USA > Texas > A comprehensive history of Texas, 1685-1897 > Part 45
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GROWTH AND CHARACTER OF POPULATION.
No official census of the republic was ever taken, and the number of its inhab- itants can only be estimated by the popular vote at the successive elections, aided by some attempts that were made at enumerating the population of various coun- ties. The vote at the several elections from 1836 to 1849 was as follows :-
For first President, September, 1836 5,704
For second President, September, 1838 . 7,247
For third President, 1841 11,534
For fourth and last President, 1844
12,689
For first Governor, 1845 9,57S
ยท For second Governor, IS47
14,767
For third Governor, 1849
21,715
Upon the basis of ten inhabitants for every voter, the election of 1845 would show a population of 95,780 ; or, taking the preceding electi. : of 1844 as more nearly representative, the population at the date of annexation would be 126,890, which is no doubt a very liberal estimate. It is more probable that the entire popu- lation, excluding the Indians, did not exceed 100,000. In 184; a partial enumera- tion by counties was made, showing 135,777 inhabitants, inc !::: :: 38. 729 slaves. These inhabitants were for the most part located in Eastern Texas and along the Trinity, Colorado, and Brazos Rivers from the coast as far in's: : as the Old San
761
WOOTEN-RESULTS OF FIFTY YEARS OF PROGRESS.
Antonio Road, with a considerable settlement at San Antonio, and a fringe of floating population along Red River and the Rio Grande. There was no city of any size, no trade centre, few roads of the roughest character, no internal trade of much value, and a primitive scarcity of all those things that constitute modern civilization in its most vigorous attitude. The Mexican War, which at once broke out in 1846 as the result of annexation, retarded further immigration for a time, and it was not until after 1848 that the country began to really develop in its population and resources.
In 1850 the first census was taken, showing a population of 212,592, of whom 154,034 were white and 58, 161 were colored. The composition of this inhabitaney was cosmopolitan in a very marked degree, and in that regard it was the prototype of the character of the Texan citizenship of all the subsequent years to the present time. Perhaps no other American State has had so unique a blending of nationali- ties and social types. Although what may be called the staple of the population -- that element which gives complexion and a permanent character to social life and customs-has from the first been derived from the Southern States of the American Union, there has always been such a large and influential admixture of immigrants from the North and East, together with a vigorous and healthy foreign colonization from Germany, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Bohemia, France, and Great Britain, to say nothing of, the Spanish and Mexican influences that originally underlay all the others, that the resultant Te.van is a composite citizen of a commonwealth that possesses peculiar excellencies for rapid and liberal growth.
When the war with Mexico had ended, February 2, IS48, the way was opened for safe and stable progress in Texas, except for two vexed and unsettled questions. These were the public debt and the boundary dispute. The settlement of the two was more or less inseparable, and the final result was fortunate for Texas. The debt of the republic was at last fixed at $11,050, 201.50, which by a process of scaling was adjusted at $5,528, 195. 19, and was finally paid off with $8, 497,604.95, the ulti- mate liquidation being consummated in 1858. The boundary dispute with the United States was disposed of as part of the famous Compromise Measures of Sep- tember 9, 1850, passed by the Congress of the United States, and accepted by Texas on November 25, 1850. By this act Texas surrendered her claim to New Mexico in consideration of the payment by the United States of $10,000,000 in stock, due in fourteen years, and bearing 5 per cent. interest. The money thus realized enabled the State to clischarge the old debts of the republic without impor- erishing her current revenues for a series of years, as would otherwise have been inevitable. The adjustment of this troublesome issue seemed to forever dispose of all controversies in regard to the Texas boundaries, but the Greer County case, involving the location of one part of our northwestern boundary, arose in later years to vex legislatures, congresses, and courts. It was finally decided by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1896 adversely to the contention of Texas, thus taking away the large territory formerly known as Greer County. That controversy involved the construction of the third article of the treaty between Spain and the United States of February 22, 1819, as to the true location of the " Red River" therein named as constituting part of the limits of the two governments on this continent.
762
A COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF TEXAS.
