Life and select literary remains of Sam Houston of Texas/Chapter 1

by William Carey Crane

CHAPTER I.

Early History of Texas before the Battle of San Jacinto— The Name— Spanish and French Efforts at Colonization— Moses Austin and his Colony of 300 Families— Stephen F. Austin— Sam Houston.

A map of North America, with the West India Islands, was published in London, February, 1777. It was laid down according to the latest surveys, and corrected from the original materials of Governor Pownall, member of Parliament. On the region between our north-eastern boundary and the Colorado, as laid down on that map, the name Ticas is found in capital letters. It is assumed by students in aboriginal and Spanish etymology, that Ticas is the same as the present word Texas. The history of the discovery of Texas has been in dispute. Yielding credit to authorities possessed of the best means of giving true information, it will be admitted that early Spanish navigators first discovered Texas, landed on its coast, and laid claim to the country. Previously to 1595 they established settlements on both sides of the Rio Grande. This was nearly one hundred years before La Salle, the French navigator, then in search of the mouth of the Mississippi, was carried by errors of reckoning out of his course, and landed on Matagorda Bay, February 18, 1685. La Salle was a gallant knight, and claimed the country under the name of his master, Louis XIV. Enterprising, firm, talented, he was furnished by his king with a squadron of four vessels, manned by 300 men. Touching land first near Sabine Bay, making no discoveries, and obtaining no information from the Indians, La Salle proceeded westward, sailed through Pass Cavallo, and entered the Bay of St. Bernard, now known by the same name. Wrecking unfortunately one of his vessels in the attempt to land, he Succeeded in landing the men of the other three, and formed a camp on the west side, near the entrance of the bay. Game and fish refreshed the new comers. The country charmed them. They saw herds of deer and buffalo grazing on the prairies, and innumerable wild flowers covering the earth. They were cheered by the warbling of wild birds in the trees, and a sky clearer and brighter than Italy smiled upon them. It was not strange that they fancied they had reached an earthly paradise. But troubles with the Indians, supplies failing, sickness thinning their numbers, disagreements between La Salle and his leading men, the desertion of a captain — leaving with a vessel carrying most of the ammunition back to France — finally determined the colonists to abandon this location and seek a new one on the La Vaca River. Here a fort was erected named St. Louis, in honor of Louis XIV. of France, and La Salle, adventurous in spirit, burning with intense desire to ascertain the exact mouth of the Mississippi River, soon after started to explore the vast regions between Texas and Illinois. Enduring incredible hardships, and meeting with many wild and romantic adventures, he was finally murdered by one of his own men. Hearing of La Salle's death, the Indians attacked Fort St. Louis, killed or scattered all the colonists, and this ended the French attempt to found a colony in Texas. Early in 1686 the Spaniards, holding possession of Mexico, heard of the efforts of the French under La Salle to make settlements in Texas, and determined to drive them out of the country. In 1689, an expedition of one hundred men left the Spanish settlement of Monclova, and reached Fort St. Louis on the La Vaca River. Finding it abandoned they went into the country, where they found two of the French colonists among the Cenis Indians ; taking them prisoners they sent them to Mexico, condemned to work in the mines. Returning to Fort St. Louis, the Mission of San Francisco was established, and priests and friars commenced efforts to convert the Indians. The king of Spain was determined to maintain possession of Texas and Cochinla, and appointed a Governor, sent soldiers and priests to establish military posts and missions, taking cattle for farm uses and seed for planting, with them. Settlements were formed on Red, Nechos, and Guadalupe Rivers. These colonies, as well as that of San Francisco, began early to decline. The Indians were hostile, crops failed, and the cattle died. Although a first attempt at a settlement was made at San Antonio de Bexar, by Spaniards, in 1692, all efforts for colonization were abandoned in 1693, and Texas was once more without European settlers. Little was done to settle Texas until 1745. Permanent occupation by Spain may date from this year. La Bahia, or Goliad, was settled in 1716, Nacogdoches in 1732, and Victoria soon afterward. Efforts were made in good earnest to found colonies, to establish missions, and by arms, agriculture, and arts to extend and to establish Spanish influence and laws over the whole country. Prosperity did not attend these efforts and sacrifices; as may be evinced by the fact, that the entire population in Texas in 1745 did not exceed fifteen.hundred people, with perhaps an equal number of Indians. The fearful butchery of priests, soldiers, and Indian converts at San Saba, by hostile Indians— not leaving one alive to tell the tale — in 1758, caused Spanish missions in Texas everywhere to decline. Until 1821, the old Spanish settlements continued to be surrounded by savage Indians, and Texas was, for the most part, an unexplored wilderness. During the American Revolution, of which the 4th of July is the memorial day, the Spanish possessions of Mexico and Texas remained in quiet. Texas was safe from danger; her harbors were almost unknown; her property offered no temptation to pillage, and her scattered population could afford no recruits. The Spanish settlement