven-
tion in March continued to function pending an election
which was ordered held in September. Burnet, the Pres-
ident ad interim, and his advisors, concluded the treaties of
Velasco with the captive President on May 14, 1836, by
which he agreed to use his endeavors to secure the recogni-
tion of Texas Independence with the Rio Grande as a
boundary. This treaty was assented to by General Filisola,
commanding the forces, and the invasion which had come
with such pomp and circumstance in March, sadly subsided
in May, leaving His Imperial Highness a hostage for the
good behavior of this country. The constitution which had
been adopted in March was resurrected and submitted to
the people for ratification at the September election, at
which time the question of annexation with the United

157

THE REPUBLIC OF TEXAS

States was also submitted and a President, Vice-President
and Congress chosen.

The constitution was ratified ; Houston was chosen Presi-
dent almost by acclamation over Austin and Henry Smith,
who received only a few hundred votes each. Lamar was
elected Vice-President, and only eighty-nine votes were
cast against annexation. When we recall how diligently
tHe Adams and Jackson administrations had wrought for
years to accomplish the purchase of Texas, we would sup-
pose that the Washington Government would have imme-
diately accepted this offer, and that annexation would have
been accomplished in a few months at the fartherest. But
for the first and last time in his long life, Jackson became a
conservative, and the independence of Texas was not even
recognized until nearly a year after San Jacinto (March
1837). The question of annexation is a chapter within itself,
and when once fairly involved in American politics was de-
layed a decade. Meanwhile the Republic of Texas moved on
to its destiny. Houston was a great executive. He chose both
Austin and Henry Smith for his Cabinet and the new ad-
ministration assumed control in October. The first Con-
gress of the Republic met at Columbia on the Brazos in a
barn like building, which was destroyed in the 1900 storm,
and which this generation remembers "like a ragged beg-
gar sunning." In poverty almost pitiful the new Gov-
ernment began upon the very tract of land where within
the last few years the great Columbia oil fields were found,
and more wealth has been taken from one of these wells
than would have been required to pay the entire debt of the
Republic during its whole existence.

William H. Wharton, who was a Senator from Brazoria
in the new Congress, was named Minister to the United

158

THE REPUBLIC OF TEXAS

States, and Austin the new Secretary of State, entered ac-
tively upon the details of forming a Government.

The first Congress remained in session at Columbia
until December, when it recessed to meet at Houston in
the following May, this place having been chosen as the
Capital, until 1840.

The people of Texas were very much disappointed that
the Congress of the United States did not at once reorganize
Texas as an independent Government.

When Minister Wharton reached Washington, he found
many discouragements, but he at once set to work to urge
his life-long Tennessee friend, Andrew Jackson, to agree to
immediate recognition.

The end of the year was approaching, and as the holiday
season drew nigh he haunted the White House, and at mid-
night on a bleak December night he wrung from the old
warrior President a promise of immediate recognition; and
on December 21st, while Santa Anna was in Washington,
Jackson sent a message to Congress recommending recog-
nition, but the matter was delayed until the following
March.

There were three constitutional Presidents of the Repub-
lic— Houston, who served two terms, separated by the ad-
ministration of Lamar, the second President, and Dr. Anson
Jones, who was the Chief Executive when Texas was an-
nexed.

The whole period of national life was filled with wars and
rumors of wars. There was almost constant strife with
Mexico, frequent spasmodic invasions. Twice large armies
crossed the Rio Grande, and came as far as San Antonio,
but nothing could tempt an invasion further east. In each
instance they hurried back across the border before the
Texans could rally to meet them.

159

THE REPUBLIC OF TEXAS

But greater and nearer home than the Mexican menace
was the ever growing Indian hostility, provoked by the en-
croachment of the settlers upon the hunting grounds of the
Red Brother north of the old San Antonio-Nacogdoches
Road. The history of all that vast area is one of blood-
shed, and every square mile of the land has its legend of In-
dian raid and massacre.

The Republic had a foreign policy, and sent ministers to
foreign courts. It had an army and the usual strife and dis-
order of citizen soldiery. It had a navy which has a history
of its own.

When the American Congress offered Texas annexation,
the question was submitted to our people in 1845, and was
widely discussed throughout the State. There was a cam-
paign, and mass meetings were held and public speeches
made.

A typical resolution was adopted at a mass meeting held
in Richmond in June of that year.

"RESOLVED, that like the prodigal son who had sojourned
so long in foreign lands, we will return to our father's
house."

On February 16, 1846, only a few days less than ten
years from the birth of the Republic, Anson Jones, the
last President, formally surrendered his authority, and
J. Pinckney Henderson, the first Governor of the State of
Texas, began his administration.

The close of this era is well expressed in the words of
President Jones, as he surrendered his executive authority
to the Governor-elect:

"The Lone Star, which ten years ago arose amidst clouds
over fields of carnage, obscurely seen for a while, has cul-
minated, and following an inscrutable destiny has passed
on and become fixed forever in the glorious constellation —

160

THE ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC

the American Union. The final act of the great drama is
now performed. The Republic of Texas is no more."

II.
THE ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC.

The charge was openly made in the United States by
those who were unfriendly to the Texas Revolution, that
there were not fifty citizens of Texas at the Battle of San
Jacinto ; that Houston 's entire army was composed of volun-
teers and adventurers from the United States. William E.
Channing, the Boston clergyman who lead a fervent crusade
against Texas and the Texans, made this statement in his
celebrated letter to Henry Clay, which was widely circulated
as a political document during the annexation controversy.
It is true that the Revolution was wonderfully aided in
every way by the people of the Southern States, and within
three or four months after San Jacinto as many as twenty-
five hundred men from the States presented themselves for
service during the war. It has been said on high authority
that there were more men on the way to join Houston 's com-
mand at the time the battle was fought, than he had with
him. Touching the matter of foreign aid, Mr. Eugene C.
Barker, who covered the topic in an article written for the
Texas Historical Quarterly in 1906, wrote: "But when all
is said it was really the old settlers who did almost unaided
all the effectual fighting in the Texas Revolution. They
captured Goliad in the fall of 1835, and assisted by a few
companies from the United States, captured Bexar in De-
cember of that year, and practically alone they won the bat-
tle of San Jacinto. "

161

THE ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC

It was also charged in those days that the Revolution was
the work of what northern writers called the slave-holding
oligarchy.

On November 11, 1836, there was pending before the first
Senate of the Republic a bill giving bounty lands to sol-
diers, and William H. Wharton, Senator from Brazoria,
made the point that the large land owners, the wealthy
planters and merchants, were not at he battle of San Ja-
cinto.

' ' I have examined the list of those who won the battle
(he said), and find that very few men who are esteemed
men of property were there.

"I find that the battle was fought and won by the poor
men of the country at least half of whom had never located
a headright in Texas. ' '

It has been said that nearly all of those who came to do
military service remained in the country and became citi-
zens.

The news of the victory at San Jacinto caused a rush
of volunteers from the States.

Felix Huston, a lawyer and planter, from Vicksburg,
Mississippi, equipped five hundred men and brought them
ready for service.

Memucan Hunt, from Mississippi, undertook to bring
four thousand men, and was instrumental in procuring one
thousand.

Thomas J. Chambers, of Texas, raised several companies
in Kentucky, who came ready for service.

Rusk was named to command when General Houston left
for New Orleans in May to get medical treatment for the
wound he received in the battle. Rusk lead the army in
the wake of the retreating Mexicans, and during the sum-
mer and autumn of 1836, it was camped at and near Vic-

162

THE ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC

toria, and for several months afterwards on the Lavaca
River.

After the Mexican forces were withdrawn, Rusk desired
to be relieved, and suggested Felix Huston to succeed him.
President Burnet named Colonel Lamar, who repaired to
the army to take command. Felix was a convivial person,
and had made himself so popular with the men in the ser-
vice that they declined to accept Colonel Lamar, and he re-
turned, leaving Huston in command.

A great many turbulent, meddlesome men foregathered
with the so-called army, and little semblance of military dis-
cipline was maintained.

At one time a conspiracy was formed to depose President
Burnet and try him at court martial for some feigned griev-
ance, and a company of soldiers came all the way to the
Brazos upon this fool's errand, but thought better of
it.

All the while rumors persisted that another invasion
was coming from Mexico, and though the army was a great
financial burden as well as a menace, it could not be
disbanded.

When the first Congress met in the autumn of 1836, the
army was its greatest problem. It was thought wise to
name a man from the United States of military experience
to command, and the two houses passed a joint resolution
inviting General James Hamilton, of South Carolina, to
become a citizen of Texas and commander of the army.

He had been an officer in the war of 1812, and had served
as Governor of South Carolina and United States Senator
from that State. General Hamilton declined the honor, and
Felix Huston remained in command. "The Texan Army"
of 1836 was a cosmopolitan affair, made up of men from
everywhere.

163

THE ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC

Preston Johnston, in his life of Albert Sidney Johnston,
describes them, ' * the ardent youth of the South, burning for
military glory. Enthusiasts of constitutional freedom min-
gled with adventurerers from Europe ; souls as knightly and
unstained as Bayard with outlaws and men of broken, des-
perate fortunes."

It was on the Coleto, in the summer of 1836, that the gal-
lant Albert Sidney Johnston, lately a lieutenant in the
army of the United States, and destined in the years to come
to be one of America's greatest generals, joined the Texas
army as a private. He was in his thirty-fourth year, and a
splendid specimen of manhood. He remained with the
army for a period, and served the new Government in sev-
eral minor capacities, and late in January, 1837, President
Houston named him Commander-in-Chief of the army of the
Republic, and he left Houston for headquarters on the
Lavaca to take command. Felix Huston, though without
military experience, had many qualities for a great com-
mander, and among them was the esteem of his men.

When it was announced that Albert Sidney Johnston
was coming to take command, both Felix and his friends
felt that he had been badly treated, and were in an ugly
mood. To make bad matters worse, Colonel Moorehouse
rode over to Texana and met General Johnston as he came
down, and was not over-careful in what he related about
Huston 's attitude and purposes.

On February 4th, Huston addressed a formal challenge
to Johnston, professing respect and admiration for him,
but remonstrating: "Your appointment was connected
with a tissue of treachery intended to degrade me and blast
my prospects. * * * I therefore propose a meeting
between us. My friend Major Ross will make all necessary
arangements. ' '

164

THE ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC

No duelling pistols could be found in the camp, and they
agreed to use Felix Huston's horse-pistols, and he gave
Johnston his choice. The seconds arranged that they should
fire from the hip, though General Johnston declared he did
not think he could hit the side of a house with a hip shot.
In the early morning of February 5th the little party ford-
ed the Lavaca and rode to an open prairie, where the
principals stripped to their shirt sleeves and faced each
other at sunrise,

There are two accounts of just what happened. Preston
Johnston, in the biography of his gallant father, relates it :
"It is known to those familiar with the use of a hair trig-
ger that if the finger is allowed to touch it, the report of
another pistol will always produce a sufficient involuntary
muscular contraction of the finger to cause a premature
discharge. Availing himself of this fact, General Johnston
raised his pistol quickly and with an eye on his opponent's
trigger finger anticipated him enough to draw his fire be-
fore Huston could cover him with his pistol. Johnston re-
peated this five times with the same result. The sixth
shot struck General Johnston in the hip. Sidney Huston,
a great grandson of Felix Huston, gave me a statement from
an eye-witness who relates it thus: Johnston fired four
shots, Huston three. The third time Huston's pistol
snapped and he sat down, took his pocket knife and picked
the flint of his lock and they took position for the fourth
time, and when they fired Johnston fell."

Huston approached General Johnston as he lay wounded
and offered his sympathy, and avowed his intention to
serve under him, and indeed he remained with the army
for some weeks, and cheerfully recognized Johnston as his
superior officer. It was thought that Johnston's wound
was fatal, and he lay near death for some weeks at the lit-

165

THE FIRST CAPITALS OF TEXAS

tie village of Texana, but he lived for a wonderful military
career, and died on the field of Shiloh nearly thirty years
after. He and Felix Huston became fast friends, and Felix
named a son for the great commander, and Preston John-
ston wrote in his father's biography forty years later that
' ' Felix Huston 's character was brave and manly. ' '

The problem of maintaining the army became more se-
rious than the ever-threatening Mexican invasion, and, on
April 18th, President Houston furloughed the first army of
the Kepublic, and it passed into history.

III.
THE FIRST CAPITALS OF TEXAS.

The first grant made by the Mexican nation in April,
1823, directed Austin to select a central location for a city
to become his seat of Government, and Governor Garcia
took the liberty of suggesting a name for the proposed city,
and christened it San Felipe de Austin, San Felipe being
his patron saint. It was named before it was located. The
first site discussed was on the Colorado, near where Colum-
bus was later located, but Austin chose the Brazos as more
central to his settlements.

From 1823 to 1836 it remained the seat of Government,
and was the most important town in the Colonies. When
Houston's army retreated from San Felipe in April, 1836,
going up the river to Groce 's, the town was burned to keep
anything of value from falling into the hands of the Mex-
icans.

Santa Anna reached there while the fires were yet smoul-

166

THE FIRST CAPITALS OF TEXAS

dering, and reported finding it in ruins. The Government
was more or less migratory during 1836. .

The convention which declared independence and set up
the provisional government met in March at Washington
on the Brazos, but left there, going to Harrisburg and then
to Galveston. Burnet 's headquarters were for awhile at Ve-
lasco and then at Columbia, where the first Congress met in
October, 1836.

It was determined to select a temporary capital, with
the thought that the permanent seat of Government should
be located later and further north than the then existing
settlements.

The two houses met in joint session on November 30th,
1836, to select a seat of government until the year 1840.
The journal of this session recites that the following places
were put in nomination. Houston on Buffalo Bayou, Mata-
gorda, Washington, Velasco, Quintana, Nacogdoches, Hi-
dalgo, Refugio, Fort Bend, Goliad, Groce's Retreat, Bexar,
Columbia, San Patricio, Brazoria, Orozimbo. Upon the first
ballot no place had a majority. Houston lead with eleven
votes, Matagorda second with eight, and Washington seven.
On the fourth ballot, Houston was chosen. On December
21st, the first session of the first Congress adjourned to
meet in Houston on the following May.

"Houston on Buffalo Bayou," as it is written in the
congressional record, was yet a city in prospect when it
was selected on November 30th for the temporary capital of
the Republic.

The Aliens, who promoted it, had surveyed the site in
August, 1836, and on August 30th had inserted an adver-
tisement in the Bordens' paper which spoke in florid
terms of the site chosen upon which they proposed
to build a city. They described its location, "The

167

THE FIRST CAPITALS OF TEXAS

town of Houston is fifteen miles from the Brazos
River, thirty miles from San Felipe, forty miles
from Lake Creek, thirty miles southwest from New Ken-
tucky, and fifteen miles by water above Harrisburg. Prep-
arations are being made to erect a saw mill and a large
public house/'

As soon as it was chosen as the seat of Government, in-
terest in it was manifest. Ex-Governor Lubbock, in his
memoirs published in 1900, tells of his advent here
about January 1, 1837. He came on the steamboat
''Laura," which he declares was the first boat that ever
reached her landing. * ' Just before reaching our destination
a party of us left the steamboat and took a- yawl and went
ahead to hunt the city. We found no evidence of a landing,
and passed the site and ran up into White Oak Bayou, and
got stuck in the brush. We then backed down the Bayou,
and found that we had gone past the city, and a close ob-
servation disclosed a road or street laid off to the water's
edge.

"Upon landing we found stakes and footprints. A few
tents were located not far away, one large one was used for
a saloon. Logs were being hauled from the forest for the
erection of a hotel where the Hutchins house now stands."
(Now site of Southern Pacific building.)

