FIRST EDITION DEEP IN THE HEART

A BRIEF TEXAS HISTORY

BY CAROLE N LESTER UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS - DALLAS Bassim Hamadeh, CEO and Publisher Kassie Graves, Director of Acquisitions Jamie Giganti, Senior Managing Editor Miguel Macias, Senior Graphic Designer Jennifer McCarthy, Acquisitions Editor Sean Adams, Project Editor Luiz Ferreira, Senior Licensing Specialist Allie Kiekhofer, Associate Editor

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Printed in the United States of America

ISBN: 978-1-63487-979-8 (pbk) / 978-1-63487-980-4 (br) Contents

Preface v

CH 1 The Land and Man 1

CH 2 The Consequences of Conquest: Texas 1500–1800 11

CH 3 New Masters for Old: Texas 1700–1830s 23

CH 4 Clash of Cultures and the Texas Revolution 1823–1836 35

CH 5 The Lone Star Republic to the Lone Star State: 1836–1848 51

CH 6 Texas the Frontier State and Antebellum United States: 1848–1860 61

CH 7 Texas Secession and the Civil War 69

CH 8 Reconstruction: Reformers to Redeemers — Texas 1868–1880s 81

CH 9 Texas and the Last Frontier 89

IN-DEPTH LOOK: THE TEXAS RANGERS 101

CH 10 Populists to Progressives and Beyond: 1890s to 1930s 109

IN-DEPTH LOOK: SPINDLETOP & BEYOND—DISCOVERY OF OIL 121

CH 11 Developing Modern Texas: 1940s–1980s 125

CH 12 The Texas Mystique into the Twenty-First Century 133

List of Illustrations 147 Preface

HOW TO USE THIS DIGITAL TEXTBOOK

s this just another Texas history book? Think about how many there are already in print. Consider the statistics: online bookseller Amazon.com lists more than 3,995 titles of books about Texas. However, many of those books are not suitable for studying Texas history. Many are fiction, I and many still tell only the mythic story of Texas’s past because it will not be ignored. In fact, when we study Texas, we study not only the facts surrounding its founding and development, but also the mystique and mythology surrounding it as well. So what is different about this Texas history? This one will connect the mystique with the reality of Texas and its place in the larger picture of United States history. This is an originally designed, interactive eBook that should appeal to you somewhat “tech-savvy” but reading-challenged individuals who think differently from students who did not grow up in the Internet age. This text was intended as an online resource and is best accessed in the digital format. Let me tell you how to use this online interactive eBook to your best advantage. When you begin reading each chapter, you will notice the URL addresses embedded in the text. These links will lead you to credible online resources that will enrich the narrative and provide you with extended source material for the chapter topics. Click on those links to access the in-depth information for each major topic of each chapter. These links can also be used as a starting point for any research you may be required to do for class assignments. In addition to the online links, you will also find study questions at the end of each chapter that can be used as review material or study guides for testing. You will also find a list of resources used for the text and suggestions for further reading.

v 1

The Land and Man

o matter how we approach Texas history, the first consideration in the study of this state is the land. At present, the state covers 268,596 square miles, stretching from the Red River in the north- N east, south to the Gulf of Mexico; and from the panhandle in the northwest, south along the edges of the mountains of New Mexico, along the Rio Grande to the Gulf. This area spans 770 miles east-to-west and 800 miles north-to-south. It is the second-largest state, covering 7 percent of the area of the United States. If you skateboarded around its borders, you would travel approximately 3,800 miles. (To view a topographical map of Texas, click on the following hyperlink: http://texasalmanac.com/topics/environment/environment). The climate and topography are more varied than almost any other state, with deserts, high plains, piney woods, and swampy bayous; this is a state of sudden and dramatic possibilities. Texas can be divided into roughly four physiographic regions:

The Basin and Range areas of the Rocky Mountain system in the far west- ern portion of the state

1 2 DEEP IN THE HEART: A BRIEF TEXAS HISTORY

The Great Plains area, stretching from the Edwards Plateau northward to the Llano Estacado The Interior Lowlands of the north and east Texas prairie and piney woods The Coastal Plain of southeastern Texas, from the lower Rio Grande valley to the bayous of the Louisiana border

