USA > Texas > History of Texas : from 1685 to 1892, volume 1 > Part 21
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This was among the last public acts of Henry S. Brown,. who died on the 26th of the succeeding July (1834) at his home in Columbia.
Anarchy reigned in Coahuila, and Texas was left without any government save through local tribunals. Events hast- ened, the aspect of affairs constantly changed and men changed their views accordingly. The conservative man, counseling moderation one day and hoping for sunshine with the next news from Coahuila or from the capital city, was liable, before a change in the moon, to have his hopes blasted and be driven to modify his views. So, from 1833 to the final issue in 1835, the best men in the colonies were more or less in a state of vacillation, the situation of Colonel Austin in Mexico constantly rising up to admonish them of the necessity of exercising caution and patience. But for the restraint thus imposed, much more decided measures, looking to the salvation of Texas, would have found favor. As it was, during the year 1834, the conviction
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was forced upon many able and conscientious men, that the day was rapidly approaching when absolute separation from Mexico, or slavish submission to an ever-changing military despotism, would be the only alternatives left to Texas. Yet it was difficult for them to realize the possibility of Santa Anna, the hitherto exalted champion of popular liberty, apostatizing and becoming the perfidious and unprincipled advocate of despotism. He conducted his schemes with ad- roitness and bided his time, the while pouring blandishments and deceptive promises into the ears of Austin while still holding him in prison. That he overreached and grossly deceived Austin seems certain. In his letter to the Ayunta- miento of San Antonio of October 2d, 1833, Austin had advised the formation of a local government for Texas, inde- pendent of Coahuila, as a State of the Mexican confederation, " thus being ready ( to use his language ) for the time when the Congress will refuse their approval." This advice is what sank deep in Santa Anna's heart and he had no idea of releas- ing Austin until his own schemes should be perfected.
In Austin's prison diary, referring to that letter as one of the imprudent acts of his life, he says, " I had every reason to believe the people of Texas would not suffer the month of November to pass without organizing a local government, and, in that event, it is very evident that it would have been much better to organize a harmonious consultation of the respective local authorities of the municipalities, than by a popular com- motion." In the same entry in his diary, referring to the condition of Texas when he left home and his failure of suc- cess at the Capital, he says: " These things crazed me, and I lost my patience." Pathetic words from one held in prison and disappointed as he was in a noble effort to serve his country.
Prison life and sore harassments preyed upon both his health and mind, as is evident from his diary and correspond- ence. Vague rumors reached him, doubtless set on foot by
-
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the emissaries of Santa Anna at the Capital, to the effect that men at Monclova, including some Americans, whom he does not name, and others in Texas, were conspiring to prolong his imprisonment, for which no grounds have ever been found by any writer on the history of those times. On the contrary men of all shades of opinion in Texas, regardless of their per- sonal relations to Col. Austin, and including those who differed with him in opinion afterwards, if not before, seem to have been a unit in lamenting and sympathizing with him in his imprisonment and in desiring his speedy and safe return home. Not one exception is known among the bona fide citizens of Texas, though, as he seems to have suspected, there may have been such wickedness in the hearts of a few non-resident land - schemers visiting Monclova.
In the year 1834, while Austin was still a prisoner, Santa Anna sent his confidential friend and sometime secretary, Juan N. Almonte, on a professedly friendly visit of inspection to Texas. In truth his mission was more that of a spy than an impartial inspector. He came, visited all the towns as far east as Nacogdoches, made personal friends by his personal bearing, and returned to Mexico and made two reports to his master -one to be published, which, at this day, possesses no interest, and another for the private information of Santa Anna, which the latter must have considered widely at fault when overwhelmed and a prisoner on the field of San Jacinto.
