USA > Texas > History of Texas : from 1685 to 1892, volume 1 > Part 22
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Santa Anna having dissolved the constitutional Congress in May, 1834, occupied himself in perfecting schemes for trans-
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forming the whole machinery of republicanism into a central consolidated despotism, of which he was to be Dictator, though bearing the more modest title of President. On the first of January, 1835, he assembled, under the name of Congress, a body chosen through his intrigues and composed of his creatures.
Through his emissaries petitions poured in from 1 eccle- siastical, military and aristocratic sources, praying for this revolution - this destruction of republican freedom and substi- tion of despotism.
This body became emboldened by the encouraging petitions from the army, the clergy and the aristocracy. Remon- strances from the friends of constitutional government were
I It must be understood that when the "Church Party " in Mexico is spoken of, the great body of the church is not included, but its higher digni- taries, who controlled its vast wealth and who were still Spaniards in heart, or sympathy, and desired a government under which their great wealth, ex- traordinary powers, privileges and fueros including a direct political voice in the government, should be perpetuated. Their interests, as they believed, could only be preserved under a government controlled by the privileged orders - the military, the aristocracy and the higher clergy. The latter controlled fully half the wealth of the nation. Yet among them was an oc- casional patriot. On the other hand, the great body of the people, with scarcely a known exception, republicans and centralists, were Roman Cath- olics and knew no other church. The poorer clergy and village priests, among whom were large numbers who were indeed and in truth gentle fathers to loving flocks, were largely patriots, more or less and sometimes eminently in sympathy with the struggles of their people for liberty and freedom from the grinding exactions inherited from Spain. Let it never be forgotten that Hidalgo, the first to raise the banner and the cry for Mexican liberty (at Dolores on the 16th of September, 1810), and the first great mar- tyr to Spanish cruelty (by military execution in Chihuahua in July, 1811), was a native Mexican and a poor village priest. Nor that the two most illustrious heroes in the Mexican struggle for liberty against Spanish des- potism- Generals Morelos and Matamoros (both of whom, after capture, were degraded by the higher clergy, and put to death by the Spanish sol- diery), were priests who died for the disenthrallment of their countrymen from foreign slavery. The names of Hidalgo, Morelos and Matamoros, are household words in every Mexican hut to-day, and should be revered by every lover of humanity in every land.
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contemptuously cast aside, and it boldly assumed extraordi- nary powers. Without trial, or hearing, it deposed the honest and sturdy, though sometimes erring, republican Vice-Presi- dent, Manuel Gomez Farias, and elected General Miguel Bar- ragan, a bigoted Centralist and partisan of Santa Anna, in his place. It hastened to pass a decree reducing the militia of the Statesto one for every five hundred souls ( less than the ordinary police of a Mexican town or city ), and requiring the remainder. to be disarmed. This was simply the annihilation of the last hope of freedom, as every American knows who has any con- ception of the history of his country or the principles upon which its government rests. Daily revelations plainly indi- cated the determination of Santa Anna, and his followers to destroy the Federal system and inaugurate a central military despotism. Yet, on the 10th of March, 1835, Austin, still in prison, wrote to Texas :
" The territorial question is now dead.1 The advocates of that measure are now strongly in favor of a State govern- ment, and the subject is before Congress. A call has been made upon the President for information on the subject and I am assured the President will make his communication in a few days, and that it will be decidedly in favor of Texas and the State."
It would be difficult to conceive of a more thoroughly mis- taken view of the actual condition of things than is shown in this passage from Austin's letter ; but the fact remains that it was written inside the prison walls, a fact, in another connec- tion and in the present day, ignored in a source to which his reputation is sacred. For it has been said, for the first time, so far as authorities have been examined, that for months before his release, Austin was out of prison and allowed the limits of the city under a bond of three hundred thousand dollars, during which time he had daily intercourse with the
None but Santa Annistas ever favored it.
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first men of Mexico, " making himself thoroughly acquainted with the condition of the affairs of that country, so that when he returned to Texas no one in Texas was better informed than he about their affairs." This latter statement, in view of his letter just quoted, and of subsequent events, yet to be men- tioned, in justice to his reputation for wisdom, must be taken with some degree of reservation.
