HISTORICAL

AND

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCHES, ETC.

TEXAS.

TEXAS is an Indian word signifying "Friends." This country was first settled by M. La Salle, in 1685, who took formal possession in the name of the French monarch, and built a small fort at the head of Matagorda Bay. The colony was soon broken up by the savages. In the meantime, intelligence of the founding of this settlement having reached Mexico, a military force was sent by the Viceroy to drive out the French; but on its arrival the colonists had disappeared. In 1690, the Spaniards founded two small missions, and in 1692, commenced their first settlement at San Antonio de Bexar.

After the settlement of Louisiana, in 1699, the French assumed nominal possession of the territory as far west as the Bay of Matagorda. Hostilities arose between them and the Spaniards, who established several posts in the eastern part of Texas, and drove out the French. The conflicting claims of the two nations to Texas, were temporarily settled by the treaty of 1763, in which France ceded to Spain all of Louisiana west of the Mississippi. In 1800, Spain having ceded Louisiana back to France, left the question again open as to the rightful claim to the country. In 1803, Louisiana having been ceded by France to the United States, transferred to the American nation the same claim to Texas, which, however, was never enforced.

In 1810, at the commencement of the first Mexican revolution, Texas had not any settlements of note, except those of San Antonio de Bexar, Goliad, and Nacogdoches. In the interior were a few Spanish forts and missions, around each of which were a small number of miserable Indian converts. Some of these missionary establishments, each consisting of a massive stone fortress and a church, still remain with their walls almost entire.

The Mexicans seemed not so desirous to occupy this country as to keep it a desolate waste, to form an impassable barrier between them and their Anglo-Saxon neighbors, toward whom and other civilized nations their jealousy was so strong, that they enacted a law making it death for a foreigner to enter any of the Spanish

provinces without a license from the Spanish king. Hence, until after the breaking out of the Mexican revolution, Texas remained almost wholly unknown to the Americans.

In 1812, Dons Guttierez and Toledo, officers of the revolutionists, formed a project to invade the eastern provinces of Mexico, with the aid of American volunteers. They succeeded in raising a force of about four hundred and fifty men, near one half of whom were Americans from the southwestern States, and the remainder French, Spaniards and Italians. They were led by officers Magee, Kemper, Locket, Perry, and Ross. Crossing the Sabine, they routed a body of royalists near Nacogdoches, and took possession of Goliad. In the following winters (1812-13) they were besieged by two thousand Spaniards. The revolutionists sallied from the town and routed the Spaniards with a loss of about four hundred in killed and wounded. The latter retreated, and were again defeated near Bexar, to which they retreated, and soon after surrendered. Twelve of the principal Spanish officers, after their surrender, were secretly massacred by Guttierez, which becoming known to the Americans, most of them, with Kemper at their head, abandoned the service in disgust.

The invaders, thus reduced in numbers, remained at Bexar. In June, a Spanish army of four thousand men having approached toward the place, the garrison advanced against them and routed them, four miles west of the town, with a loss in killed and wounded nearly equal to their own number.

Guttierez having been removed from the supreme command as a punishment for his agency in the massacre, he was succeeded by Toledo, when Kemper returned to Bexar from the United States with four hundred Americans. In August, an army of several thousand strong advanced toward the place. The garrison, one thousand one hundred in number, marched out nine miles to the Medina River, and gave them battle. They drove the enemy to their intrenchments, where half their force was in reserve, when a heavy fire being poured in upon them the Mexican revolutionists fled, and the Americans, after a desperate resistance, were nearly all killed in the battle or captured in the subsequent flight toward the American frontier. This total defeat, for five years, suspended the Mexican revolutionary struggle in Texas.

After this event the United States, acting upon strictly neutral principles toward the contending parties in Mexico, interposed its authority and prevented hostile expeditions from crossing the frontiers. Individuals in small parties, however, visited Texas, and brought back with them glowing description of its fertility and resources. To accommodate privateers under the Mexican flag, the revolutionists formed stations at Matagorda, Galveston, and other points, which, becoming piratical establishments, were broken up by the United States.

The war in Mexico, called "the first revolution," after a duration of eight years, terminated in favor of the royalists. "The

second revolution" was commenced in 1821 by the Mexican general, Iturbide, under whom the Mexicans achieved their independence of Spain. Iturbide made himself a monarch, but the people, wishing for a republic, deposed and banished him, and on his return, had him executed. Another leader arose, Santa Anna, under whose auspices a federal constitution was formed in 1824, by which Mexico, like our republic, was divided into States, with each a legislature, and over the whole a general government.

