USA > Texas > Indian wars and pioneers of Texas, Vol. I > Part 24
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70
It must be remembered that during the Mexican revolution against Spain (1810 to 1821), Yucatan was a separate Captain-Generaley and took no part ; but that as soon as Mexican independence was secured Yucatan joined the Mexican confedera-
+ ہ
126
INDIAN WARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.
tion as a State. This is important to bear in mind . he had married an accomplished lady in New York, as a historieal faet.
whose maiden name was Emily West, who was In 1820 Zavala was elected by Yucatan as a deputy to the then ephemeral Cortes of Spain. He attended the sessions of that body and proposed a measure to establish a legislative body for Yucatan and other Spanish-American colonies, for their loeal self-government ; but this eaused among born in New York, September 9, 1811. (This lady, subsequently Mrs. Hand, died in Houston, June 15, 1883, and was buried at the family cemetery, Zavala's Point, opposite the battle ground of San Jacinto. ) Mrs. Zavala was considered at the court of St. Cloud a beautiful and accomplished woman, the monarehists per se, a great ery against him, " and was greatly esteemed for her social virtues.
and, to save his liberty, if not his life, he was compelled to flee. He escaped into France and thenee found his way over to London and from there sailed for his home.
In September, 1821, the Mexican revolution, under Iturbide's plan of Iguala, triumphied. Thereupon Yucatan determined to join her fortunes to Mexico, and in February, 1822, elected Don Lorenzo as one of her deputies to the first Congress of that country. He took his seat in that notable assembly and was elected its President. That body finally adopted the Republican constitution of 1824. The first name signed to it is that of Lorenzo de Zavala, President, and Deputy from Yueatan.
Under that constitution, the future Congress being divided into a Senate and House of Repre- sentatives, Zavala was senator from Yneatan in 1825 and 1826. In March, 1827, he was made Governor of the State of Mexico, (including the capital city), and held that office till 1830, when a revolution fomented at Jalapa compelled him, as a friend of free constitutional government, to fice to the United States. During his exile he made a tour of the United States and wrote a most valuable volume on his observations, designed to enlighten his countrymen as to the practical workings and benefits of free government.
On the triumph of Santa Anna, in 1833, as the champion of the Republican constitution of 1824, Zavala returned to Mexico. Hle had been a friend of Santa Anna and the Liberal party, and incident- ally a zealous friend of the American colonists in Texas. Indeed he had bought land on Buffalo bayou, in Texas, and resolved to make that his home, that he might live among a free and liberty- loving people ; but fate delayed the consummation of his wishes. Ilis great and lucid mind seems to have foreseen the future grandeur of Texas. He acquired the right to found a colony in the eastern part of the province, but his publie duties forbade his personal attention, and he transferred the right to persons, or a company, who did nothing to carry out the project.
On the triumph of Santa Anna, Zavala was appointed Mexican Minister to France. In the meantime Mrs. Zavala had died, carly in 1831, and
Don Lorenzo repaired at onee to his post in Paris flushed with high hopes as to the future of his country. He had searcely arrived, however, when ominous sounds rolled over the Atlantie - sounds soon rendered certainties - admonishing him that his old friend and chief, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, had beeome a traitor to the cause of liberty and was now the champion of despotism - of the Church and State party - and in faet was the champion of the east-off despotism of Spain, the only difference being in a name.
When this whole fact, thrice repeated, came to be understood by Zavala in Paris, his honest soul revolted, and he promptly sent his resignation to Mexico. He at once resolved to carry out his idea of becoming a citizen of Texas -- then a Mexican provinee - where he hoped to rear his children in an atmosphere of freedom. He sent his son Lorenzo de Zavala, Jr., who was his Secretary of Legation also, to Texas, to begin improvements on the lands he had previously bought. He wrote Santa Anna a letter worthy of his eharacter, de- nouncing the latter's apostasy to the cause of liberty, and telling him that whereas, heretofore his cause had prospered because it was right, now that he had betrayed that cause, he would fall. Truer prediction was never uttered, though it re- quired nineteen years to bring the grand truth home to Santa Anna, and make him a refugee from the wrath of his own countrymen, never more to be tolerated on the soil of his birth, except when old and decrepit, to be allowed the privilege to return and die in the capital of the land he had outraged. The poor old apostate did so return and die, a veritable outeast, in the old Hotel Vergara, about 1874.
Governor Zavala arrived in Texas early in 1835. He was received with open arms by all classes, and was consulted by all prominent men in regard to the condition of the country. When the people eleeted members to the first revolutionary conven- tion (consultation), of November 3d, 1835, he was a delegate, and aided in forming the provisional government, of which that grand and noble patriot, Henry Smith, was made chief.