at Natchez had opened a trade with Texas through Nacogdoches. This road had become familiar to many besides the Spaniards. Traders on their return would make reports to the Americans in and around Natchez, of the advantages of trade in Texas, the surpassing beauty and richness of the country, the abundance of game, and the numerous other attractions to adventurers. Thus, about the beginning of the present century, the tide of trade and travel began to take the direction of this new country. The town of Nacogdoches soon became a place of much importance; many persons of wealth and education emigrated from Louisiana to that place. The old missionary station became a town; arsenal, barracks, and substantial buildings, some of which are still standing, were erected. And, although the Spaniards held the country for upwards of one hundred and fifty years, little now exists in Texas to remind us of their rule, except the names which they gave to many towns and rivers. In 1810 to 1812 there was a military expedition, composed of American volunteers, intended to aid Mexico in its revolt from Spain. This expedition proceeded as far as San Antonio River. Parties passed to and fro from this expedition for more than two years. The founder of the town of Washington on the Brazos, Capt. Jack Hall, was one of the expedition. It is now generally believed that all that part of Texas known in common parlance as the white settlements, was thoroughly explored by American adventurers previous to Austin's colonial enterprise. Although Mexico was still under the sway of Spain, Moses Austin, a native of Connecticut, for a while a resident in Virginia, then a citizen of Missouri, succeeded, after various rebuffs and adverse courses of action, in concluding a proposition with Don Antonio Martinez, Governor of the province of Texas, for the settlement of three hundred families within the limits of Texas. The Governor had treated Moses Austin, at San Antonio de Bexar, very ungraciously, and even ordered him to leave the province without delay. He retired from the government house resolved to leave San Antonio de Bexar within the hour. As he crossed the plaza he accidentally met a gentleman with whom, many years before, he spent a night at a country tavern in one of the Southern States. This gentleman was the Baron de Bastrop. When together, they had conversed freely, and had thus acquired some knowledge of each other, both being men of enterprise and of much experience. Now, when they unexpectedly met on the plaza, their recognition was instant. The Baron invited Moses Austin to his house, where the latter, in a few words, explained to him the object of his visit to San Antonio, and informed him of his interview with the Governor and of its consequences. The Baron entered immediately into the spirit of the enterprise, waited on the Governor, informed him that Austin was his friend, and enlisted the aid of influential citizens. At the end of a week the objections of the Governor were removed, and a promise secured to recommend Austin's proposition to the favorable consideration of the Commandant General, Don Joaquin Arredondo, and the Provincial Deputation of the Eastern Internal Provinces, holding sessions at Monterey, and sharing with the Commandant General the government of the Eastern Provinces of New Spain. These efforts proved successful. Shortly after his return to Missouri he had the pleasure of hearing officially from Governor Martinez, that his propositions had been favorably received at Monterey, and that he was at liberty to commence his settlement in Texas immediately. He commenced preparations to return to Texas, giving notice to all who wished to accompany him, to m.eet him in Nachitoches, La., in the latter part of May, 1821, and proceed with him on his way to the Brazos and Colorado. But he was taken sick about the first of June, at the house of his daughter, Mrs. James Bryan, well known in Texas as Mrs. James F. Perry, and died in his daughter's arms, on the 10th of June, 1821, in the fifty-seventh year of his age. His family consisted at this time of his wife, who survived him about three years, of his daughter, Mrs. Bryan,^[1] already named, of his son, Stephen F., then in New Orleans, and of a younger son, James Brown Austin, then at school in Kentucky, and afterward well known in Texas. On his death-bed, Moses Austin declared it to be his earnest desire that his son, Stephen F. Austin, should endeavor to have himself recognized by the Spanish authorities in Texas, as his representative, and that he should carry forward the enterprise of colonization. The son undertook the great and noble work of carrying out his father's plans. He was born in Virginia, had been well educated, and had served with Hon. Thomas H. Benton in the Territorial Legislature of Missouri. With the first Anglo-American settlers he arrived on Brazos River, December, 1821. He camped with his party on a small creek, near the present town of Brenham, on the first day of January, 1822, and from that circumstance called the creek New Year's, a name it bears at this time. He explored the country watered by the Guadalupe, Colorado, and Brazos Rivers, and laid out the town of San Felipe de Austin, on the Brazos. He did not succeed in getting a confirmation at the City of Mexico, after the declaration of Mexican independence, of his authority to locate a colony, until he had, with two or three companions, made the perilous journey^[2] of 1,200 miles, on horseback, to the capital of Mexico, and had been detained there one year during the repeated changes of government, by which all supreme authority in Mexico was agitated and disturbed. From this time settlements began to be made, as fast as lands were designated by the surveyors appointed.