From his Acordada prison, on the 25th of August, 1834, Col. Austin wrote a very long letter to his brother-in-law, Mr. James F. Perry, of Brazoria, brief extracts from which, giving his opinions relative to the rumors referred to in re- gard to himself, and also in regard to political " fanatics," " demagogues," " agitators," etc., in Texas, have appeared in several Texas histories. A certified copy of that letter made by Gail Borden, Jr., to be sent to Nacogdoches, as requested by him, now lies before me. Its careful perusal justifies the remarks just made in regard to his mental and
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physical condition. It was written, too, with the knowledge that it, as well as all of his correspondence at that period, would doubtless pass through the hands of Santa Anna. Only on this hypothesis can some of its contents be accounted for. After speaking of his San Antonio letter and of his belief in Santa Anna's friendship for him, he says:
" The Vice-President (Farias ), on the first of October, 1833, was highly offended at me because I stated (to him) that the affairs of Texas required prompt attention of the government, for the people there had taken the position that if the evils which threatened that country with ruin, were not remedied by the government, the people of Texas would remedy them themselves, without waiting any longer, on the ground, that self-preservation rendered such a measure neces- sary and would justify it. The Vice-President construed this into a threat and personal insult, and we both parted in anger and very great irritation. I wrote (the next day ) the letter of October 2d, to the Ayuntamiento of Bexar, - became cool again, and persevered in getting the remedies - reconciled the Vice-President, and parted with him ( for Texas ) on the 10th of December, in harmony and with the best of feelings and the most sincere respect. The Ayuntamiento of Bexar changed the face of things and revived the passions of the Vice-President, by sending him my unfortunate letter of October 2d. Individ- uals who were unfriendly to me, because I opposed a territory for Texas, and others who were unfriendly to all foreigners, improved this opportunity to inflame the mind of the Vice- President and his ministers against me, so that on my return to Mexico as a prisoner he was the most violent and bitter enemy I had. I believe him to be an honest man, and a true, federal, democratic republican in principle; but he believed, or was led by others to believe, that the political situation of Mexico required something like a Robespierrean system, or reign of terror. No one was executed, but hundreds were banished or imprisoned. Whether this system was the result
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of the Vice-President's own inclination, or whether he was led into it by his counsellors and friends, I cannot say. Some think that it was all his own policy, and others that he was forced into it contrary to his wish by the force of circumstan- ces and the excitements of the day. His administration was unfortunate for the nation and for the federal party, for no one who has any sense of justice, or of common humanity, can approve of an illegal, unconstitutional and arbitrary system of banishment and imprisonment. The religious prejudices of the people were also alarmed by the measures of that admin- istration to a great degree ; hence the reaction which is now operating all over the nation, and which some think will shake the federal system; but I am not of that opinion, for I do not believe that Santa Anna has designed to change the system, or do anything more than to get Congress together in January next, with the character and powers of a national convention, freely elected by the people, in order to re-establish or review the constitution, which has been so dreadfully outraged by all . parties that now respect it."
A very few months proved that Col. Austin was most egregiously mistaken in the character and aims of Santa Anna, who was then engaged in perfecting treason to the liberties of his country ; while his estimate of Vice-President Manuel Gomez Farias, his persecutor, as " an honest man, and a true, federal, democratic republican in principle," was eminently just, as verified by the steadfastness of that personage through all the trials, persecutions and revolutions of his country for a quarter of a century, ending in the downfall of Santa Anna and placing his country under the ægis of that free consti- tution under which it has advanced during the intervening thirty-four years.
Austin continues : " A great personal animosity is said to exist between the President, Santa Anna, and his friends, and the Vice-President, Gomez Farias, and his friends. I believe there is no harmony between them and much hatred."
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After devoting considerable space to a defense of his course against rumored allegations of hostility to himself in Texas, for which there was certainly no real foundation, he says : " The government has remedied the evils complained of in Texas and which threatened the country with ruin ; and those who last year acted in good faith and with pure intentions in favor of separating from Coahuila, are now opposed to it, be- cause the reasons which made separation necessary no longer exist, and I and my friends will, therefore, now be the first to oppose such a separation, or any other measures that tend to disturb the established and regular order of things. They will discountenance all men, whomsoever they may be, who attempt to attack the Mexican government, or any of its authorities by word or deed."
