“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

, Advisor

Kim M. Gruenwald

Kevin Adams

, Chair, Department of History

, Interim Dean, College of Arts and Sciences

Mandy Munro-Stasiuk

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

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

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

II. III.

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!”¹From 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

¹The 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.

²T.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 transAppalachian 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

³Eugene 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).

3farmers, the early men were of substance. Austin wanted a colony that avoided many problems, and those of the first three hundred were generally of a higher class with some form of education.

This led to a conflict between settlers and Mexico throughout Texas’s history, slavery. The Old

Three Hundred included sixty-nine slave-owning families, and by 1825 the slave population

accounted for a quarter of the colony’s total population. While there was some diversity to the

later settlers, the original three hundred set the standard for ideologies and people that would migrate to Texas.⁴

While the Texans were more united in their ideologies, the Mexican government would be plagued from its independence with instability and the clash of how to run their new nation. Following the removal of Spain and the fall of the First Mexican Empire, two main political groups created a constitutional government. The liberal party strove to create a nation that empowered the states over the central government. They wanted to move beyond the traditions and constraints that had been part of rule under Spain and propagate a government that placed more power into the individual states of Mexico. The opposing party, the centralists, worried that the new nation would be too weak to stand to any challenges if more power was not centralized. In addition, they supported recreating some of the institutions that had been a part of colonial rule and sought the stability and order that a central state brought. The inability of the two sides to work together resulted in a nation that was unable to have stability and order. The first president, Guadalupe Victoria, was the only President to see his term to completion. The leaders who followed would be plagued by civil wars and internal clashes between conservative and

⁴Lester G. Bugbee, "The Old Three Hundred: A List of Settlers in Austin's First Colony," The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association 1, no. 2 (1897), 108-17, Accessed June 15, 2021, http://www.jstor.org/stable/30242636 ; Gregg Cantrell, Stephen F. Austin, 151; T.R. Fehrenbach, Lone Star, 142; Andrew J. Torget, Seeds of Empire, 65.

4liberal ideologies. The instability of the political situation in Mexico directly played into the history of Texas as settlers attempt to navigate the changing landscape of Mexican politics.⁵

Understanding Austin and his views are important to using his accounts about the

significant events of Texas. The primary sources I draw from are Austin’s letters, speeches, and

public documents. These sources provide immense insight into the interactions of Austin in Texas affairs. They demonstrate the complexity of Austin as he occasionally expresses a different belief in private letters from those he would send to officials or individuals in Texas. While this can lead to historians taking a biased view of Austin if they choose letters that fit their

viewpoint, it does not express his true beliefs on the subject. I will confirm Cantrell’s view and

show the complexity of Austin and the situation in Texas. The complexity and different opinions

are essential to the story of Texas and understanding how the Republic of Texas’s existence in

1836 was not a guarantee. This thesis will focus empirically on Austin to show how he understood Texas’s evolution from colony to independence. Austin expressed in his letters views of significant concepts that surround the story of Texas.

It is essential to understand how Austin understood different concepts related to Texas.
Loyalty is one of Austin’s vital topics in letters to the Mexican Government and friends across Texas and the United States and will be discussed throughout the thesis. While Austin cannot directly speak for each person in Texas, it is crucial to understanding how he saw loyalty within Texas towards Mexico. Austin viewed Texans as loyal even in private records where he praises

⁵T.R. Fehrenbach, Lone Star, 155-156; Andrew J. Torget, Seeds of Empire, 76-77; Watson Smith, "Influences from the United States on the Mexican Constitution of 1824," Arizona and the West 4, no. 2 (1962), 113-26, Accessed June 15, 2021, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40167747 ; Tim Merrill, Ramón Miró, and Library Of Congress, Federal Research Division, Mexico: A Country Study, Washington, D.C.: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress: For sale by the Supt. of Docs., U.S. G.P.O, 1997, Pdf. https://www.loc.gov/item/97013481/.

5the loyalty of the Texans. This is important as he tended to be more open in private letters expressing fears and thoughts he would not express to the Mexican government. The fact that he viewed Texans as loyal citizens even in his letters is crucial to the idea that the Republic of Texas was not inevitable. Loyalty discussed throughout this paper is how Austin sees it, not an

accurate representation of the loyalty of all Texans. Austin’s vision for the future of Texas is also

crucial. Austin wholeheartedly embraces building a colony in Texas and its role as necessary to

the Mexican nation. This is expressed throughout Austin’s letters as he discusses his role,

laments what could happen to it if war or hard times would befall it, and how dedicated he is to see the colony prosper. Austin holds a singular vision he grasps at but does not reach, a prosperous and peaceful state. Each Civil War and disaster are more complex and harder on Austin. After so many crises, he laments that he never settled down, had a family, or a peaceful place to live; this is because of his unwavering devotion to his image in Texas. When the people called for him, he always responded. Not until it became clear that Texas must be independent

does Austin’s vision of Texas change from a state of Mexico to an independent nation. Loyalty and a vision of Texas’s future were concepts that Austin directly discussed and grappled with.

