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Revised 1-29-2003

TEXAS

    Texas includes some of the most inhospitable land in the union.  The Llano Estacado, or staked plains, stretches across the panhandle of Texas to the north.  The Indians rarely went onto these barren plains and it is said the explorers of the early Spanish expedition had to lay stakes along their path to make sure they could find their way back--hence the name "staked" plains.  

    The first white men to arrive in this area came here by accident.  The group, under the leadership of Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, were shipwrecked off the Texas Gulf Coast in 1528.   All but four succumbed to starvation or Indian attack.  They traveled half-naked for eight years across the Southwest, working as bearers for various Indian Tribes and through this experience, using their knowledge of Western medicine and astronomy to act as shamans.  By the time they reached Mexico, they had attracted thousands of worshippers who sought to gain favor from the "children of the sun".  

    Fortune tellers followed these men into Texas hoping to find gold and pass through the area unharmed.  Later, Spanish priests began to follow the fortune hunters into the costal plains hoping to garner converts along the way.  The Caddo Indians were unimpressed and several failures occurred.  A mission was established in Ysleta near El Paso in 1682.  Finally, in 1716, at Nacogdoches the Spanish finally managed to establish a stable mission.  In 1718, this was increased to include a mission at San Antonio and in 1749, Goliad was added to the list. 

    Stephen F. Austin and company arrived in Texas in 1821.  They were there at the invitation of the Mexican government, which had just won their independence from Spain and wanted to encourage settlement of the wilderness area.  Huge tracts of land were granted to American entrepreneurs and settlers moved swiftly into the area, bringing thousands of slaves with them.  The problems began when the Anglos wanted to maintain American law, slavery, Protestantism and local autonomy.  Mexico wanted to enforce the Mexican laws and way of life.  By 1830, the Anglos outnumbered the Tejanos three to one.  Mexico added to the friction by cutting off immigration to the United States.  Troops were sent to garrison the border, occupy seaports and to collect taxes on all imported goods.  The occupation ended two years later, but the Americans, by then, felt they could no longer trust their livelihood and their way of life to the Mexicans so Austin traveled to Mexico City to petition the government for greater autonomy and was thrown in jail for his efforts by Antonio López de Santa Anna, who had declared himself a dictator, suspended the Mexican constitution and banned slavery in all Mexican territories.  In retaliation, the Texans formed their own legislature and started selling land, provoking further action by the Mexican troops.

    Settlers poured into Mexico from the southern states, looking for a good fight, but the Texans couldn't decide whether they wanted to restore the Mexican republic or to form one of their own.  Santa Anna answered the question for them when he showed up at San Antonio on February 1835 with an army of close to 5,000 men.  The Texans, badly outnumbered, hid within the walls of the old Mission Alamo.  On 6 March, after a 12-day siege, the Mexican army stormed the Alamo and over-ran the Texans.  His treatment of the bodies rallied the remaining Texans to war and under the leadership of General Sam Houston, the Mexican army was cornered at San Jacinto and forced to surrender.  Santa Anna traded his release in exchange for Texan independence.

    At first, Texas declared itself to be an independent republic.  It wanted to become a state in the Union.  However, the issue of slavery once again raised its ugly head.  Sam Houston wanted statehood for Texas.  The southern states wanted Texas as a slave state.  Texas was annexed on 29 December 1845 as a slave state and became our 28th state.

    Under the orders of President James K. Polk, troops were sent into a disputed region near the Mexican border and the result of this skirmish, The Mexican War, split the country down the middle.  Abolitionist felt that it was a war to extend slavery.  At the end of the war, the United States had grown by a third, adding most of the present southwest area to its empire.

    At the close of the Civil War, many Southerners moved into the area looking for a new life.  They gathered into towns like Dallas, which originally had been a French Trading Post in the 1700s.  The soil was rich and prime for planting cotton.  By the time the first trains arrived in 1872, crops were already ripe for market.  

 Texas has the distinction of living under the jurisdiction of six separate governments since 1865.  it was under France, Spain, Mexico, the Republic of Texas, The Confederacy and the United States.

    In 1820, few white settlers were residing in Texas.  Moses Austin and his son, Stephen brought settlers in from Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee.  By 1830 the population had swelled to 20,000. Texas joined the Southern contingency and withdrew from the union in 1861.   It is known that many post-civil war veterans moved to Texas at the close of the war to start a new life and/or to seek their fortune.  Texas became the home of the huge cattle drives, oil wells and sadly for those who loved the open range, the home of the invention known as barbed wire, which enclosed the remaining land ranges and ended the era of the cowboy as we knew it.

    The future of Texas lies in its past.  Its pioneers are a tribute to its heritage and its courage.   

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