With the exception of the small mountainous section in far-west Texas, the state consists of three gently sloping plains separated by escarpments (Texas Almanac: http://texasalmanac.com/topics/ environment/physical-regions-texas). As historian David McComb noted, if you could accelerate the erosion process to smooth the land to an even surface, you could start rolling a bowling ball at the 4,600-foot elevation in the panhandle and it would roll steadily southeastward into the Gulf of Mexico; the tilt and momentum would carry it under the water until it dropped off the continental shelf six miles out. This “tilt” is why all of the major rivers of Texas flow in the same general south- easterly direction. They do not hurry to the Gulf; they meander gently. They have never been good for hydroelectric power, nor have they been extensively navigable. The weather in the state is just as variable as the terrain: either too much or too little, almost never moderate. Annual rainfall in the area far west of the 98th meridian (roughly along the north–south interstate, I-35) averages eight inches, while people in the far-eastern section of the state receive nearly fifty-eight inches a year. Heavy snow is uncommon, but the high plains of the panhandle have often experienced blizzards. Drought is a constant visitor to the state, hitting mainly the western regions, and can be accompanied by devastating dust storms (US Weather Service, NOAA National Climatic Data Center: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/ama/?n=drought). South-central Texas is at the southern end of “Tornado Alley,” the most tornado-prone area in the world. From 1950 to 2010, the US Weather Service recorded that approximately 7,300 tornados hit Texas, an average of forty- eight a year (US Weather Service, NOAA National Climatic Data Center: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/ climate-information/extreme-events/us-tornado-climatology). Hurricanes are the major weather event along the Gulf Coast region. The 1900 Galveston hurricane was the worst natural disaster, in terms of mortality, in the history of the US, with six thousand killed (US Weather Service, NOAA National Climatic Data Center: www.history.noaa.gov/ stories_tales/cline2.html) The more common weather complaints, though, are about the excessive heat of the summers and the “blue northers” of the winters. The most common joke about the Texas weather is credited to Philip Sheridan, a US Army general who, as a junior officer, was stationed at Fort Clark in 1855: “If I owned Texas and Hell, I would rent out Texas and live in in the other place” (Wisconsin State Register, 14 April, 1866, p. 2, col. 3: https://almostchosenpeople.wordpress.com/tag/phil-sheridan/). The vegetation of the state is as varied as the climate and topography; from the sparse grass of the high deserts to the lush growth of the East Texas piney woods, the state has something for The Land and Man 3 everyone. Not to be outdone by the land, the animal life is just as diverse, and includes bears, wolves, roadrunners, alligators, rabbits, deer, turkeys, javelinas, ducks, and, of course, the armadillo. The most deadly snakes (copperheads, rattlesnakes, cottonmouths, and coral snakes) also live in Texas, but the animal that could be counted as most important to the state was not a native: the cow. Man was also not native to Texas. We don’t know with great certainty exactly when they came, but the first to arrive made their home on the high plains and left their relics behind in the limestone formations of the plateaus of Texas. Human bones found in the stone formations date as old as the Pleistocene (Ice Age) horse found with them. (For the geology of Texas, see http://www.nhnct.org/ geology/timescale.html.) Like all Ice Age men, they were hunters and left behind thousands of flint chipped-stone spearheads. They roamed the area from Clovis, New Mexico to Abilene, Texas and from Abilene to the Perdenales River, just above the Balcones Escarpment, and they hunted Ice Age elephants on the Llano Estacado (Staked Plains) (https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/ ryl02). Early man’s time in Texas covered thousands of years, but the climate and land changed, and the Ice Age inhabitants either died out or totally changed over the millennia so as to be historically unrecognizable. The Ice Age passed and the oceans rose to cover the land, but before it was totally submerged, there were more newcomers on the land. This time, they came in waves of migration over many thousands of years. These were the ancestors of the native “Indians,” and they did not stop migrating until they had reached even the slopes of the Andes Mountains, far to the south of the Texas region. Physically, these migrants shared facial characteristics, but because they settled into pockets of habitation, they developed marked differences in cultural practices, language, and tool making. These differences led to an age-old occupation of man: they made war. When new immigrants moved into inhabited areas, they threatened established hunting grounds, and this led to armed conflict. Most called themselves variations of the “real people” and differentiated between them- selves and others:

others were not “people” only kith and kin were people others were enemies (http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/nattrans/ntecoindian/essays/pleistocene.htm).

The early migrant groups scattered across the plains were not very successful hunters because the animals were big and fast, and man, who was on foot, was not. As a consequence, basic dietary needs, especially for fat, could not be satisfied by available sources, so others needed to be de- veloped. The greatest dietary revolution came not with the invention of the bow (approximately two 4 DEEP IN THE HEART: A BRIEF TEXAS HISTORY

thousand years ago in the Americas) but with the development of agriculture. Approximately 4,500 years ago, the archaic groups of Central and South America discovered how to cultivate maize (corn). When they learned how to grow a food crop, they also learned to domesticate a few small animals. This meant that they did not have to depend solely on hunting for food and revolutionized their cultures. True city-based civilizations developed in Central America and on the slopes of the Andes Mountains. These were the Mayans, the Toltecs, and the successive cultures that formed: the Aztecs of Mexico and the Incas of Peru, cultures that rivaled Egypt and Rome. The achievements of these New World cultures included mathematics, written language, and astronomy. Their artists worked in gold, silver, and copper but without the technology of smelting, and this led to their eventual downfall. If the European discovery of the Americas had been delayed by a few more centuries, the history of the New World could have been quite different. Contact with fifteenth-century Spaniards was disastrous for the natives of the Americas. Texas historian T.R. Fehrenbach believed that, what the Spanish did not understand or value, in the native culture, they destroyed. In its place they tried to recreate Spain in the New World with only minor success. In reality, New Spain influenced the European world in unforeseen ways. The Americas made great contributions to the earth’s agriculture: three-fifths of the value of all the earth’s agriculture in the twentieth century came from American crops, but domesticated animals, for the most part, were imported from Europe (http://columbianexchange.org/). Most agri- cultural growth bypassed much of Texas for geographic and climatic reasons (mainly because of the size of the High Plains Desert), but as agriculture moved back up the continent, the northern native civilizations began to mature.

NORTH AMERICAN NATIVE CULTURES OF THE TEXAS REGION

The Puebloan culture formed in the area of the current states of New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado. Around 1000 AD, they seemed to expand and move into the Texas panhandle area, and even ex- tended southward down the Rio Grande into the Trans-Pecos region (http://www.nps.gov/meve/ learn/education/upload/ancestral_puebloans.pdf). Archeologists have found remnants of the Puebloan culture in the deserts of the Southwest, but the remains of the native civilizations east of the Mississippi River were less well preserved. One eastern exception was the archaic culture of the group known as the Mound Builders. The civilization spread up the Mississippi from the Gulf region to the Great Lakes, as far as the forests ran. Based on evidence found in architecture and language, many anthropologists believe that their civilization may have been an expansion of the Circum-Caribbean culture of the West Indies (http://www.nps. gov/nr/travel/mounds/builders.htm). This culture spilled into Texas across the Sabine River into the The Land and Man 5 piney woods of East Texas. The Mound Builders did not survive, leaving behind only their large earthen burial mounds.

