History of Texas
Encyclopedia
European conquistadors (explorers) first arrived in the region now known as Texas
in 1519, finding the region populated by various Native American tribes. During the period from 1519 to 1848, all or parts of Texas were claimed by six countries: France, Spain, Mexico, the Republic of Texas
, the United States of America—as well as the Confederate States of America
in 1861–65.
The first European base was established in 1682, when René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle
established a French colony, Fort Saint Louis, near Matagorda Bay
. The colony was killed off after three years, but its presence motivated Spanish authorities to begin activity. Several missions were established in East Texas
; they were abandoned in 1691. Twenty years later, concerned with the French presence in neighboring Louisiana
, Spanish authorities again attempted to colonize Texas. In approximately 1779, the Robert Harvey family settled a small ranch near present-day Huntsville, becoming the first known U.S. citizens to emigrate to Texas. Over the next 110 years, Spain established numerous villages, presidio
s, and missions in the province. A small number of Spanish settlers arrived, in addition to missionaries and soldiers. Spain signed agreements with colonizers from the United States. When Mexico won its independence from Spain in 1821
, Mexican Texas
was part of the new nation. To encourage settlement, Mexican authorities allowed organized immigration from the United States, and by 1834, over 30,000 Anglos lived in Texas, compared to only 7,800 Mexicans.
After Santa Anna's dissolution of the Constitution of 1824
, issues such as lack of access to courts, the militarization of the region's government (e.g., response to Saltillo-Monclova problem) and self-defense issues resulting in the confrontation in Gonzales, public sentiment turned towards revolution. Santa Anna's invasion of the territory after his putting down the rebellion in Zacatecas
provoked the conflict of 1836. The Texian forces
fought and won the Texas Revolution
in 1835–36. Texas now became an independent nation, the Republic of Texas
. Attracted by the rich cotton lands and ranch lands, tens of thousands of immigrants arrived from the U.S. and from Germany as well. In 1845, Texas joined the United States
, becoming the 28th state. Texas declared its secession from the United States in 1861 to join the Confederate States of America. Only a few battles of the American Civil War
were fought in Texas; most Texas regiments served in the east. When the war ended the slaves were freed and Texas was subject to Reconstruction, a process that left a residue of bitterness among whites and a second-class status for blacks in a Jim Crow system of segregation.
Cotton and ranching dominated the economy, with railroad construction after 1870 a major factor in the formation of new cities. Toward the end of the 19th century timber became an important industry in Texas as well. In 1901 a petroleum discovery at Spindletop Hill
, near Beaumont, created the most productive oil well the world had ever seen. The wave of oil speculation and discovery that followed came to be known as the "Oil Boom
", permanently transforming and enriching the economy of Texas. Agriculture and ranching gave way to a service-oriented society after the boom years of World War II. Segregation ended in the 1960s. Politically, Texas changed from a virtually one-party Democratic state, to a highly contested political scene, until 2000 when it was solidly Republican. The economy of Texas has continued to grow rapidly, becoming the second largest state in population in 1994, and became economically highly diversified, with a growing base in high technology.
areas. The area now covered by Texas comprised three major indigenous cultures which had reached their developmental peak prior to the arrival of European explorers and are known from archaeology. These are
The Paleo-Indians that lived in Texas between 9200 – 6000 BC may have links to Clovis
and Folsom
cultures; these nomadic people hunted mammoth
s and bison latifrons
using atlatl
s. They extracted Alibates flint
from quarries in the panhandle
region.
Beginning during the 3rd millennium BC
, the population of Texas increased despite experiencing a changing climate
and the extinction of giant mammals
. Many pictogram
s drawn on the walls of caves or on rocks are visible in the state, including at Hueco Tanks
and Seminole Canyon.
Native Americans in East Texas began to settle
in villages shortly after 500 BC, farming and building the first burial mound
s. They were influenced by the Mound Builder civilizations that lived in the Mississippi basin. In the Trans-Pecos
area, populations were influenced by Mogollon culture.
From the 8th century, the bow and arrow appeared in the region, manufacture of pottery developed and Native Americans
increasingly depended on bison
for survival. Obsidian objects found in various Texan sites attest of trade with cultures in present day Mexico and the Rocky Mountains
.
No one culture was dominant in the present-day Texas region and many different peoples inhabited the area. Native American
tribes that lived inside the boundaries of present-day Texas include the Alabama
, Apache
, Atakapan, Bidai
, Caddo
, Coahuiltecan
, Comanche
, Cherokee
, Choctaw
, Coushatta
, Hasinai
, Jumano, Karankawa
, Kickapoo, Kiowa
, Tonkawa
, and Wichita
. The name Texas derives from , a word in the Caddoan language
of the Hasinai, which means "friends" or "allies."
Native Americans determined the fate of European explorers and settlers depending on whether a tribe was friendly or warlike. Friendly tribes taught newcomers how to grow indigenous crops, prepare foods, and hunting methods for wild game
. Warlike tribes made life unpleasant, difficult and dangerous for explorers and settlers through their attacks and resistance to European conquest.
A remnant of the Choctaw tribe in East Texas still lives in the Mt. Tabor Community near Amberly, Texas. Currently, there are three federally-recognized Native American tribes which reside in Texas: the Alabama-Coushatta Tribes of Texas, the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas, and the Ysleta Del Sur Pueblo
of Texas.
, who led an expedition on behalf of the governor of Jamaica
, Francisco de Garay, in 1519. While searching for a passage between the Gulf of Mexico
and Asia, Álvarez de Pineda created the first map of the northern Gulf Coast. This map is the earliest recorded document of Texas history.
Between 1528 and 1535, four survivors of the Narváez expedition
, including Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca
and Estevanico
, spent six and a half years in Texas as slaves and traders among various native groups. Cabeza de Vaca was the first European explorer to explore the interior of Texas.
had claimed the entire Mississippi River
Valley for France. The following year, he convinced King Louis XIV to establish a colony near the Mississippi, essentially splitting Spanish Florida
from New Spain.
La Salle's colonization expedition left France on July 24, 1684 and soon lost one of its supply ships to Spanish privateers. A combination of inaccurate maps, La Salle's previous miscalculation of the latitude of the mouth of the Mississippi River, and overcorrecting for the Gulf currents led the ships to be unable to find the Mississippi. Instead, they landed at Matagorda Bay
in early 1685, 400 miles (644 km) west of the Mississippi. In February, the colonists constructed Fort Saint Louis.
After the fort was constructed, one of the ships returned to France, and the other two were soon destroyed in storms, stranding the settlers. La Salle and his men searched overland for the Mississippi River, traveling as far west as the Rio Grande
and as far east as the Trinity River
. Disease and hardship laid waste to the colony, and by early January 1687, fewer than 45 people remained. That month, a third expedition launched a final attempt to find the Mississippi. The expedition experienced much infighting, and La Salle was ambushed and killed somewhere in East Texas
.
The Spanish learned of the French colony in late 1685. Feeling that the French colony was a threat to Spanish mines and shipping routes, King Carlos II's Council of war recommended the removal of "this thorn which has been thrust into the heart of America. The greater the delay the greater the difficulty of attainment." Having no idea where to find La Salle, the Spanish launched ten expeditions—both land and sea—over the next three years. The last expedition discovered a French deserter
living in Southern Texas with the Coahuiltecan
s.
The Frenchman guided the Spanish to the French fort in late April 1689. The fort and the five crude houses surrounding it were in ruins. Several months before, the Karankawa
had become angry that the French had taken their canoes without payment and had attacked the settlement sparing only four children.
led an expedition to establish a mission
in East Texas. Mission San Francisco de los Tejas
was completed near the Hasinai
village of Nabedaches in late May, and its first mass was conducted on June 1. On January 23, 1691, Spain appointed the first governor of Texas, General Domingo Terán de los Ríos
. On his visit to Mission San Francisco in August, he discovered that the priests had established a second mission nearby, but were having little luck converting the natives to Christianity. The Indians regularly stole the mission cattle and horses and showed little respect to the priests. When Terán left Texas later that year, most of the missionaries chose to return with him, leaving only 3 religious people and 9 soldiers at the missions. The group also left behind a smallpox
epidemic. The angry Caddo threatened the remaining Spaniards, who soon abandoned the fledgling missions and returned to Coahuila
. For the next 20 years, Spain again ignored Texas.
After a failed attempt to convince Spanish authorities to reestablish missions in Texas, in 1711 Franciscan missionary Francisco Hidalgo approached the French governor of Louisiana
for help. The French governor sent representatives to meet with Hidalgo. This concerned Spanish authorities, who ordered the reoccupation of Texas as a buffer between New Spain and French settlements in Louisiana. In 1716, four missions and a presidio were established in East Texas. Accompanying the soldiers were the first recorded female settlers in Spanish Texas.
