USA > Texas > A history of central and western Texas > Part 4
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prominent men of the western country to the interests of those of the Alantic, "which is the greatest obstacle and danger that we can appre- hend for the success of our idea." Spain should exert herself at this opportune time, before it should be too late, for,-so he reasoned with much foresight,-with the west solidly united to the east, its citizens, instead of forming a barrier for Louisiana and Mexico, will conquer one and attack the other-as the course of events finally brought to pass. "Louisiana, important in itself when considered as a frontier of Mexico, cannot be overestimated; with this province lost to Spain, the Mexican kingdom will be stirred to its very depths in less than fifty years." He believes that Kentucky will incline to accept admission into the Union, and he proposes to use all means to retain the status quo until the plans for separation can be matured.
If dependence is to be placed in Wilkinson's boasts, it is evident that the conspiracy included many influential men. Besides asking for him- self liberal compensation and military rank in the Spanish army in return for his services and sacrifices, Wilkinson designates, among those listed for "pensions and rewards" to pledge their interest to Spain, an attor- ney general, a lawyer, a member of Congress and a judge, all his personal and confidential friends in Kentucky; besides other "notables" who favored separation from the United States.
It is not the purpose to pursue the discussion of this so-called "Span- ish Conspiracy" in detail; but the general facts of the movement are quite essential to a proper understanding of that period of Texas history with which we are now dealing. Wilkinson called attention to the increasing sentiment for the Union, and how necessary it was that the Spaniards should act quickly if they would secure Ken- tucky. Though a pensioner of Spain to the extent of thousands of dol- lars, Wilkinson never succeeded in bringing the conspiracy to a successful issue. Loyalty to the government which they had helped establish was a stronger force than the tendency to Spanish alliance, though that loyalty was tried to its utmost during the closing years of the century, under the Federalist regime. Even had the west separated from the east, it is unlikely that any enduring friendship with Spain could have been created. Antipathy to the Spanish people and their institutions, savoring so strongly of monarchy and religion, was probably inherent in the demo- cratic backwoodsmen who settled in the valleys of the Ohio and the Cumberland. This antipathy became the bitterest hostility as soon as Spain insisted on restricting the navigation of the Mississippi. The
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climax was reached in 1795, when a treaty was about to be entered into by the two nations, by which Federalist New England was to sacrifice the welfare of the south and west and permanently close the Mississippi to American commerce. Then it was that the secession of the west was openly threatened, and no doubt would have taken place, had not the treaty terms been changed so that the citizens of the United States not only gained the free navigation of the river, but the "right of deposit" at New Orleans-that is, the right to land their goods free of duty or other payment while awaiting trans-shipment.
With this treaty the crisis was passed, Spain's intrigue with the southern Indians and with the western settlers had accomplished no per- manent results, except to deepen the American hatred of everything Spanish. The political school of Jefferson found its principal strength in the west, and with the triumphant entry to power, in 1800, of the Jeffer- sonian Republicans, the west became attached for all time to the Union, at the same time dooming to certain failure every such enterprise as that undertaken by Wilkinson.
But while the ties of loyalty to the Constitution and Union were being strengthened beyond the power of men or events to sunder, the progress of settlement was every day bringing the people of the Missis- sippi basin nearer to a final issue with Spain. The hardy, self-reliant and intensely democratic backwoodsmen of Kentucky and Tennessee could never indulge any other feeling than contempt and distrust for those who, as Spanish subjects, acknowledged the divine right of kings and accepted without question the doctrines of the inquisition. The Spanish policy of exclusiveness, of forbidding all aliens an entrance within the royal provinces, was just the sort of barrier that American adventure and hardihood would delight to break down and transgress. Thus early we see the seeds sown that later bore fruit in frequent filibustering expeditions within the Spanish and Mexican territory.
