USA > Texas > Montgomery County > A History of Montgomery County, Texas > Part 2
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The viceroy of Mexico appointed Alonso de Leon Governor of Coahuila and gave him explicit instructions to seek out La Salle's colony, destroy the fort, and check on other French activities in East Texas. With this done, and upon the recommendations of the viceroy to establish missions in East Texas, De Leon set out with the missionary priest, Father Massanet, to fulfill his obligations in keeping the French out of Texas. After the East Texas missions were established in the Tejas Indian territory De Leon laid out a route from the mission of La Bahia (Goliad) to the mission at Nacogdoches. This route became known as the La Bahia Road and according to Castaneda's map it inter - cepts the southwestern corner of Montgomery County and runs through the county in a northeasterly direction. According to this map it was blazed by Alonso de Leon in the year 1690. 17 It is believed by the author that this was the trail used by the old Houston, Montgomery, Castaneda, loc. cit. Thrall, op. cit., p. 87
Castaneda, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 349.
16
and Cincinnati stage line.
The viceroy on December 7, 1716, proceeded to appoint Don Martin de Alarcon, Knight of the Order of Santiago and Governor of Coahuila, Captain General and Governor of the Province of the Tejas and such other lands as might be conquered to found missions in the San Antonio area and to check on and send supplies to the East Texas missions. 18 After establishing a mission and settlement on the San Antonio River he proceeded by the way of La Bahia, through Montgomery County, and on into East Texas. Alarcon was welcomed with much joy on his arrival at the East Texas mission, as the following shows:
. The governor at last departed for the Presidio de los
Tejas. . . . With bells ringing, the missionaries and Indians of the Mission of Nuestro padre San Francisco de los Tejas welcomed the new governor with undisguised joy, on October 14, 1718, when he at last arrived in East Texas. . . . 19
The viceroy appointed Pedro de Rivera as Inspector General of the presidios and missions of Texas, and when he was appointed he was given instructions to make a tour of inspection of all Spanish presidios, to check against fraud, and to make recommendations concerning their necessity. In the spring of 1727 the tireless and ever watchful inspector
18 Ibid., Vol. II, p. 78
19 Castaneda, loc. cit.
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arrived at last in East Texas. 20 Rivera arrived at the Nacogdoches mission first; inspected the Tejas missions, then proceeded on the La Bahia Road through Montgomery County to the Presidio de Nuestra Senora de Loreto de la Bahia del Espiritu Santo at Goliad. 21
In 1745 Captain Joaquin Orobio y Basterra of La Bahia heard that rumors of the presence of French traders from Louisiana had penetrated into the Trinity region. In the same year he reported these rumors to the viceroy in Mexico. The viceroy became suddenly 22 apprehensive and immediately ordered an investigation to determine if the French had established a settlement, the number and character of the Indians in the vicinity, and to request any Frenchmen found already settled to leave at once. 23 Upon receipt of the orders, Orobio y Basterra, with a group of men, set out to make a preliminary recon- naissance. Orobio's investigation is represented in the following passage:
On March 6, 1746 he arrived at a place which he calle" Santa Rosa de Viterbo, where he found a settlement Bidai Indians near the Trinity.
20Ibid., Vol. II, p. 219
21 Loc. cit. 22 Ibid., Vol. IV., p. 46. 23 Loc. cit.
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. . . After a few days rest and a long interview with the chief of those Indians he again set out, accompanied by a Bidai guide, crossed the Trinity River, and went thirty leagues west-southwest from Santa Rosa de Viterbo to a place which he called San Rafael, and which appears to have been on Spring Creek, west of the San Jacinto River. Here he found two Orcoquisac villages.
Both the Bidais and the Orcoquisacs explained that the French visited them frequently. For six years traders, who lived in a place they called Pachina, near the Mississippi, had been coming by land. . . . . No permanent settlement had been made, but last summer a party, who had come by sea, had chosen a site and told the Orcoquisacs to notify the Bidais, the Deadoses, and the Tejas to bring their bearskins, buckskins, and buffalo hides to this place to trade. The site chosen appears to have been on the San Jacinto, some distance from its mouth. The Indians explained it was on a stream between the Trinity and the Brazos which was a tributary of neither. The Orcoquisacs told Orobio that some Frenchmen had been recently lost among the Cujanes, who lived to the southwest.