CADDO CONFEDERACIES

In Texas, the remnants of the Mound Builders can be found in the Caddo nation of East Texas. Once the most numerous and powerful native group in the area, they were more similar to native groups along the Mississippi River than to the native groups in the western area of Texas. Linguistically, they were very like the Choctaws, Cherokees, and the Creeks (http://www.texasbeyondhistory. net/st-plains/peoples/how.html). The Caddoan Nation consisted of two confederacies: Caddoan ( Kadohadacho) Hasinai FIGURE 1.1 Copyright © Historicair/Arkyan (CC BY-SA 3.0) at https://commons.wikimedia. They lived on both sides of the Sabine org/wiki/File:Map_Anasazi,_Hohokam_and_Mogollon_cultures-en.svg. River, with their center of power located near present-day Nacogdoches, Texas to the west and east to Natchitoches, Louisiana. The Caddos were the richest and most advanced of the Texas native groups. They developed a genuine bureaucracy of secular tribal leaders and a religious priesthood that outranked the secular leaders. Unfortunately for them, they occupied a region prized by both the French and Spanish explorers and which was later claimed by Mexico and the United States as well. The name for the state comes from a Caddoan word for “friends”: Tejas. The Caddo’s first encounter with Europeans probably occurred in October of 1541 when Hernando de Soto’s expedition stumbled upon a Caddoan hunting party. The battle was brief and inconclusive. (European contact: http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/amerbegin/exploration/ text1/desoto.pdf.) For the next two years, there were more brief and unfriendly exchanges—and then nothing. For almost 150 years, there was no more contact. Then, in the spring of 1686, the Caddo had a friendly meeting with French explorer La Salle. News of the incursion of the French into the area compelled the Spanish to move back into the area. When the Europeans finally did begin 6 DEEP IN THE HEART: A BRIEF TEXAS HISTORY

FIGURE 1.2 Atlas of Texas. Copyright © 1976 by University of Texas at Austin.

to mingle with the Caddo, their letters home recorded that they found the native appearance and dress to be hideous and their body tattoos to be bizarre. Equally upsetting to the Europeans was the Caddo custom of weeping and wailing when they met strangers. Caddoan culture was agriculturally based. Most of their diet was based on what they could grow, and they were a fairly well-nourished group. The division of labor was not totally gender-based, as both men and women worked in the gardens. Homes were wood and plastered grass, and they were fairly comfortable and weatherproof. Their relatively stable society featured a complex governmental bureaucracy with a single hereditary main office. The Confederacies were organized for defense, with a cult of warriors not based on male bravery. They mainly used hit-and-run raids against their enemies, and dying a hero’s death was not customary; the warrior who fled with some gain was still a hero. Caddo religion was shamanistic and mostly related to healing. Because the Caddoans were fairly amiable to the Europeans, they were relatively easily destroyed—not through war, however, but The Land and Man 7 through disease. (Native groups in North America: http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/tejas/ances- tors/historic.html.)

KARANKAWAS

South of the Caddo Confederacies, along the Gulf Coast from the west side of Galveston Bay and south to Corpus Christi, lived a more hostile na- tive group known as the Karankawas. Their name meant “man-eaters,” and they were feared by the groups around them. They had a reputation as cannibals, which was probably exaggerated and was more a ritual practice than dietary need. The Karankawas were primarily hunters and gatherers and took food from the gulf waters and the nearby land. Because their food sources were seasonal, FIGURE 1.3 they lived in small, nomadic bands, following their http://www.texasindians.com/texmap1.jpg. Copyright © food sources. TexasIndians.com. Karankawa group organization was based on family relationships. They developed very little by way of tribal politics and had no recognizable “chief.” They did have an extremely strong “in-law taboo”: a man could not enter his in-laws’ dwell- ing, nor they his. The two families never spoke to each other after the wedding. This group had very little religious ceremony, and the religious leader, the shaman, was their healer. The Karankawa had a reputation for being proud and easily offended, and they were hostile and warlike toward all the groups around them. They fiercely avoided and resisted European contact; as a consequence, they got extremely bad “press.” (The Karankawas: https://tshaonline.org/handbook/ online/articles/bmk05.)

COAHUILTECANS

Native groups that competed with the Karankawas included a group, known as the Coahuiltecans, who lived in the area west of present-day San Antonio to the Del Rio area. Their culture was based on digging and grubbing for food. They were nomadic, living in temporary shelters only, and moved in small family groups. They had no single animal food source for a steady food supply, but were noted for their great physical endurance. The Coahuiltecans used tattooing as a distinguishing physical 8 DEEP IN THE HEART: A BRIEF TEXAS HISTORY

feature and practiced a religion based on belief in the supernatural. Their shamans were healers, but they also believed that foreigners could be healers too. They traveled in small groups, generally led by the best hunter in the group. Warfare with another group was usually a result of incursion into hunting areas. They made and used few tools, and work was divided between men and women. Between 1528 and 1536, shipwrecked Spanish explorer Cabeza de Vaca lived among one of these small groups, but they had very little contact with the Spanish after that time until the seventeenth century, with the building of the Texas mission system. (Cabeza de Vaca: http://www. americanjourneys.org/aj-070/summary/ http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/st-plains/peoples/coahuiltecans.html.)

TONKAWAS

North, over the Balcones Escarpment from the Edwards Plateau to the Brazos Valley, lived a slightly more advanced group called the Tonkawas. They were hunters and gathers like the Coahuiltecans, but they used dogs as beasts of burden. Their basic unit of organization was the “clan,” which served both a civil and military function. They apparently had no organized system of religion and were not physically or culturally unique enough to arouse much attention. With the coming of the Spanish mis- sions, the Tonkawas moved into them for protection from more hostile groups. They did practice ritual cannibalism, as did most of the tribes of south central Texas—a ritual stopped by the Spanish priests. The Tonkawas suffered extinction as a result of wars of attrition with Apaches, Comanches, and European settlers. (Native groups in Texas: https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/bmt68.)

