“I Go for Independence”: Stephen Austin and Two Wars for Texan Independence

“I go for Independence”: Stephen Austin and Two Wars for Texan Independence A thesis submitted To Kent State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts by James Robert Griffin August 2021 ©Copyright All rights reserved Except for previously published materials Thesis written by James Robert Griffin B.S., Kent State University, 2019 M.A., Kent State University, 2021 Approved by Kim M. Gruenwald , Advisor Kevin Adams , Chair, Department of History Mandy Munro-Stasiuk , Interim Dean, College of Arts and Sciences TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS…………………………………………………………………...……iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………………………v INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………………..1 CHAPTERS I. Building a Colony: Austin leads the Texans Through the Difficulty of Settling Texas….9 Early Colony……………………………………………………………………………..11 The Fredonian Rebellion…………………………………………………………………19 The Law of April 6, 1830………………………………………………………………..25 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………….32 II. Time of Struggle: Austin Negotiates with the Conventions of 1832 and 1833………….35 Civil War of 1832………………………………………………………………………..37 The Convention of 1833…………………………………………………………………47 Austin’s Arrest…………………………………………………………………………...52 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………….59 III. Two Wars: Austin Guides the Texans from Rebellion to Independence………………..61 Imprisonment During a Rebellion……………………………………………………….63 War is our Only Resource……………………………………………………………….70 The Second War…………………………………………………………………………78 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………….85 iii CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………………………………..87 BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………………..94 iv Acknowledgments I could not have written this thesis without the support of my professors, family, and friends. When I started my thesis at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, I was advised by Dr. Hudson, who retired in the Summer of 2020, and Dr. Gruenwald, who was on my committee, became my advisor. Without her support, this thesis would not have been possible, taking over on such short notice and quickly helping me prepare my prospectus and focus my topic into what it became. Her assistance in helping me improve my writing abilities and conveying my work in the best way possible while only being able to communicate through email was invaluable. I could not have done this without her. I would also like to thank my committee members, Dr. Adams and Dr. Hayashi. They both provided helpful advice and suggestions throughout my work on my paper. They pushed me to relate my topic to a broader scholarship and to help me to consider ideas that I would not have thought of on my own. I would also like to thank Dr. Bindas as my third chapter was envisioned and written during his writing seminar class, and his advice and comments were beneficial. Lastly, I would like to thank my family and friends. My dad especially for all his work on proofreading and giving suggestions as I wrote each chapter. My fiancé Elisa also for putting up with me as I talked about my thesis day after day and for helping translate works from Spanish into English for me. My friends: Nick, Michael, and Matt, for always showing interest in what I had worked on and checking how the thesis was going. Without everyone’s help that they gave me, whether just listening to me talk about my topic or reading through and giving suggestions, I could not have written this paper the way I did. v Introduction As he lay dying in his home Stephen Austin the father of Texas, uttered his last words, “The Independence of Texas is recognized! Don’t you see it in the papers? Doctor Archer told me so!”1 From the day he arrived in 1821 until he died in 1836, Austin dedicated himself to Texas and its prosperity. To Austin, his colony was his responsibility, as he brought hundreds of families with him, therefore he felt personally responsible for their prosperity. At the time of Austin’s death, Texas was a free republic, barely existing six months before. They had won a war for their independence from Mexico, but it was uncertain this was the path Texas would take even one year prior to Austin’s death. Before the Convention of 1836, a majority of Texans were loyal to the Mexican Constitution of 1824. It was not until 1836 that their loyalty shifted towards breaking away from Mexico. As the first empresario, Austin had resided there longer than most Texans, thereby they considered him the father of Texas. Austin stood as a unique figure in Texas history, he was not an elected leader or even beloved by all Texans, however, both Texans and the Mexican officials often consulted Austin regarding issues that arose within the region. Austin’s position allows us to study and understand how the free nation of Texas was not inevitable, and Texas could have remained a state of Mexico. The historiography of Texas has gone through two major phases. Older works created a more general view of events, while more current scholarship focuses on the events and actors previously ignored by historians. The best-known work on general history has long been Lone Star by T.R. Fehrenbach, whose history covers the span of Texas prior to the arrival of 1 The New Handbook of Texas, Vol. 6, (Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1996), Guy Bryan, “Personal Recollections,” 2: 171-172. 