The Aliens had undertaken to provide a capitol building,
and on April 16, 1837, they began its construction so as
to have it ready for the session of Congress, which was to
and did convene on May 5th following. This structure
stood at the intersection of Main and Texas, where the
Rice Hotel now stands. And here at the appointed time,
12 o'clock noon, May 5th, 1837, the second session of the
first Congress of the Republic met. The indomitable Bor-
dens with their newspaper followed the Government from

168

THE CAPITOL AT HOUSTON, 1837

AUSTIN LOCATED AT WATERLOO

Columbia, but were a wee bit late, and in the first issue of
their paper, published in Houston on the 2nd day of May,
1837, they apologized for the delay. * ' We left Columbia on
the steamboat * Yellowstone ' on April 16, but were delayed
a week by the surf on the bar at Velasco. We were then
stranded at Clopper's bar for a day, and reached Lynch-
burg on the 26th, whence we proceeded at the rate of one
mile an hour to the head of navigation at Houston on Buf-
falo Bayou.." When Congress convened in Houston on
May 5th, Robert J. Walker, United States Senator from
Mississippi, was a guest of the houses. During the next
decade, he was the stalwart friend of Texas, and one of
the most powerful factors in bringing about annexation.

IV.
AUSTIN LOCATED AT WATERLOO.

While the resolution which fixed the seat of government
at Houston provided that it should remain the capital until
1840, yet the location of the permanent capital was an ever-
present interesting question.

By common consent it was agreed that the name of the
city should be Austin, and almost the same concensus of
opinion decided in advance that it should be located as far
north as the old King's Highway, and on either the Brazos
or the Colorado.

Though at the time there were few settlements in the dark
and bloody ground north of the San Antonio Road, yet
the frontier folks were pushing their perilous way into
these wilds, and it was thought that the location of the seat
of government there would make it a new center of settle-

169

AUSTIN LOCATED AT WATERLOO

ment. The Second Congress, which met at Houston in
September, 1837, named a commission to "inquire into the
propriety of selecting a site on which to locate permanently
the seat of government of the Republic."

This committee was instructed to select such a site between
the Trinity and Guadaloupe not further south than Fort
Bend or more than twenty miles north of the San Antonio
Eoad. It made a report in November naming a number of
places which it had considered, but without selecting one.
No action was ever taken on this report, and in December,
1837, a second commission of five was named with instruc-
tions to examine various sites proposed and make a report
in the following April, 1838. This committee reported that
it had selected John Eblin's League, on the Colorado, ad-
joining the tract on which the town of LaGrange was
located.

The Second Congress, which was in session when this re-
port was made, adopted it on April 17, 1838, and thus Eb^
lin's League was chosen and Austin was to be located next
door to LaGrange in Fayette County.

Though President Houston had approved the resolution
naming this commission in November, 1837, yet he vetoed
the act of Congress naming Eblin's League as the site in
April, 1838, giving the reason that since the capital was to
remain at Houston until 1840, it was premature to select a
new site in 1838, for any intervening Congress might at its
will change it. It was generally thought that President
Houston hoped the capital would remain at Houston.

There was a change in Presidents in 1838, and Mirabeau
B. Lamar and David G. Burnet became President and Vice-
President.

The capital issue had been prominent in the campaign,
and in January, 1839, Lamar approved a bill naming the

170

AUSTIN LOCATED AT WATERLOO

third and last capital commission. The members of the
commission chosen by Congress were A. C. Horton, I. W.
Burton, William Menefee, Isaac Campbell and Louis P.
Cooke.

The act creating it stipulated that the site should be be-
tween the Trinity and the Colorado and above the San
Antonio Road. The committee first decided in favor of
placing the city on the Colorado, and in April, 1839, report-
ed ' ' that we have selected the site of the town of Waterloo,
on the east bank of the Colorado. ' ' In their unanimous re-
port they write: "The imagination of even the romantic
will not be disappointed on viewing the valley of the Colo-
rado and the woodlands and prairies at a distance from it,
and the citizen's bosom will swell with honest pride when
standing at the portico of the capital of his country he looks
abroad upon a region worthy of being the home of the brave
and free."

The village of Waterloo was then the home of four fron-
tier families, and was far into the Comanche country. In
May, 1839, Edwin Waller, who had been chosen to survey
and lay out the new city, was well under way with his work,
and, guarded by rangers, the construction work began at
once, and was so far advanced that the Government, headed
by the President and his Cabinet, reached Austin October
17, 1839, and was received with much ceremony, which end-
ed in a banquet which began at 3 p. m. and ended when the
President arose at 8. Lamar was the chief factor in the re-
moval from Houston prior to 1840, and tradition ascribes
to him the selection of the beautiful site at the village of
Waterloo. In Vol. 22 of the quarterly published by the
Texas Historical Association, A. W. Terrell, who was long
identified with public life in Texas, contributes an article

171

AUSTIN LOCATED AT WATERLOO

which dignifies this tradition and makes it a part of our
written history. Here is Mr. Terrell's narrative:

"Lamar, then Vice-President of the Republic, came with
a party of hunters in the autumn of 1837 and camped at an
old fort in Fort Prairie, six miles below where Austin now
stands.

" Jacob Harrell was then the only settler living at the
present site of Austin and no white man lived on the waters
of the Colorado above him. His cabin and stockade, made of
split logs, were built at the mouth of Shoal Creek, near the
river ford. The hunters were awakened early in the morn-
ing by Jake Harrell 's little son, who told them the prairie
was full of buffalo. Lamar and his companions were soon
in the saddle, and after a successful hunt were assembled by
a recall from the bugler on the very hill where the capitol
now stands. General Lamar sat on his horse and looked
from the hill on the valley covered with rye ; the mountains
up the river, and the wonderful view to the south ; and said
to his companions, 'This should be the seat of future em-
pire/ "

When Lamar approved the act appointing the commis-
sion which made the final location, he asked them to go to
Jake Harrell 's cabin and look carefully over the site, and
they did.

It is an interesting coincidence that Austin, some years
before, had chosen this site as a location for his permanent
home, where he hoped to retire and live his latter days in
peace, although this fact does not seem to have been known
to the committee which chose it to forever bear his name.
There is yet in existence a letter which Austin wrote from
Coahuila to Sam'l M. Williams in May, 1832, giving Wil-
liams instructions for surveying for him what he character-
izes as "the most attractive spot in all Texas." The lo-

172

THE COMING OF THE CHEROKEES

cation is to begin, "at the upper line of Tannehill League
about five varas beyond the Big Springs at the foot of the
mountain," afterwards and now known as Mount Bon-
nel.

The survey was to include the "falls of the River."
He accompanied the letter with a sketch made from mem-
ory long after having visited this wild scene. "Here (he
wrote), I shall fix my residence on the Colorado at the foot
of the mountain to live."

His dream of retirement to this ''most beautiful spot,"
was never fulfilled but his spirit may have lead the locators
in 1839 when they went out into the wilderness to found
the City of Austin.

V.
THE COMING OF THE CHEROKEES.

The native tribes of Indians in the timbered regions of
Texas, when the first explorers came, were well disposed
towards the white man, and indeed it is from one of these
tribes of friendly folks, Tejas, that the name Texas comes.

But at the time of the coming of the first colonists, these
native tribes were neither numerous nor formidable. This
does not describe the prairie Indian, as the Comanche
and other tribes were called, who abounded in the vast
region north and north-west of the old King's Highway.
The story of the Cherokee, and his advent into and exodus
from North and East Texas, is one of the sad chapters in
human history. The ancestral home of the Cherokee lay
about the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains, and included the

173

THE COMING OF THE CHEROKEES

vast area watered by the rivers which flow from these moun-
tains through Virginia, Tennessee, the Carolinas, Georgia
and Alabama. The white man was crowding him out of
these regions early in the last century, and President Jef-
ferson thought to utilize some of the wild western lands ac-
quired in the Louisiana purchase upon which to locate these
and other Indians east of the Mississippi, who were hinder-
ing the progress of civilization.

Ten thousand Cherokees had migrated into Arkansas ter-
ritory as early as 1809, and while Texas was yet a Spanish
province about 1820, Cherokee tribes had come down into
East Texas and applied to the Spanish authorities for
land grants. They had come to understand that a man must
have a paper title to hold land. When Stephen F. Austin
was in Mexico in 1822, seeking a confirmation of the grant
the Spanish authorities made to his father in 1821, Richard
Fields, the chief of the East Texas Cherokees, was there
urging a grant to his people. The most that Fields could
get from the Mexican Government was permission to occupy
the land as it were during good behavior. This did not sat-
isfy Fields or his people, and in 1825, when the Edwards
and their followers brought on the so-called Fredonian Re-
bellion at Nacogdoches, they found the Cherokee leaders in
an ugly frame of mind against Mexico for not having made
them the land grant they had expected, and Fields and
John Dunn Hunter made an alliance with the Edwards
by which they were to jointly overthrow Mexican authority
in Texas, and the Indians were to have the country north
of the King's Highway — the San Antonio-Nacogdoches
Road.

But when Fields and Hunter went back to their people to
have them carry out the bargain, the warriors rebelled and
murdered them both. The chief cause of the insurrection

174

THE COMING OF THE CHEROKEES

was the proposed alliance with the white settlers, for they
foresaw that there could be no such thing as white settle-
ments in an Indian country, and they hoped to make East
Texas a Cherokee country.

Then, too, it subsequently developed that Mexican agents
at work among them had promised Bowles, who succeeded
Fields as Chief of the Cherokees, that if they would depose
Hunter and Fields that the Mexican Government would re-
ward them substantially, and it was called to Bustamente's
attention that they hoped for a land grant in return for
their loyalty. The Mexican authorities, including Teran,
determined to make grants to the individual families of
Cherokees, and there were negotiations for several years,
and finally Colonel Piedras, commanding the Mexican gar-
rison at Nacogdoches, was commissioned "to put each fam-
ily composing the tribe of Cherokees in possession of the
lands which they are now possessing." There were no in-
structions to issue them titles, and in fact it is apparent
that the Mexican Government never intended to do this,
but rather to allow than to remain tenants at will, as it
were.

Colonel Piedras and his garrison were driven out of
Nacogdoches by the colonists in 1832, before he had exe-
cuted this commission, and though they continued to press
their claims, they never got more than permission to remain
where they were until the Supreme Government should de-
cide their case. In this way they were postponed from
year to year, and the Revolution in 1835 found them occu-
pying the country where they had dwelt since they first
came into Texas fifteen years before, but with no paper
title, and this they knew from past experience gave them an
insecure footing.

It is estimated that the Cherokee and other East Texas

175

THE COMING OF THE CHEROKEES

tribes associated with them had more than 1500 warriors
and five times that many people at the outbreak of the
Revolution. Their attitude towards the colonists at this
time was one of grave concern, and in November, 1835,
when it was known that a Mexican army was being massed
for the invasion of Texas the following year, the consulta-
tion which was the provisional Government of Texas, made
a declaration to the Cherokees, "that we will guarantee
them the peacable enjoyment of their rights to their land as
we do our own. ' '

This declaration was made at the instance of General
Houston, and he, John Forbes and John Cameron were
named as commissioners to * ' take such steps as would secure
the effective cooperation of the Indians." Houston and
Forbes made a treaty with the Cherokees February 23,
1836, by which they were ceded a large territory.

There is no doubt that this treaty and Houston's great
influence with these Indians (for he was a Cherokee Chief)
kept them from rendering aid to Santa Anna during the
campaign of 1836. And there is less doubt that had these
fifteen hundred wariors swept down through the settle-
ments at any time after the fall of the Alamo, and before
San Jacinto, the Colonies would have been wiped out. All
Texas was on the move in those days of the runaway scrape,
and thousands of familes would have fallen easy prey to
these savage warriors while seven thousand Mexican soldiers
were scouring the country from Bastrop to the sea.

During the present year, 1921, the Cherokees have under-
taken to file suit in the Supreme Court of the United States
for the recovery of these lands ceded them in this treaty.

176

THE PASSING OF THE CHEROKEES

VI.
THE PASSING OF THE CHEROKEES.

The Cherokee was perhaps the most enlightened of all
the North American Indians. They had a highly developed
tribal government, an alphabet, a kind of rude literature,
and had stern notions of individual property rights. Many
of them were slave owners, and those who came to Texas in
the early twenties were as well qualified for citizenship as
the average Mexican of that period, who was himself an In-
dian of far less force than the Cherokee.

The fifteen years of fruitless effort they made to get title
to their lands had made them suspicious of Mexico and of
promises made them by Mexican officials and agents, while
their great reverence for Houston had lead them into a
treaty in February, 1836, which was the salvation of the
colonists.

After San Jacinto the Republic refused to ratify Hous-
ton's treaty, and during his administration the Cherokees
were left in the same suspense that they had suffered dur-
ing the preceding fifteen years.

Suspicious of everybody and of the white settlers in par-
ticular, they were easily aroused and influenced by Mexi-
can agents who were now sent among them, and began a se-
ries of offenses which led to their expulsion from the
country in 1839. When Filisola retreated after San Jacinto
under the armistice which Santa Anna had made, he took
time to start intrigues with the Indians, sending agents
among them to incite them to antagonism to the colonists,
and these intrigues were kept up almost constantly for the
ten long bloody years that elapsed before annexation and the
Mexican War. It was not alone the Cherokees but the Co-

177

THE PASSING OF THE CHEROKEES

manches and various other tribes who dwelt in the vast
country north of the Old Kings Highway who were wrought
upon and lead to take up the torch and tomahawk against
the Texans.

But retribution came to the Cherokees first, to the others
afterwards.

The story of the Cherokee expulsion has been often told,
and I am going to briefly relate it here, taking the facts
stated from the account given by John H. Reagan, who was
in the fight. Reagan, who was a youth of twenty-one at the
time, went with Lacy, the Indian Agent who was sent by
President Lamar to notify the Cherokees that because of
their repeated crimes against the whites and their continued
intrigues with Mexican emissaries they must leave Texas,
and go back to the territory of the United States, from
whence they had come twenty years before.

"When we reached the residence of Chief Bowles, he
invited us to a fine spring near his house, where we were
seated, and Lamar 's message was read to him. Bowles said
he could not answer as to abandoning the country until he
could consult with his people, and he was given ten days.
We returned to his house at the expiration of this time, and
he said his young men were for war, and thought they could
whip the whites, but he knew that in the end the whites
would win. He said that while it was true they never had a
title from the Mexican Government, yet General Houston
had confirmed their right to the country by treaty.

"He told of a plan he had on foot to join his tribe with
the main body of the Cherokees in the States and take them
all to California, and asked for time to gather their crops.
(This was June, 1839).

"Lacy told Bowles he had no authority to give him any
such time. Bowles then said it mattered little to him, that

178

THE PASSING OF THE CHEROKEES

he was now eighty-three years old and would not live much
longer, but he felt a great interest in the future of his wives
and children. That his tribe had always been true to him,
and though he differed from them as to the course he pur-
sued, yet they wanted war rather than go, and war it must
be.

"The colonists had determined upon their immediate ex-
pulsion, and three regiments were approaching, one lead
by Rusk, another Landrum's Bed Landers, and the third
Edward Burleson's Regulars. While Rusk was waiting for
the two other regiments to come up, Bowles was seeking de-
lay so that warriors from other tribes might reach him, and
Rusk and Bowles agreed upon a neutral line that was not to
be crossed by either party without giving notice to the other.
About sunrise on the morning of July 15th, John Bowles,
a son of the Chief, and Fox Fields, son of Richard Fields,
former Chief, rode to our camp and notified Albert Sidney
Johnston that they were ready to move north across the neu-
tral strip, and General Johnston thanked them and told
them that the Texans would cross the Neches after them.

"There were battles on the next two days, in which the
Indians fought with great valour. Chief Bowles remained
on the field on horseback, wearing a handsome sword and
sash which had been given him by President Houston. He
was a magnificent picture of barbaric manhood, and was
the last to leave the field when the Indians retreated. He
was wounded and his horse disabled, and he dismounted,
an'd as he walked away was shot in the back and fell. Then
as he sat up with his face towards us, I started to him to
secure his surrender.