The new missions were over 400 miles (644 km) from the nearest Spanish settlement, San Juan Bautista. Martín de Alarcón
, who had been appointed governor of Texas in late 1716, wished to establish a way station between the settlements along the Rio Grande and the new missions in East Texas. Alarcón led a group of 72 people, including 10 families, into Texas in April 1718, where they settled along the San Antonio River
. Within the next week, the settlers built mission San Antonio de Valero
and a presidio, and chartered the municipality of San Antonio de Béxar, now San Antonio, Texas.
The following year, the War of the Quadruple Alliance
pitted Spain against France, which immediately moved to take over Spanish interests in North America. In June 1719, 7 Frenchmen from Natchitoches took control of the mission San Miguel de los Adaes from its sole defender, who did not know that the countries were at war. The French soldiers explained that 100 additional soldiers were coming, and the Spanish colonists, missionaries, and remaining soldiers fled to San Antonio.
The new governor of Coahuila and Texas, the Marquis de San Miguel de Aguayo, drove the French from Los Adaes without firing a shot. He then ordered the building of a new Spanish fort Nuestra Señora del Pilar de Los Adaes
, located near present-day Robeline, Louisiana
, only 12 mi (19.3 km) from Natchitoches. The new fort became the first capital of Texas, and was guarded by 6 cannons and 100 soldiers. The six East Texas missions were reopened, and an additional mission and presidio were established at Matagorda Bay on the former site of Fort Saint Louis.
Although the missionaries had been unable to convert the Hasinai tribe of East Texas, they did become friendly with the natives. The Hasinai were bitter enemies of the Lipan Apache, who transferred their enmity to Spain and began raiding San Antonio and other Spanish areas. A temporary peace was finally negotiated with the Apache in 1749, and at the request of the Indians a mission was established along the San Saba River
northwest of San Antonio. The Apaches shunned the mission, but the fact that Spaniards now appeared to be friends of the Apache angered the Apache enemies, primarily the Comanche
, Tonkawa
, and Hasinai tribes, who promptly destroyed the mission.
In 1762, France finally relinquished their claim to Texas by ceding all of Louisiana west of the Mississippi River to Spain as part of the treaty to end the Seven Years War. Spain saw no need to continue to maintain settlements near French outposts and ordered the closure of Los Adaes, making San Antonio the new provincial capital. The residents of Los Adaes were relocated in 1773. After several attempts to settle in other parts of the province, the residents returned to East Texas without authorization and founded Nacogdoches.
The Comanche agreed to a peace treaty in 1785. The Comanches were willing to fight the enemies of their new friends, and soon attacked the Karankawa. Over the next several years the Comanches killed many of the Karankawa in the area and drove the others into Mexico. In January 1790, the Comanche also helped the Spanish fight a large battle against the Mescalero and Lipan Apaches at Soledad Creek west of San Antonio. The Apaches were resoundingly defeated and the majority of the raids stopped. By the end of the 18th century only a small number of the remaining hunting and gathering tribes within Texas had not been Christianized. In 1793, mission San Antonio de Valero was secularized, and the following year the four remaining missions at San Antonio were partially secularized.
and all of Texas. Thomas Jefferson
claimed that Louisiana stretched west to the Rocky Mountains
and included the entire watershed
of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers and their tributaries, and that the southern border was the Rio Grande. Spain maintained that Louisiana extended only as far as Natchitoches, and that it did not include the Illinois Territory
. Texas was again considered a buffer province, this time between New Spain and the United States. The disagreement would continue until the signing of the 1819 Adams–Onís Treaty, at which point Spain gave Florida to the United States in return for undisputed control of Texas.
During much of the dispute with the United States, governship of New Spain was in question. In 1808, Napoleon forced the Spanish king to abdicate the throne and appointed Joseph Bonaparte
as the new monarch. A shadow government operated out of Cadiz during Joseph's reign. Revolutionaries within Mexico and the United States unsuccessfully combined to declare Texas and Mexico independent. Spanish troops reacted harshly, looting the province and executing any Tejanos accused of having Republican tendencies. By 1820 fewer than 2000 Hispanic citizens remained in Texas. The situation did not normalize until 1821, when Agustin de Iturbide
launched a drive for Mexican Independence
. Texas became a part of the newly independent nation without a shot being fired, ending the period of Spanish Texas.
.
The Spanish introduced European livestock, including cattle, horses, and mules, to Texas as early as the 1690s. These herds grazed heavily on the native grasses, allowing mesquite
, which was native to the lower Texas coast, to spread inland. Spanish farmers also introduced tilling and irrigation to the land, further changing the landscape.
Texas eventually adopted much of the Anglo-American legal system, but some Spanish legal practices were retained, including homestead exemption
, community property
, and adoption
.
Hämäläinen (2008) argues that from the 1750s to the 1850s, the Comanche
s were the dominant group in the Southwest, and the domain they ruled was known as Comancheria
. Hämäläinen calls it an empire. Confronted with Spanish, Mexican, and American outposts on their periphery in New Mexico, Texas, and Coahuila
and Nueva Vizcaya
in northern Mexico, they worked to increase their own safety, prosperity and power. The population in 1810-1830 was 7000 to 8000. The Comanches used their military power to obtain supplies and labor from the Americans, Mexicans, and Indians through thievery,looting and killing, tribute, and kidnappings. There was much violence committed by and against Commanches, before and after the European settlement of Texas. Although they made a living partially through raiding and violence, along with hunting/gathering, especially buffalo hunting, the Comanche empire also supported a commercial network with long-distance trade. Dealing with subordinate Indians, the Comanche spread their language and culture across the region. In terms of governance, the Comanches were nearly-independent but allied bands with a loosely hierarchical social organization within bands. Their empire collapsed when their camps and villiages were repeatedly decimated by epidemics of smallpox and cholera in the late 1840s, and in bloody conflict with settlers, the Texas Rangers, and the U.S. Army. The population plunged from 20,000 to just a few thousand by the 1870s. The Comanches were no longer able to deal with the U.S. Army, which took over control of the region after the Mexican American War ended in 1848. The long-term imprint of the Commanches on the Indian and Hispanic culture has been demonstrated by scholars such as Gelo (2000) and Marez (2001).
In 1821, the Mexican War for Independence severed the control that Spain had exercised on its North American territories, and the new country of Mexico was formed from much of the lands that had comprised New Spain
, including Spanish Texas
. The 1824 Constitution of Mexico
joined Texas with Coahuila
to form the state of Coahuila y Tejas
. The Congress did allow Texas the option of forming its own state "'as soon as it feels capable of doing so.'"
The same year, Mexico enacted the General Colonization Law
, which enabled all heads of household, regardless of race or immigrant status, to claim land in Mexico. Mexico had neither manpower nor funds to protect settlers from near-constant Comanche raids and it hoped that settlers could control the raids. The government liberalized its immigration policies, allowing for settlers from the United States to immigrate to Texas.
The first empresarial
grant had been made under Spanish control to Moses Austin
. The grant was passed to his son Stephen F. Austin
, whose settlers, known as the Old Three Hundred
, settled along the Brazos River
in 1822. The grant was later ratified by the Mexican government. Twenty-three other empresarios brought settlers to the state, the majority from the United States of America.
Many of the Anglo-American settlers owned slaves. Texas was granted a one-year exemption from Mexico's 1829 edict outlawing slavery but Mexican president Anastasio Bustamante
ordered that all slaves be freed in 1830. To circumvent the law, the colonists converted their slaves into indentured servants for life; by 1836 there were 5,000 slaves in Texas.
Bustamante outlawed the immigration of United States citizens to Texas in 1830. Several new presidio
s were established in the region to monitor immigration and customs practices. The new laws also called for the enforcement of customs duties, angering both native Mexican citizens (Tejano
s) and Anglos. In 1832, a group of men led a revolt against customs enforcement in Anahauc. These Anahuac Disturbances
coincided with a revolt in Mexico against the current president. Texian
s sided with the federalists
against the current government and drove all Mexican soldiers out of East Texas.
Texians took advantage of the lack of oversight to agitate for more political freedom, resulting in the Convention of 1832
. The convention which, among other issues, demand that U.S. citizens be allowed to immigrate, and requested independent statehood for Texas. The following year, Texians reiterated their demands at the Convention of 1833
. After presenting their petition, courier Stephen F. Austin
was jailed for the next two years in Mexico City
on suspicion of treason. Although Mexico implemented several measures to appease the colonists, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna
's measures to transform Mexico from a federalist to a centralist state provided an excuse for the Texan colonists to revolt.
, when Texian
s repelled a Mexican attempt to retake a small cannon. This launched the Texas Revolution, and over the next three months, the Texian forces
successfully defeated all Mexican troops in the region.
On March 2, 1836, Texans signed the Texas Declaration of Independence
at Washington-on-the-Brazos
, effectively creating the Republic of Texas. The revolt was justified as necessary to protect basic rights and because Mexico had annulled the federal pact. The colonists maintained that Mexico had invited them to move to the country and they were determined "to enjoy" the republican institutions to which they were accustomed in their native land, the United States of America.'"