CHAPTER VII
POSITION OF TEXAS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
The dawn of the nineteenth century found Texas, as a province together with Coahuila, subject to a commandant general and a military and political governor sent from Mexico, from which distant source of authority also the dispensing of final justice and the control of fiscal and religious affairs were regulated ; a population, estimated in 1805 at about seven thousand, besides the wild natives; with the principal settlements at San Antonio, with two thousand inhabitants; at Goliad, with fourteen hundred, and at Nacogdoches, with about five hundred. Laredo, on the Rio Grande, was also a considerable settlement, but at that time was in the province of Coahuila, the Medina river being the boundary line between the two provinces. The Texans of that time were a people with few of the refinements of civilization, and yet some degree of fashion and elegance prevailed in the old city of San Antonio. The chief occu- pations were pastoral, with some agriculture, and hunting. It was a society with barely enough civic energy and industrial enterprise to sustain itself. So much had Spain accomplished in more than a century.
By the treaty of Paris in 1763 France had ceded to Spain all the vast territory between the Mississippi and the Rocky mountains and north of Texas. By the secret treaty of San Ildefonso in 1800, Spain, under pressure from Napoleon, gave it back to France. At that time Napoleon included this region in his vast imperial designs. But in 1803 he saw he was likely to have a war with England, and that it would be impos- sible to protect such distant possessions. The result was the monumental transaction known as the Louisiana purchase, by which Napoleon trans- ferred the Louisiana Territory to the United States in consideration of fifteen million dollars. Thus at one bound the American Republic was extended from the Mississippi to the Rocky mountains, and another step had been taken in the extension of Anglo-Saxon civilization. By con- quest it had removed from its path the French dominions east of the
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Mississippi, and by diplomacy and far-sighted statecraft it made the Louisiana purchase. Spain alone barred its progress to the western ocean. And of this region of Spanish dominion, Texas was the threshold which American enterprise would first cross.
The expansion of the American republic has often been explained by the theory of "manifest destiny." Were not Texas and the territory gained in the Mexican war, by the very philosophy of civilization, as it were, and historical fate, a predestined outgrowth of the original Thir- teen Colonies ?- so questions the exponent of this theory. Westward the course of empire takes its way; and it has been a well observed fact of territorial expansion and settlement, on the American continent at least, that the trend of migration and occupation has been directly along isothermal lines. Thus the Yankee element of New England suffused itself over the northern tier of states, and the tide of settlers from Virginia and the Carolinas seldom flowed north of Mason and Dixon's line. Accord- ingly, with the source of the expansion movement extending along the Atlantic from Maine to Georgia, and spreading always to the west, it was inevitable that, unless permanently blocked, this pioneering advance would in time reach to the Pacific, and as the course of history proves, there was no power to check nor restrain this movement.
A few years later than this, De Tocqueville, in his essays on America, declared : "It is not to be imagined that the impulse of the Anglo-Saxon race can be arrested. Their continual progress towards the Rocky moun- tains has the solemnity of a providential event. Tyrannical government and consequent hostilities may retard this impulse, but cannot prevent it from ultimately fulfilling the destinies for which that race is reserved.
Thus, in the midst of the uncertain future, one event is sure. At a period which may be said to be near, the Anglo-Americans alone will cover the immense space contained between the Polar Regions and the Tropic, extending from the coast of the Atlantic to the shores of the Pacific Ocean."
Aside from the hostility due to geographical position, Spain had not, during her forty years' ownership of the Mississippi valley, administered her authority in a way to please the western and southern Americans. Owning New Orleans and the lands bordering the gulf south of the thirty- first parallel, and thus controlling the navigation of the Mississippi, the Spanish administration made itself obnoxious by restrictions on com- merce and interference with what the Americans deemed an unimpeach- able right of free trade. In 1795, by treaty, Spain recognized the claim
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of the United States to free navigation of the Mississippi and granted, under certain conditions, the privilege of depositing goods in New Orleans.