The treaty of 1819, by which Spain ceded Florida to the United States, established the Sabine as the western boundary of Louisiana.

Moses Austin, a native of Durham, Connecticut, applied for and received, in 1819, a grant of land in Texas to plant a colony. The Spanish authorities in Mexico, desirous of defense against the fierce and hostile Camanches, had, contrary to their usual policy, made laws favoring American emigration on the condition, however, that the emigrants should become Catholics and teach the Spanish language in their schools.

Moses Austin dying, his son, Stephen, carried out his plans, and founding a colony between the Brazos and Colorado, thus became the leader of American colonization in Texas. Austin's enterprise being joined by others, his colony soon attracted the attention of the Mexican clergy. They found that the law which required the settlers to make oath that they were Catholics, and to establish Spanish schools, had been regarded by them as an unmeaning formality; and they felt the utmost alarm at a colony of foreign heretics being planted among them, and desired that they should either submit to the law or be routed out. Fresh jealousies arose in consequence of the futile attempts made by a few of the settlers in the vicinity of Nacogdoches, in 1826, to throw off the Spanish yoke and establish a republic by the name of Fredonia. This illfeeling was further increased by propositions made from time to time by the United States to purchase Texas. In whatever was done, the Mexicans fancied some plot against them, in which the American nation at large was concerned. They even surmised that the settlers in Texas were sent but as a cover to a concealed purpose of the American authorities to take their territory and destroy their nationality.

Texas, under the constitution of 1824, was united in one State with the adjacent province of Coahuila. The Spanish Mexicans of this province outvoted and pursued an oppressive policy against the Texans. In 1833, Stephen F. Austin was sent to the City of Mexico to petition against these grievances, and for the privilege of forming Texas into a separate State. Being treated with neglect by the Mexican Congress, he wrote a letter to the Texans, advising them, at all events, to proceed in forming a separate State Government. This letter falling into the hands of the Mexican authorities, he was made prisoner while returning, carried back to Mexico, and thrown into a dungeon.

Meanwhile the crafty Santa Anna, subverting the constitution of 1824, became a military tyrant; and to direct attention from his lawless acts, commenced a series of oppressions directed against the Texans, and placing the civil rulers there in subjection to the military. In 1835, Austin having returned from his imprisonment in Mexico, vigilance committees were appointed throughout the country, and the people were resolved to insist upon their rights under the constitution. At this time the population of Texas was near 20,000, of whom scarce 3000 were Mexicans.

Appeals were made through the press to the Texan people, and arrangements were set on foot to raise men and money for the purpose of defending themselves against a threatened invasion by Santa Anna. The first hostile movement of the Mexicans was directed against the town of Gonzalez. One thousand Mexicans having been sent there to demand a field-piece, the Texans, on the 2d of October, 1835, attacked and drove them from the ground with loss. On the 8th of October, Goliad was taken by the Texans with valuable munitions. On the 28th, ninety-two Texans, under Colonels Bowie and Fannin, defeated four hundred Mexicans, below Bexar, with a loss of nearly one hundred in killed and wounded; the Texan loss being simply one killed.

In November, the Texan Convention of Delegates assembled at San Felipe, issued a declaration of rights, and established a provisional government. Henry Smith was chosen governor, and

Samuel Houston, commander-in-chief.

On the 11th of December, five hundred Texans, after a bloody siege and assault, took the strong fortress of the Alamo and the city of San Antonio de Bexar. This was a gallant enterprise; the Mexicans numbered 1000 regular troops, under General Cos. Almost every house was in itself a fortress, each being built of stone, with walls three feet in thickness. The bulk of the garrison was posted in the public square, the approaches to which were strongly fortified by breast works mounted with artillery. At three o'clock on the morning of the 5th of December, Colonel Neil, with two hundred men, commenced a false attack upon the Alamo; while, with three hundred volunteers, the heroic Milam, the projector of the plan about to be described, having provided his men with crowbars and other forcing implements, effected an entrance into the suburbs, and amidst a heavy shower of grape-shot and musketry, took possession of two houses. For four days the Texans, bravely maintaining their position, continued to advance from one point to another, breaking a passage through the stone walls of the houses, and opening a ditch and throwing up a breastwork, where they were otherwise unprotected, while every street was raked by the enemy's artillery. On the third day of the assault, the gallant Milam received a rifle-shot in his head, but otherwise their loss was trifling, while that of the enemy was severe, as the rifle brought them down as often as they showed their faces at a loop-hole. On the fourth day, the Mexicans were