The legislature of Coahuila and Texas, elected under the influence of Santa Anna, assembled on the first of March, 1835, at Monclova. Augustine Viesca, also newly elected, was installed as Governor-the last ever elected as the chief executive of the united State. The legislature was no improvement on its predecessor, and continued the same corrupt disposal of the public domain of Texas, selling four hundred and eleven leagues (1,809,908 acres) at private sale for thirty thousand dollars, or one and two-thirds cents per acre. Many tracts of eleven leagues had been and still were sold to schemers and speculators at similarly inadequate rates. . These and kindred measures becoming speedily known in Texas, whose two representatives present, Messrs. Oliver Jones and Vasquez, were powerless to withstand the wicked spoliation, rendered almost universal the desire for separation from Coahuila, and gave increased force to the conviction of a large and thoughtful element in the country that a crisis was at hand, the issue of which must be the ruin of Texas or her total separation from Mexico - a conviction which nothing could remove but good news from the national capital, in the form of guarantees that Santa Anna, as chief of the republican party, would restore, adhere to and pre- serve the constitutional principles of 1824. Large numbers had no hope of such auspicious tidings and firmly believed a central despotism was inevitable and sought to prepare the public mind for the dire result; but were met with various shades of opposition by that extremely conservative, halting and non-acting element almost universally found, in greater or
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less numbers, in every law abiding commonwealth, and they were referred to as "agitators," "demagogues," " fana- tics," etc. Among the most prudent and conversative men, however, there were forebodings of evil and a realization that a crisis impended. These and the most pronounced men only differed in degree of conviction as to the wisest course to pursue for the time being.
Feeble efforts at opposition to Santa Anna's revolutionary acts were made in several quarters, as in Jalisco, Oaxaca, Puebla and other States, but they were promptly suppressed by his military minions. The legislature at Monclova sent up a remonstrance, but its own prodigalities were sneeringly adverted to and no heed paid to its expressions.
Don Francisco Garcia, Governor of Zacatecas, however, refused to disarm his militia and submit to the rapidly forming despotism, and prepared for resistance. Santa Anna at the head of a large force, marched against him. Garcia marshaled 5,000 militia and leaving the walls of Zacatecas, imprudently gave battle, against regulars, on the open plain of Guadalupe. A sanguinary battle of two hours ensued in which the patriot Governor was irretrievably defeated, losing 2,700 in prisoners, great numbers in killed and the bulk of his arms and muni- tions. This disaster occurred on the 11th of May, 1835, and left no visible opposition to Santa Anna in all Mexico, except- ing the legislature at Monclova and its local support, and whatever there might be, though yet unorganized, in Texas. Liberty was crushed and despotism flaunted its red flag in triumph from Vera Cruz to New Mexico and from Matamoros to California. Gloomy and portentous, whether seen or unseen by the people, was the condition of Texas. Some were slow, others quick, to realize the gathering of the storm; but all were aroused in time to prevent the destruction of their country and to preserve their liberties.
As soon as the Dictator had overthrown all opposition in Zacatecas he returned to the capital the more effectually to
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direct and control those measures deemed necessary by him to the perfection of his schemes for the subversion of the last semblances of liberty in his country and the erection and perpetuation of a consolidated despotism. At that time his willing and subservient tool and reputed brother-in-law, Gen- eral Martin Perfecto de Cos, of whom we shall, for a few months, hear much, was in command of all the country north of the Sierra Madre mountains, including Texas and corre- sponding to the territory formerly called the Eastern Internal Provinces and, during Bustamente's usurpation, as well as for a time prior thereto, under the command of General Mier y Teran.1 Teran's headquarters, as from time immemorial in that general commandancy, had been in Monterey ; but at this period Cos (who was a coast-man belonging by residence and family to Tuxpan ) was stationed in Matamoros.