The rapidity in the growth of the population of Texas from 1850 to 1890 is shown by the following totals of the United States Census for the several decades :--
Population, 1850 212,592
Population, 1860 604,215
Population, 1870 818,579
Population, 1880
1,591,749
Population, 1890
2,235,523
These figures demonstrate that in the decade from 1850 to 1860 the inhabitants increased threefold ; from 1860 to 1870, despite the ravages and impediments of the great Civil War, the increase was over 3373 per cent .; from 1870 to 1880 the popu- lation was nearly doubled ; and from 1880 to 1890 the increase was 75 per cent. The rate of increase in thirty-eight States of the Union during a period of forty years was on an average 39.53 per cent. The great increase in the popular vote at the three State elections since 1890 indicates that there have been large additions to the population in the past six years. The returns show the following results :
Popular vote at the election of IS92 435,467
Popular vote at the election of 1894
422,716
Popular vote at the election of 1896 (about) 540,000
A conservative estimate, based on the usual proportion between the voters and the entire population, would give Texas at the present time not less than 3,000, 000 of people, being more than fourteen times her population in 1850.
According to the census of 1890, the then population was classified as follows :-
White
1,741,190
Colored
492,S37
Indian
766
Chinese
727
Japanese
3
Total
2,235,523
The occupations of the people have not been classified, nor the ratio between rural and urban populations. There are two cities (Dallas and San Antonio) of more than 50,000 inhabitants, three others of over 25,000, and perhaps six or seven of over 10,000. Farming and stock-raising are of course the leading pursuits of the great mass of the people, but manual and skilled labor is rapidly finding lucrative employment in the larger cities and towns, where the arts of industrial life are fast developing.
Under the appointment of 1890 Texas is entitled to thirteen Representatives in the lower house of the American Congress, and she has thus fifteen votes in the electoral college.
AREA, MUNICIPAL DIVISIONS, PUBLIC LANDS, ETC.
Prior to the Texas Revolution of 1833-36 the territory of the province was divided into municipalities, each governed by its local officers, after the manner of Spanish-Mexican institutions ; and the country was further divided into three politi- cal districts, each ruled by a political chief ( jefe politico), who was in turn respon- sible to the governor of the state or to the commandant of the military province.
763
WOOTEN-RESULTS OF FIFTY YEARS OF PROGRESS.
The system of county governments was adopted by the provisional government in November, 1835, and upon the organization of the republic in 1836 twenty-three counties were created. This number was increased from time to time until at the date of annexation in 1845 there were thirty-six organized counties. In 1846 thirty-two new counties were created, and these local governments have multiplied with the growth and necessities of the population until, in 1894. there were two hundred and twenty-six organized counties and twenty-one unorganized. Some of these are larger in area than several of the smaller States of the Union, and they are all quite liberal in dimensions.
The present area of Texas, according to the official records of the General Land Office of the State, is 250,004 square miles of land and 2510 square miles of water surface, making a total of 252,514 square miles, being about 8.7 per cent. of the entire area of the United States and Territories. This does not include the rivers and streams, which are estimated to cover an additional area of 800 square miles.
The timber lands of the State cover 35,537,967 acres, the bodies of heaviest timber being situated in the eastern and southeastern part of the State, although there is a liberal supply of forest growth along all the streams in the prairie region.
Under the system of jurisdiction existing while Texas was a part of the Mexican federation, the vacant lands within her borders, except as required for federal pur- poses, were owned and controlled by the state government of Coahuila and Texas. At the time of the establishment of Texan independence there was an immense ter- ritory of these public lands, exclusive of such as had been titled under the Spanish and Mexican government. It is impossible to determine accurately the amounts and respective dispositions of titles to lands in Texas under Spanish, Mexican, or Texan jurisdiction, as the records kept are too meagre and confused. It is roughly estimated that 10,000,000 acres were titled under Spanish domination, 25,000,000 acres during Mexican rule, and that the republic owned at the time of its organiza- tion nearly 150,000,000 acres of vacant publie lands. This of course included the territory of New Mexico, which was afterwards ceded to the United States, being about 125,000 square miles. The history of the manner in which this vast domain has been handled and disposed of by the successive governments of Texas consti- tutes a separate and very complex subject of historical research and narrative, and will not be pursued further here.'