The only evil remedied had been the repeal of Bustamente's ukase forbidding Americans to settle in Texas, which had not been and could not be enforced. Unexplained, this language of Austin is at war with both his prior and later course (after his restoration to freedom) and to the very object of his mission to Mexico. It would be the essence of injustice to accept it as the utterance of Stephen F. Austin, free and un- shackled. He was a caged prisoner in the hands of men reck- less of life when interfering with their schemes of ambition, and in writing this letter, which must inevitably fall under the eye of Santa Anna, he was seeking to fashion the key which would unlock his prison door. The whole tenor of the letter forces this construction of its object and he evidently expected and intended his friends to so regard it. Again, he says :
" Santa Anna is friendly to Texas and to me. My personal friends have cause to be grateful to him.
* I have been led into so much difficulty and Texas has been so much jeopardized in its true and permanent interest by inflammatory men, by political fanatics, political advent- urers, would-be-great-men, vain-talkers and visionary fools that
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I begin to lose confidence in all persons except those who seek their living between the plow handles. The farmers need only proclaim with one unanimous voice: ' Fidel- ity to Mexico ! Opposition to violent men and measures !' and all will be peace, harmony and prosperity in Texas. I hope the State question is totally dead, and will so re- main."
These latter extracts, reflecting on prominent characters, as agitators, fanatics, fools, etc., except as understood in a Pick- wickian sense, came with singularly ill-grace from him who, less than two years before, had presided (in October, 1832) over the first convention ever held in Texas, composed of sixty delegates elected almost exclusively by those who held the plow-handles; and who less than seventeen months before (April, 1833 ) had served in the second and only similar con- vention ever held in the country - a convention held in like manner and by which he had been honored with the highest mark of respect and confidence in its power to bestow, by its sending him as agent to the city of Mexico to plead for the peaceful admission of Texas into the Mexican Union as a sep- arate State. We repeat, it was the justifiable language of one seeking liberation from a dungeon and the clutches of tyranny ; but it was not the language of Stephen F. Austin, free and unshackled among his countrymen in Texas, otherwise it would have branded his name with shame.
At the elections in September, 1834, within a week of the date of this letter, Austin, Oliver Jones and Vasquez were elected to the legislature from Texas, an overwhelming evi- dence that there was no conspiracy against but an almost uni- versal friendship for Austin in the country. He had been a member in the session of 1831-32, as Jones had been in the succeeding session, each having a Mexican colleague ; but now, for the first time, Texas was allowed three of the twelve members. No election was held, however, in Coahuila for Governor and members of the legislature, owing to the revo-
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lutionary condition of its affairs, and hence this legislature was never called into being.
As has been stated, in the month of July, 1834, Henry Smith became the first Political Chief of the new department of Brazos. He was the first American ever so honored in any department of Texas, and congratulations poured in upon him from many of the most able, thoughtful and influential men of the country, from Nacogdoches, the line of the Brazos, the Colorado, Mina, Gonzales, the Lavaca and Navidad and Matagorda. Among these congratulations some were from William B. Travis, Oliver Jones, Ira R. Lewis, Wm. H. and John A. Wharton, Robert M. Williamson, Branch T. Archer, Willlam S. and John Fisher of Gonzales, and many others of respectability. Calls arose from all quar- ters to the Political Chief, Henry Smith, for a public expres- sion of his views on the crisis then upon the country - the State government dissolved and Coahuila in the hands of rival military factions, each claiming to be the State government, the period of election passed and none held, the Texian agent in prison in Mexico, the general government rapidly crystalliz- ing into a central despoti-m, and Texas deprived of all govern- ment save through local Ayuntamientos and Political Chiefs, the latter holding commissions from the dethroned State gov- ernment. To offer advice under these embarrassing circum- stances required courage, wisdom and prudence, for in a month conditions might be changed and advice, wise when given, might prove inapplicable then.