But for more than a decade the relations between America and Spain were such that several times war was hardly averted. Exclusion of American traders and settlers, which was a policy of Spain and in part of Mexico, aroused increasing bitterness and hatred, and when, in 1802, Morales, the intendant of Louisiana, withdrew the right of deposit at New Orleans, the entire country clamored for vindication by appeal to arms. The developments of the following months removed for the time the source of trouble and changed the locus of the difficulties. Hardly had the transfer of Louisiana to France become known, than the French became objects of invective just as the Spanish had previously been. It seemed impolitic to allow a foreign nation to control the mouth of a river which was the commercial route for the entire middle west. This was a matter of vital importance to the people of the west and south, and their urgent appeals to President Jefferson and Congress were an impor- tant factor in bringing about the Louisiana purchase.
This was only a partial solution of the difficulties. The Floridas remained to Spain. Because they bordered the southern settlements of that time, they were the first to be invaded, and "the conquest of the Floridas" was terminated by a treaty of purchase, by which Spain sur- rendered all her territory east of the Mississippi.
With the acquisition of Louisiana, began the negotiations over the boundaries between the United States and the Mexican provinces. The decision of the question whether the western boundary of Louisiana was the Arroyo Hondo, the Sabine or the Rio Grande involved a series of armed conflicts, continued, with long intervals, over a period of nearly half a century, the final result of which completed the extension of the United States to the Pacific.
Though the American claim to the Sabine as the western boundary may have lacked the support of convincing evidence,-not to mention the pretensions to the country east of the Rio Grande, which were, indeed, of flimsy character,-there is no doubting the temper of the American people at that time concerning the matter. The decrees of the Spanish authori- ties forbidding all intercourse between Spanish-America and Louisiana only stimulated the spirit of adventure and enterprise among the daring American traders and settlers. As pioneers, they had borne their type of civilization across the Alleghanies and the Mississippi, and to delay
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further advance because of the presence of a people they regarded as miserable and unfit to possess and enjoy the boundless resources of the new world, was hardly in keeping with the character of the Americans at that time.
The beginnings of American influence in Texas are first seen defi- nitely in the first years of the nineteenth century. Before this there was a sprinkling of Americans in the population, but the inroads into the province were only the results of private enterprise and had little political significance. Some Americans had settled near Nacogdoches, along the San Antonio road, but were allowed to remain undisturbed only because they swore allegiance to the Spanish king.
Trade was a stronger incentive than settlement. Illicit trade between Louisiana and the Mexican provinces dated from the French occupation of the former country. Between 1763 and 1800 the authorities were specially active in prohibiting this commerce, though they were not entirely successful, as has been stated. Against Americans the regula- tions were enforced more strictly than against the French. However, some American traders gained the favor of the local officials and pursued their vocations with little interruption.
One of these latter was Philip Nolan, born an Irishman, Celtic reck- lessness characterizing his adventures, and perhaps in the end resulting in his death. Since 1785 he had been engaged in trade between San Antonio and Natchez.
That Philip Nolan was a man of more than common ability and enterprise is shown by the fact that his adventures became known to Thomas Jefferson and excited the curiosity of that eminently versatile statesman, so that he took pains to ascertain the results of Nolan's dis- coveries as a contribution to the history of the country and to natural science. Writing to Nolan in June, 1798, Jefferson, whose interests in the domain of knowledge seemed to extend to every subject, sought a complete statement concerning the herds of wild horses in the country west of the Mississippi, in the pursuit of which he knew Nolan to be engaged. The letter did not reach Nolan, but an intimate friend of the latter, Daniel Clark Jr., of New Orleans, who claimed a close acquaint- ance with Nolar's activities, replied, in February, 1799, that "that extraor- dinary and enterprising man is now and has been for some years past employed in the countries bordering on the kingdom of New Mexico either in catching or pursuing wild horses, and [is] looked for on the banks of the Mississippi at the fall of the waters with a thousand head,
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which he will in all probability drive into the United States." Also "after his return . .. I will be responsible for his giving you every infor- mation he has collected, and it will require all the good opinion you may have been led to entertain of his veracity not to have your belief staggered with the accounts you will receive of the numbers and habits of the horses of that country and the people who live in the neighborhood, whose cus- toms and ideas are as different from ours as those of the hordes of Grand Tartary."
