USA > Texas > History of Texas : from 1685 to 1892, volume 1 > Part 9
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There was to be no buying or selling of slaves, and all children, born of slaves in the empire, were to be free at fourteen years of age.4
The empresarios for each two hundred families introduced were to receive fifteen leagues and two labors (66.774 acres) but, however great the number of immigrants introduced by
1 The intelligent reader need not be reminded that the ecclesiastical estab- lishment of Mexico, having long enjoyed quasi-independence of the head of the church of Rome, teemed with abuses and corruption which would be revolting to the Catholic church of the United States.
2 The unit of Spanish measure as applied to land measurements in Texas was the vara (yard) of thirty-three and one-third inches. An English mile is 1900 varas. A labor contains one million square varas and if in square shape has one thousand varas on each side, making an area of 177 English acres. A sitio or league of 4,428 acres, is five thousand varas square and contains the equivalent of 25 labors or 25,000,000 square varas. A lineal league in land measurement is two and sixty-three hundredths English miles.
3 Empresario corresponds with the English word contractor and in this sense simply means one who enters into a contract to found a colony.
4 It meant the abolition of slavery merely in name, and the substitution of a system of peonage - slavery in its most aggravated form.
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them, they could not acquire more than a total of forty-five leagues and six labors (200.322 acres). Each empresario was required to have his lands settled and cultivated within twelve years from the date of his concession, and to sell or dispose of two-thirds within twenty years.1
On the approval of this law on the 4th of January, 1823, Austin, who had been in the city over nine months, pressed his suit for a special confirmation of the grant held by him.
Don Jose Manuel de Herrera, Minister of Foreign and Internal Relations under Iturbide, manifested warm friend- ship for him, zealously advocated his claims and on the 18th of February the grant was confirmed. But when Austin, a few days later, was about to leave for Texas, the counter- revolution occurred, which drove Iturbide from power and he found it necessary to postpone his departure.
Unwilling to await the meeting of the new Congress, ordered to convene in the succeeding August, he pressed the merits of his case upon the attention of Victoria, Bravo, and Negrete, heads of the provisional government, and on the 14th of . April, 1823, they ratified the action previously taken by Iturbide.2
Austin's grant contained no limitation as to territory, nor was a time fixed in which to colonize the three hundred fam- ilies specified therein - privileges conferred upon no em- presario in any subsequent concession.
Austin left for home on the 28th of April, 1823, invested with all powers necessary for the civil and military government of his colony. This undefined authority was to be exercised until the establishment of the regular administration of justice. Among other privileges conferred, he was authorized to im- port needful supplies free of duty for the time being. These
1 These provisions were modified by subsequent laws of Coahuila and Texas.
2 The application of De Witt, Edwards and Leftwich were left to take the regular course.
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concessions were coupled with the requirement that he should, from time to time, report his acts to the Governor of Texas, and hold himself subject to the orders of the commanding General of the Eastern Internal Provinces.
Arriving at Monterey, capital of the Eastern Internal Prov- inces, he called upon General Felipe de La Garza, the gen- eral commanding the department, and other authorities for copies of laws and further instructions. They deemed such additional instructions unnecessary, and he continued his journey.1
After submitting all his papers, concessions and authorities to the inspection of Don Luciano Garcia, then acting as Gov- ernor of Texas, at San Antonio, and asking that functionary to appoint a Commissioner for the issuance of titles in his colony, Austin, about the middle of July, 1823, after an absence of one year and four months, reached the settlement on the Brazos, and was joyously welcomed by his colonists.
In his absence, many immigrants had arrived from the United States, to make their homes in Texas. In the valleys and on the prairies, their cabins arose from the Colorado to the San Jacinto, and the wandering Indian, from his lurking place, saw household fires glowing upon Anglo-Saxon hearth- stones and, bewildered, beheld the dawning of a civilization that was to redeem the wilderness.
When the triumph of the plan of Iguala became known in Texas, the one-time citizens who fled into Louisiana before the royal troops under Perez, in 1819, gradually returned to their deserted homes in Nacogdoches, and in 1823 the place contained perhaps two hundred inhabitants and the population steadily increased until it became one of the most important
1 Austin held the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel of militia until February 1, 1828. He held no other military office until chosen, on the 11th of October, 1835, to command the three or four hundred volunteer citizen soldiers assembled at Gonzales; citizens without a government, who selected him as their leader and with whom he served until November 25th of that year.