Curious to see the site chosen for the proposed settlement, Orobio went towards the coast some fifteen leagues and was shown the place where the French said they would establish themselves. This was on a stream which Orobio named Aranazau and which was in all probability the San Jacinto. There was no sign of habitation and in the opinion of Orobio no permanent settlement. 24
This visit of Orobio to the Orcoquisac Indians on Spring Creek was the beginning of a quarter of a century of Spanish activity in Montgomery County and its vicinity. 25
Due to Orobio finding French activity around the Spring Creek area,
24 Loc. cit .
25Bolton, op. cit., Vol. III, p. 332.
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in January, 1757 the viceroy ordered the missionaries of the Nuestra Senora de la Luz mission in the neighborhood of San Augustine to move to Spring Creek, and to reduce there, at Ei Gordo's village, all the Orcoquisac bands and the Bidai tribe as well. 26 The Orcoquisacs were at first very tractable and friendly. They professed anxiety to enter upon mission life, built a house for the missionaries, and the first spring planted for them three acres of corn. A more detailed description and location of this mission is as follows:
The church, reported by Jacinto de Barrois y Jauregui (Governor of Texas) as already completed in June, was evidently a very temporary structure which was substituted afterwards by a somewhat better one, itself miserable enough. A complaint made two years later by Fr. Abad de Jesus Maria, who was then head minister at the place, to the effect that he could not get help from the soldiers to complete the mission, reveals to us the site and the nature of the newer buildings. He writes: "Fearful of what might result, I had to set about the mentioned material establish- ment . . . The two ministers having explored and examined the territory with all care and exactitude, we did not find any place more suitable or nearer the presidio than a hill, something less than a fourth of a league's distance to the east from the latter and on the same bank of the lagoon. This place, Excellent Sir, because of its elevation, com - mands a view of the whole site of the presidio and of a circumference to the west and south . . . as far as the eye can reach. Toward the east the land is a little less elevated. At a distance of a league enough corn might be planted to supply a large population. . . . All these advantages being seen, the mission was erected on this site. It is made of wood, all hewn, and beaten clay mixed with moss, and has
26 Ibid., Vol. III, p. 348
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four arched portals. This building, because of its strength and arrangement, is the most pleasing in all those lands of the Spaniards and the French -- or it would be if your Excellency should be pleased to have completed its construc- tion, which for the present has been suspended. " 27
To select the site for the colony, the governor commissioned two surveyors, and each was to make an independent survey of the Spring Creek region, which they did in August 1756; and in October they both reported favorably upon three sites, but most favorably on the one near El Gordo's village at the junction of two small branches joining Spring Creek, about ten leagues or perhaps twenty miles west of the San Jacinto -. evidently Mill Creek and Spring Creek. 28 Governor Jacinto de Barrios
y Jaurequi, happy about the reports made by the surveyors, reported to the viceroy in favor of Spring Creek, recommending three missions in- stead of one, and on January 7, 1756 this site was approved by the government and shortly afterward the viceroy ordered the presidio to be built. 29 To this point prospects seemed good for the beginning of a new civil settlement in Montgomery County, but due to inefficiency of the government and the changing of officials the project was abandoned.
- 27 Ibid., Vol. III, p. 349 28 Ibid., Vol. III, p. 351 29 Loc. cit.
CHAPTER III
EMPRESARIOS AND SETTLEMENT
During the latter part of the Spanish regime the missions and presidios of the vast province of Coahuila and Texas had almost fallen into decadence, because the corruptness of Spain's mercantile system had virtually sapped out the life blood of her colonies. Spain found it necessary to look for new lands from which to get new raw materials; therefore, she again expressed a desire for colonization in her un- developed province of Texas.
Moses Austin of Missouri, had formerly been a Spanish citizen of Louisiana during the Nepoleonic Wars when Spain had acquired Louisian from France. He heard of Spain's desire for her frontiers to be colonized and in accordance took it upon himself in the year 1820 to visit the Spanish provincial government of Texas, which at that time was located at the towr of Bexar (San Antonio). 1 At the time Moses Austin left, Texas was in that administrative division of Mexico known as the Eastern Interior Province, as the following quotation explains:
Texas, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, and Santander or Tamaulipas constituted the Eastern Interior Provinces. The commandant was both civil and military head of the
ī H. Yoakum, History of Texas (New York: J. H. Redfield Company. 1955), Vol. I, p. 210.
