East Texas Historical Journal Volume 38 Issue 2 Article 1 10-2000 ETHJ Vol-38 No-2 Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/ethj Part of the United States History Commons Tell us how this article helped you. Recommended Citation (2000) "ETHJ Vol-38 No-2," East Texas Historical Journal: Vol. 38 : Iss. 2 , Article 1. Available at: https://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/ethj/vol38/iss2/1 This Full Issue is brought to you for free and open access by the History at SFA ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in East Texas Historical Journal by an authorized editor of SFA ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. VOLUME XXXVIII 2000 NUMBER 2 EAST TEXAS HISTORICALASSOCIATION 1999-2000 OFFICERS Donald Willett President Linda S. Hudson First Vice President Kenneth E. Hendrickson, Jr Second Vice President Portia L. Gordon Secretary·Treasurer DIRECTORS Clayton Brown Fort Worth 2000 Ty Cashion Huntsville 2000 JoAnn Stiles Beaumont 2000 Janet G. Brantley Fouke, AR 2001 Kenneth Durham Longview 200I Theresa McGinley Houston 2001 Willie Earl Tindall San'Augustine 2002 Donald Walker Lubbock 2002 Cary Wintz Houston 2002 James V. Reese Nacogdoches ex-President Patricia Kell Baytown ex-President EDITORIAL BOARD Valentine J. Belfiglio Garland Bob Bowman Lufldn Gama L. Christian Houston Ouida Dean Nacogdoches Patricia A. Gajda Tyler Robert W. Glover Aint Bobby H. Johnson Nacogdoches Patricia Kell BaylowD Max S. Lale Fort Worth Irvin M. May, Jr Bryan Chuck Parsons Luling Fred Tarpley Commerce Archie P. McDonald EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AND EDITOR MEMBERSHIP INSTITUTIONAL MEMBERS pay $100 annually LIFE MEMBERS pay $300 or more BENEFACTOR pays $100, PATRON pays $50 annually STUDENT MEMBERS pay $12 annually FAMILY MEMBERS pay $35 annually REGULAR MEM:BERS pay $25 annually Journals $7.50 per copy P.O. Box 6223 Stephen F. Austin State University Nacogdoches, TX 75962 936-468-2407 e-mail: [email protected] http://www.libarts.sfasll.edulETIIA.html © Copyright 2000 XXXVIII - No. 2 - East Texas Historical Association EAST TEXAS HISTORICAL JOURNAL Volume XXXVIII 2000 NUMBER 2 CONTENTS FUGITIVES FROM SERVITUDE: American Deserters and Runaway Slaves in Spanish Nacogdoches, ] 803-] 808 hy Lance R. Blyth 3 NICHOLAS TRAM\1ELL'S DIFFiCULTIES IN MEXICAN TEXAS by Jack Jackson 15 CANDID COLUMNS: Life as Revealed in Antebellum Newspaper Advertising in Northeast Texas h.-v Roger W. Rodgers .40 THE EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF THE HISPANIC COMMUNITY IN FORT WORTH AND TARRA.l\l"T COUNTY, TEXAS, 1849-1949 by Kenneth N. Hopkins 54 THAT OLD STEER: As Told by Buster Moore by Curtis Tunnell 68 BOOK NOTES 72 by Archie P. McDonald BOOK REVIEWS 78 Archie P. McDonald, Executive Director and Editor STEPHEN F. AUSTIN STATE UNIVERSITY P.O. BOX 6223 NACOGDOCHES, TEXAS 75962 936-468-2407 email: [email protected] http://www.libarts.sfasu.eduIETHA.html 2 EAST TEXAS HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION BOOKS REVIEWED Pavie, Tales of the Sabine Borderlands: Early Louisiana and Texas Fiction by EE. Abernethy Weddle. Wilderness Manhullt: The Spanish Search for I..<l Salle by Light Townsend Cummins Sheridan. Empire ofSand: The Sai indians and the Strugglefor Spanish Sonora, 1645-1fW3 by Daniel J. Gelo Dcsccndant~, Austin :\' Old Three Hundred: lhe First Anglo Colony in Texas by Carolyn Reeves Ericson White. 1830 Citizens ofTexas: A Genea[oKY qj"Anglo-American and Mexicall Citizens Taken from Census and Other Records by Carolyn Reeves Ericson Huffines, Blood qf Noble Men-The Alamo: Siege & Battle, An Illustrated Chronology by Kevin R. Young Lowe. A Texas Cavalry Officer\- Civil War: The Diary and Letters ojJames C. Bates by James W. Pohl Franccll, Fort Lancaster by John W. Crain Bixel, Sailing Ship Elissa by .To Ann Stiles Bricker. Wooden Ships From Texas: A World War I Saga by Jo Ann Stiles Young, Tracks to the Sea: Galveston and Western Railroad DeveLopment, 1806-1900 by Jim King Max well. Whistle in the Piney Woods: Paul Bremond and the Houston. East an.d West Texas Railway hy James E. Fickle Lancaster. The Bagb)'s ofBrazil: the Life and Work qfWilliam Buck Baghy andi1nne Luther Baghy by Gwin Morris Atamaniz, Knight Without Armor: C'arlos Eduardo Ca.I'wfieda, 1896-1958 by Amoldo DeLeon de la Teja, Wilderness Mission: Preliminary Studies ofthe Texas Catholic Historical Society II by Jack Jackson Machann, Czech-Americans in Transition by Kregg M. Fehr McElhaney, Pauline Periwinkle and Progressive Rejonn in Dallas by Janet G. Brantley Enstam. Women and the Creation of Urban Life: Dallas, Texas, 1843-1920 by Janet G. Brantley Morgan. Old Friends: Great Texas Courthouses by Dan K Utley Culbertson, Texas Houses Built by the Book: The Use of Published Designs 1850-1925 by Jim Steely Kellar, Make llaste Slowly: Moderates, Conservatives, and School Desegregation in Houston by Cary D. Wintz Harris. Featltres and Fille.rs: Texas .Iourna!i.\·ts on Texa~ Folklore by Bob Bowman Jones. Billy Rose Pre5ems... Casa Manuna by Cissy Stewart Lale Miller, Sam Bas.l· & Gang by Bill O'Neal Butler, Oklahoma Rene!