The Republic of Texas

\>.^' :«'•- \^^^ "-^^^' • m^h :'«#. iS «s^"-. -.1 '% %^^^ /M^^A % "vJ^- ^'^ .^'\ r An Engraving by Davignon, made in 1853 while Houston was in the United States Senate HI *s 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 Copyrighted 1922 by Clarence R. Wharton n3?^ ''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, A7id names on the graves that shall not be forgot." Father Ryan. ^ ^ O X X o CONTENTS PAGE Louisiana Purchase 7 Texas Traded for Florida.. 17 The Colonies -— 27 The Revolution 97 The Republic - 169 Annexation of Texas 215 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 acquisition 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 declared 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 R. Wharton. Houston, Texas. January 1, 1922. THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE The Proclamation of La Salle. The evolutions in History; the various changes in sovereignty through which Texas passed from the primitive plain and wilderness to statehood, must be of interest to this generation. 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 De Leon 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, discovered the Mississippi River, until La Salle, the French- man, coming from Canada, sailed down it to the sea. On April 9, 1682, La Salle stood on the bank of the great river, surrounded by a small company of daring Frenchmen, and by a process verbal named and claimed : The Proclamation of La Salle the country far and wide for his monarch. IMark Twain describes this vast real estate transaction in his ''Life on ' the Mississippi ' ''Then to the admiration of the savages, the French- men set up a cross Avith the arms of France on it, and took possession of the whole country for the King, the cool fashion of the time, while the priest piously conse- crated the robber}^ with a hymn, and they drew from the simple sons of the forest fealty to Louis over the sea. No one even smiled at this colossal irony." 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 Colonj^ the Span- iards through Mexico made feeble, futile efforts at settlements here, claiming the countr}^ 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- lantic seaboard, and the Spaniard yet held the Floridas, and all Mexico, or New Spain, as it was called. There were 8 The Proclamation of La Salle some French settlements on the ]\Iississippi, and New Or- leans had become a port of some importance. Then came the French and Indian wars in j:he middle of the Eighteenth Centnry, and France and England fonght 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 England from dominating it. After this cession to Spain in 1762, and w^hile 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 American Kevolu- tion Spanish sovereignty was acknowledged over Louis- iana, the Floridas, Texas, Mexico, and all the lands around the Gulf of ]\Iexico. Spain claimed all of North America w^est 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 country 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 1795 between the United States and Spain, giving us the Napoleon's First Effort at King Making 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 possessions 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 century. 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 roll(?d around, the last mute evidence of Spanish sovereignty. 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 did, an 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 10 Napoleon^s First Effort at King Making 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 become an appendage of the Spanish Crown, and at this time the Duke of Parma was the nephew and son-in-law of Charles IV, the Bourbon King of Spain.

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