By the terms of the joint resolution for the annexation of Texas, further strengthened by the Compromise Measures of 1850, the State of Texas retained the title to all of her vacant public domain. This at once gave her a source of wealth and a means of promoting internal development not enjoyed by any other State in the Union. The many millions of acres which she owned in 1845 have been liber- ally used to establish and maintain a magnificent system of free public education, including a great University and a complete system of normal schools ; to build railroads throughout her borders ; to endow and provide for the support of her various asylums and charitable institutions ; to erect a State capitol, which is one of the largest and finest public structures on the western continent, and to promote many other measures of necessary and valuable internal improvements.
' See chapter on " Land System of Texas," vol. i. page 754.
764
A COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF TEXAS.
There are now estimated to be about 4,400,000 acres of unappropriated public lands, which are subject to be acquired under the laws regulating homestead dona- tions. This land is exclusive of the large amount of domain held in trust by the State for the benefit of public schools, University, and asylums, and is situated in Western and Northwestern Texas. The lands belonging to the schools, University, and asylums aggregate about 30,000,000 acres, and of these the greater part are subject to purchase or lease by actual settlers at low rates and on easy terms.
AGRICULTURAL, MINERAL, AND INDUSTRIAL RESOURCES.
The extended domain of Texas is such that it combines the products of the temperate and subtropical zones, abounding in the cereals, cotton, sugar, every variety of fruit product, and many things peculiar to Mexico and the lower lati- tudes. The early settlers were chiefly engaged in pastoral pursuits, although the sturdy colonists of Austin and his associate empresarios made considerable progress in farming, cotton and grain being subjects of export in paying quantities. The sparse population, however, and the difficulties of transportation rendered agricul- ture a precarious and irksome occupation, and the facilities for stock-raising were so favorable and extensive that the great domestic industry from the beginning was that of cattle- and horse-raising, the State having always held the lead in those pursuits. Irrigation in the neighborhood of the early Spanish-Mexican settlements promoted a certain degree of small agriculture, but it was not until the building of railroads and the opening up of the great black-land prairies of Central, Northern, and Northwestern Texas that farming assumed its present proportions. The inex- haustible fertility of the river-bottoms, when brought in communication with the markets of the seaboard and the outlets by rail to the North and East, readily responded with marvellous crops of cotton and corn, while the broad acres of rolling plain throughout the middle and northern parts of the State became the granarics of the Southwest and the greatest cotton-producing country in the world.
After 1850 the growth of these interests was astonishing in its rapidity and volume. The following figures for the year 1857 show the progress that was made to that date :--
Acres planted in cotton
5-14.495
Acres planted in wheat
196,878
Acres planted in cane
16,080
Acres planted in corn
1, 125,500
Total acres in staples .
,SS2,953
The crop of 1857-58 was estimated to be 425,000 bales of cotton, 25,000,000 bushels of corn, 3.750,000 bushels of wheat, and 11,000 hogsheads of sugar.
A comparison of crops by decades shows the following results :-
YEARS.
COTTON, BALES.
CORN, BUSHELS.
WHEAT, BUSHELS.
ISSO
58.072
6.928,876
41,729
441.403
16 500.702
1.475.345
1570
359 629
20.554,538
415.112
S: 254
24.055.172
2.557.737
ISyo
1,47 ,212
69.112,150 ( 1989)
4.253.344
765
WOOTEN-RESULTS OF FIFTY YEARS OF PROGRESS.
The production in live-stock and wool for the same periods was as follows :-
1850.
1860.
1870.
1880.
Cattle, number
61,013
2,761.736
2.933.588
3,387,927
Hotses and mules, number
76,760
352,698
424.504
505,606
Hogy, number
629,022
1.371.532
1,202,445
1.950,371
Wool, pounds
130.917
1.493.738
1,251,328
6.925,619
1
The census of 1890 discloses the following facts as to the agricultural and pastoral products of Texas :-
Number of bales of cotton
1,471,242
Pounds of wool, 1889-90.