{ades: Their Deeds and Misdeed~ by James Smallwood Arnold. Gamblers & Gan/?sters: Fort Worth sJackshnro Highway in thi' 19405 & 195005 by Clayton Brown Mason. Martha Mitchell ofPossum Walk Road: Texas Qlliltmaker by Patricia Kell Olasky, The American Leadership Tradition: Moral Vision from Wi:18hinglOn to Clinton by Irvin M. May Jr. Porter. Letters 10 Lithopolis: From O. Henry to Mahel Wagnalls by Sarah Jackson Peterson. Storyville, USA by Fred Tarpley 0 ~~~yy -. T EAST TEXAS HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION ~ 3A ~ UG 2000 FUGITIV~S FROM SERVITUDE: ~ REC'O AMERlCAN DESERTERS AND RUNAWAY SLA i.J'l Ralph Vi \:f~!ln IJb 'vle.., • fc IN SPANISH NACOGDOCHES, 1803-1808 c;i~ SFASU ~I by Lance R. Blyth ~Oc?618l L\~\ Before the antebellum South, there was another South, the area of the ea..,lern Spanish Borderlands. From 1783 to 1795 Spain claimed much of present-day Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Florida. Spanish governors and commanders made brilliant but unsuccessful improvisations to maintain claims to the area. In 1795 Spain gave up her claims to the Ohio Valley and the Natchez district to the United States. Spain's retreat from the South was just beginning. In 1803, after convoluted diplomatic dealings, the United States purchased Louisiana from France, which hadjust recovered it from Spain. I The eastern Spanish Borderlands, less parts of the Gulf Coast and Florida, became the Anglo-American Old Southwest. In studies of this area, little notice is given to the Spanish story.2 Attempts to tell any story from the Spanish Borderlands must first deal with two barriers. One is the national tale of the seemingly irreversible Anglo­ American advance across the North American continent. Another "is the old 'Black Legend' of Spanish cruelty deeply imbedded in the mentality of the English-speaking world.'" This paper will present the actions of army deserters and runaway slave& to show that not everything went the Anglo-American's way all the time. The experiences ofthese two groups also show a humanitarian and inclusive side of Spanish frontier society not often realized. Deserting soldiers and runaway ~laves have neither been studied extensively nor together. The successful acts of desertion or running away left little evidence except reports or notices. No moral comparison can be made between soldiers and slaves. yet both their status's deprived them of many. if not all, rights before the law. Resistance to the demands of servitude often led them to flee. Further, in early American Louisiana, sIaveowners linked soldiers and slaves. Soldiers provided a "psychological function" for slaveowners, who believed soldiers a deterrent to the ever-present fear of a slave insurrcction.4 So when deserters and runaways both fled to Spanish territory, it was a cause for concern for sIaveowners. Also troublesome would have been the general inclusiveness of Spanish society on the northern frontier. Northern New Spain possessed a heterogeneous population composed of Europeans. Native Americans, and Africans. In particular, Texas was a racial melting pot by the end of the eighteenth century. Foreign settlers always had entered Texas, although officially forbidden to do so by law. The inhabitants of Spanish Texas did not take such royal prohibitions too seriously. Foreigners often were cla..'isified as "Spaniards" (espanoles) from their country of origin, such as a "Spaniard from France." Spanish frontier society offered social and ethnic mobility and a place for both deserters and mnaways from Louisiana.5 In December 1803, General James Wilkinson led the United States' military occupation of Louisiana with 300 regular soldiers and 200 Tennessee militiamen. The new governor, William C.C. Claiborne, wanted such a large force in case the mulatto and slave populations used the transfer to stage an Lance R. Blyth is a graduate sttldellt at Northern Arizona University, FlagwlIff, ArizufUJ. 4 EAST TEXAS HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION insurrection. The insurrection did not occur and Wilkinson and Claiborne completed the transfer of New Orleans on the twentieth of December. Not until April 26. 1804, did Captain Edward D. Turner, First United States Infantry, occupy Natchitoches on the new U.S.-Spanish frontier. American deserters had crossed the frontier months ahead of him. Spanish officials in Texas now encountered American deserters and runaway slaves at their frontier post of Nacogdoches.6 Nacogdoches was the eastern entrance to Spanish Texas. At the time it was a settlement of almost 200 families with a total population of over 800. Given its place on the trade and contraband route, most immigrants to Texas from Louisiana preferred to stay in Nacogdoches. Nacogdoches was also an important military post. As early as 1795 Spain positioned a military detachment in Nacogdoches to prevent foreigners from entering Texas, and its importance grew following the occupation of Louisiana by the United States.