When the second convention declared Texas to
127
INDIAN WARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.
be a free and independent nation, March 2d, 1836, Zavala was a member and signed the docu- ment.
When the convention of independence formed a government ad interim for the Republic, on the 17th of March, 1836, David G. Burnet was elected President and Lorenzo de Zavala, Vice-president. Both held office until the formation of the con- stitutional government, on the 22d of October, 1836.
Zavala's home was at Zavala's Point, on Buffalo bayou. In crossing the bayou early in November, just after yielding up the vice-presidency, in a canoe, and with his son, Augustin, then only three years old, the canoe eapsized. It was a cold, windy day. Securing his child on the bottom of the capsized boat, he swam and guided it to the opposite shore. In saving his child he became chilled ; pneumonia followed, and on the 16th of November, 1836, the pure and noble sou! of Lorenzo de Zavala went to God.
Consider where and when this man was born; where and under what conditions he lived, how he demeaned himself, and your judgment must be that he was an honor to his race. His memory will be hallowed while that of his apostate enemy and per- secutor, Santa Anna, will be hissed as something detestable between the teeth of freemen. Blessed is the memory of one - detested that of the other.
In such a sketch I am compelled to epitomize rather than enlarge on the subject-matter. Yet I cannot withhold an expression of the opinion enter- tained of the exalted and spotless character of this noble man. That this is not a recent opinion is shown by the fact that in the legislature of 1857-8, while a member from Galveston, I introduced and carried through the legislature a bill creating and naming the county of Zavala. My visit to Yucatan, in 1865-6 - being then " a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief " - intensified the original pleasure I had enjoyed in accomplishing that tribute to his memory. Donna Joaquina Peon, of Merida, made famous in Stephens' work on Central America, being made sensible of the fact by the gentleman who presented me, was profuse in expressions of thankfulness, because, as she said, Don Lorenzo was one of God's noblemen.
By his marriage with Toresa Correa, Governor
Zavala had three children, viz. : Lorenzo, Jr., who, in 1881, lived in Merida. He was on the battle field of San Jacinto, and part of the time acted as interpreter between Santa Anna and Gen. Houston. He left Texas in 1841 and went to his native city of Merida, where he still resided in 1881, though he was absent during my visit there in 1865-6. There was a daughter named Manuela, and a daughter who died in infancy.
By his second marriage, late in 1831, to Miss Emily West, of New York, he had three children, viz. : -
1. Augustin de Zavala, born in New York, Janu- ary 1, 1833, married Julia Tyrrell, and now lives in San Antonio, Texas. Their children are Adina, an educated and accomplished young lady (as I know from correspondence with her), Florence, Mary, Zita, Thomas J., and Augustin P.
2. Emily de Zavala, born in February, 1834, mar- ried Capt. Thomas Jenkins, a lawyer, and died in Galveston, April 20, 1858, leaving a child named Catherine.
3. Ricardo de Zavala, born in New York in 1835, twice married and both wives dead. He still lives, having two sons and two daughters.
In all my meditations on the men and history of Texas - with an involuntary reverence for the char- acters of Milam, Travis, Bonham, Bowie, and numer- ous others - I dwell with faseinating delight on the character of Lorenzo de Zavala. He must not be judged and weighed in the same scale that we apply to native born Americans, but by the times, country, institutions and surroundings attending his birth and growth into manhood. Tried by the test, he presents one of the most spotless and exalted characters of modern times, and his memory should be cherished by the children of Texas as one of the purest patriots of this or any other age.
He was one of the proscribed citizens of Texas, and Santa Anna sought both through the civil authorities and his military minions sent to overawe Texas in 1835, to have him arrested and sent to Mexico for trial. The civil anthorities spurned the infamous request, and the military at San Antonio were impotent to effect it. Through his grand- daughter, Adina, I have recently come into posses- sion of the only picture of him ever in Texas, a painting executed in Havana, about 1831.
128
INDIAN WARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.
David G. Burnet.
David Gouveneur Burnet, son of a revolutionary surgeon, was born at Newark, New Jersey, April 4th, 1788.