Clark, in a letter to Jefferson, dated November 12, 1799, speaks of Nolan's arrival at Natchez. "By a singular favor of providence," con- tinues the letter, he "has escaped the snares which were laid for him- Gayoso, the late governor of the province of Louisiana, a few months before his death, wrote to the governor of Texas . to arrest Nolan on his return as a person who from the knowledge he had acquired of the interior parts of the New Mexico might one day be of injury to the Spanish monarchy. The thing would have been effected according to his wish, and Nolan might probably have been confined for life on mere suspicion, but fortunately the governor of Texas died a few days before the letter reached San Antonio, the capital of his government. The per- son exercising the office of governor pro tem., knowing that another person had been appointed by the viceroy, refrained from opening the
letters . and during this interval Nolan, who was unconscious of the machinations of his enemies, passed through the province, was treated as usual with the utmost attention, and only learned the circumstances from me a few days ago."
The fate of Nolan is told in a letter to Jefferson, then president, written from Natchez, in August, 1801, a part of which reads: "We have lately been cut off from our usual communication with that country [New Mexico] by the imprudence of Mr. Nolan, who persisted in hunt- ing wild horses without a regular permission; the consequence of which has been that, a party being sent against him, he was the only man of his company who was killed by a random shot. I am much concerned for the loss of this man. Although his eccentricities were many and great, yet he was not destitute of romantic principles of honor united to the highest personal courage, with energy of mind not sufficiently cultivated by education, but which under the guidance of a little more prudence might have conducted him to enterprises of the first magnitude."
Despite the warning about the governor's instructions, Nolan had organized his party and advanced into Spanish territory. Intimidating
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by their strength one party of Spanish horsemen sent to intercept them, they went on as far as the Brazos, where they placed their camp and set about accomplishing the object of their expedition. Here, on March 21, 1801, they were attacked, eighteen in number, against one hundred and fifty Spaniards, led by Lieutenant Musquiz. Nolan was killed early in the fight. Ellis P. Bean, who was historian of the expedition, then took command. Driven from the log defenses to a ravine, they kept up stub- born resistance nearly all day, but ammunition failing, they finally con- sented to accompany Musquiz to Nacogdoches. Here they were detained a month, awaiting Salcedo's order for their return to the United States. But instead, they were brought in irons to San Antonio, and thence to San Luis Potosi, where they experienced sixteen months' imprisonment. Removed to Chihuahua, they were tried, and their sentence being referred to the king, it was five years before the decision arrived from Madrid. By this time there were nine left. By the royal order, every fifth man was to be hanged, which meant that one of the number must be taken. Blindfolded, the prisoners, probably little dreading the chance of death after six years of imprisonment, threw dice on a drumhead to decide who should die, death to go with the lowest number. Bean, the narrator of the circumstances, threw the lowest number but one. A man named Blackburn threw the fatal score. He was hanged in the presence of his comrades the following day, November 1I, 1807. The others continued in captivity for varying lengths of time, some of them finally returning to the United States.
The Nolan expedition is usually recognized as the first noteworthy attempt of Americans to enter Texas. It was without special significance except that it aroused definite interest in the regions west of the Missis- sippi. Its incidents were very likely magnified in popular opinion and added to the score which Americans believed they must soon settle with the Spanish.