Cos was ordered, immediately after the fall of Zacatecas, to proceed with the necessary force from Matamoros to Monclova and bring the protesting legislature into subjection. . To justify this order were cited the misdeeds of the legisla- ture in land frauds, its refusal to disarm the militia and its declaration that the militia should be maintained and em- ployed to reduce Saltillo, which had again (despite the patched up truce of Santa Anna's invention), revolted, de- clared for Santa Anna and centralism and set up a govern- ment of its own. It was further charged in justification that insurrection was meditated by the recalcitrant legislature.
1 The not unfrequent occurrence of Spanish names joined by the letter "y" which is the same as the English conjunction " and " simply means the union of two names, those of both the father and the mother in the child. Thus, in this case, the name of the father was Mier, while the maiden name of the mother had been Teran. Hence their son Manuel had been given both names, Manuel Mier and Teran. So the preposition " de " (Castil- ian " of ") has its distinctive use in names, indicating a locality or a family relationship, as " Antonio Lopez," with the suffix " de Santa Anna," means either the place or the family of Santa Anna. The same names united by "y " means that the parents were cousins or originally bore the same name.
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Thus threatened with inevitable destruction, the legislature authorized Governor Viesca to remove the State archives to Texas and there establish a new seat of government. Viesca, with the archives and an escort of 150 Coahuilian militia and twenty Americans, started on this mission, but halted for two days at the hacienda of Dos Hermanos. Then learning that some of Cos' troops were ahead of him, and, in opposition to the urgent advice of his American and a por- tion of his Mexican escort, his courage failed and he returned the archives to Monclova, disbanded his forces and expressed his willingness to submit to the inevitable. On reflection, however, and upon daily being supplied with additional evi- dence of the intention of the centralists to crush out of existence every constitutional right and place the whole country under the heel of military despotism, he resolved to escape to Texas. At that time Colonel Ben R. Milam was in Monclova, having gone there, at his own cost and risk, to repre- sent and plead for the rights of the American settlers of Red River, who were not embraced in any colony and whose titles to land grants as settlers, therefore, depended entirely upon the action of the State authorities. But fortunately for these set- tlers and others like them, and for liberty itself, the power of the venal legislature of the united state over such equitable claims and all subjects of governmental control, was forever departed and was to be assumed ere the year was out, and thereafter exercised by Texas. Dr. John Cameron was also in Monclova. He and Milam joined Governor Viesca in his attempt to reach Texas, but in a mountain pass between Monclova and the Rio Grande they were all captured and immured in prison in Monterey, to be sent to the castle of San Juan de Ulloa, at Vera Cruz.
Such was the condition of affairs that confronted the colonists of Texas in the spring of 1835. The situation was rendered more gloomy by evidences of increased hostility on the part of the savages along the whole line of frontier, from
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Red River to the extreme southwest. From the history of the " Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas," by John Henry Brown, the following is extracted in regard to the
MURDER OF TRADERS AND THE FIGHT ON THE SAN MARCOS.
" In the autumn of 1833, John Castleman, a bold and sagacious backwoodsman, from the borders of Missouri, with his wife and four children and his wife's mother, settled fif- teen miles west of Gonzales, on Sandy Creek, on the San Antonio road. He was a bold hunter (much in the forest, and had four ferocious dogs, which served as sentinels at night ) and on one occasion had a terrible fight with a number of Indians who were in the yard endeavoring to steal horses tied round the house. The dogs evidently inflicted severe punish- ment on the savages, who left abundant blood marks on the ground and were glad to escape without the horses. In doing so, in sheer self-defense, the Indians killed the dogs. Castle- man, in his wanderings, was ever watchful for indications of Indians, and thus served as a vidette to the people of Gonzales and persons traveling on that exposed road. Many were the persons who slumbered under his roof rather than camp out at that noted watering-place.