"At the same instant my Captain, Bob Smith, ran to-
wards him with a drawn pistol and we reached Bowles at
the same instant. Realizing what was imminent, I called

179

THE PRAIRIE INDIANS

'Captain, don't shoot him,' but he fired, striking Bowles
in the head, killing him instantly. ' '

This graphic account was written by Judge Reagan many
years later, and we all know it is accurate.

The Cherokees moved north, and were subsequently joined
with scattered remnants of their once powerful tribe, and
located in the ' ' Cherokee Nation. ' ' Judge Reagan says that
besides Cherokee warriors, there were Shawnees, Delawares,
Kickapoos and Indians from various other small tribes
then living in North and Northeast Texas engaged in this
battle.

General Houston was very bitter in his opposition to this
campaign, and it brought down his great wrath upon the
Lamar administration; and ever afterwards he held an al-
most savage hatred for Albert Sidney Johnston, whom he
regarded as a strong instrument in bringing it about.

VIII.
THE PRAIRIE INDIANS.

Distinguished from the Cherokees and East Texas In-
dians, the many wild tribes who dwelt and roved further
to the west were often referred to as the prairie Indians,
and the Mexican authorities were always hopeful that there
would be no alliance between them. There were a number
of these tribes, but the most formidable of them was the Co-
manche. It may well be doubted if this world has ever pro-
duced a more hardy, vigorous, terrible specimen of physical
manhood and daring courage than the Comanche Indian.
The Texas Comanche roved up and down the vast west

180

THE PRAIRIE INDIANS

from the Kansas prairies to the Gulf of Mexico, often taking
side trips or excursions down into Mexico, where he always
left a bloody trail. They rarely came east of the Lower
Brazos, but there is not a village or hamlet west of the
Colorado from Port Lavaca to the Red River that is with-
out a tradition of his midnight visit.

He would come south in the winter along with the buf-
falo, which he called his cattle, and would seek the higher,
cooler climate of the plateaus in the summer.

There was not a year after the first colonists came in 1821
that he did not depredate in the settlements, and during
the Republic, stirred by Mexican agents and by the ever
more obvious encroachments of the white settlers, he was
a terror by day and by night. It was a custom of the
Comanches after a raid into Mexico to stop by way of
San Antonio and trade, and often after excursions into
Texas settlements they would boldly come into San Antonio
and offer their captives for ransom. On such occasions they
would ride up to the commandant and require him to keep
their horses and chattels while they went up town for a frol-
ic. They made a kind of groom out of the small command
which was depended on for garrison by the helpless popu-
lation.

Albert Sydney Johnston was in San Antonio on one oc-
casion in 1839 when a band of warriors came to town, and
relates an interesting incident.

Essowakkeny, the Comanche Chief, dismounted, and
pointing to his horses said, " There is our caballado, take
care of it. " " Yes, ' ' said General Johnston, looking stead-
ily at him. "You ride good horses; I take care of mine,
you take care of yours." And the Indian met the fear-
less gaze of a warrior as bold as himself, and with a grim
smile detailed some of his own men to watch his caballado.

181

THE PRAIRIE INDIANS

The story of the Council House fight in San Antonio in
March, 1840, has been often told, and is indeed one of the
most tragic in the annals of our Indian wars. I have read
many reports of it, some given by eye-witnesses, and the
following is taken largely from the narrative of General
Johnston :

In February, 1840, the Comanches agreed to bring all
their white prisoners whom they were holding for ransom
into San Antonio and deliver them to their families, and
make a treaty with the Republic. Three commissioners were
named by the Government to meet the Comanche Chiefs.

On March 19th, thirty-two warriors with their women
and children came in for the pow wow.. Twelve Chiefs
met the three commissioners at the Stone Council House,
and the talk was opened by the surrender of Colonel Lock-
hart 's daughter, who had been captured at Gonzales the
year before. Colonel Fisher, one of the commissioners,
asked them where the other prisoners were, and they re-
plied that she was the only one they had. The Lockhart girl
then related that there were others in their camps whom
they were holding back for larger ransoms.

Colonel Fisher told them of their wickedness, and de-
manded that they bring in the other prisoners, and named
thirteen persons whom they were known to have captured
within recent months. Turning full upon them, he said:
''Do you remember murdering two men, and carrying
away this girl (Miss Lockhart) when you were returning
from Houston last year under a flag of truce ? ' ' There was
a silence for a moment after this challenge, when one of
the chiefs arose, and standing his full height said, with
haughty insolence, ' ' No, we do not recollect, ' ' and sat down.
There was another pause, and he rose again and defiantly
said to Colonel Fisher: "How do you like our answer?"

182

THE PRAIRIE INDIANS

Colonel Fisher replied, "I do not like your answer. I
told you not to come here without all your prisoners; your
women and braves may depart in peace, but we will hold
your chiefs as hostages until the other white captives are
brought in."

At this moment Captain Howard marched in a company
of fifty soldiers. Instantly the Indians strung their bows
and gave the war whoop. One of them sprang upon Cap-
tain Howard, striking him down with a knife. In the in-
terval of a few seconds all the chiefs were slain. There
were twenty warriors without the building and when they
heard the war whoop inside, they all at once attacked the
people, but all of them were killed save one, who escaped in-
to a house. Wishing to spare him, they sent an Indian wo-
man to tell him that they would allow him to leave the house
unmolested if he would go peacefully. He defied them, and
refused their permission, and stepped from the building
with his bow strung and ready for combat.

Mrs. Samuel Mavrick, in her diary published many years
after, relates that she, with a crowd of bystanders, was
watching some small Indian boys who had come in with the
party do some clever target shooting at a tree on the
river bank. When the war whoop sounded and before the
on lookers realized what it meant, one of these boys turned
like a flash and shot an arrow into the crowd, striking a
by-stander in the heart. Years of terrible bloody warfare
with the Comanches and their allied tribes followed this
fateful day.

A quarter of a century later they were still on the war-
path on the northwestern frontier, and my father was in
many a battle with them. The year I was born, 1873, a
party of Comanches murdered a family within a few miles
of our frontier home.

183

THE SANTA FE EXPEDITION

IX.
THE SANTA FE EXPEDITION.

Lamar's administration, 1838-1841, represented in most
respects the very opposite of that of General Houston, which
preceded it, and the second administration of Houston,
which immediately followed. Houston would conciliate the
Indians — Lamar would exterminate them. Their financial
and foreign policies differed. Lamar would have a bank
with certain restrictions — Houston, as the disciple of Jack-
son, regarded a national bank as a vile institution. General
Houston was not eligible under the constitution to succeed
himself in 1838, but he was during the entire three-year
term of Lamar, a candidate to succeed Lamar, and during
this interval was elected to the Congress of the Republic,
where he devoted himself largely to consistent opposition to
the Lamar administration.

The ill-fated Santa Fe expedition was generally regarded
as the greatest failure of Lamar, whose entire term was re-
plete with disasters, due, however, in most instances to
causes beyond the aid of statesmanship.

After the Revolution in 1836, Texas had always claimed
the Rio Grande as its boundary and had been ambitious
enough to contend for all the territory along that river
to its source in what is now the Colorado, thence to the ter-
ritory of the United States, and back in some indefinable
way to Red River.

Word came to Texas in 1839 that the people of Santa Fe,
which was on the east of the Rio Grande, hence technically
Texas territory, were hostile to the Mexican Government,
and had rebelled and murdered a governor sent out from
the City of Mexico.

184

THE SANTA FE EXPEDITION

Word also came that the inhabitants of that remote place
and the environs thereabout might be induced to acknowl-
edge Texas sovereignty.

There was much discussion during '39 and '40 of a pro-
posed expedition to Santa Fe, and an effort to divert the
large trade which was carried on between that region and
St. Louis to some gulf port.

A bill was urged in Congress for an appropriation for
such a project, but it was defeated largely by the influence
of Representative Sam Houston. Lamar determined, how-
ever, to send it anyway, and, early in 1841, named Hugh
McLeod military commander, authorizing him to raise vol-
unteers for the expedition.

President Lamar, who was great on proclamations, and,
like another President we have seen in our own day, a bril-
liant writer, issued a salutary declaration, offering the
people of that remote place the blessings of Texas citizen-
ship, and it was sent ahead by one Dryden, an American
merchant who had lately lived at Santa Fe. A commission
was created to set up a government there when the people
voluntarily accepted our proffered blessings, although the
military were warned not to force submission upon these
people, but to merely conquer them and set up a new gov-
ernment if they were willing to be conquered and have
a new government. The commission was directed to take
possession of all public buildings and governmental agen-
cies, provided it could be done peacefully. With these im-
possible instructions, the expedition moved out on June
21, 1841, and took its long weary way across roadless wilds
for nearly one thousand miles. There were about two hun-
dred and seventy volunteer soldiers, accompanied by fifty
odd merchant traders and other persons. In one month
they made two hundred miles, and in September, after

185

THE SANTA FE EXPEDITION

hardships almost unbelievable, they were in what is now
New Mexico.

They suffered from drouth and for food, and were har-
rassed by Indians, and late in September a detachment was
sent ahead the main body limping along in the rear.

Governor Armijo, fully apprised of their approach, was
on the lookout for them, and with a show of military
force and through the treachery of a young lieutenant,
Lewis, who was one of the Texas party, both divisions of the
bedraggled expedition were induced to lay down their arms,
which they did as an evidence of the perfectly pacific pur-
poses for which President Lamar had sent them.

They were no sooner disarmed than all of them were
started on foot as prisoners for the City of Mexico, in
charge of a base brute named Salazar. Some died by the
wayside from starvation and sickness. Others were mur-
dered by their guards, and those hardy enough to survive a
twelve-hundred-mile march under such circumstances were
thrown into dungeons in the City of Mexico when they
reached there.

After a time they were all released. George W. Kendall,
one of the proprietors and founders of the New Orleans
"Picayune," accompanied the expedition from Austin,
and after a long imprisonment was released in the City of
Mexico the next year. In 1841: he published Kendall's
"Santa Fe Expedition," which is, from a standpoint of hu-
man interest and literary merit, the greatest book that has
ever been written about Texas and the Texans. It created
a great sensation in its day, and was widely read in America
and Europe.

One reading it now after eighty years is charmed with its
literary style and splendid narrative. His description of
the journey across Texas, the capture near Santa Fe, the

186

THE SANTA FE EXPEDITION

story of the tyrant Armijo, the long, terrible march to Mex-
ico, and above all his wonderful glimpses of the City of
Mexico after he was liberated by Santa Anna, should be
read by every Texan of every generation. Taken at random
from the pages of this wonderful book, I relate his story of
Lieutenant Homsby's ride :

"We were being marched along at a rapid pace and near-
ing Albuquerque when a single horseman was seen speed-
ing across the fields.

"Soon he was up with the rear of our party, when check-
ing his horse into a prancing canter, he politely raised his
hat and addressed the prisoners as gentlemen while riding
along the line. His horse was a beautiful black charger,
and he a handsome young Mexican, dressed in green velvet
trousers with a neatly fitting jacket somewhat faded and
worn.

1 ' The horseman rode twice up and down the line of pris-
oners, nodding gracefully as he passed, and eyeing the
crowd as though in search of someone. Bye and bye his eye
fell on Lieutenant Hornsby, the best dressed man among
us. His Texas Dragoon jacket was new and his blanket was
showy red.

' * The cavalier at once checked his horse on seeing Horns-
by, and asked the Lieutenant if he were tired. The long
march had fatigued us all, and when Hornsby answered
in the affirmative, the horseman bade him mount behind
and said he would carry him a pace and rest his weary limbs.
Instantly Hornsby was seated behind his new friend. In a
moment the rider wheeled his horse, plunged heavy spurs
into his flanks, and dashed away at a speed that was truly
amazing, across the fields, jumping irrigating ditches. We
were being marched on towards Albuquerque, but as best
we could, watched the fleeing figures until all we could see

187

THE SANTA FE EXPEDITION

was Hornsby's red blanket disappearing in the distance.
Later in the same day after we had been marched
out of Albuquerque, the horseman reappeared bringing
Hornsby with him and dropping him along the line gal-
loped away. The Lieutenant wore instead of his Texas
Dragoon coat, a half worn jacket much too small, and his
showy red blanket was gone.

"He related this story: A hard ride of three or four
miles brought them to a house of somewhat neater con-
struction than other Mexican dwellings. It was a solitary
house half a mile from the road. Here they dismounted,
and the Mexican politely lead the way into a room in which
the furniture and appointments were luxurious. Scriptural
paintings adorned the walls, and the sideboard bore de-
canters and cut glass, and the Lieutenant was invited to help
himself to a decanter of brandy. At this moment the wife
of the cavalier, a mild eyed woman, entered, and graciously
lead the way to the dining room, where they all three par-
took of a splendid breakfast. Both husband and wife
were assiduous in their attentions, and pressed dish after
dish upon Hornsby with a most zealous courtesy. After
breakfast the good wife brought cigarettes, and while they
smoked the host opened the business which had induced him
to invite the Lieutenant to his dwelling.

"He had taken a fancy to Hornsby's neat fitting Texas
Dragoon coat, and would exchange his somewhat faded and
worn jacket for it. The guest protested he did not want
to exchange his coat, besides, the proffered jacket was much
too small for him. But the Mexican insisted, though the
wife protested, and Hornsby was compelled to doff his
coat and was helped into the ill-fitting, shoddy jacket,
which he wore when he was returned to us. The Mexican
then brought a heavy, coarse blanket and exchanged it for

188

HOUSTON'S SECOND ADMINISTRATION

Hornsby's bright red one. Indeed this last exchange was a
good one, for the heavier blanket well served the Lieutenant
on his 1200 mile tramp to the City of Mexico.

"This business done, the Mexican indicated that he was
ready to return, and the Lieutenant, now somewhat at
home, walked to the sideboard and poured himself a stiff
glass of brandy, and bowing to the host, tossed it off.

"As they left the house to mount and ride, the wife fol-
lowed, and gave Hornsby a large quantity of dried beef,
and when her husband's eyes were away, stealthily slipped
a quarter of a dollar into his hand and murmered, 'Adios,
Senor. ' And away they rode across the fields, and the
Lieutenant was restored to us wearing a worn jacket much
too small and without his red blanket."

X.

•

HOUSTON'S SECOND ADMINISTRATION.

One studying the history of Texas from the beginning of
our era in 1821 down to the beginning of the Revolution in
1835, is impressed with the fact that it is a biography of
Stephen F. Austin.

The annals of the second epoch, 1835 to statehood in 1846,
are equally impressed with the great genius of Houston.

He became President a second time in December, 1841,
and Edward Burleson was Vice-President.

The year 1842 was the most critical in the life of the Re-
public.

The country 's finances were impossible. It had no credit
at home or abroad. The Indians, stirred by the vigorous

189

HOUSTON'S SECOND ADMINISTRATION

extermination policy of Lamar, but not exterminated, car-
ried the torch along the whole frontier. The sad failure of
the Santa Fe Expedition had brought gloom into every com-
munity in Texas and tears for some citizen who had gone
with MeLeod and whose fate was unknown.

Santa Anna, who was in power again in Mexico, sought
this as a propitious time to increase hostilities, and in March
a Mexican army under Vasquez suddenly appeared before
San Antonio, and after occupying the city a few days, hur-
riedly retreated across the Rio Grande before a force could
be raised to meet them.

But it is significant that in a very short time thirty-five
hundred Texans were mustered from west of the Brazos and
on the way to Bexar. But they were only minute men, un-
able to leave their families for a campaign, and without
military equipment. About the same time Mexican forces
from across the lower Bio Grande came as far as Goliad.
The fact that a Mexican army had come within eighty miles
of the Capital, and the constant inroads of the Comanches
about Austin caused President Houston to convene Con-
gress in June, 1842, in the City of Houston.

In September of this year a second invasion, lead by
Adrian Woll, captured San Antonio and carried away
many citizens. District Court was in session and the
Judge and lawyers were taken along.