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towns in the country. It became famous for the intelligence, refinement and culture of its citizens, to some of whom Texas is indebted for the brightest pages of its history.
On the 17th of July, 1823, Governor Garcia appointed Baron de Bastrop, Commissioner (to act in concert with Austin) to set apart lands and issue titles therefor to the colonists.1
In an official order issued on the 27th of July, 1823, the Governor gave the name of San Felipe de Austin to the pro- spective capital of the colony. San Felipe was his patron saint. The name of Austin was added as a graceful compli- ment to the empresario, and was rendered necessary by the fact that many haciendas and towns in Mexico likewise bore the name of San Felipe.
Austin selected a site on a beautiful prairie bluff, fronting on the west bank of the Brazos ( now in the county of Austin ), and laid off the town. It grew rapidly and was the political center of the colony until the formation of the Republic of Texas in March, 1836. Its importance then steadily declined until it became a mere village.
The Baron de Bastrop arrived and entered upon his duties as Commissioner in August, 1823, but as the lands had to be surveyed and field notes returned, examined and recorded, no title was issued in that year. In 1824, however, about 247 titles were granted.
Austin determined to inflict such condign punishment on the Carancahuas as to put an end to the murders and robber- ies they were continually perpetrating.2 For this purpose he
1 The boundaries of the colony established, after the acquisition of his second and third concessions, included all the territory lying between the old San Antonio and Nacogdoches road on the north, and the gulf on the south, the Lavaca River on the west, and a line midway between the San Jacinto and Trinity rivers on the east.
2 In 1824 the Carancahua Indians, having committed various depreda- tions, Austin, in September of that year, dispatched Captain Randall Jones, in command of a company of twenty-three men, to chastise them. He
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moved with about a hundred well-armed men in the direction of La Bahia, expecting to strike them west of the San An- tonio River on either Espiritu Santo or Aransas bays. But on
dropped down the river in canoes, landed his men, and sent out scouts to reconnoitre. Two of the scouts were ordered to proceed to Bailey's store, where it was said ten or twelve Indians had gone to buy ammunition. When the scouts reached the store they found a number of the colonists assembled and under arms and the Indians being unmistakably hostile, were attacked. A few were killed and those who survived routed. Learning these facts, and that the Indians were encamped about seven miles distant on the west bank of a sluggish stream, since called Jones' Creek, Captain Jones made a night march and attacked them at daylight. The Indians con- cealed themselves in the high marsh grass along the banks and fought with such advantage that he was forced to retreat. Bailey, Singer and Spencer, three of his men, were killed in the fight. A proportionate number were wounded. The Carancahuas also suffered severely, their killed, variously estimated, being placed at fifteen. About this time two Mexicans and a man named White, known as Old Blanco in Long's expedition, came in canoes down the San Antonio River and entered the mouth of the Colorado in search of corn. The Carancahuas surrounded and captured them. The Indians, however, released White on condition that he would go to the settlement, buy corn and return and trade with them. On his return he was to signal by setting fire to the prairie. White departed for the settle- ment and in due time returned accompanied by Captain Jesse Burnham and about thirty men. They found the Mexicans at camp and were told that the Indians were down the river, and had planned the death of White. Cap- tain Burnham, upon reciving this information, placed a part of his force in ambush on the river about a mile or two below the camp and set fire to the prairie. A canoe, containing nine warriors, soon appeared on the stream and when it came abreast of the ambuscade, the command delivered a volley well- directed and killed every occupant of the boat. The savages had counted upon compassing the death of Old Blanco, but had reckoned without their host. Among numerous other outrages committed by the Carancahuas, they way- laid, in the summer of 1823, three young men, named Alley, Loy, and Clark, who were in a canoe on the Colorado River near the mouth of Skull Creek. Alley and Loy were killed, Clark received seven wounds, but succeeded in reaching the opposite bank and escaped. In the afternoon of the same day, Robert Brotherton, a young man from St. Louis County, Missouri, rode among these Indians - thinking that they were friendly Toncahuas, but discovering his mistake, put spurs to his horse and escaped, although severely wounded. A party of fourteen colonists surprised and attacked the band (about twenty Indians) at daylight next morning and killed nearly all of them.