" In the spring of 1835, a party of thirteen French and Mex- ican traders, with pack mules and dry goods from Natchi- toches, Louisiana, en route to Mexico, stopped under some trees a hundred yards in front of the cabin. It was in the forenoon, and before they had unpacked Castleman told them that he had that morning discovered Indian signs near by and urged them to camp in his yard and use his house as a fort if necessary. They laughed at him. He shrugged his shoulders and assured them they were in danger, but still they laughed. He walked back to his cabin, but before he entered about a hundred mounted savages dashed among them,
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yelling and cutting out every animal belonging to the party. These were guarded by a few Indians in full view of the camp, while the main body continued the fight. The traders improvised breastworks of their saddles, packs and bales of goods and fought with desperation. The engagement lasted four hours, the Indians charging in a circle, firing and falling back. Finally, as none of their number fell, the besieged being armed only with Mexican escopetas (smooth-bore cav- alry guns ) they maneuvered till all the traders fired at the same time, then rushed upon and killed all who had not previously fallen. Castleman could, many times, have killed an Indian with his trusty rifle from his cabin window, but was restrained by his wife, who regarded the destruction of the strangers as certain, and contended that if her husband took part, vengeance would be wreaked upon the family - a hundred savages against one man. He desisted, but, as his wife said, " frothed at the mouth " to be thus restrained from action on such an occasion. Had he possessed a modern Winchester, he could have repelled the whole array and saved both the traders and their goods.
" The exultant barbarians, after scalping their victims, packed all their booty on the captured mules and moved off up the country. When night came Castleman hastened to Gonzales with the tidings, and was home again before dawn.
" In a few hours a band of volunteers, under Dr. James H. C. Miller, were on the trail and followed it across the Guadalupe and up the San Marcos, and finally into a cedar brake in a valley surrounded by high hills, presumably on the Rio Blanco. This was on the second or third day after the massacre. Finding they were very near the enemy, Miller halted, placing his men in ambush on the edge of a small opening or glade. He sent forward Matthew Caldwell, Daniel McCoy and Ezekial Williams to recon- noitre. Following the newly made path of the Indians through the brake, in about three hundred yards, they sud-
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denly came upon them dismounted and eating; they speedily retired, but were discovered and, being only three in number, the whole crowd of Indians furiously pursued them with such yells as, resounding from bluff to bluff, caused some of the men in ambush to flee from the apparent wrath to come; but of the whole number of twenty-nine or thirty, sixteen main- tained their position and their senses. Daniel McCoy, the hindmost of the three scouts in single file, wore a long-tail coat. This was seized and tightly held by an Indian, but ' Old Dan,' as he was called, threw his arms backward and slipped from the garment without stopping, exclaiming, ' Take it, d-n you !' Caldwell sprang first into the glade, wheeled, fired and killed the first Indian to enter. Others, unable to see through the brush till exposed to view, rushed into the trap till nine warriors lay in a heap. Realizing this fact, after such unexpected fatality, the pursuers raised that dismal howl which means death and defeat, and fell back to their camp. The panic among some of our men prevented . pursuit. It is a fact that among those seized with the ' buck-ague,' were men then wholly inexperienced, who subsequently became distinguished for coolness and gallantry.
Among others, besides those already named, who were in this engagement, were: Wm. S. Fisher, commander at Mier seven years later ; Bartlett D. McClure, died in 1841; David Hanna, Landon Webster and Jonathan Scott."
It is painful to add that this Dr. Miller, later in the same year, became a tory, and left the country, never to return. From the same history of the Indian Wars is also extracted the following account of other events in the spring and sum- mer of 1835, premising that Canoma was the chief of a small band of friendly Caddos, living much about the Falls of the Brazos, in Robertson's Colony, who rendered faithful service on previous occasions :
" In the spring of 1835 the faithful Canoma was still about Tenoxtitlan. There were various indications of intended
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hostility by the wild tribes, but it was mainly towards the people on the Colorado, the wild Indian, as is well-known to those conversant with that period, considering the people of the two rivers as separate tribes. The people at the Falls, to avert an outbreak, employed Canoma to go among the savages and endeavor to bring them in for the purpose of making a treaty and recovering two children of Mr. Moss, then prisoners in their hands.
" Canoma, leaving two of his children as hostages, undertook the mission and visited several tribes. On returning he reported that those he had seen were willing to treat with the Brazos people; but that about half were bitterly opposed to forming friendly relations with the Coloradians, and that at that moment a descent was being made on Bastrop on that river by a party of the irreconcilables.
" The people at the Falls immediately dispatched Samuel McFall to advise the people of that infant settlement of their danger. Before he reached his destination the Indians had reached the settlement, murdered a wagoner, stolen several horses and left; Col. Edward Burleson, in command of a small party, was in pursuit.