His family ranked high for intelligence and moral worth. His elder brother, Jacob, was sen- ator from Ohio and many years Chief Justice of that State. Another brother, Isaac, was long Mayor of Cincinnati. David G. received a thor- ough education and when in his eighteenth year, on the 1st of January, 1806, joined in New York, the expedition of Gen. Francisco de Mirando, a native of Venezuela, for the liberation of that country from Spanish bondage. On that day he received from that patriot chief a commission as Second Lieutenant of infantry, the original of which is in my possession, a gift from him in 1869. The sons of many noted families of New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts, including a grandson of President John Adams, were in the expedition. The invading squadron entered the gulf of Venez- uela, accompanied by the British frigate Buchante, whose launch boat was commanded by Lieut. Burnet, under whose orders the first gun was fired in behalf of South American liberty. This was in an attack on the fort protecting La Villa de Coro, on that gulf. The assailants carried the fort, its occupants retiring to the interior. At Porto ' Caballo, a number of the invaders were captured --- ten of whom were slaughtered, some condemned to the mines, and others died. The death of Pitt, Premier of England and patron of Mirando, caused an abandonment of the enterprise and the return of the survivors to New York.
In 1808 Mirando renewed the contest and secured a position on the coast. Burnet hastened to him, but he was persuaded by the patriot chief to return home. Soon afterwards Mirando was cap- tured and sent to Spain, where he died in prison. Various thrilling incidents are omitted.
.
Barnet, a few years later, went to Cincinnati, and early in 1817, to Natchitoches, Louisiana. Threatened with consumption, in the autumn of that year, he went among the wild Comanches and lived about two years with them, recovering robust health, and having as a companion for a part of the time Ben R. Milam, who went among those wild people to exchange goods for horses, furs and pel- tries. On leaving them Barnet gave the Indians all his effects in exchange for a number of Mexican women and children held captives by them, all of
whom he safely returned to their people, refusing all offers of compensation. For the seven suc- ceeding years, in Texas, Louisiana and Ohio, he devoted his time to the study and practice of law. Marrying a lady, whose memory is fondly cherished wherever she was known, in 1826, he became a permanent citizen of Texas, on the San Jacinto river, near Galveston Bay, introducing a steam saw mill, which proved a failure for want of people to buy lumber.
In 1833 he was a member of the convention which drafted and sent to Mexico a proposed con- stitution for Texas as a State, and a long and able memorial praying for its adoption. Gen. Sam Houston was chairman of the committee which drew the constitution ; Burnet wrote the memorial, and Austin, as commissioner, carried both to Mexico. The base imprisonment of Austin and utter refusal to adopt the constitution and allow Texas to have a separate State government from Coahuila were the causes, direct and indirect, of the Texas revolution.
In 1834 a law was passed establishing a Supe- rior Court in Texas, with a judge, and three dis- tricts with a judge each - Bexar, Brazos and Na- cogdoches. Burnet was appointed judge of the district of Brazos, that is, all of Central Texas. He held terms of court until superseded by the revolutionary provisional government in November, 1835, and was the only person who ever held a . court of law in Texas prior to that time.
The convention which declared Texas independ- ent 'and established its government as such, on the 18th day of March, 1836 (the last of its session), elected David G. Burnet, President ; Samuel P. Carson, Secretary of State; Thomas J. Rusk, Secretary of War; Robert Potter, Secretary of the Navy ; Bailey Hardeman, Secretary of the Treasury, and David Thomas, Attorney General.
The presidency of this ad interim term con- tinued till the 22d of October, when it was suc- ceeded by officers elected by the people under the constitution, Gen. Houston becoming President and Mirabeau B. Lamar, Vice president.
The fame of President Burnet very largely rests upon his administration through those eight months of peril, gloom, disaster aud brilliant success. The Alamo had fallen twelve days before. The butchery of Fannin and his 345 men oceurred nine days later. Houston was then retreating before
.
-
129
INDIAN WARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.
Santa Anna. The sun of San Jacinto rose in splendor and went down in blood thirty-four days after Burnet's eleetion, but its rays were reflected over a land won to freedom.
.
Then followed grave problems. First the dis- position to be made of Santa Anna; second, thie maintenance of an army in the field, without money, supplies or resources in a country from which the inhabitants had recently fled and were returning without bread - the condition soon aggravated by men poorly fed and idle in camp; third, the creation of a navy against Mexican cruisers; fourth, Indian ravages on the frontier ; and tifth, the regular organization of the Republic, by elections under and the ratification of the eon- stitution. Passions ran high ; demagoguery had its votaries, and nothing short of superhuman power could have escaped unjust criticism. But to men of enlightened minds and just hearts it has long been evident that the administration of this over-burdened first President was wise and eminently patriotic. It will bear the most rigid scrutiny and be pronounced a durable monument to the head and heart of its chief.
