Sons of the Republic of Texas

Description

The Sons of the Republic of Texas tells the story of the Republic of Texas beginning with its birth on April 21, 1836. Includes a brief history of the Sons of the Republic of Texas from 1893 to the present. The text is complemented by over 100 pages of family and ancestral biographies of members of the Sons of the Republic of Texas past and present. Indexed

Sujets

• Histoire
• History of Texas
• Republic of Texas
• History

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 15 décembre 2001
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781681622316
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Turner Publishing Company
Publishers of America s History
P.O. Box 3101
Paducah, Kentucky 42002-3101
Co-published by
Mark A. Thompson, Associate Publisher
Pre-Press work by M.T. Publishing Company, Inc.
Graphic Designers: Elizabeth A. Dennis and John L. Mathias
Copyright 2001
Sons of the Republic of Texas
This book or any part thereof may not be reproduced without the written consent of the Sons of the Republic of Texas and the Publishers.
The materials were compiled and produced using available information; Turner Publishing Company, M.T. Publishing Company, Inc., and the Sons of the Republic of Texas regret they cannot assume liability for errors or omissions.
Library of Congress
Control Number 00-134402
ISBN: 978-1-56311-603-2
Contents

Sons of the Republic of Texas History
The Republic of Texas
The Sons Of The Republic Of Texas
Knights Of The Order Of San Jacinto
Sons of the Republic of Texas Biographies
Index
Publisher s Note
It is with great pleasure that we introduce this new volume on The Sons of the Republic of Texas, and we hope all will enjoy our newest title that chronicles the history of this organization and the settlement of what is now the State of Texas.
We extend our gratitude to The Sons of the Republic of Texas for their cooperation in producing this book. Special thanks to O. Scott Dunbar, KSJ for his assistance in getting this publication underway. Also we wish to thank Melinda Williams for her assistance in seeing this project through to its completion.
Finally, we are indeted to hundreds of The Sons of the Republic of Texas members who took the time to submit their biographies for inclusion in this historic book.
Dave Turner, President
Mark A. Thompson, Associate Publisher
Sons of the Republic of Texas History