However, a significant concept that was part of his time in Texas that would not be created till well after his time is the idea of settler colonialism.

Settler colonialism is the idea that settlers sought to replace the original population of a colonized region. While the term may not have existed at the time, Austin and the Texans were living it. Many Anglo settlers who went to Texas did not view the Mexicans or Native Americans as their equals and sought to push them out as the Anglo population expanded. While Austin may have felt that way about some Native Americans in the region, he treated certain Native groups and the Tejano people as equals. Austin was one of the few who worked hard to

6court relationships with the Tejanos and work with the more prominent Tejano settlements of

Bexar and San Antonio. To Austin, the Tejanos were just as much Texans as the Anglo’s who

emigrated. Austin and a few of the settlers treating the Tejanos as equal make for an interesting twist to understanding settler colonialism in the region. While many settlers would treat the nonAnglo people of Texas as inferior and held racist views of them, some, such as Austin, worked with the people of Texas and treated all who resided there as equal to the Anglos. Austin and others’ view of the Tejanos and some Native Americans as equal is critical to dispelling the idea that Austin and the settlers came with the goal of domination and conquest of the region.⁶

As a leading figure of Texas, Stephen Austin is pivotal to understanding how Texas becomes a free Republic. I will follow the notion that Fehrenbach supported, the Texans were not entirely to blame for the revolution and war for independence and that actions taken by Mexico, primarily out of fear, lead to the Republic of Texas. I will also portray Austin similar to

Cantrell’s point of view, as a complex figure who put aside his personal feelings when the time

came for him to act in a manner which was best for the whole of Texas. The argument that Rodriguez has presented that the oath of loyalty was taken seriously by the settlers is also a crucial part of my thesis, allowing for the argument that the revolution should be seen as two separate wars to be examined. Stephen Austin was the first empresario, the first to bring Americans into Texas and create a colony, and through this time of early colonization, Austin remained a crucial and leading figure. He directed Texans through the struggles of setting up a colony under a foreign government, preventing any rebellions, and working to shape and create

⁶Lorenzo Veracini, Settler Colonialism: A Theoretical Overview, (UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010); Walter L.

Hixson, American Settler Colonialism: A History, (UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013); Lorenzo Veracini, The Settler Colonial Present, (UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015); Gerald Horne, The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, and Capitalism in 17^thCentury North America and the Caribbean, (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2018); Adam Dahl, Empire of People: Settler Colonialism and the Foundations of Modern

Democratic Thought, (Lawrence: University of Kansas, 2018).

7laws that affected Texas. The passage of the Law of April 6, 1830, shifted the relationship of the Texans and Mexican Government, by banning further immigration from the United States, thereby upsetting the Anglo-Texans. During this time, Austin was one of several leaders in Texas who worked diligently to see the law revoked or changed and played a crucial role in the conventions of 1832 and 1833. Though Austin was arrested following the convention of 1833 and was imprisoned in Mexico City until 1835, he still remained involved in Texan affairs. He used his time in Mexico City to gather news and inform the Texan people on developments that another civil war was brewing in Mexico and the Constitution seemed in danger. Upon his return, Austin provided a crucial voice calling for another convention to decide what course should be taken, as civil war once again ravaged Mexico, and it became clear that Santa Anna was going to dismantle the Constitution of 1824. Austin further served Texas by traveling to the United States where he rallied support through recruits and supplies, while arguing for Texas to declare independence. It was the only way to secure aid from the United States citizens who demanded an independent Texas. Austin played a critical role in the significant events of Texas, an examination of his letters, notes, and addresses helps to understand how he saw them unfold. Austin is critical to understanding how Texan independence was not inevitable; events and actions shaped the conditions that led towards war and the Republic of Texas. Examining Austin through the early colony to the passage of the Law of April 6, the Conventions of 1832 and 1833 and his arrest, and his time in Mexico and his participation in the civil war and the war for Texan independence indicates that a free Texas was not inevitable.

8

Building a Colony: Austin leads the Texans Through the Difficulty of
Settling Texas

Austin’s colony and Texas’s future truly began in 1824 with the passage of the constitution and, importantly, the swearing of the oath to acta constitutiva, which bound the people to the Mexican Government. Austin himself called this an act of such importance that the people welcomed it as an expression of devotion to the Mexican Government. While most people who travelled to Texas choose willingly to be part of Mexico, others came with plans of rebellion and independence. Austin worked diligently to prevent disloyal people from coming into Texas and aided Mexico during the Fredonian Rebellion. Austin and his colony demonstrated loyalty to Mexico even as they were slandered in the United States for their actions. The aftermath led to the passage of the Law of April 6, which, while angering the Texans, did not lead to any rebellions or calls for independence. Events from the beginning of

Austin’s colony through the passage of the Law of April 6 demonstrated the loyalty that the