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the Manahuilla Creek, a few miles east of that town, he was met by the priest, alcalde and citizens of La Bahia, who appeared as mediators for the Indians. The Carancahuas aforetime nominally belonged to the mission at La Bahia as converted Indians and now, seeing danger approaching, pro- fessed penitence and appealed to the priest and alcalde to avert the destruction with which they were threatened. The result was a conference and quasi-treaty, in which they sol- emnly pledged themselves to never come east of the San Antonio or Guadalupe rivers again. The colonists, there- upon, returned to their homes. Mr. Yoakum, in chronicling this affair, says: "This pledge they (the Indians) ever after observed," a statement sadly at variance with the facts, for the Carancahuas long after committed many petty and some serious depredations east of the Guadalupe.1 Austin, as soon as possible, formulated and published a set of temporary rules and laws for the government of his colony and the administration of justice. He divided the colony into districts, appointed a magistrate and an officer, cor- responding to a constable, for each district, gave such magistrates jurisdiction to the amount of two hundred dollars, and granted to litigants the right of appeal to
1 Near the mouth of the Gaudalupe in 1834, they were only deterred from attacking the party of Major James Kerr, surveying lands for De Leon's colony, by a ruse practiced upon them by him, and during that year they were whipped in a fight near Laguna Verde, or Green Lake, now in Calhoun County, by a party of Mexican and American settlers, commanded by the brave Captain Placido Venibides. Estevan Sisneros, Silvestre De Leon, S. Addison White and his brother James G. White, were members of Venibide's command. The Indians also committed depredations on the lower Colorado, the Navidad and elsewhere subsequent to the date of the treaty. Their last act was the murder of Captain John F. Kemper, at his home on the Guadalupe, Victoria County, in November, 1845, twenty-one years after their pledge to Austin. Mrs. Kemper, with two little children and her mother, after the Indians had attempted to burn them with the dwelling house, escaped in the stormy night and crept to the house of Alonzo Bass, situated twelve miles distant, on the Coleto.
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himself in all suits involving sums over twenty dollars. Ample provision was made to meet the necessities of the infant settlement, and the administrative and judicial system created by him gave general satisfaction.1
1 Quite an increase in the population occurred in 1824, including a num- ber of persons whose names became identified with the history of the coun- try. Among these were, Alexander Horton, yet (in 1893) living in San Augustine County; and Henry S. Brown (father of the author of this work), from Pike County, Missouri, and his brother, John, from St. Charles County (subsequently known as Waco Brown, from his captivity by the Waco In- dians), who arrived at the mouth of the Brazos, with Indian and Mexican goods in December, 1824, and Horatio Chriesman, a native of Virginia and the chief surveyor of Austin's colony during its entire existence, who came from Missouri in 1823. The Brown brothers were natives of Madison County, Kentucky. The large and respectable families of Gates and Kuy- kendall, David Randon, the Millicans, Shipmans and others, came at intervals from 1822 to 1824.
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CHAPTER XIII.
Texas and Coahuila joined into one State - Office of the Chief of the De- partment of Texas created- Empresario Grants - Arrival of Immi- grants.
The following in this connection will be of service to the reader in enabling him to appreciate the political status of Texas and her inhabitants at this time and subsequently until after 1825. The first national colonization law of Mexico was enacted during the ascendency of Iturbide, and was approved by him on the 4th of January, 1823. The first federal or republican constitution of Mexico (famous in the subsequent history of the country ) although adopted on the 31st of January, 1824, was not published and proclaimed as the fundamental law of the land, until October 4th, 1824.
An additional colonization law was enacted by the repub- lican congress of Mexico on the 18th of August, 1824.
By an act of congress on the 7th of May, 1824, the pre- viously separate Provinces of Texas and Coahuila were temporarily united into one State (the State of Coahuila and Texas), to so remain until Texas should have the population requisite for a separate State.