14,917,068
Number of horses on farms
1,026,002
Number of meat cattle on farms
6,201,552
Number of hoys on farms
2,252,476
Number of sheep on farms, lambs excluded .
3,454,858
Number of horses on the range
99,838
Number of cattle on the range
2,342,083
Number of sheep on the range .
809,329
The entire cotton crop for the season of 1894-95 was 9,901, 251 bales, of which Texas produced 3, 154, 976 bales. The value of the total crop was estimated at $297,037,530, which would make the value of the Texas product for that year nearly $100,000,000.
For further and more detailed information of the agricultural and live-stock statistics of later years reference is made to the tables at the close of this chapter.
The mineralogical resources of Texas have only recently begun to be explored and developed, and no accurate or extensive information can be given. Enough is practically known, however, to demonstrate that the mineralogical wealth of the State is not inferior to its other natural funds for the support of the vast population that will soon fill its borders. Coal is found in abundant quantities in various parts of the State, and is being profitably mined at several places, notably at Thurber, on the Texas and Pacific Railway, west of Fort Worth. There are three coal- fields of great extent in Texas, two of which furnish good qualities of bituminous coal and the other a superior grade of lignite. The supply, when fully developed, is ample for all manufacturing and industrial purposes.
Iron ore has long been known and worked to a limited extent in Eastern Texas, but within the last few years a new impetus has been given to the mining of this valuable product. Experts pronounce the iron ores of Texas to be in many important respects superior to any in the world, and the only impediment to their rapid development is the difficulty encountered in their reduction, owing to the scarcity of suitable fuel. This want will be met when further progress is made in the mining of our extensive coal-fields.
The reports of the State Geological Department show the existence in profit- able quantities and favorable localities of copper, lead, silver, gold, manganese, potter's clay, kaolin, petroleum, gypsum, hydraulic limestones and lime, cements, marbles and building stones, salt, asphaltum, and many refractory materials valu- able in the arts. These are all being used, and their production increases year by
766
A COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF TEXAS.
year. Artesian water is obtainable over a very large area of the State, and the ease with which flowing wells can be constructed renders the problem of water-supply in many otherwise arid regions one whose solution will not be difficult. The mineral re- sources of the State are as yet in an experimental period of development, and enough has not been done or ascertained to enable an accurate table of statistics on that head.
RAILROADS, COMMERCE, INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS, MANUFACTURES.
The Fathers of Texas early realized the necessity for rapid and casy means of transportation and intercourse between the different portions of the extensive terri- tory included within the limits of the State. These were absolutely indispensable to the settlement and development of so vast a dominion, both for populating and policing the great extent of country and for marketing the products of the soil which an industrious citizenship would naturally evolve. The absence of streams navigable to any profitable degree rendered railroads a prime necessity, and to their construction the ingenuity and providence of the first legislatures were directed. The newness of the country and the almost total want of such internal trade as would support great lines of stcam traffic required substantial inducements to that character of enterprise, aside from any immediate profits to be derived from the transportation business.
Fortunately Texas possessed the means to offer these inducements. Her immense tracts of public land furnished a fund for munificent subsidies to railroad construction, and most munificently has that fund been applied to that purpose. In the first years of the State's existence, and even before annexation, special laws were passed looking to the encouragement of railway-building in Texas, but little of practical progress was made until 1854 .. In that year the policy of land dona- tions to railroads took shape in the enactment of a general law for the purpose of promoting such enterprises. There were at first two policies proposed. One- which was understood to have for its leading exponent Governor E. M. Pease-was that the State should build and own her own railroads, paying for them in public lands, and then lease them out to competing companies, which would operate them under government regulation and control, paying for their use a reasonable hire, and rendering to the public acceptable service at the lowest practicable rates for transportation. The other plan was a donation of the lands outright to the railroad companies for lines of road actually constructed and put in operation, requiring the companies to survey and sectionize the public lands, the State and the railroads to receive the alternate sections, and the companies being required to alienate their lands within a reasonable term of years. The latter policy was the one finally adopted. Its ostensible advantages were that it secured a survey of the public lands without cost to the State, that it made it to the interest of the railroads to settle the country as rapidly as possible so as to bring all the lands into the market, and that it promoted the public revenues by tending to create a constantly-increasing taxable wealth in the shape of lands held by private ownership. The disadvantages of the system are not so obvious, but the experience of forty years has not been without many evidences of the improvident and disastrous results of the policy as practised during the progress of railroad operations in Texas.