Many of the Texas settlers believed the war to be over and left the army after the initial string of victories. The remaining troops were largely recently arrived adventurers from the United States; according to historian Alwyn Barr, the large number of American volunteers "contributed to the Mexican view that Texan opposition stemmed from outside influences". The Mexican congress responded to this perceived threat by authorizing the execution of any foreigner found fighting in Texas; there would be no prisoners of war.
As early as October 27, Mexican president Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna
had been preparing to quell the unrest in Texas. In early 1836 Santa Anna personally led a 6000-man force toward Texas. At the Rio Grande
, the Mexican troops separated; Santa Anna led the bulk of the troops to San Antonio de Bexar to besiege the Alamo Mission while General Jose de Urrea
led the remaining troops up the coast of Texas. Urrea's forces soon defeated all the Texian resistance along the coast, culminating in the Goliad Massacre
, where 300 Texian prisoners of war were executed. After a thirteen-day siege
, Santa Anna's forces overwhelmed the nearly 200 Texians defending the Alamo. "Remember the Alamo!" became a battle cry of the Texas Revolution.
News of the defeats sparked the Runaway Scrape
, where much of the population of Texas and the Texas provisional government fled east, away from the approaching Mexican army. Many settlers rejoined the army, now commanded by General Sam Houston
. After several weeks of maneuvering, on April 21, 1836, the Texian Army
attacked Santa Anna's forces near the present-day city of Houston at the Battle of San Jacinto
. Santa Anna was captured and forced to sign the Treaties of Velasco
, ending the war.
The first Congress of the Republic of Texas
convened in October 1836 at Columbia (now West Columbia
). Stephen F. Austin, known as the Father of Texas, died December 27, 1836, after serving two months as Secretary of State
for the new Republic. In 1836, five sites served as temporary capitals of Texas (Washington-on-the-Brazos, Harrisburg, Galveston
, Velasco
and Columbia) before president Sam Houston moved the capital to Houston in 1837. In 1839, the capital was moved to the new town of Austin
by the next president Mirabeau B. Lamar
.
Internal politics of the Republic were based on the conflict between two factions. The nationalist faction, led by Mirabeau B. Lamar
, advocated the continued independence of Texas, the expulsion of the Native Americans
, and the expansion of Texas to the Pacific Ocean. Their opponents, led by Sam Houston, advocated the annexation of Texas to the United States and peaceful co-existence with Native Americans.
Although Texas governed itself, Mexico refused to recognize its independence. On March 5, 1842, a Mexican force of over 500 men, led by Ráfael Vásquez
, invaded Texas for the first time since the revolution. They soon headed back to the Rio Grande after briefly occupying San Antonio. 1,400 Mexican troops, led by the French mercenary general Adrian Woll
launched a second attack and captured San Antonio on September 11, 1842. A Texas militia retaliated at the Battle of Salado Creek. However on September 18, this militia was defeated by Mexican soldiers and Texas Cherokee Indians during the Dawson Massacre
. The Mexican army would later retreat from the city of San Antonio.
Mexico's attacks on Texas intensified the conflict between the political factions in an incident known as the Texas Archive War
. To "protect" the Texas national archives, governor Sam Houston ordered them out of Austin. Austin residents suspicious of the governor's motives, because of Houston's disdain of the capital, forced the archives back to Texas at gunpoint. The Texas Congress admonished Houston for the incident, and the incident would solidify Austin as Texas's seat of government for the Republic and the future state.
On February 28, 1845, the U.S. Congress passed a bill that would authorize the United States to annex the Republic of Texas
and on March 1 U.S. President John Tyler
signed the bill. The legislation set the date for annexation for December 29 of the same year. On October 13 of the same year, a majority of voters in the Republic [of Texas] approved a proposed constitution that specifically endorsed slavery and the slave trade. This constitution was later accepted by the U.S. Congress, making Texas
a U.S. state
on the same day annexation took effect (therefore bypassing a territorial phase).
The Mexican government had long warned that annexation would mean war with the United States. When Texas joined the U.S., the Mexican government broke diplomatic relations with the United States. The United States now assumed the claims of Texas when it claimed all land north of the Rio Grande. In June 1845, President James K. Polk
sent General Zachary Taylor
to Texas, and by October, 3,500 Americans were on the Nueces River
, prepared to defend Texas from a Mexican invasion. On November 10, 1845, Polk ordered General Taylor and his forces south to the Rio Grande, into disputed territory that Mexicans claimed as their own. Mexico claimed the Nueces River
— about 150 miles (241.4 km) north of the Rio Grande
— as its border with Texas. On April 25, 1846, a 2,000-strong Mexican cavalry detachment attacked a 63-man U.S. patrol that had been sent into the contested territory north of the Rio Grande and south of the Nueces River. The Mexican cavalry routed the patrol, killing 16 U.S. soldiers in what later became known as the Thornton Affair
. Both nations declared war. In the ensuing Mexican-American War, there were no more battles fought in Texas, but it became a major staging point for the American invasion of northern Mexico.
One of the primary motivations for annexation was the Texas government's huge debts. The United States agreed to assume many of these upon annexation. However, the former Republic never fully paid off its debt until the Compromise of 1850
. In return for $10 million, a large portion of Texas-claimed territory, now parts of Colorado
, Kansas
, Oklahoma
, New Mexico
, and Wyoming
, was ceded to the Federal government.
Post-war Texas grew rapidly as migrants poured into the cotton lands of the state. German immigrants started to arrive in the early 1840s because of economic, social and political conditions in their states. In 1842, German nobles organized the Adelsverein
, banding together to buy land in central Texas to enable German settlement. The Revolutions of 1848
acted as another catalyst for so many immigrants that they became known as the "Forty-Eighters
." Many were educated artisans and businessmen. Germans continued to arrive in considerable numbers until 1890.
The first Czech immigrants started their journey to Texas on August 19, 1851 headed by Jozef Šilar. The rich farmland of Central Texas attracted the Czech immigrants. The counties of Austin, Fayette, Lavaca, and Washington had early Czech settlements. The Czech-American communities are characterized by a strong sense of community and social clubs were a dominant theme of Czech-American life in Texas. By 1865, the Czech population numbered 700 and climbed to over 60,000 Czech-Americans by 1940.
With their investments in cotton cultivation, Texas planters imported enslaved blacks from the earliest years of settlement. They established cotton plantations mostly in the eastern part of the state, where labor was done by enslaved African Americans. The central area of the state had more subsistence farmers.
when he refused to take an oath of allegiance to the Confederacy.
Texas declared its secession from the United States on February 1, 1861, and joined the Confederate States of America
on March 2, 1861. Texas was mainly a "supply state" for the Confederate forces until mid 1863, when the Union capture of the Mississippi River made large movements of men, horses or cattle impossible. Texas regiments fought in every major battle throughout the war.
On August 1, 1862 Confederate troops killed 34 pro-Union German Texans in the "Nueces Massacre
" of civilians. The last battle of the Civil War, the Battle of Palmito Ranch
, was fought in Texas on May 12, 1865. In which the 2nd Texas cavalry battallion U.S. (one of only two from the state) took part.
. The State had suffered little during the War but trade and finance was disrupted. Angry returning veterans seized state property and Texas went through a period of extensive violence and disorder. Most outrages took place in northern Texas and were committed by outlaws who had their headquarters in the Indian Territory
and plundered and murdered without distinction of party. President Andrew Johnson appointed Union General A. J. Hamilton as provisional governor on June 17, 1865. Hamilton had been a prominent politician before the war. He granted amnesty to ex-Confederates if they promised to support the Union in the future, appointing some to office. On March 30, 1870, although Texas did not meet all the requirements, the United States Congress
restored Texas to the Union
.
Like other Southern states, by the late 1870s white Democrats regained control, often with a mix of intimidation and terrorism by paramilitary
groups operating for the Democratic Party. They passed a new constitution
in 1876 that segregated schools and established a poll tax
to support them, but it was not originally required for voting. In 1901 the legislature passed a poll tax as a prerequisite for voter registration. Given the economic difficulties of the times, the poll tax caused participation by poor whites, African Americans and Mexican Americans to drop sharply. By the early 20th century, the Democratic Party in Texas started using a "white primary," which the state legislature authorized in 1923. Since the Democratic Party dominated the state after 1900 for decades, the "white primary" provision reduced what little minority participation there was as the primaries were the true competitive contest. These provisions extended deep into the 20th century.
Much of Texas politics of the remainder of the 19th century centered on land use. Guided by the federal Morill Act, Texas sold public lands to gain funds to invest in higher education. In 1876, the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas
opened, and seven years later the University of Texas at Austin
began conducting classes. New land use policies drafted during the administration of Governor John Ireland
enabled individuals to accumulate land, leading to the formation of large cattle ranches. Many ranchers ran barbed wire
around public lands, to protect their access to water and free grazing. This caused several range war
s. Governor Lawrence Sullivan Ross
guided the Texas Legislature to reform the land use policies.