CHAPTER VIII
THE REVOLT AGAINST SPANISH DESPOTISM-THE BURR CONSPIRACY
That the Texas struggle for independence in 1836 was a product of the causes which led to the American revolution of 1776, is a proposition supported by a very fascinating logic. Historians agree that the rebel- lion of the Thirteen Colonies was one phase of the greater struggle of the entire English people for civic liberty and constitutional rights against the waning power of monarchy and the "divine right of kings." The ideas and principles thus fought for and established did not remain solely the proud possession of English peoples. The French revolutionists found inspiration and example in the American war for independence, and similar ideals of liberty bound the two nations in bonds of active sympathy.
Nor did the movement stop there. The first shots fired for liberty were in truth heard "round the world," and the strongholds of despotism were shaken as never before. Even in Spain, the home of the inquisition, the current ideals of liberty found lodgment. Though such radical senti- ments were sternly repressed at home, this once powerful nation found a dire menace in the progress of republican doctrines in the foreign colonies, where the most rigorous measures soon became unavailing against revo- lutions. Spanish America, by its position as a neighbor to the United States, was peculiarly open to the influence of the new political ideas. Suffering under greater wrongs than the Thirteen Colonies ever had to endure, the colonies of Mexico and South America had every reason to be dissatisfied with their lot. Of their internal conditions and relations with the home government, a writer* of that period said: "that the Spanish colonies supported the parent as Anchises of old was supported by his children; but that they had become tired of the weight and cared not how soon the burden was shuffled off." A crisis had been reached in
* Quoted in "The Aaron Burr Conspiracy, " by W. F. MeCaleb.
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the long era of absolutism and oppression which had characterized Spain's authority in the new world.
Coming back to the first link in this chain of argument, it is evident that the people of the United States would watch with sympathy and inter- est any movement to establish the civic ideals for which their own revolu- tion was fought. And at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the achievements for independence were still fresh in the minds of the people, and the sentimentalism of patriotism was an influence not to be estimated by the colder standards of a century later. The basic principles of democ- racy were very dear to the people, and their sympathy was readily excited by efforts in other parts of the world to gain the same privileges. If, during the French revolution, Americans lent something more than sym- pathy to their fellow patriots across the water, what more natural than that they should be ready to champion the cause of oppressed Mexico when its people sought disunion with the mother country ?
Though a proper understanding of this attitude of Americans to Mexico is an essential point of view for regarding the events to be described in the following pages, there was more than disinterested sym- pathy that impelled the American advance into the Southwest. Desire to assist the revolutionists was strongly alloyed with the selfishness that has furnished the sinews of war to most of the revolutions that have occurred on the American continents during the past century. Only seldom in the history of the world has one nation gone to the assistance of another with- out a quid pro quo-a material reward that lends a practical aspect to many a glorious campaign. At the beginning, the movement of the Amer- icans against Spain had two impulses-the sentimentalism for freedom and sympathy for those oppressed by monarchical despotism ; and a long- ing for the material fruits of conquest.
It is a fact of much importance that American civilization came in conflict with Spain in Louisiana just at the time when the Spanish- American provinces were ripe for revolution. There can be no doubt that the American invasion was accelerated by the political unrest and dis- order in the royal provinces. And had Spain been able and wise enough to maintain her American possessions in loyal unity, or had Mexican independence been conclusively established and an effective central gov- ernment attained, it is possible that American aggression beyond the Sabine would have been repulsed, or at least the transfer of Texas to the Union would have been long delayed.
As in Cuba in the closing years of the century, so in Mexico at its
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beginning, Spain outraged and humiliated beyond tolerance a people whose natural attitude was almost servile loyalty. Hardly a pretense of home government was granted. The Mexican born, though of pure Spanish parentage, were excluded from the rights of citizenship in favor of the "gachupines," or natives of Spain, who were granted the highest offices of church and state and the most discriminating commercial mono- polies. Such nepotism was productive of the bitterest jealousy on the part of the native aristocracy, and hastened the consolidation of all grades of Mexican races in opposition to the privileged Spaniards from over the sea. These unjust distinctions had long borne heavily on the Spanish Americans and were gradually neutralizing their inherent reverence for his Most Catholic Majesty and his institutions.
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