Woll made a move as though he would go on to Austin,
but encountered a small force of about two hundred and
fifty men under Colonel Caldwell a few miles out of San
Antonio. Volunteers from nearby counties were hastening
to the relief of Bexar, and one company of fifty-odd men
rode out of LaGrange lead by Captain Dawson, and came
upon the rear of Woll's army. Unable to effect a juncture
with Caldwell 's men, Dawson's entire company were killed

190

HOUSTON'S SECOND ADMINISTRATION

or captured in a bloody encounter fought on Salado Creek.
Again the Mexicans learning that the country was aroused
and men marching against them, scampered across the Rio
Grande before a sufficient force could be mustered to meet
them.

There was a wild shriek over all Texas for retaliatory
war and an invasion of Mexico, and a command of about
twelve hundred men under General Alexander Somerville
marched as far as the border, but it was without supplies
or equipment for an offensive campaign.

All during the year volunteers from the States came into
Texas in great numbers, hoping to be enlisted in a Mex-
ican campaign. But the Government was without means
to care for or equip them, and in many instances they were
desperate fellows, and when unable to go to war in Mexico
made much trouble in Texas.

After some marches and counter-marches up and down
the Rio Grande, Somerville 's army returned home, but a
small detachment of daring fellows would invade Mexico,
and three hundred of them elected Captain William S.
Fisher as their leader, and crossed the river and laid siege
to the town of Mier. After hard fighting and many losses,
they were compelled to capitulate to vastly superior num-
bers, and were started on a long journey to the City of
Mexico. After many days the prisoners by concerted ac-
tion managed to escape, but they were in the heart of Mex-
ico, and were unable to reach the border, and one hundred
and sixty of the original three hundred and four who had
first crossed over for a conquest of Mexico were recaptured
and brought up to a place where, under orders from Santa
Anna, each tenth man was shot.

One hundred and sixty beans were put in a jar, one-
tenth of them were black, the others white, and the Texans

191

HOUSTON'S SECOND ADMINISTRATION

were made to draw and those who drew black beans were
forthwith shot to death.

The Mexican authorities were very anxious for the
honor of martyrdom to fall on Captain Ewing Cameron,
and he was made to draw first, but got a white bean.

After this decimation the remaining prisoners were start-
ed again for Mexico, and as they neared the city orders
came to shoot Captain Cameron at once, and they were
promptly obeyed. The remnant reached the Capital while
the Santa Fe prisoners were yet in dungeons. The fre-
quency of Mexican raids upon San Antonio and the con-
stant fear that Austin might be included in the next excur-
sion made it unsafe to keep the seat of Government there
for a time, and Houston held forth at Washington on the
Brazos, where he convened the regular session of the Sev-
enth Congress in November, 1842. This aroused much ire
among the frontier folks on the Colorado, who successfully
resisted the removal of the archives. The greatest effort of
Houston's second administration was to bring about annex-
ation with the United States, which he cleverly aided by
open negotiations with England designated to arouse the
people in the States with the danger of English sovereignty
in Texas.

Justin H. Smith, recently professor of Modern History in
Dartmouth College, has written an elaborate work upon the
annexation of Texas, and speaking of Houston at this epoch
says : ' * Endowed with a remarkably fertile and crafty mind,
trained successfully as an American politician, finished in
the school of Indian cunning, a gambler of long experience,
a genius in the art of political histrionics, a diplomat whose
only idea of method was to triumph and not be found out,
a statesman able and determined, Houston worked in a sit-
uation beautifully adapted to facilitate the concealment of

192

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HOUSTON'S SECOND ADMINISTRATION

his aims." A report made by a British agent to his Gov-
ernment about this time said of him : ' * He is pure handed
and manly, actuated by a grand ambition to associate his
name with a nation's rise."

About this critical time in our history, John Tyler, Presi-
dent of the United States, initiated a move to annex Texas,
which after three years of varying fortune triumphed in
the closing hours of his administration. But the salvation
of Texas in these gloomy years was the constant stream of
immigration which flowed across its borders without ceas-
ing, so that the thirty thousand at the time of the Revolu-
tion were one hundred thousand at the time of annexation.

193

ANNEXATION OF TEXAS.

i.

THE PROCLAMATION OF LA SALLE.

The evolutions in History ; the various changes in sover-
eignty through which Texas passed from the primitive plain
and wilderness to statehood, must be of interest to this gen-
eration. "Not to know what happened before you were
born is to always be a child. ' '

It was a strange theory which the European nations em-
ployed by which each claimed portions of the Americas
based upon exploration and discovery.

It never seriously occurred to any of these so-called civi-
lized nations that the Indian inhabitants who had peopled
these continents for countless ages had any title to their
native land, any rights which need be respected. Strange
even to romance are the events by which the fair laud,
which now bears the name of Texas, has passed from flag to
flag.

There was a three-hundred-year race among the nations
of Europe for possessions in the New World, each country
basing its claims upon explorations and discoveries made by
persons flying its flag. Spanish adventurers first reached
the mainland through the Gulf of Mexico, and Spain 's title
to the Floridas was recognized because of explorations of
DeLeon and De Soto, about fifty years after Columbus'
first voyage. Then there was a lapse of more than one
hundred years after De Soto, on his fruitless gold hunt,

195

THE PROCLAMATION OF LA SALLE

discovered the Mississippi River, until La Salle, the French-
man, coming from Canada, sailed down it to the sea.

On April 9, 1682, this enterprising individual stood on
the west bank of the great river near where New Orleans
is now located, surrounded by a small company of daring
Frenchmen, and by a process verbal named and claimed the
country far and wide for his monarch. They unfurled the
flag of France, reared a rude cross, buried a plate, and in
a loud tone of voice proclaimed the sovereignty of France
over the lands traversed by the river and its tributaries,
and christened the country Louisiana, for the * ' Grand Mon-
arque," Louis XIV. How far this verbal proclamation
reached, and what were the boundaries of the new province,
were matters much debated, though never settled in the
centuries to come.

Some said they crossed the Rockies to the northwest
coast.

Others that they extended east including west Florida.

Others that they embraced all Texas down to the Rio
Grande.

This last claim was given much force by the fact that
LaSalle came again to the Gulf Coast in 1685 and founded
a colony on Matagorda Bay, and lost his life here in
Texas.

After his death and the failure of his Colony, the Span-
iards through Mexico made feeble, futile efforts at settle-
ments here, claiming the country as part of Mexico, but
they succeeded little better than the French had done.

Another hundred years rolled around and Louisiana and
Texas were yet wild, vast and unknown. France had made
settlements in Canada, and controlled the St. Lawrence and
the Great Lakes. The English had colonized along the At-
Inatic seaboard, and the Spaniard yet held the Floridas,

196

THE PROCLAMATION OF LA SALLE

and all Mexico, or New Spain, as it was called. There were
some French settlements on the Mississippi, and New Or-
leans had become a port of some importance.

Then came the French and Indian wars in jthe middle
of the Eighteenth Century, and France and England fought
for long bloody years over the valley of the Ohio.

Seeing that England would win, France hurriedly handed
Louisiana over to Spain in 1762 to keep it from falling into
the hands of England, and, curiously enough, Napoleon
hurriedly sold it to the United States forty years later to
keep it out of England's hands. And the United
States annexed Texas in 1845 to keep it of Eng-
land's hands. After this cession to Spain in 1762 and
while Spain held Louisiana, the title to Texas was
conceded to be Spanish whether it be treated as part
of Louisiana or part of Mexico. At the close of the Amer-
ican Revolution, Spanish sovereignty was acknowledged
over Louisiana, the Floridas, Texas, Mexico, and all the
lands around the Gulf of Mexico. It claimed all of North
America west of the Mississippi, and there was no one then
to seriously dispute this claim.

But while the Colonies (now become the States) did not
then covet more land, they did set great store by the right
to navigate the Mississippi River. They claimed the coun-
try west to the river and south to the 31st parallel, or about
to a line from Natchez, Miss., east, following certain ob-
jects to the Atlantic. Since, however, the lower river and its
entrance to the Gulf ran through Spanish territory, it was
a matter of much moment to have for the people of Ken-
tucky and Tennessee and all the territories west of the Al-
leghenies the right to navigate the river to its mouth and
reach the Atlantic seaboard by way of the Gulf.

After some years of negotiation, a treaty was concluded in

197

NAPOLEON'S FIRST EFFORT AT KING MAKING

1795 between the United States and Spain, giving us the
right to navigate the river, and depot facilities for goods
on the west bank of the river at New Orleans. For the time
being this seemed all our country could want. The close
of the eighteenth century saw England in control of Canada,
and the United States of the country to the Spanish pos-
sessions south and west, and Spain the nominal master of
the greater part of North America.

Thus far little detail had been given to boundaries, and
fully four-fifths of all North America was uninhabited and
more than half of it yet unexplored. Texas was little more
than a name on a map at the close of the eighteenth cen-
tury. In a feeble way Spain had exercised a nominal au-
thority over the country for a century or more, and in an
effort to reclaim it had built missions at various places
where Franciscan Fathers labored to tame and save the Red
Brother. But the Indian did not take kindly to being
tamed and saved and the missions were failures. Some of
them still stand after another hundred years have rolled
around, the last mute evidence of Spanish sovereignty.

II.
NAPOLEON'S FIRST EFFORT AT KING MAKING.

The dawn of the nineteenth century saw strange things
transpiring throughout the world, and perhaps the strang-
est was tHe case of the young islander who had come to
France and during the Revolution made himself master of
that bloody, turbulent country.

Napoleon, then thirty years old, was First Consul of the
Republic, and planned to become, as he shortly afterwards

198

NAPOLEON'S FIRST EFFORT AT KING MAKING

did, and Emperor. He had lately led victorious armies in
Egypt and Italy, and assumed a mastery over the Italian
cities and states. Down in Italy not far beyond the Alps
was the old Roman City of Parma, which had withstood
the wars of centuries and had been made a dukedom or
Duchy by some of the Popes four hundred years before.
In the course of the eternal conflict which had prevailed
among the so-called great powers of Europe, this had be-
come an appendage of the Spanish Crown, and at this time
the Duke of Parma was the nephew and son-in-law of
Charles the IV, the Bourbon King of Spain.

The Duke of Parma wanted to be a king, and this fact
was related to Napoleon, who had the same ambition on a
larger scale. And it suited the purpose of this strange, rest-
less person to make a king out of this degenerate Bourbon
Duke. So that it came to pass that a kingdom, warranted
to contain not less than one million souls, was created by
Napoleon in Northern Italy about Parma, and named Etru-
ria, following in part the boundaries of a Roman Province
of the same name. And the young Duke of Parma and his
pretty little Spanish bride, the daughter of twenty kings,
came down to Paris to apply to Bonaparte, the Republican
First Consul, for a kingdom and a crown. Amidst festivi-
ties and gayeties such as have often prevailed in Paris,
Napoleon began his career as a king maker, and made this
youthful pair King and Queen of Etruria, and bestowed
upon them the hereditary title of Rulers of an Italian King-
dom of one million human souls over which he had no sem-
blance of right to rule, and yet less to bestow upon others as
a bounty. But the Duke of Parma was happy to be a king,
and his pretty little Spanish bride, daughter of so many
kings, was glad to be a queen, and the young Corsican was
glad to begin the experiment of setting up kingdoms and

199

THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE

making kings, for that was to be his chief occupation in the
years to come.

But in the hurried recital of these interesting things, I
almost overlooked relating an incident, for such it was. Na-
poleon exacted a fee from the Spanish King for the bounty
of this Italian kingdom of one million souls, and King
Charles, who was land poor, gave him Louisiana.

And so it happened on October 1, 1800, that the Secret
Treaty of San Ildefonso was signed (for this was before the
blessed day of open covenants), and his Catholic Majesty
receded all of Louisiana to France, from whom Spain had
acquired it forty years before. And the wild province which
had been proclaimed and named by La Salle to embrace all
the lands traversed and watered by the Mississippi and its
tributaries became French again. What were the bound-
aries of the vast realm bartered for a petty Italian king-
dom ? Some said they crossed the Rockies to the northwest
coast. Others that they extended east and embraced west
Florida. Others that they embraced all Texas down to the
Bio Grande. And so it happened that Texas and some ten
other of our now American States were lightly bartered to
make a petty duke a petty king in a land thousands of miles
from these shores.

III.
THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE.

Rufus King, our Minister to England, heard rumors of
the secret recession of Louisiana to France in return for
an Italian kingdom, as early as March, 1801, and wrote to

200

THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE

James Madison, our Secretary of State, advising of the
report.

Our ministers to England, France and Spain were at once
charged to learn the facts, for this country was deeply in-
terested in the affair. But the contracting parties were very
reticent about giving out information, and though Chancel-
lor Livingston, our Minister to France, was very diligent
and inquisitive, it was nearly a year before he had a first
hand confirmation of the secret bargain.

President Jefferson was much moved by the danger of a
powerful neighbor in control of the Lower Mississippi. In
April, 1802, he wrote Livingston: "There is on this globe
a single spot the possessor of which is our natural habitual
enemy. It is New Orleans, through which the produce of
three-eighths of our territory must pass to market. France
placing herself in that door, assumes to us the attitude of de-
fiance. Spain might have retained it quietly for years. Her
feeble state is such that her possession of the place would
hardly be felt by us and it would not be long before some
circumstance might arise which would make the cession to
us worth her while. The day France takes possession of
Louisiana, we must marry ourselves to the British fleet. ' '

Then came a long year of negotiations for the purchase
of a site at the mouth of the river. Livingston was unable
to get the French statesman to talk to him with any free-
dom. At one time after the terms of the treaty of San Ilde-
fonso were generally known Talleyrand sought to deny to
Livingston that France had acquired Louisiana, and ad-
vised him to apply to Spain if he wanted to purchase any
part of the territory. Just at this juncture the Spanish
Intendant at New Orleans aggravated matters very much by
annulling the treaty of 1795 between the United States and

201

THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE

Spain, and closing New Orleans to ships bearing American
merchandise and products.

This caused a tremendous stir in all the western country,
and Livingston promptly advised Talleyrand that since
Spain still owned Louisiana, as he intimated, we would
know how to deal with her, and if she would permit a petty
official at New Orleans to annul a national treaty, we would
take possession of the port and open it to our commerce and
deal with Spain on the ground. This prompt direct state-
ment soon brought an admission that Louisiana had passed
back to France, but they said that it was not for sale. The
act of the Spanish Intendant at New Orleans in 1802 annul-
ling the privilege of depot facilities for American goods,
caused much excitement in the United States, and Pres-
ident Jafferson knew that if this country could not pur-
chase New Orleans and the unrestricted right to use the
Lower Mississippi, that it would only be a matter of a few
years when the westerners would take it by force. In
fact a resolution was offered in the United States Senate
suggesting the latter course, and it was only kept from pas-
sage by assurances that the administration was using every
effort' to reach an agreement with France and Spain.

In order to give due emphasis to the activities that were
being put forth to accomplish this result, Jefferson named
James Monroe, of Virginia, Envoy Extraordinary to
France and Spain, charging him to hasten negotiations for
the purchase of New Orleans and the Spanish territory
east of the Mississippi River.

In all the correspondence that passed between our Gov-
ernment and Livingston and Monroe during these long
negotiations, there was scant mention of the territory
west of the Mississippi and north of New Orleans, for no
one was interested in it. In one letter it was suggested

202

THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE

that if we had to purchase it, we might be able to sell it for
enough to recover the price paid for the whole. Napoleon
was a visionary person at thirty, and had many schemes
for the use of Louisiana.

At one time he was going to found a vast colonial em-
pire, and an expedition was being fitted out for that end.
Livingston wrote Madison in March, 1802, "It is a darling
object of Napoleon, who sees in it a means to gratify his
friends and dispose of his armies. ' '

But just then his eternal quarrel with England renewed it-
self, and it was currently reported that the British Govern-
ment was planning an expedition to occupy New Orleans.
This quickly determined him to employ his colonial ex-
pedition in his war with England and to hurriedly sell
Louisiana to the United States, to keep it from falling into
English hands.