The state continued to deal with racial tensions, and Ross had to personally intervene to resolve the Jaybird-Woodpecker War
. Under Jim Hogg
, the state turned its attention toward corporations violating the state monopoly laws. In 1894, Texas filed a lawsuit against John D. Rockefeller's
Standard Oil Company and its Texas subsidiary, the Waters-Pierce Oil Company of Missouri. Hogg and his attorney general argued that the companies were engaged in rebates, price fixing
, consolidation, and other tactics prohibited by the state's 1889 antitrust act. The investigation resulted in a number of indictments, including one for Rockefeller. Hogg requested that Rockefeller be extradited
from New York
, but the New York governor refused, as Rockefeller had not fled from Texas. Rockefeller was never tried, but other employees of the company were found guilty.
with 100 mph (160.9 km/h) winds on September 8, 1900. The storm created a 20 ft (6.1 m) storm surge
when it hit the island, 6–9 ft (1.8–2.7 m) higher than any previously recorded flood. Water covered the entire island, killing between 6,000 and 8,000 people, destroying 3,500 homes as well as the railroad causeway and wagon bridge that connected the island to the mainland. To help rebuild their city, citizens implemented a reformed government featuring a five-man city commission. Galveston was the first city to implement a city commission government, and its plan was adopted by 500 other small cities across the United States.
In the aftermath of the Galveston disaster, action proceeded on building the Houston Ship Channel
to create a more protected inland port. Houston quickly grew once the Channel was completed, and rapidly became the primary port in Texas. Railroads were constructed in a radial pattern to link Houston with other major cities such as Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio, and Austin.
By 1900 the Dallas population reached 38,000 as banking and insurance became major activities in the increasingly white-collar city, which was now the world's leading cotton center. Businessmen took control of civic affairs; with little municipal patronage, there was only a small role for the Democratic party to play (and no role for the predominantly black Republican party.) A dramatic sign of progress was the towering 190-foot steel-frame skyscraper—the fourteen-story Praetorian Building, built in 1909 to house the Praetorian insurance company. Dallas became the regional headquarters of the Federal Reserve in 1914, strengthening its dominance of Texas banking. The city reached 260,000 population in 1929 when the Great Depression hit Texas, causing a sharp drop in the prices of oil, cotton and cattle, and growth came to a standstill.
Anthony F. Lucas
, an experienced mining engineer drilled the first major oil well at Spindletop
, on the morning of January 10, 1901 the little hill south of Beaumont, Texas
. The East Texas Oil Field
, discovered on October 5, 1930 is located in east central part of the state, and is the largest and most prolific oil reservoir
in the contiguous United States. Other oil fields were later discovered in West Texas
and under the Gulf of Mexico
. The resulting Texas Oil Boom
permanently transformed the economy of Texas, and led to the first significant economic expansion after the Civil War.
The creation of the New Mexico Territory
in 1850 fixed the boundary with the state of Texas at the Rio Grande
. Between then and 1912, when New Mexico
became a state, the course of the river shifted. In what became known as the Country Club Dispute
, a boundary dispute case was filed with the Supreme Court of the United States
in 1913. The court settled the matter in 1927 by determining where the river had flowed in 1850, largely in agreement with the claims of Texas.
The economy, which had experienced significant recovery since the Civil War, was dealt a double blow by the Great Depression
and the Dust Bowl
. After the Stock Market Crash of 1929, the economy suffered significant reversals and thousands of city workers became unemployed, many of whom depended on federal relief programs such as FERA
, WPA
and CCC
. Farmers and ranchers were especially hard hit, as prices for cotton and livestock fell sharply. Beginning in 1934 and lasting until 1939, an ecological disaster of severe wind and drought caused an exodus from Texas and Arkansas
, the Oklahoma Panhandle
region and the surrounding plains, in which over 500,000 Americans were homeless, hungry and jobless. Thousands left the region forever to seek economic opportunities along the West Coast.
Existing military bases in Texas were expanded and numerous new training bases were built: Texas World War II Army Airfields
, Brooke Army Medical Center
, Camp Mabry
, Corpus Christi Army Depot
, Fort Bliss
, Fort Hood, Fort Sam Houston
, Ingleside Army Depot, Red River Army Depot
, especially for aviation training. The good flying weather made the state a favorite location for Air Force training bases. In the largest aviation training program in the world, 200,000 graduated from programs at 40 Texas airfields, including 45,000 pilots, 12,000 bombardiers, 12,000 navigators, and thousands of aerial gunners, photographers, and mechanics. Allison (1999) in a study of Majors Field, the Army Air Forces Basic Flying School, at Greenville during 1942–45, shows that the base—like most military bases in rural Texas—invigorated the local economy, but also changed the cultural climate of the conservative Christian town, especially around unprecedented freedom regarding alcohol, dating and dancing, and race relations.
The Lone Star Army Ammunition Plant
and the Longhorn Army Ammunition Plant
were built as part of the WWII buildup. Hundreds of thousands of American (and some allied) soldiers, sailors and airmen trained in the state. All sectors of the economy boomed as the homefront prospered.
During WWII, Texas became home to as many as 78,982 enemy prisoners, mainly Germans; that was 15% of the total POW's in the United States. There were fourteen prisoner of war camps in the state. The men in the camps were used to supplement the local farm labor lost to the war. Though contemporary War Department officials claimed that government attempts at denazification of the prisoners were highly successful, in reality Nazi influence upon prisons in individual camps was common for the duration of the POW program. Walker (2006) examines Nazi activities in Texas POW camps during 1943–45 to indicate the severity of this problem and the failure of the military authorities to eradicate it.
A largely rural area, East Texas became more urban as workers were recruited for the oil, shipbuilding, and aircraft industries. East Texans made many contributions to the war effort, both at home and in the armed forces. High schools had patriotic programs as well, but so many teachers and older students left for the military or for defense jobs that budgets were cut, programs dropped and the curriculum had to be scaled down. Hospitals reported a shortage of supplies and medical personnel, as many doctors and most of the younger nurses joined the services.
One of the Army's largest hospitals, Harmon General Hospital opened in Longview in November 1942 with 157 hospital buildings and a capacity of 2,939 beds. The facility was designed for the treatment of soldiers with central nervous system syphilis, psychiatric disorders, tropical illnesses, and dermatological diseases. At the end of the war the facility became the campus of LeTourneau University.
Baylor University, like most schools, was successful in the multiple missions of aiding national defense, recruiting soldiers, and keeping the institution operational while the war continued. Texas Tech University likewise had many roles in the war; the most famous was the War Training Service Pre-Flight program during 1943–44. It prepared Air Force pilots for full-fledged military aviation training. The efforts of Clent Breedove and M. F. Dagley, private contractors for the Civilian Pilot Training Program at the university site since 1939, with Harold Humphries as chief pilot, brought an economic boost to Lubbock, and 3,750 cadets received classroom instruction and flying time. From February 1943 to January 1944 more than two thousand women completed training at the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps Branch Number One, Army Administration School, at Stephen F. Austin State Teacher's College in Nacogdoches.
Nowhere was the impact greater than in Houston
, which in 1940 was a city of 400,000 population dependent on shipping and oil. The war dramatically expanded the city's economic base, thanks to massive federal spending. Energetic entrepreneurs, most notably George Brown, James Elkins and James Abercrombie, landed hundreds of millions of dollars in federal wartime investment in technologically complex facilities. Houston oil companies moved from being mere refiners and became sophisticated producers of petrochemicals. Especially important were synthetic rubber and high octane fuel, which retained their importance after the war, The war moved the natural gas industry from a minor factor to a major energy source; Houston became a major hub when a local firm purchased the federally-financed Inch pipelines. Other major growth industries included steel, munitions, and shipbuilding. Tens of thousands of new migrants streamed in from rural areas, straining the city's housing supply and the city's ability to provide local transit and schools. For the first time high paying jobs went to large numbers of women, blacks and Mexican Americans. The city's African American community, emboldened by their newfound prosperity, became a hotbed of civil rights agitation; the Smith v. Allwright Supreme Court decision on voting rights was backed and funded by local blacks in this period.
Throughout East Texas black family growth and dissolution came more rapidly than in peacetime; blacks were more mobile as an adjustment to employment opportunities; and there was a more rapid shift to factory labor, higher economic returns, and a willingness of whites to tolerate the change in black economic status so long as the traditional "Jim Crow" social relations were maintained.
assassinated John F. Kennedy
, the thirty-fifth President of the United States. Oswald shot the president from the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository
. The Texas Governor, John B. Connally, was also critically injured but survived. The vice president, the Texan Lyndon Baines Johnson, sworn in as President on Air Force One in Dallas at Love Field Airport.