APACHES

The Apaches’ arrival north of the Edwards Plateau was historically recent, compared to other na- tive groups in the area. The Spanish encountered them around 1541, and there is no archeological evidence of an earlier arrival in the area. The tribe is linked linguistically to the Athapaskans of Canada and Alaska. The Apaches raided an area that stretched from Kansas to Arizona. They pushed some tribes out and exterminated others, but they never ceased to wage war and remained raiders well into the nineteenth century. The Apache were skilled warriors and viewed everyone else as the enemy. A fairly large group of tribes, they were divided geographically into two large groups. The western tribes included the Navajo (who often do not consider themselves to be Apache), the San Carlos, the Chiricahua (who raided in the New Mexico/Arizona area), and the Mescalero. The eastern tribes were the Jicarillas (who destroyed the Puebloan culture of Texas), the Palomas (who moved into the Texas panhandle and forced other groups out), the Carlans (who exterminated the Jumanos of New Mexico), and the Lipans (who roamed the Trans-Pecos area of Texas). The Land and Man 9

The eastern Apaches were the epitome of the Plains Indian: a buffalo-hunting, warring society, but even the Apaches, on foot, could not exploit the plains to their fullest—once they got the horse, they became more formidable. Areas they did not go into were areas they did not want to go into. Socially, they were organized into democratic tribal units where everyone was equal. The leader rose to the top through brave deeds. The group was united for war and hunting. They lived by raiding the groups around them. Wives were often found by raiding, and children were often taken in raids, too. Prisoners captured in raids were frequently adopted into the tribe as well. The Apache had strict moral codes and taboos but had no mandatory punishment for breaking them. Apache religion was shamanistic, and nature and the elements figure prominently. They called themselves the Children of the Sun, and everyone else was the enemy. They feared ghostly spirits and the dead, and because night was the time of the dead, they did not fight after the sun set. The eastern Apache were subdued only through the attrition of continual warfare. A major source of that attrition was an even more warlike tribe whose name came to be synonymous with Indian in Texas: the Comanches. (Apaches: https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/bma33.)

COMANCHES

Descended from the Shoshone-Ute Indians of the northern Great Basin region, the Comanches appeared on the plains of Colorado and Kansas around 1700, and by 1750, they had moved into northern New Mexico. The name “Comanche” is from a Spanish word, Komancia, a translation of the Ute word for enemy. The Comanches called themselves “human beings.” (Comanches: http:// www.tolatsga.org/ComancheOne.html.) The buffalo was the lifeblood of the Comanche culture. Hunts were directed by the last successful hunter, and butchering took place where the animal fell. In lean times, the Comanche could learn to eat anything, but they pre- ferred meat. They traded or raided for agricultural food. In this mobile society, individuals collected very few material possessions, but warriors and hunters prized their most important tools: the bow and arrow. Social status among the Comanche was achieved through deeds. The highest status was accorded to the warrior. A boy passed into manhood after his first successful raid. (The definition of a successful raid was one that you returned from.) Old age was painful for men FIGURE 1.4 because they suffered a loss of status and prestige when Adapted from: http://www.texasbeyondhistory. net/forts/mckavett/images/comanchemap.html). they could no longer hunt or participate in raids. 10 DEEP IN THE HEART: A BRIEF TEXAS HISTORY

Conversely, old age was better for women. Once they aged past childbearing years, they were considered wise and were often consulted in council decisions. Group decisions made in councils reflected the feelings and the will of the majority. The murder of a Comanche by another Comanche was almost unheard of, and revenge was swift and final. The crime of local theft was also rare be- cause generosity was considered a virtue; you only had to ask for the item, and generally you got it. The major orientation of the society was warfare, constant warfare. Because this was so mobile a society, horses were power. Getting more horses equaled more power. A game-like aspect of Comanche warfare, “counting coups,” was to touch or strike a living enemy and survive, but it had to be witnessed by other warriors. Comanche warfare was feared by all their neighbors; generally, they struck swiftly, looted, killed, and then left. When faced with a weaker enemy, the Comanches encircled them, drawing ever closer to exhaust the opponent’s ammunition. When faced with a stronger enemy, they simply ran away and scattered the band. In their less than two hundred years on the Texas plains, the Comanches did more damage to Anglo and Hispanic settlement than all the other tribes combined. Until the demise of the buffalo herds and the increased Anglo efforts to defeat them, they truly were the “Lords of the Plains.” (Comanches: https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/bmc72.)

QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY

1. What are some of the unique features of Texas geography?

2. How did the weather of the area affect the native groups who lived in the areas now known as Texas?

3. What major groups of natives lived in Texas before contact with Europeans?

4. How did European horses change the lives of the native Texans?

Resources

Fehrenbach, T. R. Lone Star: A History of Texas and the Texans. New York: Collier Brothers, 1968.

Haley, James L. Texas: From the Frontier to Spindletop. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991.

McComb, David G. Texas: A Modern History. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1989.

Newcomb, W.W., Jr. The Indians of Texas: From Prehistoric to Modern Times. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1961. 2

The Consequences of Conquest: Texas 1500–1800

panish conquistadors had been a force in the New World for more than twenty years before they moved north from Mexico into the area now known as the American Southwest. By 1540, what had S begun with Christopher Columbus’s discovery of the Caribbean islands was taking its formal and legal form as Spain consolidated her empire with the conquest of Mexico in the north and the Incas of Peru in the south. The Spanish began their exploration efforts in 1492 with Columbus’s voyages in an attempt to compete with the Portuguese, who had been venturing out for some years before. Portugal, under Prince Henry the Navigator, became a ma- jor sea power and trading nation. By the time of Prince Henry’s death in 1460, Portugal’s influence extended nearly three thousand miles down the African coast. By the late 1480s, Henry’s heir, John II, had extended Portuguese explorations from the Congo River to the southern tip of Africa and was pressing for direct sea-trade routes to India. By the 1490s, Spain was ready to challenge Portugal’s conquests. The dynastic marriage of Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon in 1469 unified the Spanish throne and provided the military strength needed to finally drive the Moors from the