Forty years before, when France and England were near-
ing the end of the French and Indian wars, and it was evi-
dent that England would triumph, and after Canada had
been taken from the French, Louisiana had been hurriedly
ceded by France to Spain to keep it out of English hands,
and now for the last time it was bartered about in the politi-
cal game of European nations.

And the country that had been claimed and named by
La Salle in his verbal proclamation made at the mouth of
the Mississippi one hundred and twenty years before, and
that had been bartered back to France for an Italian king-
dom, became a part in the United States of America.

203

TEXAS TRADED FOR FLORIDA

IV.
TEXAS TRADED FOR FLORIDA.

During the centuries since the English, Spanish and
French explorers had first come into North America and
laid the claims of these nations to the continent, there had
been no settlement of the western boundaries, and no one
could say with any approximate accuracy what was in-
cluded when France ceded Louisiana to Spain in 1763, or
when Spain receded it to France in 1800, or when it was sold
to the United States in 1803. Livingston asked the French
diplomats if the Spanish cession to, France at San Ildef onso
had included the Floridas, and they told him they supposed
so. Pinckney, our Minister to Spain, made the same in-
quiry at Madrid, and was told they supposed not. No one
seemed to know or care very much.

Livingston wrote in 1802, while negotiations for purchase
were pending: "As part of the territory of Spain, Louisi-
ana had no precise boundary, so it is easy to foresee the
fate of Mexico. The boundary between Canada and Louisi-
ana is alike unsettled."

While there was much concern as to how far east
Louisiana could be extended, no one connected with
our Government in these negotiations seemed to
care a rap how far north and west it went. Livingston
wrote President Jefferson in October, 1802 : ' ' Joseph Bona-
parte asked me whether we would prefer the Floridas to
Louisiana, and I told him we had no wish to extend our
boundary across the Mississippi;" and again in 1803, he
wrote : ' * Talleyrand asked me today if we wanted the whole
of Louisiana, and I told him no, only New Orleans and the
Floridas."

In fact Jefferson and Madison wanted nothing but the

204

TEXAS TRADED FOR FLORIDA

mouth of the Mississippi River and west Florida, through
which the rivers from our then western and southern States
flowed to the Gulf.

At one time it was suggested by Livingston that the
Island and City of New Orleans be made an independent
state under the joint sovereignty of France, Spain and the
United States, in which event this country would not be
further interested in the purchase of Louisiana.

When Monroe reached Paris in 1803, Napoleon had in-
dicated to Livingston his willingness to sell, and insisted
on selling the whole territory, so it happened that our Min-
isters had it fairly forced upon them.

After the bargain was closed, Livingston was much
worried for fear the Washington Government would cen-
sure him for having agreed to take the country west of
the Mississippi River.

On May 13, 1803, a few days after the treaty was signed,
Livingston and Monroe wrote Madison an apology for hav-
ing accepted the whole territory. "We well know (they
wrote) that the acquisition of so great an extent was not
contemplated. ' '

But they pointed out that they were unable to escape tak-
ing it all without endangering the whole negotiations, that
Marbois, the French Minister, was obdurate. And when after
concluding the bargain, they came to examine Monroe's
commission, they found it restricted him to the purchase of
territory east of the River, and this gave them a new fright.
But Jefferson and Madison were indulgent and did not
complain at them for having been bullied into accepting
nearly one million square miles more than they were in-
structed to buy at the same price. Jefferson wrote a friend
that he might use this western country for the Indians and
move those east of the Mississippi upon it. But what were

205

TEXAS TRADED FOR FLORIDA

its boundaries ? The American ministers were unable to get
any definite statement from France about boundaries. They
would be told that France got from Spain in 1800 the same
territory that it ceded Spain in 1763. Livingston, in his
diary of events surrounding the purchase, says :

"I asked the minister what were the east bounds of the
territory ceded to us." "He said he did not know, we
must take it as they had received it. " "I asked him what
Spain meant to put them in possession of and what they
had meant to take from Spain." He said, "I do not know,
construe it in your own way. You have made a noble bar-
gain, make the most of it."

The American Government felt that the purchase ex-
tended to the Rio Grande on the southwest, and included
West Florida on the east, but was so much more interested
in Florida than in Texas that little thought was given the
latter. The Spanish Government was much disappointed at
learning of the sale of Louisiana to the United States, and
the Marquis d'Yrujo, Spain's Minister to the United States,
addressed a series of notes to Secretary Madison declaring
that France had no right to sell the territory. Madison
mildly but firmly told the Marquis to tell his troubles to
Napoleon, and the incident was closed. Spain did not rel-
ish the United States as a next door neighbor, and set about
to hold Texas as part of its Mexican possessions.

In order to keep Americans out, it was planned to have
a vast area between the two countries filled with Indians,
who would be friendly with Mexico but hostile to the Amer-
ican settler.

The Jefferson administration was contented with the ac-
quisition of Louisiana. The days of Madison, who succeed-
ed, were largely filled with other matters, including the war
of 1812.

206

TEXAS TRADED FOR FLORIDA

When Monroe became President, he bent his energies to
the acquisition of the Floridas with the hope of getting
Spain forever out of the territory east of the Mississippi.
When the De Onis treaty was before the Senate, Henry
Clay stated that by right the Louisiana purchase included
Texas to the Rio Grande, but neither he nor anyone else se-
riously objected to giving up Texas for Florida.

The De Onis treaty of 1819 gave the United States Flor-
ida and released Spain's claims to all land north of the
42nd parallel, the northern boundary of California.

In return the United States gave up its claim that Texas
was part of the Louisiana purchase, and for the time be-
ing all claim to the country west of the Sabine and South
of Red River was relinquished. And so it came to pass
that Texas, which was in fact a part of the Louisiana pur-
chase on account of LaSalle's explorations, was relin-
quished in 1819, to be reclaimed by American frontiersmen
in 1821-1836 and re-annexed to the American Union in
1836-1846.

The story of that annexation is one of the most interesting
in our political annals. By almost unanimous vote, the
people of Texas offered to enter the American Union at the
first election held in 1836. This offer was rejected by Con-
gress in 1837, under the great pressure brought by the abo-
litionists. So overwhelming was this defeat that all hope
of annexation seems to have died out for the next five years.
In 1843, President Tyler started a crusade for that result,
which he pushed with great vigor until the close of his
term in 1845, when he succeeded in getting favorable legis-
lation through Congress only a few days before he sur-
rendered office to Polk. The annexation of Texas was the
largest question before the American people from 1843 to

207

FIRST EFFORTS AT RE- ANNEXATION

1846, and was the paramount issue in the Presidential cam-
paign of 1844.

It kept Henry Clay out of the presidency and was the
rock which wrecked the Whig party. It defeated the nom-
ination of Van Buren at Baltimore in 1844, and brought
about that of James K. Polk, the first "dark horse" ever
named for the presidency.

It resulted in the keenest diplomatic game ever played
on this continent, in which the frontier folks won over the
representatives of England and France. It stopped the
aggressions of England in North America, and played a
powerful part in the acquisition of Oregon, and last, but
not least, it resulted in a war with Mexico which carried
our flag to the Pacific. This generation can well review in
some detail this great stirring chapter in the history of the
World.

V.
FIRST EFFORTS AT RE-ANNEXATION.

Jefferson had purchased Louisiana, and Monroe had ac-
quired the Floridas, and so when John Quincy Adams be-
came President in 1824, he was anxious to do his bit in ex-
tending our boundaries. He was aided in this ambition by
no less person than Henry Clay, who was his Secretary of
State.

The first American Minister to Mexico after that country
became free from Spain, went with instructions to open ne-
gotiations for the purchase of Texas down to the Rio
Grande. Secretary Clay gave him a schedule of prices to

208

FIRST EFFORTS AT RE- ANNEXATION

offer for the country to the Rio Grande, or to the Nueces,
or to the Colorado, or even the Brazos, and furnished him
with arguments to advance why Mexico should sell.

One of these was that the Comanche Indians who infest-
ed the country could be sold with it, and the responsibility
of diplomatic relations with these war-like folks would pass
to the purchaser, that the United States would take the
land with the incumbrance, so to speak.

Though these advancements met with no favor in Mexico,
Clay and Adams continued them during their entire admin-
istration. When General Jackson became President, suc-
ceeding Adams, Ke was even more zealous for the repurchase
of the land which Monroe had given up for Florida, and for
eight long years, even up to San Jacinto, the American
Minister in Mexico kept up the scheme of buying Texas.
The President was ably aided by his skillful Secretary of
State, Martin Van Buren.

During those years, 1825-1837, it seemed conceded in
the States that the acquisition of Texas was devoutly de-
sired by all. The Texas colonists fresh from the States
came imbued with this idea, and when separation from
Mexico was in prospect in 1835 and '36, the people of
Texas naturally expected to be incorporated in the Ameri-
can Union without delay.

When the Colonial Convention met at Washington on
the Brazos in March, 1836, and a government was organized
and a constitution written, a resolution was passed providing
for the submission to the people of the question of annexa-
tion to the United States, at the same time the constitution
was submitted for ratification. This was done at the Sep-
tember election held in 1836, when Houston was elected
President and the constitution ratified. Only eighty-nine
votes were cast against annexation.

209

FIRST EFFORTS AT RE-ANNEXATION

But the San Jacinto campaign and the capture of Santa
Anna had turned the eyes of all the world on Texas. Mex-
ico bitterly complained to Europe that the United States
had backed and fomented the Revolution to get Texas.
Companies of soldiers had been openly equipped and had
marched with flag and drum out of many American cities
to aid Texas in its war for freedom, and the Revolution was
furnished and financed in the United States. These things
were pointed to by suspicious persons in Europe as well as
Mexico as an evidence that the Washington Government was
an instigator of the Revolution. This lead the Government
to issue a neutrality warning, the effect of which may be
fairly seen in the case of Captain Grundy, United States
District Attorney, who was raising a company in Nashville
for service in Texas. He issued a terrible warning : ' ' I have
orders to arrest and prosecute every man who may take up
arms in the cause of Texas or in any way violate United
States neutrality, ' ' said he. "I will prosecute any man in
my command who takes up arms in Tennessee against Mex-
ico, and I will lead you to the border to see that our neu-
trality is not violated as long as we are on our soil."

The people of Texas were therefore little prepared at
the reception they got in the United States in 1836 and
during the Van Buren administration which followed Jack-
son.

At first the atrocities of the Alamo and Goliad had
aroused the American people to a frenzy, and the quick
success at San Jacinto to an enthusiasm, both of high de-
gree. Benton of Missouri declared in the United States
Senate that Houston was the first general since Marc Antony
who had captured the head of a government and chief of ac
army in a single stroke.

210

FIRST EFFORTS AT RE- ANNEXATION

Henry Clay, late Secretary to John Quincy Adams, and
now a Senator, made felicitous remarks, and offered a reso-
lution in the United States Senate hinting at the recogni-
tion of Texas Independence.

But the "tumult and the shouting" soon died, and at
home and abroad forces antagonistic to Texas and the Tex-
ans were loosed, so that instead of immediate annexation, as
all Texas hoped, even recognition was only gained after a
long, bitter fight of a year, and annexation, deserted by its
former friends and fought by the fanatic forces of aboli-
tion, was delayed for ten long years.

Even President Jackson, who during eight years had
continued to dicker for the purchase of Texas, and who
spent his closing years working for annexation, turned
conservative when the Texas agents arrived in 1836 and be-
gan their overtures for recognition and hints at annexation.
He reminded them that the United States had treaty obli-
gations with Mexico which must be observed, and expressed
regret that the people of Texas had voted for annexation
before its independence had even been recognized. When
strong, stern men like Jackson wavered, what could be ex-
pected of the average American politician of the Van Buren
type?

It may be doubted whether the American Congress would
have voted recognition when it did in February, 1837, had
not the Mexican Minister to the United States acted the fool.
He bullied and talked too much, and finally asked for his
passports and went home. Jackson thought it was enough
for him to bring about recognition, and suggested that an-
nexation, which he devoutly wished, be left to a northern
President.

He went out of the office in March, 1837, and retired to
his home in Tennessee. But he devoted the closing years

211

TEXAS REJECTED IN 1837

of his life to the consummation of annexation, and it may be
truly said that Ex-President Jackson and President Tyler
were the greatest individual forces in the United States
in bringing this result.

VI.
TEXAS REJECTED IN 1837.

Martin Van Buren, of New York, became President of
the United States in March, 1837, and the Congress which
assembled in that year wrestled mightily with the annexa-
tion of Texas. The American Anti-Slavery Society set it-
self to the task of preventing it at any cost. Petitions and
memorials circulated and signed by abolitionists poured
upon Congress in such numbers that a member said they
could only be measured by the cubic foot. It was said that
in this single session six hundred thousand signatures were
presented against annexation. Channing, the Boston clergy-
man, circularized the country in wild outbursts against ex-
tending our sovereignty to the Southwest.

John Quincy Adams, who as Secretary of State to Monroe,
declared the greatest event of his life was the signature of
the De Onis treaty, by which we acquired Florida, and who
as President schemed for four years to acquire Texas, was
now (in 1837) a member of the House of Representatives,
and wrote in his diary: "The annexation of Texas to the
Union is the first step to the conquest of all Mexico, of
the West Indies, of a maritime, colonizing, slave-tainted
monarchy, and of extinguishment of freedom." And the
old man did not confine his activities to mere entries in his
diary. When the resolution for annexation came before the
House in that year, near the close of the session, the vener-

212

TEXAS REJECTED IN 1837

able Ex-President made a three weeks' address in opposi-
tion to it, which closed the session and defeated the meas-
ures. A similar resolution introduced by Senator Preston,
of South Carolina, in the United States Senate, was de-
feated by a vote. of twenty-four to fourteen. This seemed
the death knell of annexation, and its enemies accepted it
as final. In Texas all hope was abandoned and our peo-
ple prepared themselves for an independent career. The
question seems to have died out so completely for the next
five years that neither in Congress nor in the American
papers was there any serious mention of it. In 1842 there
was a spasmodic revival when it was known that Senator
Walker, of Mississippi, was about to offer a bill for the pro-
ject. But he got so little encouragement that he did not do
so. The benevolent liberator, William Loyd Garrison, de-
clared at this time: "It is impossible for any honest man
to wish success to Texas. All who sympathize with that
pseudo-Republic hate liberty, and would dethrone God."

During these years, 1836 to 1842, Texas went through a
dark and gloomy period, weak at home and derided abroad.
The sympathy stirred by the struggle of 1836 was forgot-
ten. Mexican influence in Europe was exerted to the utter-
most against us. In the States we had left only a few
friends in the South. The Van Buren administration inher-
ited the financial follies of Jackson's regime, which follies
did not reach high tide until the panic of 1837.

Fortunes were swept away and the wild speculation of
the day of inflated currency left many a Southern planter
and slave-holder bankrupt. In those days of monetary
disaster, Texas became an asylum for many a fugitive
debtor.

I was trying a law suit at Richmond, Texas, twenty-odd
years ago, and a very old negro was a witness. They were

213

TEXAS REJECTED IN 1837

proving by him some dates long before the Civil War, and
he gave the year and month that his old master had brought
him to Texas, when he was a small boy. I asked Uncle
Remus how he remembered these things of so long ago, and
the grey, garrulous relic of another day assured me: "We
left Virginia in the night, suh, Marse Thomas and all his
niggers, and we travelled mostly in the night until we
crossed the Mississippi River." So general had this ex-
odus of fugitive debtors became, that throughout the South-
ern States sheriffs would return writs of attachment and
execution, with the simple notation, "G. T.," which meant
"gone to Texas." Back in the States, Texas was regarded
chiefly as a refuge for runaway debtors. During these
troubled years Mexico, always torn by its own Revolutions,
was never able to fit out an expedition to re-conquer Texas,
but would continually send marauding forces across the
river to plunder and harass our people, and twice these in-
vasions came as far as San Antonio, which was captured and
plundered. The Texans made several attempts to retaliate
by invading northern Mexico, and when they did so the
abolitionist press of the North would scream out: "That
we were a nation of freebooters and pirates, molesting a
peaceful neighbor nation."