From 1950 through the 1960s, Texas modernized and dramatically expanded its system of higher education. Under the leadership of Governor Connally, the state produced a long-range plan for higher education, a more rational distribution of resources, and a central state apparatus that managed state institutions with greater efficiency. Because of these changes, Texas universities received federal funds for research and development during the John F. Kennedy
and Lyndon B. Johnson
administrations.
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
in 1519, finding the region populated by various Native American tribes. During the period from 1519 to 1848, all or parts of Texas were claimed by six countries: France, Spain, Mexico, the Republic of Texas
Republic of Texas
The Republic of Texas was an independent nation in North America, bordering the United States and Mexico, that existed from 1836 to 1846.Formed as a break-away republic from Mexico by the Texas Revolution, the state claimed borders that encompassed an area that included all of the present U.S...
, the United States of America—as well as the Confederate States of America
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...
in 1861–65.
The first European base was established in 1682, when René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle
René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle
René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, or Robert de LaSalle was a French explorer. He explored the Great Lakes region of the United States and Canada, the Mississippi River, and the Gulf of Mexico...
established a French colony, Fort Saint Louis, near Matagorda Bay
Matagorda Bay
Matagorda Bay is a large estuary bay on the Texas coast, lying in Calhoun and Matagorda counties and located approximately northeast of Corpus Christi, southeast of San Antonio, southwest of Houston, and southeast of Austin. It is separated from the Gulf of Mexico by Matagorda Peninsula and...
. The colony was killed off after three years, but its presence motivated Spanish authorities to begin activity. Several missions were established in East Texas
East Texas
East Texas is a distinct geographic and ecological area in the U.S. state of Texas.According to the Handbook of Texas, the East Texas area "may be separated from the rest of Texas roughly by a line extending from the Red River in north central Lamar County southwestward to east central Limestone...
; they were abandoned in 1691. Twenty years later, concerned with the French presence in neighboring Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
, Spanish authorities again attempted to colonize Texas. In approximately 1779, the Robert Harvey family settled a small ranch near present-day Huntsville, becoming the first known U.S. citizens to emigrate to Texas. Over the next 110 years, Spain established numerous villages, presidio
Presidio
A presidio is a fortified base established by the Spanish in North America between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. The fortresses were built to protect against pirates, hostile native Americans and enemy colonists. Other presidios were held by Spain in the sixteenth and seventeenth...
s, and missions in the province. A small number of Spanish settlers arrived, in addition to missionaries and soldiers. Spain signed agreements with colonizers from the United States. When Mexico won its independence from Spain in 1821
Mexican War of Independence
The Mexican War of Independence was an armed conflict between the people of Mexico and the Spanish colonial authorities which started on 16 September 1810. The movement, which became known as the Mexican War of Independence, was led by Mexican-born Spaniards, Mestizos and Amerindians who sought...
, Mexican Texas
Mexican Texas
Mexican Texas is the name given by Texas history scholars to the period between 1821 and 1836, when Texas was an integral part of Mexico. The period began with Mexico's victory over Spain in its war of independence in 1821. For the first several years of its existence, Mexican Texas operated very...
was part of the new nation. To encourage settlement, Mexican authorities allowed organized immigration from the United States, and by 1834, over 30,000 Anglos lived in Texas, compared to only 7,800 Mexicans.
After Santa Anna's dissolution of the Constitution of 1824
1824 Constitution of Mexico
The Federal Constitution of the United Mexican States of 1824 was enacted on October 4 of 1824, after the overthrow of the Mexican Empire of Agustin de Iturbide. In the new constitution, the republic took the name of United Mexican States, and was defined as a representative federal republic, with...
, issues such as lack of access to courts, the militarization of the region's government (e.g., response to Saltillo-Monclova problem) and self-defense issues resulting in the confrontation in Gonzales, public sentiment turned towards revolution. Santa Anna's invasion of the territory after his putting down the rebellion in Zacatecas
Zacatecas
Zacatecas officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Zacatecas is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 58 municipalities and its capital city is Zacatecas....
provoked the conflict of 1836. The Texian forces
Texian Army
The Texian Army was a military organization consisting of volunteer and regular soldiers who fought against the Mexican army during the Texas Revolution. Approximately 3,700 men joined the army between October 2, 1835 during the Battle of Gonzales through the end of the war on April 21, 1836, at...
fought and won the Texas Revolution
Texas Revolution
The Texas Revolution or Texas War of Independence was an armed conflict between Mexico and settlers in the Texas portion of the Mexican state Coahuila y Tejas. The war lasted from October 2, 1835 to April 21, 1836...
in 1835–36. Texas now became an independent nation, the Republic of Texas
Republic of Texas
The Republic of Texas was an independent nation in North America, bordering the United States and Mexico, that existed from 1836 to 1846.Formed as a break-away republic from Mexico by the Texas Revolution, the state claimed borders that encompassed an area that included all of the present U.S...
. Attracted by the rich cotton lands and ranch lands, tens of thousands of immigrants arrived from the U.S. and from Germany as well. In 1845, Texas joined the United States
Texas Annexation
In 1845, United States of America annexed the Republic of Texas and admitted it to the Union as the 28th state. The U.S. thus inherited Texas's border dispute with Mexico; this quickly led to the Mexican-American War, during which the U.S. captured additional territory , extending the nation's...
, becoming the 28th state. Texas declared its secession from the United States in 1861 to join the Confederate States of America. Only a few battles of the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
were fought in Texas; most Texas regiments served in the east. When the war ended the slaves were freed and Texas was subject to Reconstruction, a process that left a residue of bitterness among whites and a second-class status for blacks in a Jim Crow system of segregation.
Cotton and ranching dominated the economy, with railroad construction after 1870 a major factor in the formation of new cities. Toward the end of the 19th century timber became an important industry in Texas as well. In 1901 a petroleum discovery at Spindletop Hill
Spindletop
Spindletop is a salt dome oil field located in the southern portion of Beaumont, Texas in the United States. The Spindletop dome was derived from the Louann Salt evaporite layer of the Jurassic geologic period. On January 10, 1901, a well at Spindletop struck oil . The new oil field soon produced...
, near Beaumont, created the most productive oil well the world had ever seen. The wave of oil speculation and discovery that followed came to be known as the "Oil Boom
Texas Oil Boom
The Texas Oil Boom, sometimes called the Gusher Age, was a period of dramatic change and economic growth in U.S. state of Texas during the early 20th century that began with the discovery of a large petroleum reserve near Beaumont, Texas...
", permanently transforming and enriching the economy of Texas. Agriculture and ranching gave way to a service-oriented society after the boom years of World War II. Segregation ended in the 1960s. Politically, Texas changed from a virtually one-party Democratic state, to a highly contested political scene, until 2000 when it was solidly Republican. The economy of Texas has continued to grow rapidly, becoming the second largest state in population in 1994, and became economically highly diversified, with a growing base in high technology.
Pre-Columbian history
Texas lies at the juncture of two major cultural spheres of Pre-Columbian North America, the Southwestern and the PlainsPlains Indians
The Plains Indians are the Indigenous peoples who live on the plains and rolling hills of the Great Plains of North America. Their colorful equestrian culture and resistance to White domination have made the Plains Indians an archetype in literature and art for American Indians everywhere.Plains...
areas. The area now covered by Texas comprised three major indigenous cultures which had reached their developmental peak prior to the arrival of European explorers and are known from archaeology. These are
- the PuebloAncient Pueblo PeoplesAncient Pueblo People or Ancestral Pueblo peoples were an ancient Native American culture centered on the present-day Four Corners area of the United States, comprising southern Utah, northern Arizona, northwest New Mexico, and southern Colorado...
from the upper Rio GrandeRio GrandeThe Rio Grande is a river that flows from southwestern Colorado in the United States to the Gulf of Mexico. Along the way it forms part of the Mexico – United States border. Its length varies as its course changes...
region, centered west of Texas; - the Mound Builder culture of the Mississippi Valley region, centered east of Texas, ancestral to the CaddoCaddoThe Caddo Nation is a confederacy of several Southeastern Native American tribes, who traditionally inhabited much of what is now East Texas, northern Louisiana and portions of southern Arkansas and Oklahoma. Today the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma is a cohesive tribe with its capital at Binger, Oklahoma...
nation; - the civilizations of MesoamericaMesoamericaMesoamerica is a region and culture area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and...
, centered south of Texas. Influence of TeotihuacanTeotihuacanTeotihuacan – also written Teotihuacán, with a Spanish orthographic accent on the last syllable – is an enormous archaeological site in the Basin of Mexico, just 30 miles northeast of Mexico City, containing some of the largest pyramidal structures built in the pre-Columbian Americas...
in northern Mexico peaked around AD 500 and declined over the 8th to 10th centuries.