Col. Jared E. Groce and Judge John P. Cole were the first to come to the east side of the Brazos in the winter of 1821-1822. Sam Gates, William Gates, Amos Gates (living August, 1881), James Whitesides and Josiah H. Bell came to the Brazos in the year 1822-1823. The first Mexican Civil Government was organized by Don Juan Antonio Sancedo, Political Chief of the Province of Texas. His proclamation, May 20, 1824, issued at San Felipe de Austin, assuming command of the colony is brief and sensible. His duty would be to appoint as many Alcaldes (Justices of the Peace) as may be necessary for the accommodation of the people and to command the militia. He appointed Stephen F. Austin, Political Chief and Judge, until the Ayuntamiento should be organized. The first land titles were issued in July, 1824. The first surveyor was Baron de Bastrop, appointed commissioner to issue land titles by Governor Luciano Garcia, in the summer of 1823. The first settlements in Austin's Colony were made in different places simultaneously, dispersed over a large area, from Burleson County as now laid down upon the map to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the La Vaca to the San Jacinto.

From this period may date the American history of Texas. The Mexican Government passed colonization laws and held out other inducements to citizens of the United States, to settle within the limits of Texas, guaranteeing all rights, liberties, and immunities of Mexican citizens for protection of person and property.

On the 2d of February, 1824, the Federal Constitution of Mexico, similar to that of the United States, was proclaimed as the established policy of the nation, and by a decree of May 7th of the same year, the provinces of Texas and Cochinla were provisionally united to form one of the constituent and sovereign States of the Mexican Confederacy. Under these enactments immigration began to flow and spread itself over the fertile domain of the province of Texas. The forest gave way to the axe of the hardy pioneer; the wild prairie to the plowshare of the husbandman; plantations were opened and villages sprung up on the hunting-grounds of the savage. In nine years from the first settlement of Austin, the Americans had explored the whole southern portion of the province, and redeemed it from the wilderness of the wild beast and the Indian, and covered it with an industrious and thrifty population. The news of Austin's Colony spread rapidly over the Western States, and many adventurers sought to join him. Colonists came faster than provision could be made for their support. Besides suffering greatly from the Corankaw Indians, the first settlers were often reduced to the necessity of living entirely on wild game and clothing themselves with skins. Buckskin was the common dress. Occasionally a strolling peddler would penetrate the wilderness with a piece of domestic or calico, which was esteemed as valuable and elegant as silk and satin are with us now. Letters now extant, give harrowing pictures of the sufferings of women and children for the ordinary necessaries of life. Such was the foundation of the goodly heritage now enjoyed by the inhabitants of Texas.

Many other colonies succeeded Austin's in different parts of the country. Victoria was commenced as a new settlement, and Gonzales laid off as a town in 1825.

In 1828, Stephen F. Austin obtained another contract to colonize three hundred families more, on land near the Gulf of Mexico. Texas had now become the point of attraction to thousands of adventurers from all parts of the United States. Men of desperate fortunes and roving habits, speculators in lands, broken-down politicians, refugees from justice, as well as multitudes of a better class, desirous of finding homes for their growing families and increasing slaves,^[3] swelled the tide of Texan immigration. This tide rolling down from the Northern and Western as well as the Southern States, excited the jealousy of the Mexican Government, and finally brought on war with Mexico, which resulted in the victory of San Jacinto and secured the independence of Texas. Mexico was at that time, as unhappily has been its history from the downfall of the Montezumas to the coronation and execution of Maximilian the First, convulsed by political commotions, and harassed by most disastrous civil wars. The Texans, so long as they were unmolested in the enjoyment of their rights, took no part and but little interest in the convulsions of the Mexican Government. Their rapidly growing strength and steady adherence to republican principles began, at length, to attract the notice and arouse the jealousy of the Mexican authorities. On April 6, 1830, an arbitrary law was passed, prohibiting immigration in future, of American settlers into Texas. Military posts were established throughout the province, the civil authorities were trampled underfoot, and the people were subjected to the capricious tyranny of unrestrained military rule. Allusions to these and other facts will appear in the course of the following work. The attention of Gen. Sam Houston was turned to Texas about the time this tyranny was manifested.

What the history of Texas has been, the civilized world knows. What Texas now is, and promises to be, is the theme of the press of English-speaking Christendom, and what it is to be is the vaticination of the political prophet.