Massachusetts was the ex-officio arch enemy of Texas
and the Texans, and from it radiated such sentiment as
found in Garrison's utterance above quoted, "that one who
would befriend Texas, would dethrone God." John Quin-
cy Adams, of Boston, spent his last days going up and down
New England in a scream of wild frenzy. He spoke softly
and kindly of Mexico, the Mother Country, robbed of its
provinces by filibustering Texans," and closed his appeals
with the declaration: "No act of Congress or treaty of
annexation can impose the least obligation upon the several

214

TEXAS REJECTED IN 1837

States of the Union to submit to such an unwarrantable act,
or to receive into their family such misbegotten and illegiti-
mate progeny. The admission of Texas would be identical
with the dissolution of the Union. ' '

A Boston daily paper about the same time wrote: ''We
have territory enough, bad morals enough, public debt
enough, slavery enough without adding Texas." Texas,
under the pressure of such propaganda, sunk low in the
world's esteem. Doctor Stephen H. Everett of Jasper
County, one time a Senator of the Republic of Texas, made
a trip through the States in 1842, and upon his return re-
ported : ' ' Texas in the Northern and Eastern States stands
as low in the grade of nations as it is possible for a nation
to stand and exist. ' '

Van Buren was defeated for re-election in 1840 by the
Whig candidate Harrison, but the Texas question was
considered so dead after 1837 that it was not an issue in
the 1840 campaign. Sam Houston entered upon his second
term as President of Texas in 1842, and he found the for-
tunes of Texas at a low ebb. Despairing of help from the
United States, he turned his attention to a European alli-
ance, and with a skill rarely equalled in diplomatic history,
he played a game with England which was the chief factor
in reversing the policy of the States. Oddly enough France
had thrown Louisiana, which included Texas, to Spain in
1762 to keep it out of England's hands, and Napoleon
passed it to the United States in 1803 to keep it from Eng-
land, and now forty years later, after many changes of sov-
ereignty and fortune, the fear of English domination drove
the United States to take Texas and wage a war with Mex-
ico. Indeed it seems that old England has played a power-
ful part in our destiny.

215

PRESIDENT TYLER DISCOVERS TEXAS

VII.
PRESIDENT TYLER DISCOVERS TEXAS.

In 1842, John Tyler of Virginia was President of the
United States. A Democrat out of harmony with his party,
he had been elected Vice-President by the Whigs, and
when William Henry Harrison died after a few weeks' in-
cumbency this Virginia Democratic Whig ruled in his
stead. The Democrats despised him as an apostate, the
Whigs as an interloper, but he was a man of long political
experience and no little political acumen, and he set his
heart on the annexation of Texas.

Nothing short of the power and prestige of the presiden-
cy would have sufficed to enable an advocate of Texas, an-
nexation to make any headway in the United States in 1842
to 1844, in the face of the terrible defeat in 1837, and the
apparently overwhelming sentiment against it at this time.
A President, backed by the party that elected him, would
never have dared ~to hazard his party's success by es-
pousing this dead, dangerous issue.

But Tyler had no political expediency to impede him.
Hated alike by Democratic and Whig leaders, he knew his
political fortunes lay along lines hostile to them both. It
was generally conceded as early as 1842 that Henry Clay
would be the Whig candidate for the presidency in 1844,
and that Ex-President Van Buren would be the Democratic
candidate. It was also known that the leaders of both par-
ties devoutly hoped that the Texas question would remain
dormant in 1844, just as it had in 1840 in the contest be-
tween Van Buren and Harrison. There were strong South-
ern leaders like Calhoun, Walker, of Mississippi, and others,
who were always open champions of annexation, but no

216

PRESIDENT TYLER DISCOVERS TEXAS

one in power with either party, no party leader, was willing
to stand out for it, nor were they anxious to have to stand
out against it. They simply hoped it would not be inject-
ed into the coming campaign, which was already well on in
1842.

But John Tyler was a nervous, energetic, active person,
and he loaned all his energies and staked his political for-
tunes on a campaign to "re-annex" Texas.

Every member of his cabinet except Daniel Webster, who
was Secretary of State, resigned when he vetoed the Whig
Bank Bill in 1841. But when Webster later learned that
Tyler was bent on annexing Texas, he too resigned, and
this gave the President an opportunity to name a Secre-
tary more suited to his purposes, whom he readily found in
Judge Abel P. Upshur, of Virginia, who was indeed de-
voted to this cause until his tragic death two years later.

After the rejection of Texas in 1837, all discussion of the
subject had been dropped, and it was now necessary for the
Tyler administration to re-open the question in some way.
When Houston was inaugurated President in 1842, he ex-
tolled England as the ally and friend of Texas and warned
his people to expect neither help nor sympathy from the
States.

Secretary Upshur sent word to Houston in a guarded
way that the Tyler administration would like to open ne-
gotiations for a treaty of annexation. But the old Cherokee
Chief feigned not to see or hear these overtures, and con-
tinued his open parleys with England, which were meeting
with a warm and equally open response from the British
statesmen who desired to control the destiny if not acquire
the territory of Texas. Houston sent Doctor Ashabel Smith,
of Goose Creek, as Minister to England and France. Smith,
next to Houston, was the greatest mind of the Republic of

217

PRESIDENT TYLER DISCOVERS TEXAS

Texas. England had a powerful influence with Mexico, and
tendered its good offices to fix a truce between that country
and Texas, and the hint was had that if Texas would stay
clear of the States, Mexico might be induced to acknowledge
Texas Independence, and thus put a stop to the eternal
guerilla border warfare which had prevailed since 1836.
Even Mexico, anxious to forestall annexation by the States,
lent color to this hope and an armistice for a time prevailed.
Houston foresaw that if he appeared favorable to the new
proposals of annexation, he would at once alienate English
aid, and if Tyler should fail to carry the scheme through,
Texas would be left feeble at home and friendless abroad.
And though he desired annexation to his native land more
devoutly than any other ambition in his" long career, he
frowned so coldly on Upshur's advances that the adminis-
tration appealed to Jackson, then in retirement, to use his
influence with Houston in favor of a treaty of annexation.
Houston finally consented to open negotiations, provided
assurances of aid against Mexico were given by the Tyler
administration in the event the treaty should fail of ratifi-
cation by the United States Senate.

Houston's caution was to a degree frustrated by the
anxiety of his constituents, who, hearing of the overtures
from the Washington Government, and noting his osten-
sible indifference, demanded steps to facilitate the project
so dear to the heart of all Texas. And though he managed
to keep the situation well in hand, yet the Texas Congress
in December, 1843, voted to authorize a treaty of annexa-
tion, and it was in fact concluded between diplomatic agents
of Texas and the Washington Government early in 1844.
So closely had these proceedings been guarded in the Unit-
ed States that the treaty was signed before any wide-
spread information regarding it had escaped there. Ru-

218

TYLER AND TEXAS

mors had now and then been rife, and some American
daily papers had published warnings, but no one took seri-
ous notice of a project which was generally regarded as
gone beyond recall.

But Tyler's treaty must yet go before the Senate of
the United States, and like another President who followed
him with another treaty even in our own day, he must
deal with the American Senate.

VIII.
TYLER AND TEXAS.

The news of Tyler's treaty was soon out, and provoked
a wild protest in the North and East. The storm center
of this opposition was in and about Boston, one of whose
daily papers railed at it as "The contemptible scheme of a
poor, miserable traitor, temporarily acting as President of
the United States, a scheme which would end in ruin,
bloodshed and disunion. We will resist it * * * with
the last drop of our blood. ' '

Petitions were written, mass meetings held, and all
through the Northeast the spirit which had defeated it in
1837 was aroused for its doom in 1844. Even the gentle
Quaker poet Whittier, the author of "Barefoot Boy" and
"Maud Muller," whose harmless rhymes we learned in
childhood, took up his pen against us and wrote:

"Like a lion growling low,
Like a night storm rising slow,
Like the tread of unseen foe;

219

TYLER AND TEXAS

It is coming, it is nigh,

Stand your homes and altars by,

On your own free threshold die ;

Freedom's soil hath only place
For a free and fearless race,
None for traitors false and base ' ' ;

and many more stilted stanzas advertising our wickedness.

And the venerable John Quincy Adams rushed to his
voluminous diary and wrote: "The treaty of annexation
was this day sent to the Senate, and with it went the free-
dom of the human race."

But these screams from New England were met' by some
very plain talk from down South. "We had rather have
Texas than New England," thundered a Tennessee Con-
gressman, and all through the South there was open talk
of withdrawing from the North, annexing Texas and ex-
tending our territory to the Pacific. But the fear of Eng-
land had been to a degree put in the hearts of many people
in the North. It was told that the British planned to do
the carrying for Texas exports, and was to have an entry
there for all manufactured goods duty free; that the plan
was to exclude all American manufactured articles from
the Texas market. And while Garrison thundered "That
those who would befriend Texas would dethrone God/' and
John Quincy Adams saw the doom of the human race in
fhe Texas treaty, these things, though terrible, were more
or less intangible like the minister's day of judgment and
eternal punishment, while the loss of a commercial advan-
tage or an open market was a present real distress. The
prospective wrath of God was not quite so terrible to a
Yankee in those days as the immediate loss of a customer.

220

TYLER AND TEXAS

One petition sent to a Congressman from Western New
York declared in its preamble against the base iniquity of
annexing Texas, but was accompanied by a postscript
which advised that if their representative really believed
England was about to take Texas, he was authorized to
waive the iniquity and annex it.

At the beginning of 1844, the stage was set in the United
States for the presidential campaign, and the country was
thought to be closely divided between Democrats and Whigs.
Four years before the Whigs had won, and this year they
planned as they had often planned before and afterwards
to renominate and elect Henry Clay, and "Lord Harry"
was compelled to say something about Texas. Being a South-
ern man and having been one of the first to speak out for
Texas in 1836, he was counted on by the administration to
support the treaty. But he was destined to be neither right
nor President in 1844, and he spoke out against it, and the
Whig party turned its back on Texas. Van Buren had the
pledges of twenty-one States, mostly Southern, for the Dem-
ocratic nomination, and he planned to keep very silent on
the Texas question, and he was a great master of the art of
silence.

He lived so close to the roar of abolition and anti-annexa-
tion that he dared not speak for it. On the other hand, his
principal hope for nomination and election lay in the South.
All efforts to draw a statement from him were without avail
for a time, when some of the Southern Democratic leaders
laid a plan to "blow Van out of the water.7'

He was the protege of Jackson, who had made him Presi-
dent. The old warrior in retirement was the greatest single
force in the Democratic party, and the great passion of his
closing days was the annexation of Texas and the circum-
vention of England. These designing gentlemen who would

221

TYLER AND TEXAS

"blow Van out of the water," betook themselves down to
the Hermitage and got a strong letter from Ex-President
Jackson outlining what the party and Van Buren should do.
Unable to keep silent longer, Van Buren came forth with
his statement, long, involved and pointless, but against an-
nexation at this time. The treaty was sent to the Senate
April 22, 1844, where it was doomed to remain for weary
weeks.

The Whig Convention met on May 1st, and nominated
Henry Clay. There was no discussion of the Texas ques-
tion in the Convention. No mention of it in the platform.
They shunned it as they would the plague. They were so
afraid of it that they did not mention Oregon, which was
much coveted in the Northern and Western States. A dele-
gate from Mississippi tried to be heard upon the question,
but was unable to get the eye or the ear of the presiding
officer. Those near him in the hall hearing the drift of his
remarks, silenced him in short order. " Surely you would
not inject this ugly Texas question and injure Henry Clay, ' '
they said reproachfully, and he lapsed into silence.

It was now a foregone conclusion that the Texas Treaty
would not pass the Senate.

Benton, who in 1836 had declared for Sam Houston the
greatest military accomplishment since Marc Antony, was
the spokesman for the Democratic majority, and the mouth-
piece for Van Buren. He turned on the treaty and Texas
with bitter venom.

A few days after the Whig Convention adjourned there
was another convention, held in Baltimore, which nominated
John Tyler for President on a purely Texas platform. It
was made up of self-appointed delegates from all sections
of the country. It now seeemed sure that the Democrats
would name Van Buren and denounce the treaty, and with

222

THE FALL OF VAN BUREN

both great parties opposed to it, Tyler hoped to get enough
votes to throw the presidential choice into the House of
Representatives, where it would be a free-for-all fight.
With this situation prevailing, the National Democratic
Convention met at Baltimore on the 27th of May, 1844.

IX.
THE FALL OF VAN BUREN.

The Democratic National Convention which met at Bal-
amore in May, 1844, was the most remarkable one which
had ever assembled during the fifty years of our national
life. It was the first to name a "dark horse" candidate.

For twenty years Andrew Jackson had been the idol and
leader of his party. At the end of his second term, he could
have been nominated and elected again, but never considered
such a course. It was the marvel of Europe that a man in
power would voluntarily surrender it as he did. His man-
tle had fallen on Martin Van Buren, who was elected to suc-
ceed him in 1836, but was defeated for a second term in
1840.

But Van Buren had held the party together, and by
shrewd management had all but assured his nomination
in 1844. But for the sudden advent of the Texas question
he would have been nominated.

The Democratic party had controlled the destiny of the
country during its formative period, and had elected five
out of eight partisan Presidents. Under Jefferson, Louisiana
had been acquired, and Monroe had added the Floridas. All
the traditions of the party were in favor of an expansion and

223

THE FALL OF VAN BUREN

the mastery of North America. But Van Buren was a man of
small calibre, and fear of the abolition press had bullied
him into a declaration against the treaty, and against what
had always been the policy of the party. He had more than
a majority of delegates pledged to his support, most of
the pledges having been given before Tyler had so cruelly
thrust the Texas question upon both parties. But the
Southern leaders had sworn a vow that he should not be
chosen. The voice of the chaplain's opening prayer had
hardly died away when some enterprising person moved
that the convention adopt the two-thirds rule, and that no
nomination be declared until the candidate received two-
thirds of the votes cast.

The Southern delegates, instructed for Van Buren, voted
for the adoption of this rule, for in it they saw his defeat,
without bolting their instructions. The friends of Texas
were now in the saddle, the convention was deadlocked,
Van Buren was beaten, and the Southern delegates brought
forth and nominated Ex-Governor James K. Polk, of Ten-
nessee, who was known to be "whole hogged for Texas."
The Democratic platform declared for the re-annexation of
Texas and the acquisition of Oregon. George M. Dallas, of
Pennsylvania, was nominated for Vice-President.

The action of the Democratic Convention championing
the cause of Texas at once notified the world that the issue
was to be fought out in what President Wilson would have
called a "great and solemn referendum."

But Tyler's treaty was still before the Senate, and it
was yet in session. The Whigs had a majority of seven in
that body, and on June 8th they defeated the treaty, a
solid Whig vote of 28 out of 29 being cast against it, seven
Democrats, lead by Benton, voting with the Whigs. "We
Have killed the treaty (said Senator McDuffie, of South Car-

224

THE FALL OF VAN BUREN

olina), but a ghost is sometimes more terrible than a living
man. ' ' In the meantime a messenger whom Tyler had dis-
patched to Mexico for the purpose of offering to purchase
any opposition which that country might have to annexation
of Texas, returned with the information that that countrv
was much stirred, and that no peace could be purchased if
we should carry out these plans.

Santa Anna, who was again in power there, asked his
Congress for men and money to resist American ag-
gression.

The Presidential campaign in 1844 was not essentially dif-
ferent from campaigns we have known in our day. The
Whigs accepted the gauge of battle with hope and ardor.
On one side they cried: "Polk — Slavery and Texas," On
the other: "Clay — Union and Liberty." A popular Whig
cry was, ' * James K. Polk and George M. Dallas — One for the
devil and the other for the gallows." Mass meetings were
held in which Texas was represented upon Whig banners
as a forbidding looking female dressed in mourning. Dem-
ocratic meetings displayed banners picturing her a beau-
tiful maiden in bridal robes. Poor Clay found himself in
an unhappy situation. When he had come out so boldly
against Texas early in the year, he knew that Van Buren,
whom he supposed would be his opponent, would do like-
wise, and felt that there would be no issue between them,
and they both felt that it would not be a party ques-
tion.