The Republic of Texas
Joe E. Ericson, KSJ
Texas historians frequently assert that the Republic of Texas was born April 21, 1836 as a consequence of the Texian s victory at the Battle of San Jacinto. More than three hundred years of European penetration and settlement, however, along with over a century of Spanish and Mexican rule preceded that decisive event in the history of Texas.
From 1519 when Alverez de Pineda spent forty days at the mouth of the Rio Grande until 1659 when the Spanish began founding missions along the Rio Bravo (Rio Grande), explorers such as Cabeza de Vaca, Francisco de Coronado, and Hernando de Soto traversed the region now know as Texas, and the Spanish perfected their claim to the area. These early adventurers sought new lands for their king, a strait linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, caches of precious metal and gems to enrich themselves and their king, and prestige for the Spanish crown.
After 1680 they were followed by a series of missionary expeditions aimed at Christianizing the native inhabitants of the region who had lived there for centuries. Early efforts such as the founding of Corpus Christi de la Isleta (1680), San Francisco de los Tejas (1690), and Nuestra Padre San Franscisco de los Tejas (1716) failed as a result of neglect by vice regal authorities and the growing hostility of Indians themselves.
After a lapse of some fifty years, in 1756, the Spanish launched a general program of expansion of effort in Texas prompted by a combination of external and internal forces. Learning in 1687 of Robert Cavalier, Sieur de la Salle s activities in and along the Texas coast, the foundation of New Orleans in 1718 by Jean Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, and the creation of a French trading post at Natchitoches in northern Louisiana in 1713-1714 by Louis Juchereau de St. Denis alerted the Spanish authorities to the threat of French encroachment from their possessions east of Texas.
Increasing Indian hostility in the early years of the Eighteenth Century demonstrated the necessity of presidios (forts garrisoned with professional soldiers) and permanent settlements to guarantee successful Spanish missionary efforts. By 1716 six new missions were founded, five of them extending along a line from the Neches River to Los Adaes. Presidios were established on the Neches and by 1718 at San Antonio de Bexar on the San Antonio River. As late as 1769, virtually all of Spain s efforts at expansion in Texas had ended in failure.
Moreover, as an outgrowth of the Seven Years War (1756-1763), Spain acquired possession of Louisiana, placing the more aggressive Anglo-Americans on her northeast border rather than the less enterprising French. Along with other external threats to and increasing internal troubles within, this situation prompted the Spanish crown to adopt new policies for its Texas colony. After 1769, all missions and presidios except San Antonio and La Bahia (Goliad) were to be abandoned; settlers from eastern portions of the colony were ordered to remove to San Antonio de Bexar to strengthen its defense; and new Indian policies that called for extermination of the Apaches in Texas.
In the summer of 1773, more than 500 Spanish settlers in eastern Texas, including those at Los Ais, Los Adaes, and Nacogdoches, were forced to leave their homes and proceed westward to San Antonio. The following year, a group of them under the leadership of Antonio Gil Y Barbo were allowed to leave and establish a pueblo at Bucareli on the Trinity River. A combination of floods and Indian raids caused these colonists to abandon Bucareli in 1779 and move eastward to Nacogdoches.
Conditions in Texas remained reasonably stable thereafter until 1800 when Napoleon Bonaparte persuaded the Spanish monarch to return Louisiana to French control. Three years later, the French emperor antagonized the Spanish and presented them with a new and more serious external threat by selling Louisiana to the United States. Texas was once again on the border sharing a boundary with the land-hungry Anglo-Americans east of the Sabine River.
Spanish authorities then adopted the new policies aimed at preserving their sovereignty over Texas. Garrisons were increased in number and in manpower; loyal Spanish citizens were encouraged to colonize the region; and the boundaries of Texas were closed to Anglo-American intruders.
Spanish attempts to close her western borders to Anglo-American settlement coupled with the urge for westward expansion among those Americans brought on a series of filibustering expeditions between 1800 and 1821. The Philip Nolan expedition of 1800-1801, the Gutierrez-McGee expedition of 1812-1813, and the James Long expedition of 1819-1821 were effectively suppressed, and the successful Mexican Revolution of 1821 brought to an end this flurry of filibustering activity.
On the eve of Mexican independence after approximately three hundred years of Spanish rule, there were only three small settlements in Texas: San Antonio with some 2,500 inhabitants, including its garrison troops; La Bahia (Goliad) with 618 inhabitants, including garrison forces; and Nacogdoches with 660 inhabitants. This, then, was the Texas the new Mexican government had inherited.
In an attempt to induce settlers to immigrate, as early as 1806 the Spanish had offered inducements to persons in Louisiana to cross the Sabine River into their Texas colony. Potential settlers from Louisiana provided they were Catholic and were not Africans or mulattoes were encouraged to settle along the banks of the Guadalupe River, at San Antonio, or at La Bahia, but not at Nacogdoches where they would be a source of trouble involving those who remained in Louisiana. By 1809, however, this permission was withdrawn and the door to foreign immigrants again closed.
Despite Spanish attempts to forestall foreign immigration, from 1803 to 1821, scores - perhaps hundreds - of persons, some Spanish subjects, others not, crossed back and forth freely from Louisiana into Texas. Most ultimately returned to Louisiana but many remained in Texas around Nacogdoches and San Augustine in eastern Texas, while others stayed around San Antonio and along the Guadalupe River in central parts of the territory.
After 1821, the Mexican government feeling that it was absolutely necessary to populate the province took the bold and ultimately fatal experiment of permitting, even encouraging, foreign immigration in Texas. Thus, in 1823, a federal colonization law confirmed an application by Stephen F. Austin for an empresario s contract, a contract originally negotiated by his father Moses Austin. This, Austin s first contract, authorized him to settle 300 families. All such immigrants were required to profess the Roman Catholic religion and furnish satisfactory evidence of their morality and good habits.
Immigrant families who qualified could claim one league (4,428 acres) and one labor (177 acres) of land. Austin s early colonists generally selected the rich bottom lands along the Brazos and Colorado Rivers, but some settled over the entire territory between the San Jacinto and Lavaca Rivers and between the Gulf of Mexico and the San Antonio to Nacogdoches road (El Camino Real). By 1831 the colony numbered 5,665 persons, probably including slaves since they were not separately enumerated.
To encourage immigration, in 1824 the details of colonization were passed down to the states of the Mexican federation. The Mexican Federal Constitution (1824) having consolidated the provinces of Coahuila and Texas as one of the new states of that union thus delegated the responsibility for further colonization in Texas to its legislature. A state colonization law was enacted in 1825 at Saltillo. The new law required prospective settlers to furnish satisfactory evidence of their Catholic beliefs, their morality, and their good habits. They were then permitted to settle as individual families or groups of families recruited by an empresario. Families were granted a league of land which they were required to cultivate or occupy within six years. Empresarios were rewarded with as much as five leagues for each hundred