11 12 DEEP IN THE HEART: A BRIEF TEXAS HISTORY

Iberian Peninsula. The fall of Granada in 1492 ended the eight-hundred-year war known as the “Reconquista.” The same year that Granada fell, Christopher Columbus, an Italian sailor from Genoa, approached the Spanish monarchs asking for backing for a voy- age of exploration from Spain to Japan and China. Columbus had already been turned down by the Portuguese and the English. What he was propos- ing to do was sail west to reach the East. Most scientific minds of the day FIGURE 2.1 had already figured out that the world Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas, Description des Indes Occidentales. U.S. Department of the Interior, 1622. Copyright in the Public Domain. was round (Greeks knew it in the fifth century BC). Columbus’s rejections were not because of his basic plan, but because of his outrageous demands for control of the expedition and profit shares. Spain finally agreed to back Columbus, and he set sail with a flotilla of three ships late in the spring of 1492—the first of four voyages. The “New World” he found was a small island in the Bahamas, but he returned to Spain with some natives and a small amount of gold to prove his discovery, firmly convinced that he had reached Japan. His fourth and last voyage to the New World ended disastrously. He was sent home to Spain in 1504, bound in chains for trying to oust the Spanish governor. (For more on Christopher Columbus, follow this link: http://www.history.com/ topics/exploration/christopher-columbus.) Both Catholic neighboring nations were now exploring and claiming the right of dominance over lands their mariners were discovering, and it looked as if they might go to war over their conflicting claims. To settle the problems of the competing Catholic nations, the pope, Alexander VI, agreed to regulate the areas of Spanish and Portuguese exploration, and after much haggling, all parties agreed on a division of the world under the terms of the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas. The pope gave the Portuguese the area east of the meridian 360 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands. Spain got the land to the west of the line. The problem was that there was no accurate way to measure longitude, so the line got fuzzy when extended around the globe. The variance in the line accounts for the Portuguese settling Brazil and the Spanish, the Philippines. These two countries were given the papal blessing because with the conquest was supposed to come conversion. The Consequences of Conquest: Texas 1500–1800 13

More souls for the Catholic Church, and in accordance with Spanish, Portuguese, and church law, the Christianization of the Americas was to proceed in a lawful manner.

EUROPEAN COMPETITION – THE PROTESTANT EXPLORERS

Spain and Portugal may have had a head start in exploration, but England was not long in trying to catch up. Like Spain, England would begin her exploration for economic reasons, but religion would provide the push. The second major factor in English and other European exploration was the social, political, and religious upheaval caused by the Protestant Reformation. The Reformation was the result of various inequalities and abuses within the Roman Catholic hierarchy that spilled out into the secular realm and took on a life of their own. Religious reform led to political and social upheaval as the political power of the Catholic Church passed to secular leaders, and the spirit of the Reformation’s zeal left governments, as well as churches, in a state of flux. (The Protestant Reformation: http://www.history.com/topics/reformation.) Just as Spain and Portugal reached beyond their borders, sixteenth-century England needed to expand as well, and that’s hard to do on an island. By the close of Henry VIII’s reign in 1547, the British population had reached about three million and by 1600 had increased to four million. The increase in population was met with a decrease in the available land for farming and grazing because English law provided for the “enclosure” of grazing land, and this denied land to new yeoman farm- ers. The consequence was thousands of unemployed, landless farmers roaming the countryside and starving families thrown off rented land. English inheritance laws based on primogeniture left second and third sons landless, with no hope of future inheritance. The New World looked like a good place to go. England and Spain had been allies until Elizabeth I took the throne in 1558. When the Protestant queen angered Catholic Spain, the Spanish king sent an invading fleet to force England into submis- sion. Unfortunately for Spain, her “Invincible Armada” was sunk in a storm in the English Channel in 1588. In this disaster, Spain lost a considerable portion of her armed fleet, and the defeat meant that England no longer had to fear Spanish domination of the seas. In fact, English privateers were targeting the Spanish ships bringing the plunder from the New World back to Madrid. After 1588, much of the gold meant for Spain was sent to the bottom of the ocean or into the pockets of the English. However, it would be colonization, not piracy, which would challenge Spain’s hold on the New World. From 1585 (with the disastrous settlement attempt at Roanoke in Virginia) to the 1733 es- tablishment of the Georgia colony, the English presence in North America, along with the French exploration along the Mississippi, meant that Spain was losing her hold on much of the continent, 14 DEEP IN THE HEART: A BRIEF TEXAS HISTORY

but she held the territory as long as she could. (English colonization of North America: http://www. digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtid=2&psid=3574.)

THE SPANISH CONQUEST

The details of the Spanish conquest of the Americas are well documented. They fill enormous libraries in Madrid. Perhaps the best-known contact story from that conquest is about Cortez and the Aztecs of Mexico. Aztec civilization was probably at its height just before Spanish contact. They had a well- defined society that was authoritarian in nature. Known as fierce conquerors, they were feared by the surrounding tribes. However, Aztec society was flawed by harsh religious practices and superstitions as well as a lack of metal technology. These made them vulnerable to the Spanish invaders. Although the Aztecs greatly outnumbered the Spanish, they were easy to defeat because of three factors: disease; guns and armor; and horses. The most devastating of the three was disease. The native population loss was catastrophic: almost 90 percent by the start of the seventeenth century. In 1519, there was a native population of about twenty-five million, but by 1605, only slightly more than one million were left. Disease, not warfare, killed most of the native population, with smallpox, typhoid, and measles the big killers. The natives returned the favor, however, because contact introduced syphilis into Europe. Disease may have been the big killer, but the Spanish also engaged in plenty of battles as they moved to conquer South America and parts of North America. In accordance with Spanish law, each battle was preceded by the reading of a royal document conceived of in about 1514. The document, known as “El Requerimiento” (the requirement) expressed the doctrine of “just war,” and its dissemination was necessary to protect the souls of the conquistadors, who could only engage in sanctioned battles against infidels. A copy of “El Requerimiento” was to be carried by each conquistador, and it was to be read to the Indians at the beginning of each battle (interpreted, if possible, but not required). The reading of the proclamation absolved the conquistadors of the responsibility and suspicion of aggressive war, but its meaning was lost on the Indians because they did not understand the concept and, in many cases, the words spoken. Nevertheless, its reading was used as a justification for Spanish atrocities in Mexico and South America in the early years of the conquest.