Now he saw Van Buren overthrown and a Southern Dem-
ocrat opposed to him declaring for Texas and Oregon. At
heart Clay, himself a Southern man, was for annexation,
and as the campaign progressed and the issue became doubt-
ful, he wrote more letters, which made a bad matter worse,
and let it be known : * * That he had no personal objection

225

THE FALL OF VAN BUREN

to the acquisition of Texas ; * * * that he would be glad
to see it, could it be done without war with common consent
and without dishonor."

The most powerful figure in the campaign was General
Jackson, who, though old and feeble, held the acquisition of
Texas as the last strong sentiment of his wonderful ca-
reer.

Hatred of England had ever been a passion with him
and hostility to that country was the strongest single senti-
ment which the Democrats sounded up and down the length
and breadth of the land. The old warrior sat in his home
down in Tennessee and wrote letters day and night, wrote
with a feeble, trembling hand, directed by the fire of a yet
powerful mind. It is estimated that he wrote hundreds of
autograph letters to Democratic leaders north and south,
making suggestions, giving directions. In one letter : ' ' Sup-
port the cause of Polk and Texas, let Tyler alone." In
another — ' * I am too weak to write much more, but with my
last word I warn you against England, for it will grab
Texas, if Polk is defeated." Through Jackson's influence,
President Tyler was induced to withdraw from the race
and cast his strength to Polk.

Sam Houston had secretly and powerfully aided the is-
sue by creating an atmosphere which seemed to verify
Jackson's warnings against England.

Polk was elected by a popular majority of less than forty
thousand votes. But defeat of the treaty in the Senate in
preceding June had cast a great calm over Texas. We had
turned from offers of British aid to accept annexation, and
with the door shut in our face by the Senate, Texas was de-
graded before the world. At home credit sank to its low-
est ebb. Annexation had been turned down so often by
the American Congress that the Texas people did not ac-

226

TYLER'S TRIUMPH

cept the election of Polk as decisive. They yet feared that
the United States Senate would never accept Texas; that
Pol£ could do no more than Tyler had been able to do with a
hostile Senate.

Mexico, angered at the turn of affairs, gave notice that
hostilities were renewed, and Santa Anna began pretended
preparations to wage a campaign upon Texas by land and
by sea.

X.

TYLER'S TRIUMPH.

John Tyler was a man of great energy, and the "re-an-
nexation of Texas" was the prime purpose of his adminis-
tration. During the campaign of '44, he had withdrawn
from the race and thrown his influence to Polk, and he ac-
cepted Polk's election as a victory for his great purpose.

When Congress met in December, one of the first things
President Tyler did was to send in a strong message urging
legislation for the admission of Texas, and with it he sub-
mitted data from Mexico, including the boast of Santa An-
na that he was about to invade Texas and conduct a mer-
ciless campaign for its reconquest. Mexico had been an-
gered and aroused by the election of Polk on a platform
which declared for acquiring Texas, and sharp, bitter cor-
respondence had passed between the two countries. Then,
too, Tyler had given his word to Houston in 1843 that if
the treaty negotiated that year should fail, Texas should
have the aid of the United States in the event Mexico re-
newed the war against Texas.

227

TYLER'S TRIUMPH

England was genuinely alarmed, and British papers were
filled with warnings to that Government against allowing
the United States to acquire Texas. Whatever doubt may
have existed about the fate of annexation, as far as the
United States was concerned, was dissolved by the ill-timed
and unwarranted attacks by the English press and the in-
trigues which England put on foot to block the Union
of Texas with the States.

The London "Morning Post" exclaimed: "The Repub-
was the triumph of all that was worst in American life, and
that England and all Europe must resist the extension of
the United States to the southwest. ' '

The London "Morning Post" exclaimed; "The Repub-
lican monster must be checked." Many people throughout
the United States and some of the leading journals were
turned to annexation by these British indiscretions, which
fulfilled to a degree the forebodings of General Jackson.

And while it seemed politic to allow the matter to await
the inauguration of Polk, in March next, yet there was a
general feeling that it was dangerous to wait.

A prominent Democratic Congressman, speaking of Ty-
ler's message, warned the country: "Let not procrastina-
tion be the thief of Texas." Resolutions for annexation
were promptly introduced in both houses of Congress, and
from December to February the battle in that forum was
waged and won.

A resolution for annexation of Texas was offered and after
passing the Senate and the House, it had President Ty-
ler's signature on February 27, 1845, just five days before
his term of office expired.

The fight in Congress was a spectacular one, and the
galleries were thronged from day to day as the debates pro-
gressed.

228

TYLER'S TRIUMPH

Benton, who had fought the treaty so bitterly in June,
found ground to support the cause in February. Its final
passage was by a strictly party vote, the Whigs voting almost
solidly against it. But there was a rift in the clouds of
northern opposition, and most of the northern and east-
ern Democrats voted for it. The Legislature of Ohio in-
structed its Senators to support it.

The northern abolitionists received the result with ire and
anguish, and Garrison, who in 1842 declared "That any one
supporting Texas would dethrone God," now wrote in his
Boston paper that the joint resolution of Congress "was a
deed of perfidy as black as Egyptian darkness."

While the debates were proceeding in January and Feb-
ruary, 1845, President-elect Polk came up to Washington
from his home in Tennessee, and mingled with members of
Congress, throwing the weight of his influence into the scale.
<rThe pressure of two Presidents and an Ex-President is
too much for us," exclaimed a Whig Senator.

The defeat of the treaty by the Senate in June had
brought the Tyler administration face to face with its ob-
ligations to Texas, which had been exacted by President
Houston in 1843 before he would negotiate the treaty. He
had stipulated, and Tyler had promised, that in the event
the Senate should fail to ratify the treaty and the negotia-
tions should bring on war with Mexico, that the United
States would aid Texas and guarantee her independence.

Tyler probably had no constitutional authority to make
such a promise and less to perform it, nevertheless he acted
promptly to make it good. On September 10, 1844, John
C. Calhoun, Secretary of State, sent through Shannon,
American Minister to Mexico, a most remarkable and vigor-
ous paper which in terms warned Mexico to let Texas alone.
Calhoun advised that the rejection of the treaty by the

229

TYLER'S TRIUMPH

Senate did not mean the abandonment of annexation, but
that the United States intended to acquire Texas, and any
invasion of Texas by Mexico pending these negotiations
still pending would be resented by the United States; that
the President had fully determined that Texas should not
suffer at the hands of Mexico because of the recent over-
tures towards annexation.

* ' If Mexico has taken offense at these negotiations, ' ' said
Mr. Calhoun, ' * it should attack the United States, as we are
the ones who proposed annexation."

The loud threats of Mexico, which became louder after
the November election, brought Tyler's promise to Houston
into a present obligation, and was a cause. for Tyler's ur-
gency in submitting the Texas question in December in-
stead of passing it over to Folk's administration, which
would not begin until March.

There has been much criticism of Tyler and Polk for
the war plans they carried on in the latter part of 1844, and
during 1845. It has been written and millions believe that
Polk without warrant provoked a war of conquest with Mex-
ico. But when one remembers that Texas was a free coun-
try when Tyler began negotiations for annexation in 1843,
and that he had given President Houston his promise that
it should not suffer as the result of these negotiations if the
treaty should fail, and when we see Mexico blustering with
preparations for a merciless campaign against Texas be-
cause of these very negotiations, we are lead to reverence
the memories of Tyler and Calhoun and Polk for the mili-
tary preparations they began in 1844 and carried forward
in '45 and '46, while the details of annexation were being
worked out by both countries.

The greatest triumph in American History after the
Revolution of 1776 was the prompt, powerful way the

230

THE ACTIVITY OF ENGLAND

Tyler and Polk administrations moved to solidify Texas and
put the flag over the country west to the Pacific.

XI.
THE ACTIVITY OF ENGLAND.

England had determined that Texas should not become
part of the American Union, and hoped that Mexico would
reconquer it, and long after all hope of this reconquest was
obviously gone, it acknowledged Texas Independence. The
overwhelming defeat of annexation in the American Con-
gress in 1837, and the loud roarings of the northern and
eastern press mislead England into the thought there was
no chance that this country would ever accept Texas.

^When Tyler's treaty of 1844 became known, there was an
active and vigorous movement among English diplomats,
and Lord Aberdeen sought an understanding with the
French Government that the two countries would join
Mexico in preventing annexation. Guizot, the Prime Min-
ister in the Government of Louis Phillipe, seems to have
committed his country to such a course, and if France had
remained bound it is apparent that there would have been
a world war if the United States had persisted in the course
it did pursue.

But when it became known in France that the Govern-
ment had made such a commitment, there was an explo-
sion such as can only happen in the French Chamber, and
Guizot was denounced as the tool of England and for hav-
ing turned on an old friend to serve the purposes of an
ancient enemy. All hope that France would aid England

231

THE ACTIVITY OF ENGLAND

by force of arms was gone, yet the Government of Louis
Phillipe did continue to give its moral support through dip-
lomatic pressure to prevent annexation. But the British
Minister at Washington forecasted the defeat of the Tyler
treaty, and after the Democrat and Whig parties had named
their candidates and made Texas an issue, Lord Aberdeen
and his counsellors wisely determined to lay low and await
results. They knew that any British activity at this junc-
ture would mean the defeat of Clay, and their ardent hope
was for his election, which they thought would close the door
to annexation. The election of Polk upset all their calcu-
lations. When in December, 1844, Tyler again submitted
the question to Congress, and it became evident that it was
to be rushed to a conclusion, there was a great activity in
the British Foreign Office, and a definite plan was at once
worked out. It was well known in London as in Washing-
ton that what the people of Texas wanted above all things
was peace and protection against Mexico, and a surcease of
the ten long years of semi-warfare which prevailed. And
so the English Ministry, bound to act in great haste, and
bound to offer Texas some real inducement to stay out of
the American Union, sought the seemingly hopeless task
of inducing Mexico to acknowledge Texas Independence
and make a treaty of peace with Texas upon condition that
it would not join the American Union. This was indeed a
bold plan, and one familiar with the Mexican History of
this period will be struck with the height of British diplo-
matic audacity and daring. Since the campaign of 1836,
it had been the hope by day and dream by night of all
Mexico to reconquer Texas. Mexican officers who could not
have been induced this side of the Rio Grande by any
earthly consideration, were eternally swashbuckling up and

232

THE ACTIVITY OF ENGLAND

down the tropics declaring that they would soon lead an
army into Texas.

Every Mexican President or Dictator who ruled his
alloted day could raise large sums of money through the
Mexican Congress for a campaign in Texas. Santa Anna,
who was now and then in power during this period, 1836 to
1845, was always announcing vast plans for such a cam-
paign.

But the situation was desperate with the British Minis-
try, goaded on by an arrogant English press, which demand-
ed that Texas be kept out of the American Union. A lead-
ing London journal declared in brutal British frankness,
that Texas, in fact all North America, should be under a
kind of British suzerainty." "The Republican monster
must be checked/' and since France would not agree to an
alliance to employ force, it must be done by cunning. While
the Texas question was being debated in the American
Congress in January and February, 1845, and when it was
obvious that a resolution declaring for admission would
pass, Almonte, the Mexican Minister to Washington, de-
manded his passports and let it be known that war would
follow annexation.

When Terrell, Texas Minister to England and France,
succeeding Doctor Smith, reached London in January, 1845,
he was bluntly told that news had preceded him that the
new President of Texas, Anson Jones, was an avowed ad-
vocate of annexation, and if so Texas need expect no aid
from England in any of its problems.

Mr. Terrell hastened to correct this erroneous impression,
and reported that thereafterwards a very different atmos-
phere prevailed, and he was given many kindly suggestions
and offers of English aid which indeed were helpful, for as
yet the American Congress had not passed the annexation

233

DIPLOMATS GATHER ALONG THE BRAZOS

resolution, and was still violently debating Tyler's De-
cember message.

XII.
DIPLOMATS GATHER ALONG THE BRAZOS.

Foreseeing a shrewd diplomatic duel, and fully advised
as to England's plans, President Tyler named Andrew
Jackson Donnelson, nephew of General Jackson, and a man
of unusual force and sagacity, Charge to Texas.

The British Government was and had for some years
been represented in Texas by Charles Elliot, a former sea
captain, who had been so long in the country as to be well
acquainted with its people and .its public men.

The French Government was represented by an impetu-
ous ass, Compte de Saligny, who had found Austin an un-
comfortable place to live, and after quarreling with every-
body in town, had removed to New Orleans, where he looked
after French affairs in Texas at a long range.

In December, 1844, a few days before Tyler sent his
last Texas message to Congress, Anson Jones became Pres-
ident of Texas. Although it was known that annexation
would be offered Texas in a few months, he wisely made
no mention of this ever-absorbing topic in his inaugural
address. President Jones had seen annexation offered and
snatched away too often to be over-sanguine at present
prospects. Shortly after his inauguration he advised Cap-
tain Elliot that if Mexico could be brought to recognize the
independence of Texas, he favored declining annexation,
and he invited the British and French Governments to in-

234

DIPLOMATS GATHER ALONG THE BRAZOS

terest themselves to that end. This was just what England
hoped for. Congress had not then acted on Tyler's Decem-
ber message, nor did Jones know that the question had been
put before the closing session of Tyler's last Congress. He
supposed negotiations would await the inauguration of
Polk. While these assurances were being given the British
Representative, Ashabel Smith, Secretary of State in Texas,
wrote the Texas charge at Washington "that the President
(Jones) wished him to use his most strenuous exertions for
annexation." When the news reached Galveston in the
latter days of March, 1845, that Congress had passed and
Tyler approved a plan for the annexation, Captain Elliot,
and Compte de Saligny, hearing that Colonel Donnelson
was on his way from Washington, D. C., to Washington
on the Brazos, with an official communication from Presi-
dent Polk to President Jones, made great haste to Washing-
ton on the Brazos, which was for the time being the seat of
Texas Government.

Once there they went into a long conference with Pres-
ident Jones and Doctor Ashabel Smith, and urged many
good reasons why Texas should remain independent.

President Jones advised them that while he personally
thought Texas should remain a nation, yet he realized that
the people of Texas desired annexation, and he saw in him-
self merely their agent.

After many conferences with his Cabinet and after taking
the matter under advisement for several days, he finally, on
March 29th, tentatively agreed with the representatives of
England and France upon the outline of a treaty which
they were authorized to procure from Mexico :

1. Mexico consents to acknowledge the independence of
Texas.

2. Texas will not annex herself to any country.

235

DIPLOMATS GATHER ALONG THE BRAZOS

3. Boundaries to be fixed in final treaty or submitted
to arbitration.

While these worthy diplomats were procuring these
things to be done they exacted that for ninety days from
date Texas would not enter into any negotiations for annex-
ation. These things done, Captain Elliot agreed in further-
ance of the plan to go at once to the City of Mexico, and he
and the Compte de Saligny scampered down the Brazos,
the Captain going incognito to Vera Cruz, and the Compte
back to his well stocked wine cellar at New Orleans, each
thinking he had overawed the President of Texas, and
outwitted the President of the United States. On their
way out of town they met Colonel Donnelson, the American
Charge, who was hastening for an interview with President
Jones, and to lay before him and the Texas Congress the
plan of annexation.

It was known that the Texas Congress was overwhelming-
ly for annexation, and since the Resolution of the American
Congress only called for ratification by the Texas Govern-
ment, it was planned by President Jones and Doctor Smith
not to call Congress in session until these envoys had an
opportunity to try their hands in getting the Mexican
Treaty. President Jones hoped to be able to lay before
Congress, when he -assembled it, not only a plan for an-
nexation, but the alternative of remaining an independent
nation with a settlement of all troubles with Mexico, and
this he did.