After remaining in retirement two years he be- came Vice-president by a large majority in Deeem- ber, 1838, and served three years, several months of the time as President. He participated in the Cherokee battles of 1839, and was wounded.
With 1841 he retired to private life, but served as Secretary of State through 1846 and 1847, with Governor J. P. Henderson.
In 1866 he was elected to the United States Senate, but was denied a seat on account of the question of reconstruction.
The close of the war found him alone in the world. His wife and three children lay buried on his San Jacinto farm. His last child, the gallant Maj. Wm. E. Burnet, had fallen in the battle of Spanish Fort, near Mobile. March 31, 1865 -a i.v.ble young man worthy of his noble parents.
President Burnet was not only a learned, wise an upright man, but a man of sineere and pro- Inand religious convictions, from which, neither in youth nor manhood, did he ever depart.
9
He was tendered and accepted a home in the generous and estimable family of Mr. Preston Perry, in Galveston, but in 1868 his kindred in Newark, tendered him a home among them, on his native spot. The affeetions of childhood returned and he concluded to go. This becoming known in Galveston, on the 23d of May, 1868, a farewell letter was addressed to him signed by ninety-eight gentlemen and twenty-seven ladies, embracing some of the most eminent names in the State. That letter, now before me, is touchingly beautiful and as true as beautiful. It is too long for this place ; but I want young people to read at least its eon- cluding paragraph. Here it is : -
"Texas, whom you have loved and served, sends you to-day from her mountain tops to her sea board, from both sexes and all ages her affeetion- ate greeting and farewell. It comes alike from the few feeble voices that long ago, in the day of youth and strength, elevated you to the supreme authority in the Republic of Texas; the heroic few that won her independence and accepted her destiny as their own ; from the lispings of child- hood, who have learned from parental lips the value of your services, and beauty of your char- aeter ; and from strangers, too, who have learned to love in you all that is pure, unselfish, and noble in man. And that God, in his goodness,. may bless and preserve you, is the earnest and universal prayer of Texas and her people."
This letter to President Burnet, in its entirety, with the names attached, is a proud monument to his memory.
He went to his native place, but did not long remain. The changes there had removed the seenes of childhood and he moved among strangers. The love of Texas - the product of fifty years' association in manhood and its trials - came upon him, by contrast, with resistless force. He came back to die in the land of his love, and then to sleep beside his wife and children. Peacefully, on the 5th day of December, 1870, he departed from life, aged eighty-two years and eight months, in the home of Mrs. Preston Perry of Galveston, who was to him all that a daughter could be.
130
INDIAN WARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.
James Butler Bonham.
It is honorable to human nature to feel some- thing akin to personal interest and, with many, kinship, in the character of men whose deeds stamp them as of the highest order of honor and heroism. Of such is the character we have under considera- tion. Most that is known among the multitude, even of well-informed Texians, is that Bonbam, a South Carolinian, fell in the Alamo. The true sublimity of his acts and bearing has been locked in the hearts of a few, and never till recently, by the writer of these chapters, given to the public, and then only to contradict a published historical misstatement awarding to another the credit due to Bonham, and to Bonham ouly.
Who was this almost matchless hero, patriot and friend - friend to the illustrious Travis, as David and Jonathan were friends - a friendship hallowed in Masonry and in the hearts of inen three thousand years after its manifestation in the days of Saul? Very briefly I will answer.
The Bonham family, in so far as their American history goes, are of Maryland origin. They branched off more than a hundred years ago from that State into South Carolina, Kentucky (from Kentucky into Missouri and thence to Texas), and elsewhere in the newer portions of the Union.
James Bonham, in the Revolutionary War, was a private soldier at fifteen years of age in a Mary- land cavalry company, whose captain and oldest member was but nineteen. They served at the siege of Yorktown. The wife of this James Bon- ham was Sophia Smith. They had five sons and three daugthers. Jacob, the oldest, died in child- hood. The second, Simon Smith Bonham, died a lawyer and planter in Alabama, in 1835.
The third, Malachi Bonham, died in Fairfield, Freestone County, Texas, during the Civil War, and has children there now. The fourth son was the hero of Alamo, James Butler Bonham. The fifth and last son was Milledge L. Bonham. This son was Adjutant of a South Carolina brigade in the Florida war. He was Colonel of the 12th U. S. Infantry in the Mexican war. He was Solicitor in his district in South Carolina for nine years; a member of Congress from 1857 to the Civil War in 1861. He was Major-General commanding all the troops of South Carolina at the time of her seces- sion from the Union, and so remained until April 19, 1861, when the State troops were merged into the Confederate army, and Gen. Bonham, as a fact,
led the first brigade into that service. In the fall of that year, however, he was elected to the Con- federate Congress, in which he served one session, and in 1862 was elected Governor of South Caro- lina, serving till the close of 1864, when, as Briga- dier-General, he re-entered the Confederate army and so remained till the elose of the war. He died at the age of 80 years in 1890, while President of the State Board of Railroad Commissioners.