On the 20th of October, 1834, he yielded to this demand and issued a printed address to the Ayuntamientos of his department and to the people at large. He was sensibly cramped and held under restraint by the condition of Colonel Austin in Mexico and felt, in common with all the people, that Colonel Austin's safety was paramount to every consid- eration not affecting the immediate safety of the country. The address, therefore, after a fair review of existing condi-
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tions, assumes that by the revolutionary acts of Coahuila, Texas was honorably relieved of her enforced connection with and subordination to Coahuila ; and that through her local Ayuntamientos and the advisory committee improvised by the convention of 1833, had the means in a regular and orderly manner (the only means short of revolution) to insure her self-preservation by assembling a convocation, through which a local government could be formed, under the principles of the Mexican Federal constitution, as a State of the Union, to which the general government, when so moved, could give its sanction. It followed, he said, that if such sanction was never given, Texas would have this self-created local government as a bond of union, and the future must take care of itself. This was the exact advice given by Austin to the Ayuntamiento of Bexar one year and eighteen days before; but it was not in accord with the views of the Ayuntamiento of Brazoria (Waller, Wharton and Brown, of which the Political Chief was secretary), published nine months and eighteen days before. There had been nine eventful months in which both men and conditions had changed.
The people were not yet ripe for the step indicated by Smith. A majority favored it, it is true, yet many opposed it. Six of the advisory committee at San Felipe published a handbill in opposition to it. Travis, the seventh member, was ardently in favor of it, but he was a wise and prudent man who fully realized that great unity was essential to suc- cess. He was a bosom and confidential friend of Smith, and in a private letter to him dated November 1st, said among other things : " Moreover, it is thought that any movement in Texas at this time would prejudice the situation of Colonel Austin, whose popularity was never so high as it is now.1
1 This declaration from the immortal Travis fully sustains the grounds taken in the preceding pages, that the clandestine rumors reaching Austin in his prison, of a conspiracy against him, were utterly groundless. For the reasons stated by. Travis, even among those who were not his especial
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His sufferings have excited the sympathy of the people in his favor, and it is right that they should, for he has suffered in their service by faithfully representing their views and wishes."
The variety of opinions entertained by men of approved worth and patriotism and their mental progress and changes, in times of turmoil, establishes, if evidence were needed, the fallibility of our race. Deity, alone, beholds at a glance the past and future and all the developments yet hidden in the womb of futurity, and as a consequence alone can form infal- lible judgments. Man must be content to act upon what is and what has been, calling to his aid the imperfect assistance of analogy and comparative philosophy. Not having the same powers of perception and clearness of vision, it is natural that men should view events, happened and happening, with different eyes and reach dissimilar conclusions as to what steps of public policy should be taken in great emergencies.
Thus, in October, 1834, in view of existing conditions, Smith advised the formation of Texas into a Mexican State, in the mode and manner indicated; but the majority of the peo- ple did not respond. They were not so far advanced. A year later the people arrived at that point ; but the chief, ad- vanced to the position of Governor, had also advanced his views as to the means necessary to save the liberties of the people, and favored independence ; but again he was in the minority. Many able, patriotic and true men favored his opin- ions, but the majority, in the main equally able, patriotic and true, had not arrived at that point. But at the last moment, when all hope that the storm might pass had vanished and the mercenary cohorts of the avenging despot were on their soil, marching under the flag of extermination, then, God be praised, was seen a united people, who, with one voice, declared for
friends, this seems to have been true. That Chief Smith fully participated in this sympathy the careful preservation of this letter among his private papers, and other facts, abundantly prove.
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separation from Mexico and absolute independence. And thus was established the fact that honest differences in opinion and judgment did not involve differences in the essential element of patriotism and love of country. The condition of Texas, in its political relations, was so deplorable that on the 13th of October, 1834, many intelligent Mexican citizens of Coahuila met with a large assemblage of the best citizens of San An- tonio de Bexar, in a deliberative assembly, and after a full intercharge of views, covering several hours, came to an agreement that self-preservation demanded energetic action to prevent ruin. The venerable Don Erasmo Seguin, ex-Polit- ical Chief of that department, offered a resolution, which was adopted, calling for a State Convention to assemble in San Antonio on the 15th of November, to organize a provisional State government, in order, in the language of the resolution, to save the country from " unparalleled anarchy and confu- sion." Consider the date, and the man of to-day, in search of the truth, will find, even from this Mexican stand-point, a prior and most remarkable indorsement of the plan proposed, eleven days later, in a different municipality and department, two hundred miles away, by the stanch and ever true American, Henry Smith.