SPANISH SETTLEMENT

By the 1540s and 1550s, the Spanish changed the terms of their activities. They were no longer interested in conquest—taking riches and returning home. Now they called their efforts pacification or settlement, and now they intended to stay. By the time that conquistadors like Coronado moved The Consequences of Conquest: Texas 1500–1800 15 out of Mexico to find the Seven Cities of Gold (Cibola), they hoped to establish a “Tierra Paz” and be granted an encomienda. The encomienda land-use system had been developed on the Caribbean islands as a way of ensuring a large native labor force. It was different from the slave system that developed in the English colonies, in that workers on the encomienda were more like serfs than slaves. Unlike the English, Spanish slavery laws were very specific: slavery was a punishment, not a way of life, and was not passed from parent to child. The encomienda was a royal land grant. Designated Indian families and the lands they inhabited were entrusted to the encomendero (landholder). The encomendero had the right to extract com- modity tribute and labor service from the natives on his land. He also had the duties of providing military support for the area and seeing that his natives became Christians. (Definition of the enco- mienda system http://historicaltextarchive.com/sections.php?action=read&artid=633) The encomienda system was supposed to regulate land use and provide fair treatment for the natives. Encomienda natives could not be bought, sold, or treated arbitrarily. As noted, slavery was not a condition of the system, but was reserved as a punishment for rebellious or cannibalistic tribes. Regardless of the good intentions of the Spanish Crown, the system was often abused and rules ignored. The system was originally intended for the islands of the Caribbean, and it worked fairly well there—the natives were bound by the confines of the islands. On the mainland areas, it became problematic, but the system migrated anyway. In the early period of the conquest, the Spanish priests and the encomenderos were often in conflict over the treatment of the native population, and churchmen were prohibited from becoming encomenderos. Reports from Spanish priests and historian La Casas detailing the abuse of the natives gave birth to the “Black Legend.” Reported abuses of the law prompted the Spanish king to issue “New Laws” in 1542–1543. (For more infor- mation about the New Laws and the Black Legend, see http://historicaltextarchive.com/sections. php?action=read&artid=633.) The New Laws prohibited Indian slavery as well as inheritance of the encomiendas. They fixed the legal amount and rate of tribute the natives were required to pay to the encomenderos. However, the New Laws were only partially successful: since the Spanish Crown couldn’t eliminate the enco- miendas, the laws were an attempt to control them instead. The decline of the encomienda system was not caused by the regulating power of the Crown, but rather by the decline in Indian population. As the Indian population decreased, the Spanish land control increased. No two native groups were ever capable of uniting to resist Spanish encroach- ment. By 1700, the encomienda system was abolished and the native population began to increase, but the land had been usurped by the Spanish and they would not give it back. The new land system, called the hacienda system, was seen as more benevolent. 16 DEEP IN THE HEART: A BRIEF TEXAS HISTORY

THE CONQUISTADORS AND TEXAS

However, in 1540, these changes had not yet occurred, and the encomienda system was very much a part of the conquest and a ripe reward for service to the Crown. Historian T.R. Fehrenbach attributes the success of Spanish conquistadors like Francisco Vazquez Coronado to four dominant characteristics: 1. they were ferociously courageous and bold; 2. they were rapacious for fame and gold (that is, they were greedy, acquisitive, and grasping, but not avaricious—they spent what they got); 3. they were utterly racist and never doubted Spanish superiority; and 4. they were filled with religious crusading fervor—that is, they embraced the Inquisition as a Counter-Reformation agency (uniquely Spanish as a result of the war with the Moors). The Spanish were also both mentally and physically equipped for the conquest. The land was similar in topography and climate to the Iberian Peninsula of Spain. They had armor and forged weapons, and they had the horse for military mobil- ity and food if necessary. (An English view of the conquistadors: http://www.elizabethan-era.org.uk/ spanish-conquistadors.htm.)

THE CORONADO EXPEDITION

Two events spurred the Coronado expedition in 1540. The first was Cabeza de Vaca’s return from his shipwrecked adventure on the Texas coast with fantastic tales of the region. The second was the report of Fray Marcos, who had been exploring northern and eastern Mexico at the request of Mexican Viceroy Mendoza to verify de Vaca’s stories. Both men reported the existence of the Seven Cities of Gold (Cibola) just waiting for Spanish conquest. Mendoza and Coronado invested about $4 million in the expedition and hoped to at least double their investment. (The Coronado Expedition: http://www.history.com/topics/exploration/ francisco-vazquez-de-coronado.) Coronado marched for five months before reach- ing the upper Rio Grande on July 7, 1540. Cibola proved to be a Zuni pueblo, and the Indians did not want to invite the Spanish in. After a lengthy siege, the Zunis retreated, leaving the pueblo to Coronado. He found food, but no gold. Unwilling to return to Mexico a failure, Coronado

FIGURE 2.2 divided his force and continued to explore. One http://www.nps.gov/ethnography/aah/aaheritage/ group went east through the panhandle of Texas SpanishAmB.htm, U.S. National Park Service. Copyright in the Public Domain. and across the Llano Estacado, where they met a The Consequences of Conquest: Texas 1500–1800 17 group of Caddos. They even went north and east until they reached the Wichita Indians of Kansas. The main force continued to wreak havoc on the pueblos of the Hopis as well as the Zunis. No one found Cibola. Upon his return to Mexico, Coronado was reduced in rank and power, and he was tried and jailed for “supposed offenses against the Crown.” He was acquitted but died in bitterness and relative poverty.

