RISING TIDE OF EMPIRE: GULF COAST CULTURE AND SOCIETY DURING THE ERA OF EXPANSION, 1845-1860 By MARIA ANGELA DIAZ A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2013 1 © 2013 Maria Angela Diaz 2 For my family 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Many people and institutions helped me throughout my time researching and writing this dissertation. First, I would like to thank my parents Joe M. Diaz and Francisca Diaz, my brother, Joe Anthony Diaz, and my entire family for their encouragement and help. Without their unwavering belief in my abilities this would not have been possible. I love them all more than I can say. My dear friend, Autumn L. Hanna, read many drafts and was one of my loudest cheerleaders. She made me laugh when I really needed it. I would also like to thank Allison Fredette, Andrea Ferreira, Aurélia Aubert, Jennifer Lyon, Matthew Hall, Scott Huffard, and James Broomall for their helpful suggestions and careful readings of various stages of this work. Peter Carmichael and Watson Jennison were two of my favorite professors at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and they both played a crucial part in helping me to realize my goal of obtaining my Ph.D. I thank them for this every single day. I would like to thank my advisors, William A. Link and J. Matthew Gallman, for their guidance, patience, and kindness. Bill Link answered every question and every late-night email with thoughtful suggestions. His generosity as a mentor is extraordinary, and I hope to be as good a mentor to my future students as he was to me. Matt Gallman pushed me to think more creatively about my work and our many discussions led me to consider this dissertation in new and different ways. It would not be the study it is today without his help. Both of these amazing historians have taught me what it means to be a scholar. I would like to thank my committee, Sean Adams, Leah Rosenberg, and Paul Ortiz, for their thoughtful critiques and questions. I am indebted to the archivists at the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas, the Southern Historical Collection, the Howard-Tilton Memorial Library, the Hill Memorial Library, the 4 Galveston and Texas History Research Center, and the Historic New Orleans Collection. 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................. 4 LIST OF FIGURES .......................................................................................................... 8 ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................... 9 CHAPTER 1 THE VALUE OF THE GULF OF MEXICO .............................................................. 11 2 THE MOCKINGBIRD’S WILD SONG: TEXAS ANNEXATION AND THE IMAGINED GULF SOUTH IN 1845 ........................................................................ 27 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 27 Imagining Texas and Imagining Expansion ............................................................ 34 The Most Fertile Coast in 1845 ............................................................................... 56 Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 63 3 THE GHOST OF SANTA ANNA: U.S.-MEXICAN WAR RHETORIC AND REALITY ................................................................................................................. 66 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 66 Creating a Martial Rhetoric ..................................................................................... 70 The Return of Santa Anna ...................................................................................... 81 The Brothers’ War Experiences .............................................................................. 90 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 100 4 UNPROTECTED TREASURE: NAVAL DEFENSES AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF PENSACOLA .................................................................................................. 103 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 103 Pensacola- A Bird’s Eye View ............................................................................... 109 Defending the Coast and Improving the Bay ........................................................ 115 Patrolling the Gulf and Protecting the Borders ...................................................... 129 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 140 5 SETTLERS, LAND, AND SLAVES: GALVESTON AND THE TAMING OF THE TEXAS BORDERLANDS ...................................................................................... 143 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 143 Galveston in 1850 ................................................................................................. 147 Connecting to the Settlers and Selling the Slaves ................................................ 154 Policing the Borders and Dominating the Others .................................................. 169 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 177 6 6 FILIBUSTER FORAYS: THE CUBAN FILIBUSTERING EXPEDITIONS AND RACIAL RHETHORIC IN NEW ORLEANS ........................................................... 180 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 180 New Orleans and Its Creoles ................................................................................ 186 Struggles Between Cuban Creoles and Spain Come to New Orleans .................. 196 The Expeditions Take Shape ................................................................................ 200 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 222 7 “ALL AROUND US AND APPROACHING NEARER”: THE LANGUAGE OF EXPANSION AND SECESSION IN THE ANTEBELLUM GULF COAST ............. 225 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 225 Cuba, Europe, and Past and Present Fears ......................................................... 228 Rejecting the Filibusters ........................................................................................ 237 The State of the Border ......................................................................................... 242 The Gulf South Chooses....................................................................................... 248 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 255 8 THE VIEW FROM THE GULF OF MEXICO ......................................................... 259 BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................................................................... 267 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH .......................................................................................... 292 7 LIST OF FIGURES Figure page 3-1 Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna ............................................................................ 81 4-1 Chart of the Bay and Harbour of Pensacola, 1780. .......................................... 109 5-1 Galveston Bay, 1860. ....................................................................................... 147 8 Abstract of Dissertation Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy RISING TIDE OF EMPIRE: GULF COAST CULTURE AND SOCIETY DURING THE ERA OF EXPANSION, 1845-1860 By Maria Angela Diaz August 2013 Chair: William A. Link Cochair: J. Matthew Gallman Major: History The dissertation explores territorial expansion, its impact on port communities within the American Gulf Coast, and the region’s connections to Latin America during the antebellum period. I argue that an expansionist discourse was compiled of images of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, oppressed Cuban Creoles, and threats to the economic security of the Gulf of Mexico. Southerners living within the Gulf of Mexico used this language to capitalize on the nation’s bid for territorial gains in Latin America and attempted to expand their Southern slave society into Texas, Mexico, and Cuba. This work draws attention to the Gulf South’s transnational connections. Many historians have shed light on the importance of the Gulf of Mexico’s ports to the Atlantic World, yet the Gulf ports also played central roles as sites of social and economic connection for other parts of the Americas as well. This dissertation posits that the Gulf South served as a major site of connection for the Atlantic World, Latin America, the U.S. South, and the U.S.-Mexico borderlands during the antebellum period. An examination of this region during the period of U.S. territorial expansion serves to unite the complex histories