The first congress of the new State of Coahuila and Texas assembled in Saltillo on the 15th of August, 1824, at which time the political chiefs of the former Provinces ceased their functions. On the 1st of February, 1825, the State congress created, by decree No. 13, the office of Chief of the Depart- ment of Texas, the office to be filled by an appointee of the Governor, the incumbent to be responsible to him and to reside at San Antonio de Bexar. The duties of the Chief of the Department of Texas were, to preserve the public tran-
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quillity, to provide for the infliction of punishments for crimes and misdemeanors, command the local militia, issue and ex- amine passports, preside over all public meetings, decide questions submitted by his subordinates, act as the only channel of communication between such subordinates and the State government, see that the laws were executed, and report his proceedings and observations thereon to the Governor.1
The first colonization law of the State of Coahuila and Texas, was enacted on the 24th of March, 1825. Under it were made all the colonization, or empresario grants in Texas, except that obtained by Moses Austin and confirmed to Stephen F. Austin by the general government.
THE EMPRESARIO GRANTS.
The empresario grants from April 14th, 1823, to the last issued, May 11th, 1832, (twenty-six in all), were as follows:
The grant, without defined boundaries, finally approved by the provisional executive power of the general government on the 14th of April, 1823, to Stephen F. Austin to settle three hundred families. In effect this was but an approval of the privileges granted to Moses Austin, by General Arredondo, under the expiring government of Spain, on the 21st of January, 1821. The terms of this grant have been heretofore given and need not be recapitulated. Suffice it to say, that the colonists were to be drawn from Louisiana, which the Spanish authorities understood to include Arkansas and Missouri. The grant was never carried into effect, being superseded by a general law of the State under which, as finally modified, each head of a family received a league (4,428 acres) and a labor of 177 acres, or a total of 4,605
1 The first officer under this decree was Don Jose Antonio Saucedo, whose prejudice against Americans incapacitated him to fill the important position impartially.
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acres, and each single man a third of a league, or 1,476 acres. This law continued in force until the formation of the Republic of Texas.
Under the State colonization law April 27th, 1825, Austin entered into a contract to settle five hundred additional families, and on the 20th of November, 1827, into another contract for one hundred families, the former to be settled on the vacant lands in the existing colony, lying ten leagues from the coast, and the latter on the east side of the Colorado River above the San Antonio road, i. e., above Bastrop. The supreme government, on the 22d of April, 1828, granted Austin permission to settle three hundred families on the ten coast leagues (theretofore reserved ) from the Lavaca to the San Jacinto, making the total number of families to be introduced by him twelve hundred.
On the 15th of April, 1825, the State granted Green De Witt, of Ralls County, Missouri, the right to settle four hundred fam- ilies in the country bounded by the Lavaca River and Austin's colony on the east, the San Antonio and Nacogdoches road on the north, De Leon's colony on the south, and by a line between the Gaudalupe and San Antonio River on the west.
It will be remembered that De Witt, Robert Leftwich and Edwards, were seeking grants in the city of Mexico at the same time that Austin was there in 1822. Austin succeeded in his mission. They, however, were compelled to await the action of the State government, and in the meantime, confi- dent of success (at least so far as De Witt was concerned ), took the necessary steps to practically inaugurate their enter- prises. In fact, before his grant was made, Major James Kerr resigned his seat in the senate of Missouri and with his wife, children and servants, moved to Texas under an agree- ment with De Witt to become surveyor and (temporarily ) administrator of the colony. He arrived in Texas fully a month before the concession was made to De Witt at Saltillo.
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Frost Thorn contracted for four hundred families, but nothing was done by him under the grant.
April 15th, 1825, the day that De Witt and Thorn pro- cured their grants, a similar concession to settle eight hun- dred families was made to Robert Leftwich, of Nashville, Tennessee, in what was afterwards known as Robertson's colony.
On the 18th of April, 1825, Haden Edwards, a Kentuckian, then residing in Louisiana, was granted the right to settle eight hundred families in east Texas, in a district embracing the then important village of Nacogdoches in its limits, and nu- merous old Spanish grants ( many of them fictitious ). These conflicting claims, as will be seen hereafter, led to the failure of his colonial enterprise.