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province. Each province had its own governor and military commandant and was subdivided, or could be divided, into departments, districts (partidos), and municipalities. Texas consistitued one department, and in 1820 contained but two organized municipalities, Bexar and La Bahia, the present Goliad. The govern- ment of a municipality, which included not only the town but much of the surrounding country, was an ayuntamiento.
The municipality of Bexar included the territory of what today is Montgomery County, and extended into East Texas. This division re- mained this way until January 31, 1431, when due to the influx of so 8 many immigrants, the Legislature of Coahuila and Texas passed a decree creating another division, that of Nacogdoches. This new disivion also took in a part of Montgomery County. The decree read as follows:
The Congress of the State of Coahuila and Texas, considering the evils experienced in the political and finan- cial administration of the department of Texas for the reason that the extensive territory thereof is comprised in one sole district, and populated mostly by foreign colonists, thinly settled therein; exercising the power conferred by article 8 of the constitution, decrees:
ART. 1. The department of Bexar shall be divided into two districts, and the following shall be the dividing line -- commencing at Bolivar Point on Galveston Bay, thence running northwesterly to strike between the San Jacinto and Trinity rivers, following the dividing ridge between the said rivers to the Brazos and Trinity to the head waters of the latter, and terminating north of the source of the said Trinity upon Red River.
ART. 2. The territory situated east of said line shall
Eugene C, Barker, Texas History (Dallas: Turner Company, 1929), p. 103.
2
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be called the District of Nacogdoches, and the town of the same name shall be the capital.
Given in the city of Leona Vicario on the 31st of January 1831.3
While at Bexar, Moses Austin, with the help of his old friend the Baron de Bastrop, acquired permission from the Spanish govern- ment to settle three hundred families in the province of Texas. 4
Moses Austin died before his plans for settlement could be completed, and his son, Stephen F. Austin, took charge of his father's unfinished work. In august, 1821 after the death of his father, Stephen F. Austin was recognized by the government as his father's successor and was authorized to explore the country and select a site which he wished to colonize. 5 When Austin had explored the land, he selected in the municipality of Bexar his reservation, and outlined its west boundary as the Lavaca River up to the Bexar-Nacogdoches road, and its east boundary the San Jacinto River up to the Bexar-Nacogdoches road. 6 The Western half of present day Montgomery County falls within the site which Austin selected at that time.
3 Laws and Decrees of Coahuila and Texas, (Publisher and date not listed), Decree Number 164.
4 Yoakum, loc. cit. 5 Barker, loc. cit. 6 Ibid. ,p. 67
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Before Austin could bring his colonists from the United States, Augustin de Iturbide, the Mexican patriot, issued on February 24, 1821 his plan of Iguala. 7 Practically all of Mexico rallied to his aid to help him throw off the tyrannical yoke of the Spanish who had goverened Mexico and her province since their triumphal capture by that illustrious conquistador, Hernando Cortes.
Due to these eventa, Austin had to wait until new colonization laws could be passed by the new government. They were passed, and after Iturbide's short rule, other colonization laws followed in rapid
1 suit owing to the many coup d'etats in forming the Mexican government. An explanation of Mexico's colonization laws is as follows:
. . . Mexico passed her first colonization law in January, 1823, while Iturbide was emperor. With his overthrow in March, 1823, and the repeal of the colonization law of 1823, it was then necessary for the Mexican Republic to formulate its colonization policy. On August 18, 1823, the central government passed the national colonization law. This laid down a few general regulations with reference to colonization within the nation, but left the undertaking largely to the state. In the first place each state was to pass a colonization law for the settlement of the unoccupied territory within its limits. However, only the federal government could grant permission to establish settlements within twenty leagues of the boundary of any foreign nation or within ten leagues of the coast.
(In the law of 1824 Mexico had reserved the right to repeal the law when enough colonists had arrived, and)
Yoakum, op. cit., p. 214.