The Bexar resolutions were sent to every department and municipality in the country, but the time was too short for their reception in a majority of the localities. In the munici- pality of Brazoria, however, there was a large vote cast for two delegates, of which Henry Smith received every ballot and Dr. Branch T. Archer all but five. For the reason stated, however, this proposed convention, which might have changed the future course of events, and prevented both an Alamo and a San Jacinto, was not held. Want of communication in those days, as often in past times, operated to defeat that concert of action which might have changed the result of great issues affecting for weal or woe the destinies of multitudes. The name of Seguin is honorably associated with the introduction
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and growth of Americanism in Texas and the glories of San Jacinto. Seguin, the son of this patriot, presided as master of ceremonies with scarcely an American present, in giving military interment to the ashes of the martyrs of the Alamo, ashes left by the cremating and revengeful fires of Santa Anna, and figured honorably in the counsels of the infant Republic.
CHAPTER XXVII.
Santa Anna and his Cabinet in Council on Texas - Santa Anna calls a Con- gress of his own adherents, to do his bidding - Letter from Austin - Defeat of the Republicans at Zacatecas- Gen. Cos at Matamoros- Escape of Governor Viesca, Milam and Cameron - Indian fight on the San Marcos - Death of Canoma, a friendly Indian Chief.
Returning to affairs in Mexico, it is found that, on the 5th of October, 1834, Santa Anna held a counsel to consider Texas affairs. There were present four members of his cabinet, three of his Generals, Victor Blanco and two other members of Congress from Coahuila, Lorenzo de Zavala, the patriot and friend of Texas, and the prisoner, Stephen F. Austin. Blanco and his colleagues zealously opposed separating Texas from Coahuila ; Zavala and Austin urged its necessity and . justice and, also, the repeal of the prohibitory clause of the oft-mentioned decree of April 6th, 1830. Santa Anna vir- tually agreed to the latter measure and soon afterwards abro- gated the clause. But this was the only concession evolved by the meeting. Santa Anna announced as necessary measures, that four thousand troops, infantry, cavalry and artillery, should be stationed at San Antonio de Bexar for the protec- tion of the coast and the frontier, and that Texas should re- main united with Coahuila, giving frivolous reasons therefor ; and concluded by promising increased mail facilities for the people and a parental regard for the agricultural industries of Texas.
Austin returned to his prison, apparently confiding in Santa Anna's professed regard for the welfare of Texas. About the same time, as has been stated, through Santa Anna's mediation, a temporary truce was patched up between the contending factions in Coahuila, which, with the council (275)
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referred to, if we may judge by his utterances ( which, how- ever, we cannot in view of the fact that he was a caged pris- oner ), seems to have placed Col. Austin in a state of mind not justified by the lowering clouds about him. On the 2nd of December he wrote :
" All is changed since October last year (when he wrote the letter that caused his imprisonment). Then there was no local government in Texas. Now there is, and the most of your evils have been remedied, so that it is now important to promote union with all the State, and keep down all kinds of excitement. All is going well. The President, General Santa Anna, has solemnly and publicly declared that he will sustain the Federal representative system, as it now exists, and he will be sustained by all parties."
Only on the ground that Col. Austin was a prisoner and not a free man, can these expressed views be reconciled with stubborn facts. Neither the Americans of Texas nor the Mexicans in San Antonio as shown by their call for a State convention, were aware that most of the complained of evils had been remedied, or that the imperative necessity of sep- arating from Coahuila had been lessened. On the contrary, the events of the year, in land frauds, revolutions and other transactions in Coahuila, had intensified both the necessity and the desire. Nor could they longer be beguiled by Santa Anna's declarations of fidelity to the Federal representative system. The pen, dipped in prejudice against Col. Austin, might point to his prison utterances to cast a cloud on his claims to respect by posterity. So the pen of prejudiced devotion to his memory might withhold facts showing that his judgment as to remedies and knowledge of facts were at fault in more than one important crisis. But the pen of impartial justice will record the truth, " Nor aught set down in malice."
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