Any history of Texas would be incomplete without awarding due honor to Stephen F. Austin. All parts of it, from the Colony to the American State, exhibit his self-sacrifice, patriotism, and ability. The pages which will follow will show what part Sam Houston took in moulding and saving a State. To Houston has been awarded the high honor of giving name to a city which, in no remote future, will be a great commercial centre. To Austin has been assigned the honor of giving name to the present beautiful capital of this great empire State. Let the sculptor do his work, let the painter exert his skill, let the historian exhibit his ability, let the orator speak the truth, Austin will say, "Lector circumspice," and Houston will say, "Exegi monumentum cere perennius."

In the Senate of the United States, in 1836, Hon. T. H. Benton said:

"Heartless is the calumny invented and propagated, not from this floor, but elsewhere, on the cause of the Texan revolt. It is said to be a war for the extension of slavery. It had as well been said that our own Revolution was a war for the extension of slavery. So far from it, that no revolt, not even our own, ever had a more just and a more sacred origin. The settlers in Texas went to live under the form of government which they had left behind in the United States—a government which extends so many guarantees for life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness, and which their American and English ancestors had vindicated for so many hundred years. A succession of violent changes in government, and the rapid overthrow of rulers, annoyed and distressed them; but they remained tranquil under every violence which did not immediately bear on themselves. In 1822 the republic of 1821 was superseded by the imperial diadem of Iturbide. In 1823 he was deposed and banished, returned and was shot, and Victoria made President. Mentuno and Bravo disputed the presidency with Victoria; and found, in banishment, the mildest issue known among Mexicans to unsuccessful civil war. Pedraza was elected in 1828; Guerrero overthrew him the next year. Then Bustamente overthrew Guerrero; and quickly, Santa Anna overthrew Bustamente, and, with liim, all the forms of the Constitution, and the whole frame of the federative government. By his own will, and by force, Santa Anna dissolved the existing Congress, convened another, formed the two Houses into one, called it a Convention, and made it the instrument for deposing, without trial, the constitutional Vice-President, Gomez Fatias, putting Barragan into his place, annihilating

the State government, and establishing a consolidated government, of which he was monarch, under the retained republican title of President. Still, the Texans did not take up arms; they did not acquiesce, but they did not revolt. They retained their State government in operation, and looked to the other States, older and more powerful than Texas, to vindicate the general cause, and to re-establish the federal constitution of 1824. In September, 1835, this was still her position. In that month, a Mexican armed vessel appeared off the coast of Texas, and declared her ports blockaded. At the same time, General Cos appeared in the West, with an army of fifteen hundred men, with orders to arrest the State authorities, to disarm the inhabitants, leaving one gun to every five hundred souls; and to reduce the State to unconditional submission. Gonzales was the selected point for the commencement of the execution of these orders; and the first thing was the arms, those trusty rifles which the settlers had brought with them from the United States, which were their defence against savages, their resource for game, and the guard which converted their houses into castles stronger than those 'which the king can not enter' A detachment of General Cos's army appeared at the village of Gonzales, on the 28th of September, and demanded the arms of the inhabitants it was the same demand, made for the same purpose, which the British detach ment, under Major Pitcairn, had made at Lexington, on the 16th of April, 1775 It was the same demand! And the same answer was given—resistance—battle — victory! The American blood was at Gonzales what it had been at Lexington, and between using their arms and surrendering their arms, that blood can never hesitate. Then followed the rapid succession of brilliant events, which in two months left Texas without an armed enemy in her borders, and the strong forts of Goliad and the Alamo, with their garrisons and cannon, the almost bloodless prizes of a few hundred Texan rifles. This was the origin of the revolt; and a calumny more heartless can never be imagined than that which would convert this rich and holy defence of life, liberty, and property, into an aggression for the extension of slavery. Just in its origin, valiant and humane in its conduct, the Texan revolt has illustrated the Anglo-Saxon character, and given it new titles to the respect and admiration of the world. It shows that liberty, justice, valor—moral, physical, and intellectual power—characterize tiiat race wherever it goes. Let our America rejoice, let old England rejoice, that the Brazos and Colorado, new and strange names—streams far beyond the western bank of the Father of Floods — have felt the impress, and witnessed the exploits of a people sprung from their loins, and carrying their language, laws, and customs, their magna charta and its glorious privileges, into new regions and far distant climes."

1. Mother of Major Moses Austin Bryan and Hon. Guy M. Bryan.
2. Austin (as will appear hereafter in this work) made a similar trip in 1835, bearing the Constitution, on which he hoped Texas would become one of the States of Mexico. He was thrown into prison and kept a year, with danger to his life.
3. Slavery then existed in Texas and the Southern States.