" In the meantime, some travelers lost their horses at the Falls and employed Canoma to follow and recover them. Canoma, with his wife and son, armed with a written certifi- cate of his fidelity to the whites, trailed the horses in the direction of and nearly to the Three Forks of Little River, and recovered them. On his return with these American horses, Burleson and party fell in with him, but were not aware of his faithful character. He exhibited his credentials, with which Burleson was disposed to be satisfied ; but his men, already incensed, and finding Canoma in possession of the horses under such suspicious circumstances, gave rein to unreasoning exasperation. They killed him and his son, leaving his wife to get in alone, which she lost no time in doing. She reported these unfortunate facts precisely as they
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had transpired, and as they were ever lamented by the chivalrous and kind-hearted Burleson.
" This intensely incensed the remainder of Canoma's party, who were still at the Falls. Choctaw Tom, the principal man left among them, stated that they did not blame the people at the Falls, but that all the Indians would now make war on the Coloradians, and, with all the band, left for the Indian country.
" Soon after this, in consequence of some depredations, Major Oldham raised a company of twenty-five men in Washington, and made a successful attack on the Keechi village, on the Trinity, now in Leon County. He routed them, killed a number and captured a considerable number of horses and all their camp equipage.
" Immediately after this, Capt. Robert M. Coleman, of Bas- trop, with twenty-five men, three of whom were Brazos men well known to many of the Indians, made a campaign against the Tehuacanos, at the famous springs of that name, now in Limestone County. He crossed the Brazos at Washington on the 4th of July, 1835. He was not discovered till near the village. The Indians manifested stubborn courage. A severe engagement ensued, but in the end, though killing a consider- able number of Indians, Coleman was compelled to retreat - having one man killed and four wounded. The enemy were too numerous for so small a party ; and it was believed that their recognition of the three Brazos men among their assail- ants, stimulated their courage and exasperated them against the settlers on that river, as they were already towards those on the Colorado.
" Coleman fell back upon Parker's Fort, two and a half miles above the present town of Groesbeck, and sent in an express, calling for an augmentation of force to chastise the enemy. Three companies were immediately raised - one commanded by Capt. Robert M. Williamson, one by Capt. Coheen and a third by Dr. George W. Barnett. Col. John
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H. Moore was given chief command and Joseph C. Neill (a soldier at the Horseshoe ), was made adjutant. They joined Coleman at the fort and rapidly advanced upon the Tehua- canos at the springs, but the wily red men had discovered them and fled.
" They then scoured the country up the Trinity as far as the forks, near the subsequent site of Dallas, then passed over to and down the Brazos, crossing it where old Fort Graham now stands, without encountering more than five or six Indians on several occasions. They, however, killed one warrior and made prisoners of several women and children. One of the women, after her capture, killed her own child, for which she was immediately shot. Without any other event of moment the command leisurely returned to the settlements."
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Preliminary organizations of the Municipalities - Self-preservation guiding the deliberations of the people - Cos made both Civil and Military Gov- ernor - Travis disarms a Mexican company at Anahuac.
Thus the reader has presented to him a comprehensive view of the actual condition of Texas in the first half of the year 1835. The borders exposed to the ravages of the wild savages ; the State government destroyed by the minions of a military despotism; and the constitutional government of the nation overthrown and superseded by the head of that despotism, which was resolved on the annihilation of free government and the substitution therefor of a centralized, one-man power, sustained by and devoted to the interests of the military, the aristocracy and the politico-clerical orders. Civil government, in its freedom of action, was crushed out of being. In so far as the people of Texas saw and compre- hended the import of this revolution, no peaceful ray of hope illumined their future. If ever an enlightened, liberty loving people on earth had just and holy ground for resorting to rev- olution in defense of their own homes, rights and firesides, the people of Texas had from the fall of Zacatecas, on the 11th of May, 1835. That fall crushed their last hope of relief through any agency in Mexico and plainly admonished them that their political salvation thenceforward depended upon their own stout arms and the mercies of Him who reigneth over all the earth.
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