Returning to Bonham, the martyr, it may be stated that his sister, Sarah DI., married John Lips- comb, of Abbeville, S. C., while Julia married Dr. Samuel Bowie, and died in Lowndes County, Alabama.
James Butler Bonham, fourth son of Capt. James Bonham, was born on Red Bank creek, Edgefield County, South Carolina, February 7, 1807. Wm. Barrett Travis, slightly his senior, and of one of the best families of that country, was born within five miles of the same spot. Their childhood and boy- hood constituted an unbroken chain of endearment. Both were tall, muscular and handsome men. Both were noted for manly gentleness in social life and fearlessness in danger. Travis came to Texas in 1830. His career thence to his death is a part of our history. We turn to Bonham. He was well educated, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1830. In the fall of 1832, with the rank of Lientenant-Colonel, he was appointed Aide to Gov- ernor James Hamilton (afterwards so justly en- deared to Texas. ) That was when South Carolina was a military camp in the time of nullification. He was at Charleston in all the preparations for de- fense. The citizens of Charleston, charmed by bis splendid physique, accomplished manners and gentle bearing, made him Captain of their favorite artillery company, which he commanded in addition to his staff duties. The passage of Henry Clay's com- promise averted the danger, and young Bonham resumed his practice in Pendleton District; but in 1834 removed to Montgomery, Alabama, and at once began a career full of brilliant promise. But about September, 1835, there was wafted to him whisperings, and then audible sounds, of the impend- ing revolution in Texas. While the correspondence is lost, it is certain that earnest and loving letters passed between him and Travis. Communication was slow and at distant intervals compared with the present time; but by November the soul of Bon- hamn was enlisted in the cause of Texas. Ile
131
INDIAN WARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.
abandoned everything and eame - came with such indorsements as commanded the confidence of Gov- ernor Henry Smith, the leader of the party of in- dependence, Gen. Houston, and all the prominent men who advocated an absolute separation from Mexico. At San Felipe he met and embraced his loved Travis. Bexar had fallen. Wild schemes not untinged with selfishness, and consequent de- moralization, were in the air. Govenor Smith sent Col. Travis to take command at San Antonio, after Johnson, Grant and their self-organized expedition to take Matamoros had depleted San Antonio of its military supplies and left it as a defenseless out- post. Travis hastened to his post of duty, pre- ceded a short time by the friend of his youth, Bonham. Travis, grand in intellect, unselfish in spirit and noble in heart, organized his foree as best he could, determined to hold the advancing enemy in elieck until Gen. Houston could collect and organize a force sufficient to meet and repel him in the open field. He trusted that Fannin, with over four hundred thoroughly equipped men at Goliad, would mareh to his relief. He sent appeals to him to that effeet, and finally, after Santa Anna's eo- horts had eneireled his position in the Alamo, he sent Bonbam for a last appeal for aid, with in- struetious also to his lifetime friend to proceed from Goliad to Gonzales in search of aid. This mission was full of peril from both Mexicans around San Antonio and Indians on the entire route of his travel. As things were then, none but a man oblivi- ous of danger would have undertaken the mission. James Butler Bonham, then just twenty-nine years of age, assumed its hazards. He presented the faets to Fannin, but the latter failed to respond. Thenee Bonham, through the wilderness, without a human habitation between the points, hasteued from Goliad to Gonzales, just as a few volunteers began to collect there. In response to the appeals of Travis thirty-two citizens of that colony liad left a day or two before, under Capt. Albert Martin, to suceor the 150 defenders of the Alamo. The siege had begun on the 23d of February. These thirty-two men had fought their way in at daylight on the 1st of March. Bonham, supplied with all the information he could gather, and satisfied he could get no further present recruits, determined to return to Travis. He was accompanied by John W. Smith. When they reached the heights over- looking San Antonio and saw that the doomed Alamo was encireled by Santa Anna's troops, Smith Seemed it suicidal to seek an entrance. That was the ninth day of the siege and the doom of the garrison was inevitable. Smith, by his own hon- orable statement afterwards, to both Gen. Sam
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.