THE LONG PERIOD OF NEGLECT – THE FRENCH AND SPANISH IN TEXAS

Spain would ignore the Texas and New Mexican borderlands for almost 150 years. Then, in 1598, there was an attempt to settle north of Mexico in the Santa Fe, New Mexico area. Spanish priests established missions in the area, but they were destroyed in a native revolt in 1680. Ten years later, in 1690, Spanish General Diego de Vargas attempted a reconquest of New Mexico. (The Reconquest of New Mexico: http://www.nmgs.org/artcuar3.htm.) His attempts to resettle the area were met with native resistance, and the fighting continued until the turn of the eighteenth century. The Spanish settlement efforts challenged the lifestyle of the native tribes, but the most im- portant change during this era was the introduction of the horse into the area. Between 1600 and1650, the Spanish’s entire body of horse knowledge was transmitted to the Apache tribes. By 1659, increased Apache raids (solely to steal horses) threatened the stability of Spanish settle- ments in New Mexico and the panhandle of Texas. By 1750, tribes as far away as Canada, includ- ing the Comanches, had the horse, and Comanche raiders were far worse than the Apaches. (Native Americans and the horse: http://www.equitours.com/views-from-the-saddle/article/ the-horse-and-native-american-culture/

THE LA SALLE EXPEDITION

Spain did not move back into Texas because of the Apaches or the Comanches, but because of the French. In 1682, French explorer Rene Robert Cavalier de la Salle navigated the Mississippi from the Ohio River to the Gulf of Mexico, claiming the territory for France. (LaSalle Expeditions: http:// www.historymuseum.ca/virtual-museum-of-new-france/the-explorers/rene-robert-cavelier-de-la- salle-1670-1687/.) La Salle was supposed to be searching for the mouth of the Mississippi but made landfall well to the west of the river, somewhere near present-day Houston, Texas. In April of 1682, as his group began to explore the area, they met a group of Caddos. The encounter was fairly friendly, and both sides lived to tell about it. La Salle returned to France in 1683 and petitioned the French king for more money for further expeditions. The French king gave him four ships, four hundred men (one hundred were soldiers) with families, and a number of single women to found a French colony. With his new supplies and 18 DEEP IN THE HEART: A BRIEF TEXAS HISTORY

settlers, La Salle set sail back to the new land he had claimed for France. Unfortunately for La Salle, he had to share command with Sieu de Beaujeu (the sea commander). Both men were proud and jealous of each other, and they were constantly arguing. La Salle left France on July 24, 1684 but had continuous trouble at sea. When the French ships finally reached the Caribbean, Commander Beaujeu landed on the “wrong” side of Santo Domingo, and the Spanish were alerted to the French presence. The ships were stalled at the island for some time as many in the company (including LaSalle) fell ill, and by the time he recovered, it was November. He continued the expedition without Beaujeu and his men. With the much-reduced presence, he sailed into the Spanish-controlled Gulf of Mexico and began to search for the mouth of the Mississippi River, but he could not find it. He had noted the latitude, but not the longitude, on his previous voyage. La Salle sailed farther west along the Texas coast, and on January 6, 1685, he reached Galveston Bay. He continued west to the Corpus Christi area. He knew that he was too far west but persisted in wandering around the Gulf Coast anyway. Finally, he went ashore near Matagorda Island in Matagorda Bay and declared that they were in the right place. He ordered his colonists to begin building, but it was a poor site for a settlement, with bad food prospects, brackish water, and hostile Indians. (La Salle settlement: http://www.thc.state.tx.us/preserve/archeology/ la-salle-archeology-projects.) The Karankawas harassed the French colonists until they moved inland and erected an enclosed encampment they called Fort St. Louis. Things were still not going well, and LaSalle decided to try to find other French settlements to get help. On October 31, 1685, he took fifty men and headed for the Mississippi River settlements over land. He could not find any French settlements, so he returned to Fort St. Louis to find that many of the soldiers he left behind had deserted, and the conditions in the colony were desperate. LaSalle left again to find help on January 12, 1687, but this time he and several members of his party were murdered by some of his soldiers and buried somewhere in the East Texas area. Seven soldiers and a young lieutenant named Henri Joutel escaped from the mutineers and finally made it to a French settlement in Illinois, but a rescue party failed to find any sign of the French fort. Early in 1688, a ragged Frenchman staggered into a Spanish presidio in northern Mexico. Now the Spanish knew for sure that the French were in their territory. In April of 1689, a Spanish force led by Don Alfonso de León found what was left of Fort St. Louis and evidence of a Karankawa massacre. He destroyed what was left and returned to Mexico, but in 1690, de León came back to Texas with a larger party and established a mission (the Mission San Francisco de Los Texas) on the Trinity River. The mission failed, partly because the natives did not want to be converted and partly because the Spanish soldiers behaved badly. In 1692, the French The Consequences of Conquest: Texas 1500–1800 19 left the area, and the Spanish withdrew, too. From 1693 to 1713, Texas was generally inhabited only by native tribes.