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. . . Mexico took advantage of the provision and passed the law of April 6, 1830, by which she forbade the further entrance of citizens of the United States into Texas. . . 8
With the national law of August 18, 1824 giving the state authority to pass their own colonization laws, the Legislature of Coahuila and Texas on March 24, 1825 passed a colonization law of more detailed nature, as the following paragraphs show:
The state colonization law granted to each married man who wanted to farm one labor, an equivalent of 177 acres. If he also desired to raise cattle, he could obtain twenty-four labors of pasture land or 4, 251 acres. The total of farming and pasture land made one sitio or league, consisting of 4, 428 acres. An unmarried man received one-fourth of this amount. If the colonist's occupation or capital was such that it would benefit the colony, he would obtain addi- tional land.
The new settler was required within six years to pay a nominal sum to the state for this land. For each sitio of pasture land he paid $30; for each labor of unirrigable land $2. 50; and for each labor which was irrigable he paid $3. 50. The government required no part of it to be paid until the end of four years. At the close of the fourth year one-third of the amount was due; at the end of the fifth year, another third; and when the sixth year closed, the last payment was to be made to the state. To acquire a title to his land the colonist had to occupy or cultivate it. 9
Under this same law an empresario or contractor was to be in charge of all the colonization procedures. Each empresario made an agreement with the state to introduce a certain number of families
8 Baker, op. cit., pp. 86-87 9 Ibid., p. 88
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within a limited time. He received a definite area in which to locate his immigrants. When he had fulfilled his obligations the empresario was entitled to receive for each hundred families introduced, a premium of five leagues and five labors of land. Thus, uinder these provisions Austin was appointed empresario and given instructions to settle his colonists.
The news of Austin's colony had spread rapidly in the United States and immigrants came in as fast as they could be settled. The receiving point for the immigrants was Nacogdoches and Austin appointed an agent to collect the families and send them on to his colony. E. C. barker10 gave gave the following concerning Nacogdoches as the induction
center :
Fifty or more families fromthe vicinity of Nacogdoches had agreed to move to his grant in November and December (1820), he (Austin) said, and since he could not be there to receive them, he had appointed an agent to supervise them and prevent overlapping locations. He also appointed Josiah H. Bell, one of his former associates in Arkansas, to exercise temporarily in the settlement the duties of a justice of the peace. He found at Natchitoches nearly a hundred letters from Missouri, Kentucky, and other western states, and was convinced that he could settle fifteen hundred families as easily as three hundred. . .
To take care of the influx of people coming into Texas, Mexico soon granted other men empresario rights. One of these empresarios was Hayden Edwards, who on April 18, 1825 obtained a contract to
10 Ibid., p. 67
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to settle eight hundred families in Texas. 11 H. Yoakum 12
described
Edwards and the location of his grant as follows:
. . . He was a gentleman of high moral character, strict honor, and liberality. He had devoted much of his time in Mexico in forwarding the general colonization law. He had his colony greatly at heart, and had expended thousands of dollars in getting up the enterprise. The con- tract with the state was sufficiently liberal. It admitted him as an empresario under the general state law. The lands designated were bounded on the east by a line begin- ning twenty leagues from the Sabine and ten leagues from the coast; thence through Nacogdoches, and fifteen leagues beyond it; thence west to the Navasota; thence down this river to the San Antonio road, and with this road to the San Jacinto; thence down said river to within ten leagues of the coast; and along the coast, ten leagues from it, to the place of beginning.
This grant that Edwards got from the government included the eastern half of present day Montgomery County.
The Mexican government selected for Hayden Edwards the lawless town of Nacogdoches as the seat of activity for his colony. Soon after his arrival an uprising occurred in December 1826, known as the Fredonian Rebellion. 13 This mutiny was caused by the agitation between the Mexican officials and Edwards' colonists. A good account of this rebellion was written in a letter by one of the future citizens of Austin's colony and Montgomery County. The letter is as follows:
11 Yoakum, op. cit., p. 234. 12 Ibid., pp. 234-235 13 Ibid., p. 246
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Gentlemen:
Sir, yours of the inst. inviting me as one of the early settlers, to give any incidents coming within my knowledge, that might go to the making up a correct historical account of the early setting of Texas. I settled on the Red Sandy near San Augustine in Nov. 1821; staid there 9 years; then moved to Montgomery where I have lived ever since.