The Paleo-Indians that lived in Texas between 9200 – 6000 BC may have links to Clovis
Clovis culture
The Clovis culture is a prehistoric Paleo-Indian culture that first appears 11,500 RCYBP , at the end of the last glacial period, characterized by the manufacture of "Clovis points" and distinctive bone and ivory tools...
and Folsom
Folsom tradition
The Folsom Complex is a name given by archaeologists to a specific Paleo-Indian archaeological culture that occupied much of central North America...
cultures; these nomadic people hunted mammoth
Mammoth
A mammoth is any species of the extinct genus Mammuthus. These proboscideans are members of Elephantidae, the family of elephants and mammoths, and close relatives of modern elephants. They were often equipped with long curved tusks and, in northern species, a covering of long hair...
s and bison latifrons
Bison latifrons
Bison latifrons is an extinct species of bison that lived in North America during the Pleistocene. Also known as the giant bison, it reached a shoulder height of 2.5 metres , and had horns that spanned over 2 metres...
using atlatl
Atlatl
An atlatl or spear-thrower is a tool that uses leverage to achieve greater velocity in dart-throwing.It consists of a shaft with a cup or a spur at the end that supports and propels the butt of the dart. The atlatl is held in one hand, gripped near the end farthest from the cup...
s. They extracted Alibates flint
Alibates Flint Quarries National Monument
Alibates Flint Quarries National Monument is a U.S. National Monument in the State of Texas. For thousands of years, people came to the red bluffs above the Canadian River for flint, vital to their existence. Demand for the high quality, rainbow-hued flint is reflected in the distribution of...
from quarries in the panhandle
Texas Panhandle
The Texas Panhandle is a region of the U.S. state of Texas consisting of the northernmost 26 counties in the state. The panhandle is a rectangular area bordered by New Mexico to the west and Oklahoma to the north and east...
region.
Beginning during the 3rd millennium BC
3rd millennium BC
The 3rd millennium BC spans the Early to Middle Bronze Age.It represents a period of time in which imperialism, or the desire to conquer, grew to prominence, in the city states of the Middle East, but also throughout Eurasia, with Indo-European expansion to Anatolia, Europe and Central Asia. The...
, the population of Texas increased despite experiencing a changing climate
Climate change
Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...
and the extinction of giant mammals
Holocene extinction event
The Holocene extinction refers to the extinction of species during the present Holocene epoch . The large number of extinctions span numerous families of plants and animals including mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and arthropods; a sizeable fraction of these extinctions are occurring in the...
. Many pictogram
Pictogram
A pictograph, also called pictogram or pictogramme is an ideogram that conveys its meaning through its pictorial resemblance to a physical object. Pictographs are often used in writing and graphic systems in which the characters are to considerable extent pictorial in appearance.Pictography is a...
s drawn on the walls of caves or on rocks are visible in the state, including at Hueco Tanks
Hueco Tanks
Hueco Tanks is an area of low mountains in El Paso County, Texas, USA. It is located in a high-altitude desert basin between the Franklin Mountains to the west and the Hueco Mountains to the east. Hueco is a Spanish word meaning hollows and refers to the many water-holding depressions in the...
and Seminole Canyon.
Native Americans in East Texas began to settle
Sedentism
In evolutionary anthropology and archaeology, sedentism , is a term applied to the transition from nomadic to permanent, year-round settlement.- Requirements for permanent settlements :...
in villages shortly after 500 BC, farming and building the first burial mound
Mound
A mound is a general term for an artificial heaped pile of earth, gravel, sand, rocks, or debris. The most common use is in reference to natural earthen formation such as hills and mountains, particularly if they appear artificial. The term may also be applied to any rounded area of topographically...
s. They were influenced by the Mound Builder civilizations that lived in the Mississippi basin. In the Trans-Pecos
Trans-Pecos
The term Trans-Pecos, as originally defined in 1887 by the Texas geologist Robert T. Hill, refers to the portion of Texas that lies west of the Pecos River. The term is considered synonymous with "Far West Texas", a subdivision of West Texas...
area, populations were influenced by Mogollon culture.
From the 8th century, the bow and arrow appeared in the region, manufacture of pottery developed and Native Americans
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
increasingly depended on bison
Bison
Members of the genus Bison are large, even-toed ungulates within the subfamily Bovinae. Two extant and four extinct species are recognized...
for survival. Obsidian objects found in various Texan sites attest of trade with cultures in present day Mexico and the Rocky Mountains
Rocky Mountains
The Rocky Mountains are a major mountain range in western North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch more than from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico, in the southwestern United States...
.
No one culture was dominant in the present-day Texas region and many different peoples inhabited the area. Native American
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
tribes that lived inside the boundaries of present-day Texas include the Alabama
Alabama (people)
The Alabama or Alibamu are a Southeastern culture people of Native Americans, originally from Mississippi...
, Apache
Apache
Apache is the collective term for several culturally related groups of Native Americans in the United States originally from the Southwest United States. These indigenous peoples of North America speak a Southern Athabaskan language, which is related linguistically to the languages of Athabaskan...
, Atakapan, Bidai
Bidai
The Bidai were a band of Atakapa Indians from eastern Texas.-History:Their oral history says that the Bidai were the original peoples in their region. Their central settlements were along Bedias Creek, but their territory ranged from the Brazos River to the Neches River. The first written record...
, Caddo
Caddo
The Caddo Nation is a confederacy of several Southeastern Native American tribes, who traditionally inhabited much of what is now East Texas, northern Louisiana and portions of southern Arkansas and Oklahoma. Today the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma is a cohesive tribe with its capital at Binger, Oklahoma...
, Coahuiltecan
Coahuiltecan
Coahuiltecan or Paikawa was a proposed language family in John Wesley Powell's 1891 classification of Native American languages that consisted of Coahuilteco and Cotoname. The proposal was expanded to include Comecrudo, Karankawa, and Tonkawa...
, Comanche
Comanche
The Comanche are a Native American ethnic group whose historic range consisted of present-day eastern New Mexico, southern Colorado, northeastern Arizona, southern Kansas, all of Oklahoma, and most of northwest Texas. Historically, the Comanches were hunter-gatherers, with a typical Plains Indian...
, Cherokee
Cherokee
The Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States . Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family...
, Choctaw
Choctaw
The Choctaw are a Native American people originally from the Southeastern United States...
, Coushatta
Coushatta
----The Coushatta are a historic Muskogean-speaking Native American people living primarily in the U.S. state of Louisiana. When first encountered by Europeans, they lived in the territory of present-day Georgia and Alabama...
, Hasinai
Hasinai
The Hasinai Confederacy was a large confederation of Caddo-speaking Native Americans located between the Sabine and Trinity rivers in eastern Texas...
, Jumano, Karankawa
Karankawa
Karankawa were a group of Native American peoples, now extinct as a tribal group, who played a pivotal part in early Texas history....
, Kickapoo, Kiowa
Kiowa
The Kiowa are a nation of American Indians and indigenous people of the Great Plains. They migrated from the northern plains to the southern plains in the late 17th century. In 1867, the Kiowa moved to a reservation in southwestern Oklahoma...
, Tonkawa
Tonkawa
The Tickanwa•tic Tribe , better known as the Tonkawa , are a Native American people indigenous to present-day Oklahoma and Texas. They once spoke the now-extinct Tonkawa language believed to have been a language isolate not related to any other indigenous tongues...
, and Wichita
Wichita (tribe)
The Wichita people are indigenous inhabitants of North America, who traditionally spoke the Wichita language, a Caddoan language. They have lived in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas...
. The name Texas derives from , a word in the Caddoan language
Caddoan languages
The Caddoan languages are a family of Native American languages. They are spoken by Native Americans in parts of the Great Plains of the central United States, from North Dakota south to Oklahoma.-Family division:...
of the Hasinai, which means "friends" or "allies."
Native Americans determined the fate of European explorers and settlers depending on whether a tribe was friendly or warlike. Friendly tribes taught newcomers how to grow indigenous crops, prepare foods, and hunting methods for wild game
Game (food)
Game is any animal hunted for food or not normally domesticated. Game animals are also hunted for sport.The type and range of animals hunted for food varies in different parts of the world. This will be influenced by climate, animal diversity, local taste and locally accepted view about what can or...
. Warlike tribes made life unpleasant, difficult and dangerous for explorers and settlers through their attacks and resistance to European conquest.
A remnant of the Choctaw tribe in East Texas still lives in the Mt. Tabor Community near Amberly, Texas. Currently, there are three federally-recognized Native American tribes which reside in Texas: the Alabama-Coushatta Tribes of Texas, the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas, and the Ysleta Del Sur Pueblo
Ysleta Del Sur Pueblo
Ysleta del Sur Pueblo is a Puebloan Native American tribal entity in the Ysleta section of El Paso, Texas, comprising a formerly Southern Tiwa-speaking people who were displaced from New Mexico in 1680 and 1681 during the Pueblo Revolt against the Spaniards.-Tigua:In Spanish the people and...
of Texas.
Early European exploration
The first European to see Texas was Alonso Álvarez de PinedaAlonso Álvarez de Pineda
Alonso Álvarez de Pineda was a Spanish explorer and cartographer. His map marks the first document in Texas history.-Expedition:The Spanish thought there must be a sea lane from the Gulf of Mexico to Asia...