On the 6th of October, 1825, Don Martin De Leon received a grant to settle forty-one families, a legal ratification of the permission granted him in 1823 by General Felipe de La Garza, commander of the Eastern Internal Provinces.1
1 The forty-one colonists, none coming as late as 1830, were Fernando De Leon, commissioner to issue titles; Silvestre, Felix and Agapito De Leon, Jose M. J. Carbajal (who was educated by the Rev. Alexander Camp- bell in West Virginia, and afterwards figured in the civil wars of Mexico), Jose L. Carbajal, Fulguecio Bueno, John D. Wright, J. M. Escalera, Sr., J. M. Escalera, Jr., J. N. Escalera, Valentine Garcia, Leonardo Manso, Nicolas Benavides, Desidero Garcia, Rafael Chovel, Julian de La Garza, Pedro Gonzales, J. Guajardo, Carlos Holquin, Ygnacio Mayou, Rafael Manchola, Manuel Dindo (a physician), Francisco Cardenas (a school teacher), Francisco De Leon, Pedro Gallando, Bonifacio Rodriguez, Alejo Perez, Alvino Cabazos, Agaton Sisneros, Estevan Sisneros, Hipolito Castillo, Estevan Galvan, Simon Rios, John McHenry, Joseph Ware, Placido Bena- vides, Isidro Benavides, Eufemio Benavides, Francisco Villareal, Carlos Laso, Manuel Solis, John Linn, John J. Linn, Edward Linn, and Charles Linn.
Don Martin De Leon's grant was bounded on the south by Matagorda and Espiritu Santo hays; on the east by the Lavaca River and Bay; on the north practically by De Witt's colony and on the west or southwest, by the Coleto Creek and Guadalupe River. De Leon was born in Burgos, Tamaulipas, in 1765; in 1795 married Patricia de La Garza in Soto La Marina; gained dis- tinction as a soldier in wars waged against the once ]warlike tribe of Tam- aulipas Indians, entered Texas in 1805, and visited among other places La
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On the 12th of January, 1826, Benjamin R. Milam entered into a contract to settle two hundred families. His colony was bounded on the south by the old San Antonio and Nacog- doches road and extended from the Colorado to the Guadalupe River and up those streams fifteen leagues. In other words, from opposite Bastrop to a point about fifteen miles above Austin and from New Braunfels to a point about forty miles up the Guadalupe. Came to naught.
On the 19th of March, 1826, Arthur G. Wavell, an English- man, secured a contract to settle two hundred families; but did nothing under it.
On the 27th of May, 1826, Stephen J. Wilson contracted for the introduction of two hundred families and, likewise, failed to accomplish anything.
Bahia, Nacogdoches and San Antonio; established a rancho on the Aransas River in 1806; petitioned Governor Salcedo for a grant of land but was refused; renewed his application in 1809, with like result; then removed to the east bank of the Nueces. During the revolution, begun in 1810, the hostilities of the Lipan and Comanche Indians compelled him to take refuge in San Antonio, where he was a zealous republican. In 1816 he took his family to his native town of Burgos and afterwards back to his home on the Nueces; in 1823 drove mules from his rancho to New Orleans, and chartered and loaded a vessel for the Rio Grande, the first sea-going craft to arrive at the little missionary hamlet of El Refugio, now the city of Matamoros; in 1823, made known to his friends (among others, General Don Felipe de La Garza), his intention to found a colony on the Guadalupe and received authority to locate on any vacant lands in that country, and in 1824 intro- duced forty-one families. His grant was ratified and made specific by the State government on the 6th of October, 1825. In 1829 he was authorized to settle 150 additional families, and to appropriate the coast lands, until that time reserved, with which he also complied. In honor of the first President of Mexico, he named the capital of his colony Guadalupe Victoria. He died of cholera in 1833. The children of this worthy Mexican empresario and Texas pioneer were: Fernando, born in 1798; Candelaria, born in 1800, married Miguel Aldrete; Silvestre, born in 1802; Guadalupe, born in 1804, married first Desiderio Garcia, and after his decease Cesano de La Garza ; Felix, born in 1806, married Salime Leal; Agapito, born in 1808; Maria Jesus, born in 1810, married Rafael Monchola; Refugio, born in 1812, mar- ried Jose M. J. Carbajal; Augustina, born in 1814, married the valiant Placido Benavides; and Francisca, born in 1818, married V. Dosal.
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On the 14th of November, 1826, John L. Woodbury con- tracted for two hundred families, but never introduced any.
On the 22nd of December, 1826, Joseph Vehlein contracted for three hundred families, and David G. Burnet on the same day contracted for the same number.
Other grants were made as follows:
Dr. John Cameron, May 21, 1827, for one hundred fam- ilies, and February 19, 1828, for three hundred families. Came to naught.
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