ATTEMPTS AT MISSION BUILDING

Despite the failure in East Texas, Spanish mission building continued in far-west Texas. In 1699, they built the Mission San Juan Bauptista on the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass. At the same time, the French started building along the Gulf Coast area, founding Biloxi in 1699, Mobile in 1703, and New Orleans in 1712. French Governor Cadillac tried to set up trade with Indians in the Spanish-settled areas of East Texas, with mixed results. In 1713, Cadillac sent Louis Jucherau de St. Denis to establish trade with the Spanish and anyone else he could find. St. Denis wintered near present-day Natchitoches, Louisiana, and in the spring of 1714 moved on toward the Rio Grande. He traded and explored along the way and finally arrived at Presidio San Juan Bauptista, where he was arrested as a French spy. Legend and history recorded that St. Denis fell in love with the commander’s daughter, but he was sent under guard to Mexico City for questioning. He talked his way out of jail and even tried to get the Spanish to hire him to lead them back through their own territory. (History of St. Denis: https://tshaonline.org/handbook/ online/articles/fst01.) Because of the French presence, the Spanish viceroy ordered the reestablishment of the East Texas missions. Spanish priests were to build four missions, and this time, they were to allow only married soldiers and their families to live near them. On September 30, 1715, Domingo Ramon led a Spanish force back to Texas, accompanied by a new Spanish citizen, St. Denis. The East Texas missions were built, but major problems plagued them from the start. They were too far away from Mexico to be adequately supplied and too close to French settlements to be protected. Then, in 1718, Mission San Antonio de Valera (the city of San Antonio today) was established as a “halfway point” for the Spanish. (The San Antonio missions: http://www.lsjunction.com/facts/missions.htm.) On January 9, 1719, France declared war on Spain, and St. Denis had to leave Spanish territory FIGURE 2.3 in a hurry. He lived out his life in Louisiana and died http://tpwd.texas.gov/education/resources/keep-texas-wild/ vaqueros-and-cowboys/images-1/Spanish_Missions_in_Texas. a wealthy old man, having long served as the mayor jpg/view. Copyright © 2014 by Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. 20 DEEP IN THE HEART: A BRIEF TEXAS HISTORY

of Natchitoches, Louisiana. In June 1719, a French corporal, M. Blondel, and seven soldiers ap- proached Mission San Miguel de Los Adaes and ordered the garrison of the nearby fort to surrender. The Spanish soldiers did not yet know about the war, but since there were only two Spanish soldiers in the garrison, they gave up the fort without a fight. While the French were confiscating the Spanish supplies, some of the chickens escaped and frightened the horses. Blondel fell off his horse, and in the confusion, one of the priests escaped and ran to the neighboring Mission Concepcion (Conception Mission) to sound the alarm. The frightened friars abandoned their missions and retreated to San Antonio. The episode was later referred to as the “Chicken War,” but it was not funny at the time. The Spanish viceroy ordered more soldiers and settlers back into Texas, and this time he meant for them to stay. However, settlement was always precarious, with never enough supplies or troops for defense, and the area did not attract many settlers, so in 1731, the Spanish Crown recruited immigrants from the Canary Islands to settle in San Antonio. (The Canary Islanders: http://bexargenealogy.com/islanders.html.) Mission building in Texas did not go as well as it had in California. From 1731 to 1745, conflicts regularly arose between the missions and civilian settlements. The military wanted to subdue Indians by force, while the missionaries wanted to convert them with gentleness and good example. The behavior of the military provided the wrong example, and quarrels between priests and soldiers sent mixed messages to Indians. Added to the confusion were the colonists (who considered Indians to be a source of free labor) and the natives themselves, who had views of religion and lifestyle different from the European model and often resisted moving into the missions in the first place. Even though the Texas missions were not as successful as those in California, the system would produce a mission that would become a lasting shrine in Texas history and recognizable throughout the world: the Alamo. (Spanish missions in Texas: https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/its02.) Spain decided to pay attention to Texas when it was almost too late. Several wars in Europe im- pacted all of the major European nations as well as their colonies in the New World. The Continental and Colonial Wars (from 1688 to 1763) were major contributors to events in both the English and Spanish colonies in North America. The 1688 “Glorious Revolution” in England led to conflicts between England, France, and Spain, and from 1688 to 1763, there were four wars in Europe that spilled over into the colonies:

King William’s War (War of the League of Augsburg) — 1688 Queen Anne’s War (War of the Spanish Succession) — 1713 War of the Austrian Succession — 1741–1748 Seven Year’s War (French and Indian War) — 1754–63 The Consequences of Conquest: Texas 1500–1800 21

The winners were decided in Europe, and Spain and France lost a great deal of territory. In 1713, the Treaty of Utrecht gave England French Canadian territory in Acadia (now Nova Scotia) and the Hudson’s Bay area, along with trading rights with Spanish colonies in the Americas. The 1740 “War of Jenkins’s Ear,” a miniwar, was fought in the Caribbean and Georgia between the English and Spanish. In the next year, 1741, the War of the Austrian Succession began in Europe. Once again, colo- nials fought in North America. Militia from New England invaded Canada and captured Louisburg, Newfoundland, but the peace treaty gave it back to the French in 1748, and France hung on to most of Canada until 1763. (European competition for North America: http://nationalhumanitiescenter. org/pds/becomingamer/american/text1/europeancompetition.pdf.) England would lose its colonies in the American Revolution of 1776–1781, and with the formation of a new nation, Spain had to be wary of a new player on the continent. Spain tried to protect its major colonies throughout all the conflicts and managed quite nicely until the 1820s.

QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY

1. Did the conquistadors adapt to conditions in New Spain?

2. Why was Spain unsuccessful in settling and controlling Texas?

3. How did events in Europe affect settlement in Texas?

4. How did the mission system in Texas contribute to its settlement?

5. How did wars in Europe affect events in colonial North America?

Resources

Chipman, Donald E. Spanish Texas, 1519–1821. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1992.

Fehrenbach, T.R. Lone Star: A History of Texas and the Texans. New York: Collier Books, 1968.

Gibson, Charles. Spain in America. New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1966.

Meinig, D.W. Imperial Texas: an Interpretive Essay in Cultural Geography. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1966.