1 Europeans into the twentieth century. His work also differs from later works as he defends the actions the Texans take while stating that some of the burden of causing the revolution should be on the Mexicans. Here his work is unique, as later works shifted increasingly more of the blame on Texans for the events of the Revolution. He exhibits how each side takes the blame, and the declaration of independence in 1836 constitutes no more than a single sentence wrapped in what would define the war, the battle of the Alamo. The more current historical works on Texas, such as Andrew Torget’s Seeds of Empire, and Gary Anderson’s The Conquest of Texas, assign blame primarily on the Texans and they see the independence as inevitable. One historian who does challenge the idea of Texas independence being inevitable was Sarah Rodriguez, who argued that the oath of loyalty the Texans took was serious to them. Her article focused on the political nature of Mexico as they insured autonomy of the states at a time where the United States was beginning to centralize. The history of Texas is not the only historical topic to shift over time, but Stephen Austin role in Texas independence has changed as well.2 Stephen Austin is a complex figure, and the historiography on him is surprisingly sparse, considering his importance to the region. The Life of Stephen F. Austin, Founder of Texas 1793- 1836, by Eugene Barker, portrays a one-dimensional view of Austin. In his work, Barker presents Austin as a figure who came to take Texas away from Mexico, and a man dedicated to the idea of Manifest Destiny. Barker’s work dominated the field for almost seventy years until Gregg Cantrell wrote his interpretation of Austin, Stephen F. Austin: Empresario of Texas. 2 T.R. Fehrenbach, Lone Star A History of Texas and the Texans, (Toronto: The Macmillan Company, 1968); Andrew J. Torget, Seeds of Empire: Cotton, Slavery, and the Transformation of the Texas Borderlands, 1800-1850, (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2015); Gary Clayton Anderson, The Conquest of Texas: Ethnic Cleansing of the Promise Land, 1820-1875, (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2005); Sarah K.M. Rodriguez, “‘The Greatest Nation on Earth:’ The Politics and Patriotism of the First Anglo American Immigrants to Mexican Texas, 1820–1824,” Pacific Historical Review 86, no. 1 (2017): 50-83, Accessed October 16, 2021, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26419727. 2 Cantrell shows the complexity of Austin and, importantly, his single-minded devotion to the well-being of his new home. Austin learned the local language, gained citizenship, and created a good life for other Anglos within an adopted nation. Cantrell displays an Austin who tries to balance his self-interests with the desires of the Texan colonists. This interpretation of Austin demonstrates him as a man who did not emigrate to Texas to remove it from Mexico but as a figure who struggled to do what he saw as fitting for his people and his adopted nation. Austin as a complex figure is crucial to understanding the complexity of Texas its relationship with Mexico. 3 When Austin became the first empresario of Texas, it was not the job he originally had sought. His father, Moses Austin, initially approached the Spanish government that ruled Mexico and was granted the first contract to bring Anglo-American settlers into Texas. Before Moses could begin bringing settlers into the region, he fell ill and died; however, he begged his son from his death bed to take up the task. Austin went to Mexico to discuss with the newly independent Mexican government whether he would still emigrate families to Mexico. He was granted the contract his father had and was tasked with bringing three hundred families to Mexico, who would become the Old Three Hundred. The Old Three Hundred would set the pattern for the type of settlers that would travel to Texas. The defining feature of the families was the location they traveled from in the United States. They were predominantly from the trans- Appalachian South, with the most significant numbers from Alabama, Missouri, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana. They were also predominantly farmers who had moved across the Appalachians as land became available. While some of the colonists would later be lower-class 3 Eugene C. Barker, The Life of Stephen F. Austin, Founder of Texas 1793-1836: A Chapter in the Westward Movement of the Anglo-American People, (Nashville: Cokesbury Press, 1926); Gregg Cantrell, Stephen F. Austin: Empresario of Texas, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999).

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