Many of the incidents of those days are fresh in my recollection; but I am at a loss to know, what kind of incident would be useful or interesting to your society. It would afford me much satisfaction to aid the society on gathering scraps that might go to the making up a correct history of the early setting of Texas by the white s; and I believe that I could, if you were to direct my mind to anything I might know.
I will however, give one occurrence that took place at Nacogdoches in 1826 or 7; afterwards called the Fredonion War. Up to that time the Mexican government had kept troops stati oned at Nacogdoches as much for the purpose of keeping his own citizens in subjection, as the keeping of the Indians from depudation on them.
The Alcalde, backed by the troops was not always guided by law and evidence nor equitable principles in making up his judical decisions; and particually when an ex-U. S. citizen was brought before his honor. This of course gave offence to many which was borne with, until an opportunity presented its self, as some of the leading spirits thought by which they could bring about a change of public affairs.
About this time, the troops was sent from Nacogdoches and stationed at some other place, (I think) Goliad.
Now being the time to strike, carriers were sent in every direction calling upon the men to meet at Nacogdoches fully armed on a certain day without letting them know the object of the call, Many thought it was to repel an expected attack from the Indians; others, of course knew the object. For fifty miles around every man that could, rallied to the call.
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I rode forty miles. When I reached there, I found about 200 whites, Mexicans, and Negroes; all armed. The two leading spirits were Col. Edwards and Col. Parmer. One, (I do not recollect which) called on the men to form a line, which they did. We were then marched to where a flag was putting to breeze, and called the fredonian flag. I do not recollect the devices on it; but when we were halted under it speeches were made by Col. Edwards, and Parmer I think, explaining the object of the meeting, and telling of the wrongs and opressions they had borne from the Govern- ment and the Alcalde.
After the speaking, patriotic songs were sung and we again formed into line. When Col. said to the men that all of those in favor of a free government and opposed to a tyrannical government, and that were willing to affect that change right then and there, to march eight paces in front; and those opposed to it, to remain fast. At the word march all marched forward but four. I being one of that number. When the others all turned to see who were left, I felt small and that I was in a small crowd. Some of my friends said to me that they were sorry to see me act so, yet I stood firm.
Amongst the braves, who had stepped so gallantly forward, I saw one whom I took to be green from the States.
He was gentlemanly dressed, having on a fine velvet coat, hat of beaver, pants to match and a fine beaded pr. of moccasins. Near him stood a drunken negro, and being as free and patrotic as any, and being anxious I suppose, to feel the fine texture of the strangers dress, staggered up against him in a very rude manner which of course gave offence. The stranger was about to shoot the negro, when others interfered to prevent it. I and my other companions, as much to off set the jeers we had received, charged for the negro who seemed not too much alarmed. I afterwards learned that the stranger was no less a personage than Henry S. Foote, who was then, not unlike yourselves now, hunting up material to write a History of Texas, which he did. And amongst the many untruthful stories he wrote of Texas, he gave
29335
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an account of this fredonian war, which was incorrect in many things; but to the thread of the story. After the difficulty between Mr. Foote and the negro had been settled the crowd were dismissed to meet again under the flag in a short time. In the interest the Alcalde was disposed.
After again meeting, and speeches and songs were made and sung, sufficient as the leaders thought to stir all to action, called them in line again. I and my three companions also being in line, Col. said that all those in favor of the mearures already taken, and that were willing to remain to inforce and carry out those things, to march eight paces in front. At the word march but one moved forward. It was Matthew Cartwright of San Augustine. I and those other three laughed. The leaders saw that it was no go, and all quietly dispersed and returned to our homes.
The troops in due time were sent back. The alcalde restored to the functions of his office, and troopers were sent out in search of the leaders of the fredonian war. The crossings on the Sabine were guarded day and night, but I do not believe they caught very many. Thus ended the tempest in a teapot. 14
The rebllion was squelched and Edwards' grant was revoked by the Mexican government. After the revocation of his grant the territory embraced in it was divided between the empresarios David G. Burnet, Lorenzo de Zavala, and Joseph Vehlein.
Joseph Vehlein, a German merchang of Mexico City, through
Letter of Col. Jacob Shannon to Messrs. Gray and Henderson, Treasurer and Secretary of the Texas Historical Society, October 13, 1870, in the Hart Addison Collection.
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