, who led an expedition on behalf of the governor of Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
, Francisco de Garay, in 1519. While searching for a passage between the Gulf of Mexico
Gulf of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico is a partially landlocked ocean basin largely surrounded by the North American continent and the island of Cuba. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States, on the southwest and south by Mexico, and on the southeast by Cuba. In...
and Asia, Álvarez de Pineda created the first map of the northern Gulf Coast. This map is the earliest recorded document of Texas history.
Between 1528 and 1535, four survivors of the Narváez expedition
Narváez expedition
The Narváez expedition was a Spanish attempt during the years 1527–1528 to colonize Spanish Florida. It was led by Pánfilo de Narváez, who was to rule as adelantado....
, including Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca
Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca
Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca was a Spanish explorer of the New World, one of four survivors of the Narváez expedition...
and Estevanico
Estevanico
Estevanico , "Black Stephen", "Esteban", "Esteban the Moor", "Estevan", "Estebanico", "Stephen the Black", "Stephen the Moor", "Stephen Dorantes" after his owner Andres Dorantes, and "Little Stephen") was the first known person born in Africa to have arrived in the present-day continental United...
, spent six and a half years in Texas as slaves and traders among various native groups. Cabeza de Vaca was the first European explorer to explore the interior of Texas.
French colonization of Texas: 1684–1689
Although Álvarez de Pineda had claimed the area that is now Texas for Spain, the area was essentially ignored for over 160 years. Its initial settlement by Europeans occurred by accident. In April 1682, French nobleman René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La SalleRené-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle
René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, or Robert de LaSalle was a French explorer. He explored the Great Lakes region of the United States and Canada, the Mississippi River, and the Gulf of Mexico...
had claimed the entire Mississippi River
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...
Valley for France. The following year, he convinced King Louis XIV to establish a colony near the Mississippi, essentially splitting Spanish Florida
Spanish Florida
Spanish Florida refers to the Spanish territory of Florida, which formed part of the Captaincy General of Cuba, the Viceroyalty of New Spain, and the Spanish Empire. Originally extending over what is now the southeastern United States, but with no defined boundaries, la Florida was a component of...
from New Spain.
La Salle's colonization expedition left France on July 24, 1684 and soon lost one of its supply ships to Spanish privateers. A combination of inaccurate maps, La Salle's previous miscalculation of the latitude of the mouth of the Mississippi River, and overcorrecting for the Gulf currents led the ships to be unable to find the Mississippi. Instead, they landed at Matagorda Bay
Matagorda Bay
Matagorda Bay is a large estuary bay on the Texas coast, lying in Calhoun and Matagorda counties and located approximately northeast of Corpus Christi, southeast of San Antonio, southwest of Houston, and southeast of Austin. It is separated from the Gulf of Mexico by Matagorda Peninsula and...
in early 1685, 400 miles (644 km) west of the Mississippi. In February, the colonists constructed Fort Saint Louis.
Rio Grande
The Rio Grande is a river that flows from southwestern Colorado in the United States to the Gulf of Mexico. Along the way it forms part of the Mexico – United States border. Its length varies as its course changes...
and as far east as the Trinity River
Trinity River (Texas)
The Trinity River is a long river that flows entirely within the U.S. state of Texas. It rises in extreme north Texas, a few miles south of the Red River. The headwaters are separated by the high bluffs on the south side of the Red River....
. Disease and hardship laid waste to the colony, and by early January 1687, fewer than 45 people remained. That month, a third expedition launched a final attempt to find the Mississippi. The expedition experienced much infighting, and La Salle was ambushed and killed somewhere in East Texas
East Texas
East Texas is a distinct geographic and ecological area in the U.S. state of Texas.According to the Handbook of Texas, the East Texas area "may be separated from the rest of Texas roughly by a line extending from the Red River in north central Lamar County southwestward to east central Limestone...
.
The Spanish learned of the French colony in late 1685. Feeling that the French colony was a threat to Spanish mines and shipping routes, King Carlos II's Council of war recommended the removal of "this thorn which has been thrust into the heart of America. The greater the delay the greater the difficulty of attainment." Having no idea where to find La Salle, the Spanish launched ten expeditions—both land and sea—over the next three years. The last expedition discovered a French deserter
Jean Gery
Jean Gery was a French explorer and a deserter from the La Salle expedition of 1685. After leaving the expedition, Gery became chief of a group of Coahuiltecan Indians, claiming that he had been sent by God to rule over them...
living in Southern Texas with the Coahuiltecan
Coahuiltecan
Coahuiltecan or Paikawa was a proposed language family in John Wesley Powell's 1891 classification of Native American languages that consisted of Coahuilteco and Cotoname. The proposal was expanded to include Comecrudo, Karankawa, and Tonkawa...
s.
The Frenchman guided the Spanish to the French fort in late April 1689. The fort and the five crude houses surrounding it were in ruins. Several months before, the Karankawa
Karankawa
Karankawa were a group of Native American peoples, now extinct as a tribal group, who played a pivotal part in early Texas history....
had become angry that the French had taken their canoes without payment and had attacked the settlement sparing only four children.
Spanish Texas: 1690–1821
Establishment of Spanish colony
News of the destruction of the French fort "created instant optimism and quickened religious fervor" in Mexico City. Spain had learned a great deal about the geography of Texas during the many expeditions in search of Fort Saint Louis. In March 1690, Alonso De LeónAlonso De León
Alonso de León wasexplorer and governor, who led several expeditions into the area that is now northeastern Mexico and southern Texas.-Early life:...
led an expedition to establish a mission
Mission (Christian)
Christian missionary activities often involve sending individuals and groups , to foreign countries and to places in their own homeland. This has frequently involved not only evangelization , but also humanitarian work, especially among the poor and disadvantaged...
in East Texas. Mission San Francisco de los Tejas
Mission San Francisco de la Espada
Mission San Francisco de la Espada was a Roman Catholic mission established by Spain near San Antonio de Bexar in northern New Spain in 1731 to convert local Native Americans to Christianity and solidify Spanish territorial claims in the New World against encroachment from France...
was completed near the Hasinai
Hasinai
The Hasinai Confederacy was a large confederation of Caddo-speaking Native Americans located between the Sabine and Trinity rivers in eastern Texas...
village of Nabedaches in late May, and its first mass was conducted on June 1. On January 23, 1691, Spain appointed the first governor of Texas, General Domingo Terán de los Ríos
Domingo Terán de los Ríos
Domingo Terán de los Ríos served as the first governor of Spanish Texas from 1691 to 1692.-Previous service:Terán served the Spanish crown in Peru for two decades. He came to Mexico in 1681, and was governor of the province of Sonora y Sinaloa for approximately five years...
. On his visit to Mission San Francisco in August, he discovered that the priests had established a second mission nearby, but were having little luck converting the natives to Christianity. The Indians regularly stole the mission cattle and horses and showed little respect to the priests. When Terán left Texas later that year, most of the missionaries chose to return with him, leaving only 3 religious people and 9 soldiers at the missions. The group also left behind a smallpox
Smallpox
Smallpox was an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. The disease is also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera, which is a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning "spotted", or varus, meaning "pimple"...
epidemic. The angry Caddo threatened the remaining Spaniards, who soon abandoned the fledgling missions and returned to Coahuila
Coahuila
Coahuila, formally Coahuila de Zaragoza , officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Coahuila de Zaragoza is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico...
. For the next 20 years, Spain again ignored Texas.
After a failed attempt to convince Spanish authorities to reestablish missions in Texas, in 1711 Franciscan missionary Francisco Hidalgo approached the French governor of Louisiana
Louisiana (New France)
Louisiana or French Louisiana was an administrative district of New France. Under French control from 1682–1763 and 1800–03, the area was named in honor of Louis XIV, by French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle...
for help. The French governor sent representatives to meet with Hidalgo. This concerned Spanish authorities, who ordered the reoccupation of Texas as a buffer between New Spain and French settlements in Louisiana. In 1716, four missions and a presidio were established in East Texas. Accompanying the soldiers were the first recorded female settlers in Spanish Texas.
The new missions were over 400 miles (644 km) from the nearest Spanish settlement, San Juan Bautista. Martín de Alarcón
Martín de Alarcón
Martín de Alarcón was the governor of Spanish Texas from 1705 until 1708, and again from 1716 until 1719. He founded San Antonio, the first civilian settlement in Texas.-First term:...
, who had been appointed governor of Texas in late 1716, wished to establish a way station between the settlements along the Rio Grande and the new missions in East Texas. Alarcón led a group of 72 people, including 10 families, into Texas in April 1718, where they settled along the San Antonio River
San Antonio River
The San Antonio River is a major waterway that originates in central Texas in a cluster of springs in north central San Antonio, approximately four miles north of downtown, and follows a roughly southeastern path through the state. It eventually feeds into the Guadalupe River about ten miles from...