The first railroad actually projected in Texas was the Galveston, Harrisburg,
767
WOOTEN-RESULTS OF FIFTY YEARS OF PROGRESS.
and San Antonio road, organized in 1853 by General Sidney Sherman and asso- ciates. Its first line was constructed from Harrisburg, on Buffalo Bayou, twenty miles to Stafford's Point. A little later it was extended to Richmond, and in 1860 it had reached a point near Columbus. The Houston and Texas Central Railway was begun in 1853-54 by Paul Bremond and other citizens of Houston. It was first built from Houston to Cypress, then to Courtney, Hempstead, Navasota, and in 1861 it reached Millican. From 1856 to 1860 the Texas and New Orleans road was constructed from Houston to Liberty, Beaumont, and Orange. About the same time the Gulf, West Texas and Pacific road ran from Port Lavaca to Victoria.
In Governor Pease's first administration, by the act of January 30, 1854, the first general law for the encouragement of railroad construction by grants of land was passed. In its general provisions this law furnished the model and contained substantially the same conditions as were embodied in all subsequent legislation on the same subject, of which there has been a great deal from time to time. It pro- vided that when any company had constructed and put in running order twenty-five miles of railroad, it could have thirty-two sections of public land surveyed for each mile of road so constructed, the land to be surveyed in square sections of 640 acres each, and every alternate section was donated to the railroad company, while the intervening sections were appropriated to the permanent fund of the public free schools of the State.
Under these liberal inducements the building of railroads progressed rapidly until interrupted by the Civil War in 1861. After the restoration of peace and settled order a renewed activity characterized this with all other departments of domestic industry, and the results have been most satisfactory. In 1857 there had been incorporated by the State 41 railroad companies, of which 15 had forfeited their charters, and at the breaking out of the war in 1861 there were about 300 miles of railway in Texas, in detached sections. In 1865 there were 335 miles, which in- creased to 583 miles in 1869, and to 711 miles in 1870. In the ten years that fol- lowed, to 18So, construction developed with astonishing rapidity, so that at the close of the latter year there were 3293 miles of road. The period between 18So and 1890 was also most prolific in railroad-building, as in the last-named year there had been completed a mileage of 8709 miles. In 1892 this had increased to 8977 miles ; in 1893 (June) it was 9088 miles ; in June, 18944, it was 9153 miles ; and in June, 1895, it had reached 9290 miles. At the close of the year 1895 there had been an increase of 224 miles for that year, being nearly three times as much increase as that of the next highest State in the Union, -Ohio with 87 miles of new road in 1895.
In 1892 there were 52 roads operating lines in Texas ; in 1893, 54 railroads ; on June 30, 1894, there were 58 ; and on June 30. 1895, there were 59. Under the various laws for donating lands to railroad construction, it is estimated that the companies have received from the State the magnificent aren of about 35,000,000 acres, besides many large money subsidies and extensive exemptions from taxation and other public charges.
The tables at the close of this chapter will give more detailed information of the values, operations, carnings, and traffic of the railroads of the State.
The growth of railroads and the character and extent of their traffic, as shown by the appended tables, also furnish a very fair index to the nature and magnitude
768
A COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF TEXAS.
of the internal commerce of the State, and reference is made to those tables for information on the commerce of Texas. The foreign trade of the State is difficult to be estimated, as in the movement of freight over the railroad systems it is inter- mingled with inter-State commerce, and there is no method for computing such traffic. The largest seaport in the State is Galveston, and the annexed "Report of Transactions" at that port for the years 1894, 1895, and 1896 indicate to some extent the volume of business at the principal custom-house on the Gulf coast of Texas. There is also a very considerable trade at Sabine Pass, Velasco, Aransas, Corpus Christi, Brazos Santiago, and El Paso, besides the land trade at Laredo and Eagle l'ass on the Rio Grande, the statistics of none of which are available.
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