Colonel Donnelson did not find a congenial atmosphere
at Washington on the Brazos, when he arrived there on
April 1, 1845, and laid the plan of annexation before Pres-
ident Jones and his Cabinet. The President took the mat-
ter under advisement, for he said the gravity of the situ-
ation would not permit haste.

236

DIPLOMATS GATHER ALONG THE BRAZOS

When Colonel Donnelson urged him to convene Congress,
he said he had decided to lay it before the people through a
convention to be called for that purpose.

Unable to get Jones to call Congress in session, Donnel-
son sought Ex-President Houston, whom he found at his
home in Huntsville, and was much surprised to learn that
he too was unfavorable to an acceptance of the resolution
which had passed Congress in February. He did not think
it fair to Texas, and pointed out some sharp objections to it,
and proposed that negotiations between the two countries
be begun and a treaty of annexation agreed upon. He
favored a treaty because it could be abrogated at any time
by either party, and one wonders what would have hap-
pened in 1861 had Texas come into the Union under such a
treaty. But it was explained to Houston that President
Polk and Secretary of State Buchanan did not think it wise
to delay while negotiations would be going forward, and
he withdrew his objections at least to the extent that he
used no effort to frustrate Donnelson 's plans, and took a
trip to the Hermitage for a farewell to Jackson. Donnel-
son was not openly told, but indeed he heard it on the streets,
that an "offer from Mexico" might be made at any time
and that the Texas Government was waiting for it.

In the meantime April was well advanced, and the people
of Texas had become very impatient of delay, and very
strong pressure was brought to bear on President Jones to
convene Congress and all kinds of rumors were afloat as
to his designs against annexation. In fact a plan was well
on foot to convene Congress anyhow if he did not act, and
the murmurings were so loud and the criticism of the Gov-
ernment so great that the Mexican Consul at New Orleans
advised his Government that a revolution was imminent in
Texas.

237

CAPTAIN ELLIOT IN MEXICO

Yielding to these importunities before he had time to hear
from Captain Elliot, President Jones issued a proclama-
tion on April 15, 1845, calling Congress to meet at Washing-
ton on the Brazos on June 16th. He calculated that this
would give Elliot time to accomplish whatever could be done
in Mexico. Doctor Jones' slow, calculating movements and
Doctor Ashabel Smith's known views against annexation
aroused much feeling in Texas in the spring of 1845, and
the country was at a white heat as the hour approached for
the extraordinary session of Congress in June.

XIII.
CAPTAIN ELLIOT IN MEXICO.

Captain Charles Elliot was not a great man, but he was
an energetic one, and he had lost no time in getting from
Washington on the Brazos to Galveston, where, by a fine co-
incidence, he found a British man-of-war at his disposal.
He took passage on this vessel, giving it out that he was go-
ing to New Orleans, but was landed at Vera Cruz, from
where he hastened on to the City of Mexico.

April, 1845, was an off season for Santa Anna, who was
for the time being out of power and in exile (but he came
back next year). Herrera was, between revolutions, as it
were, President ad interim of Mexico, and to him and his
Cabinet Captain Elliot, assisted by the British Minister to
Mexico, addressed the proposition which he brought from
the President of Texas.

238

CAPTAIN ELLIOT IN MEXICO

It contemplated that Mexico would acknowledge Texas
independence, upon condition that Texas would not join the
American Union, boundaries to be settled later.

The proposition at first aroused great opposition at the
Mexican Capital. * * Give up Texas, never, ' ' was the scream
of Mexican papers and the wild boast of swashbuckling Mex-
ican military men. But the British envoys worked power-
fully on their fears. If they did not do this, Texas would
be forced into the American Union for protection against
the ' ' great military force of Mexico. " " The acquisition of
Texas by the United States made that detested country the
next door neighbor of Mexico, and an effort would follow to
conquer and annex Mexico."

In proof of this the relators read from debates in the
American Congress, where excited Whig leaders had openly
charged that the Southern Democrats contemplated the ex-
tension of empire to Panama and the Pacific. And as con-
firmation of the perfidy of these Southern Democrats, if
corroborations were necessary in the Mexican mind, they
read and published the awful indictments brought against
them by northern newspapers. These arguments were rein-
forced by Juan Nepomuceno Almonte, Mexican Minister
to the United States, who had left Washington upon the pas-
sage of the Annexation Act in February.

Almonte, who was a man of great influence in Mexico,
urged his Government to accede to the British proposals,
for he favored and impressed his people with the apprehen-
sion that the acquisition of Texas meant the conquest of
Mexico by the United States of the North. This fear had
foundation with Almonte, for he had been at San Jacinto.
But it was an awful thing for the Mexican Government to
do: "Give up Texas to those mendicants who came to us
and asked for land, and who forgot our kindness and bounty

239

CAPTAIN ELLIOT IN MEXICO

and turned traitor and brigand." How they suffered in
the flesh as they struggled between this awful sacrifice and
the fear of seeing all Mexico become an American depend-
ency.

When the English diplomats pressed them to act, they
professed a willingness to do so if England would guaran-
tee Mexican sovereignty and the boundaries between Mexico
and the United States, but just here there was a want of
zeal on the part of Her Majesty's representatives, for this
meant war, and after France had withdrawn from the pact
of Guizot, England was not willing to go to war alone. Fi-
nally the point was urged that Mexican honor was saved,
since Texas was here suing for peace, and -making a conces-
sion in order to get the boon of Mexican permission to live
and be an independent nation.

While these conversations were going forward at the
Mexican Capital, news came late in April that President
Jones had issued a call convening the Texas Congress in
June. Captain Elliot knew full well what this meant, and
knew that the only hope of defeating annexation lay in his
returning to Texas at once with a treaty between Texas
and Mexico ready to be presented for ratification when this
Congress met.

Daily during April reports reached Mexico that the Unit-
ed States was sending war ships into the Gulf and was
massing troops on the Texas frontier, and finally Elliot,
and Bankhead, the British Minister to Mexico, succeeding
in wringing and extracting an agreement from the Mexican
Congress to make the Texas treaty in order to frustrate
the designs of the United States. On the last day of May,
1845, Elliot was again in Galveston armed with the Mexican
agreement to make a treaty acknowledging Texas inde-
pendence on condition it would not unite with the United

240

CAPTAIN ELLIOT IN MEXICO

States. But all the diplomats in the world could not have
accomplished the task that had been assigned this retired
sea captain.

While President Jones hesitated and took matters under
advisement and waited to hear from Elliot, things were
happening in Texas. Bancroft Libr&r*

Colonel A. J. Donnelson, nephew of Ancfrew Jackson and
accredited representative of the United States in Texas, was
a modest, quiet person, who moved with great celerity and
acted with great accuracy. He knew where Colonel Elliot
had gone and what he was doing, and he was in constant
touch with the leaders of thought in Texas, and worked
with them to stir public sentiment. He made great capital
out of the intrigues of England, and exposed them to such
men as Sidney Sherman, Edward Burleson, General Rusk
and others who were working with him.

Colonel Elliot helped Donnelson by his free talk, seeing
upon his return that the tide had set heavily against him.
He talked loosely and wildly of coming trouble, and pre-
dicted dire disaster if Texas attempted to join the Union.
He said that England and France would join Mexico in a
war against the United States, and that Texas would be the
battleground of a long, bloody world war.

Speaking as the accredited agent of England, many be-
lieved that he knew what he was talking about, and that
grave trouble would follow. But the people who had come
into the wilderness with Austin, and who had suffered the
hardships of the quarter of a century which had intervened,
could not be bullied, and the blustering talk of this retired
sea captain, though he spoke as the envoy of the British
Empire, carried little terror to the heart of the average
Texan.

On May 5th, a few days after Elliot's return, President

241

CAPTAIN ELLIOT IN MEXICO

Jones issued a call for a general convention of the peo-
ple of Texas at Austin on the fourth of the following July,
"to consider the overture of the United States."

President Jones was abused and driven out of public
life for what the people of Texas always believed to be his
attitude towards annexation, and his willingness to form
an alliance with England and Mexico against the United
States.

But it must be remembered that he had seen the United
States turn bitterly on Texas in 1837. He had witnessed
the fate of the Tyler treaty in 1844, a treaty which the
Washington Government had sought and urged the people
of Texas to make. No man foresaw just -what would happen
in the United States even as late as May and June, 1845.
In January of that year James Reilly, sometimes our rep-
resentative at Washington, wrote Jones: "Annexation is
very much like the Millerite doctrine of the end of the
world. It may be today, it may be next session, it may
not be until the saints of this generation are all dead."
Houston had said to Jones, shortly before the latter became
President, that in dealing with this question the Texas Gov-
ernment ' * Should be wise as lynxes and as sly as foxes. ' '

Now Doctor Anson Jones, though a good man and a true
patriot, was not an artist in the lynx-fox game. He lacked
the training and much of the great ability of the old Chero-
kee Chief, and in all this dilemma he was trying to play
Houston without Houston's ability or experience. He was
not at home in a game of duplicity and diplomacy.

It was with a degree of pride and a consciousness of hav-
ing done Texas a great service that President Jones made
public announcement of the Mexican treaty in May. Here
he gave his people the choice to remain an independent
nation with high guaranties of territorial integrity, or to

242

THE LAST ACT IN THE GREAT DRAMA OF ANNEXATION

become associated with the Union. They were no longer
driven to join the United States for peace and protection.

But the news, instead of being received in this spirit,
roused a storm all over Texas which would have overthrown
his Government were it "not for the fact that he had con-
vened Congress to meet within less than thirty days.

XIV.

THE LAST ACT IN THE GREAT DRAMA
OF ANNEXATION.

The Ninth Congress of the Republic of Texas met in ex-
traordinary session at Washington on the Brazos on the
16th day of June, 1845, to consider the matter of annexa-
tion.

In his message President Jones laid before Congress the
American proposition of annexation, and also the proposed
Mexican treaty. The sentiment of the people of Texas will
be well explained by the fact that annexation was accepted
by the unanimous vote of both houses of Congress, and that
the Mexican treaty was unanimously rejected. These
things so promptly done, Congress gave sanction to Presi-
dent Jones' convention called to meet at Austin on the 4th
of the following July, for it was necessary for the people of
Texas to form a State constitution and set up a State Gov-
ernment.

In justice to the memory of Anson Jones, and as a vindi-
cation of his caution and refusal to put absolute faith in the
American overture of February, 1845, we should remember
the fate of similar overtures during the last decade, and also

243

THE LAST ACT IN THE GREAT DRAMA OF ANNEXATION

it is worthy of note that even after Texas had accepted the
last proposal and formed a State Government, and present-
ed its State constitution to the American Congress for rati-
fication, there was an effort made in the United States to
withdraw the offer and leave Texas with its Federal Govern-
ment dismantled and statehood rejected. Such a result
would have found it disorganized at home and friendless
abroad, with Mexico 's whole force marshaled on its borders,
the very force which was hurled against the armies of the
United States in the war which followed in a few months.
The infamy of such course impairing and breaking the
faith of the Government of the United States with such aw-
ful consequences to Texas, is almost unbelievable to this
generation, but, though sad, it is true that Horace Greeley
advocated it in the New York Tribune. And when the
Congress met in December, 1845, before whom the details
of formal admission must come, memorials and petitions by
the thousand were pouring in from Northern and Eastern
States urging that Texas be not admitted. The Legislatures
of Massachusetts and two other New England States joined
in this demand, and John Quincy Adams lead a fight for its
rejection in the House, and even the great Webster voted
against the measure when it passed the Senate in December,
and he was joined in this vote by thirteen Senators.

The Extraordinary Session of the Ninth Congress of Tex-
as adjourned after a short but harmonious session, leaving
the further details to the July convention. In the interim
news came of the death of Ex-President Jackson at his home,
the Hermitage. He had played a powerful part in the
history of Texas, as well as that of the United States. His
anxiety to acquire Texas, dating back to his first adminis-
tration in 1829, and his life-long intimacy with Houston,
have given color to rumors which will ever prevail that he

244

THE LAST ACT IN THE GREAT DRAMA OF ANNEXATION

had a secret understanding with Houston which aided to
bring on the Revolution of 1836. His passion for annexa-
tion was intensified after his retirement by the discovery
of British intrigues, for among the many ruling passions
of his long life was his deep hatred for England. He was
of Scotch ancestry, and during the American Revolution,
when yet a mere lad, a British officer struck him a cruel
blow for refusing to shine the officer's boots, and he carried
a scar into international history.

The July convention ratified annexation with but one
vote against it, and that was cast by Richard Bache, of
Gaiveston, a grandson of Benjamin Franklin. This conven-
tion formulated our constitution of 1845, which was submit-
ted to the people of Texas in November, at which time it was
ratified and at an election held in December, J. Pinckney
Henderson was elected Governor.

The Constitution was then presented through President
Polk to the American Congress, and in December, 1845, it
formally admitted Texas into the Union.

On the 16th of February, 1846, the first Legislature of
the State of Texas met at Austin, and President Jones for-
mally closed the affairs of the Republic and surrendered his
office to Governor Henderson. The Republic was born at
Washington on the Brazos on March 2nd, 1836, and the
span of its life was but two weeks less than ten years.

The annexation resolution passed by the American Con-
gress, under which Texas was admitted, provided: First:
The State to be admitted subject to the adjustment by this
Government of all questions of boundary that may arise
with other Governments, and the constitution to be formed
by Texas to be transmitted to the President of the United
States to be presented to Congress on or before January 1,
1846. Second: Said State, when admitted to the Union,

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after ceding to the United States all public edifices, fortifi-
cations, barracks, forts, harbors, navy and ship yards, etc.,
and all other means pertaining to the public defense belong-
ing to said Republic, shall retain all the vacant lands lying
within its limits to be applied to the payment of its debts.
But in no event are said dejbts to become a charge upon the
Government of the United States. Third: New States of
convenient size not exceeding four in number in addition
to said State of Texas and having sufficient population may
hereafter by consent of said State be formed out of the ter-
ritory thereof which shall be entitled to admission under
tEe provisions of the Federal Constitution. Such States
as may be formed out of the territory lying south of 36 de-
grees and 30 degrees, known as the Missouri Compromise
Line, shall be admitted into the Union, with or without
slavery, as the people may desire. And in such States as
may be formed out of said territory, north of the Missouri
Compromise Line, slavery shall be prohibited.

The boundaries between Texas and Mexico had never
been fixed. The Republic had always claimed to the
Rio Grande, and Santa Anna in his negotiations while
a prisoner with us had agreed upon the Rio Grande as
the boundary. If you will look at the map you will
see that the Rio Grande rises in Colorado and flows
south and east through New Mexico, leaving about half
of the latter State to the east. The State of Texas
claimed all of this territory, and it became the basis of a very
bitter controversy between the State and Federal Govern-
ments during the Taylor administration in 1850. As a part
of the celebrated compromise measures in 1850, the present
northern and western boundaries were agreed upon, Texas
surrendering all claims to New Mexico, but receiving for

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this concession ten million dollars, which was used to
liquidate the debts of the Republic.

The annexation of Texas, accomplished in February, 1846,
brought on a war with Mexico which began in the following
April. The direct result of the war was the acquisition of
all the country west of Texas to the Pacific.

The war with Mexico was not regarded with favor in the
North and East, where the abolition leaders saw in it a
scheme to extend slave territory. The poet Whittier, hear-
ing of the terms of peace which the Polk administration
would impose on Mexico, and that they would take the
country west to the ocean, wrote a note of sympathy to the
Mexican people, warning them that the invader was com-
ing:

"Let the Sacramento herdsmen heed

what sound the wind brings down,
Of footsteps on the crisping snow,

from cold Nevada 's crown,
Full hot and fast the Saxon rides,

with rein of travel slack,
And bending o 'er his saddle leaves

the sunrise at his back. ' '

Even so the Saxon came and snatched the great South-
west from the doom of the eternal anarchy which has pre-
vailed south of the Rio Grande for these one hundred
years.

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