. Within the next week, the settlers built mission San Antonio de Valero
Alamo Mission in San Antonio
The Alamo, originally known as Mission San Antonio de Valero, is a former Roman Catholic mission and fortress compound, site of the Battle of the Alamo in 1836, and now a museum, in San Antonio, Texas....
and a presidio, and chartered the municipality of San Antonio de Béxar, now San Antonio, Texas.
The following year, the War of the Quadruple Alliance
War of the Quadruple Alliance
The War of the Quadruple Alliance was a result of the ambitions of King Philip V of Spain, his wife, Elisabeth Farnese, and his chief minister Giulio Alberoni to retake territories in Italy and to claim the French throne. It saw the defeat of Spain by an alliance of Britain, France, Austria , and...
pitted Spain against France, which immediately moved to take over Spanish interests in North America. In June 1719, 7 Frenchmen from Natchitoches took control of the mission San Miguel de los Adaes from its sole defender, who did not know that the countries were at war. The French soldiers explained that 100 additional soldiers were coming, and the Spanish colonists, missionaries, and remaining soldiers fled to San Antonio.
The new governor of Coahuila and Texas, the Marquis de San Miguel de Aguayo, drove the French from Los Adaes without firing a shot. He then ordered the building of a new Spanish fort Nuestra Señora del Pilar de Los Adaes
Los Adaes
Los Adaes was the capital of Tejas on the northeastern frontier of New Spain from 1729 to 1770. It included a mission, San Miguel de Linares de los Adaes, and a presidio, Nuestra Señora del Pilar de Los Adaes . The site is located in the present-day Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana. The Los Adaes...
, located near present-day Robeline, Louisiana
Robeline, Louisiana
Robeline is a village in western Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 183 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Natchitoches Micropolitan Statistical Area....
, only 12 mi (19.3 km) from Natchitoches. The new fort became the first capital of Texas, and was guarded by 6 cannons and 100 soldiers. The six East Texas missions were reopened, and an additional mission and presidio were established at Matagorda Bay on the former site of Fort Saint Louis.
Difficulties with the Indians
In the late 1720s, the viceroy of New Spain closed the presidio in East Texas and reduced the size of the garrisons at the remaining presidios, leaving only 144 soldiers in the entire province. With no soldiers to protect them, the East Texas missions relocated to San Antonio.San Saba River
The San Saba River is a river in the U.S. state of Texas. It is an undeveloped and scenic waterway located on the northern boundary of the Edwards Plateau.-Course:...
northwest of San Antonio. The Apaches shunned the mission, but the fact that Spaniards now appeared to be friends of the Apache angered the Apache enemies, primarily the Comanche
Comanche
The Comanche are a Native American ethnic group whose historic range consisted of present-day eastern New Mexico, southern Colorado, northeastern Arizona, southern Kansas, all of Oklahoma, and most of northwest Texas. Historically, the Comanches were hunter-gatherers, with a typical Plains Indian...
, Tonkawa
Tonkawa
The Tickanwa•tic Tribe , better known as the Tonkawa , are a Native American people indigenous to present-day Oklahoma and Texas. They once spoke the now-extinct Tonkawa language believed to have been a language isolate not related to any other indigenous tongues...
, and Hasinai tribes, who promptly destroyed the mission.
In 1762, France finally relinquished their claim to Texas by ceding all of Louisiana west of the Mississippi River to Spain as part of the treaty to end the Seven Years War. Spain saw no need to continue to maintain settlements near French outposts and ordered the closure of Los Adaes, making San Antonio the new provincial capital. The residents of Los Adaes were relocated in 1773. After several attempts to settle in other parts of the province, the residents returned to East Texas without authorization and founded Nacogdoches.
The Comanche agreed to a peace treaty in 1785. The Comanches were willing to fight the enemies of their new friends, and soon attacked the Karankawa. Over the next several years the Comanches killed many of the Karankawa in the area and drove the others into Mexico. In January 1790, the Comanche also helped the Spanish fight a large battle against the Mescalero and Lipan Apaches at Soledad Creek west of San Antonio. The Apaches were resoundingly defeated and the majority of the raids stopped. By the end of the 18th century only a small number of the remaining hunting and gathering tribes within Texas had not been Christianized. In 1793, mission San Antonio de Valero was secularized, and the following year the four remaining missions at San Antonio were partially secularized.
Encroachment
In 1799, Spain gave Louisiana back to France in exchange for the promise of a throne in central Italy. Although the agreement was signed on October 1, 1800, it did not go into effect until 1802. The following year, Napoleon sold Louisiana to the United States. The original agreement between Spain and France had not explicitly specified the borders of Louisiana, and the descriptions in the documents were ambiguous and contradictory. The United States insisted that its purchase also included most of West FloridaWest Florida
West Florida was a region on the north shore of the Gulf of Mexico, which underwent several boundary and sovereignty changes during its history. West Florida was first established in 1763 by the British government; as its name suggests it largely consisted of the western portion of the region...
and all of Texas. Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
claimed that Louisiana stretched west to the Rocky Mountains
Rocky Mountains
The Rocky Mountains are a major mountain range in western North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch more than from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico, in the southwestern United States...
and included the entire watershed
Drainage basin
A drainage basin is an extent or an area of land where surface water from rain and melting snow or ice converges to a single point, usually the exit of the basin, where the waters join another waterbody, such as a river, lake, reservoir, estuary, wetland, sea, or ocean...
of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers and their tributaries, and that the southern border was the Rio Grande. Spain maintained that Louisiana extended only as far as Natchitoches, and that it did not include the Illinois Territory
Illinois Territory
The Territory of Illinois was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 1, 1809, until December 3, 1818, when the southern portion of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Illinois. The area was earlier known as "Illinois Country" while under...
. Texas was again considered a buffer province, this time between New Spain and the United States. The disagreement would continue until the signing of the 1819 Adams–Onís Treaty, at which point Spain gave Florida to the United States in return for undisputed control of Texas.
During much of the dispute with the United States, governship of New Spain was in question. In 1808, Napoleon forced the Spanish king to abdicate the throne and appointed Joseph Bonaparte
Joseph Bonaparte
Joseph-Napoléon Bonaparte was the elder brother of Napoleon Bonaparte, who made him King of Naples and Sicily , and later King of Spain...
as the new monarch. A shadow government operated out of Cadiz during Joseph's reign. Revolutionaries within Mexico and the United States unsuccessfully combined to declare Texas and Mexico independent. Spanish troops reacted harshly, looting the province and executing any Tejanos accused of having Republican tendencies. By 1820 fewer than 2000 Hispanic citizens remained in Texas. The situation did not normalize until 1821, when Agustin de Iturbide
Agustín de Iturbide
Agustín Cosme Damián de Iturbide y Aramburu , also known as Augustine I of Mexico, was a Mexican army general who built a successful political and military coalition that was able to march into Mexico City on 27 September 1821, decisively ending the Mexican War of Independence...
launched a drive for Mexican Independence
Mexican War of Independence
The Mexican War of Independence was an armed conflict between the people of Mexico and the Spanish colonial authorities which started on 16 September 1810. The movement, which became known as the Mexican War of Independence, was led by Mexican-born Spaniards, Mestizos and Amerindians who sought...
. Texas became a part of the newly independent nation without a shot being fired, ending the period of Spanish Texas.
Spanish legacy
Spanish control of Texas was followed by Mexican control of Texas, and it can be difficult to separate the Spanish and Mexican influences on the future state. The most obvious legacy is that of the language; every major river in modern Texas, except the Red River, has a Spanish or Anglicized name, as do 42 of the state's 254 counties. Numerous towns also bear Spanish names. An additional obvious legacy is that of Roman Catholicism. At the end of Spain's reign over Texas, virtually all inhabitants practiced the Catholic religion, and it is still practiced in Texas by a large number of people. The Spanish missions built in San Antonio to convert Indians to Catholicism have been restored and are a National Historic LandmarkNational Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...
.
The Spanish introduced European livestock, including cattle, horses, and mules, to Texas as early as the 1690s. These herds grazed heavily on the native grasses, allowing mesquite
Mesquite
Mesquite is a leguminous plant of the Prosopis genus found in northern Mexico through the Sonoran Desert and Chihuahuan Deserts, and up into the Southwestern United States as far north as southern Kansas, west to the Colorado Desert in California,and east to the eastern fifth of Texas, where...
, which was native to the lower Texas coast, to spread inland. Spanish farmers also introduced tilling and irrigation to the land, further changing the landscape.
Texas eventually adopted much of the Anglo-American legal system, but some Spanish legal practices were retained, including homestead exemption
Homestead exemption
Homestead exemption is a legal regime designed to protect the value of the homes of residents from property taxes, creditors, and circumstances arising from the death of the homeowner spouse...
, community property
Community property
Community property is a marital property regime that originated in civil law jurisdictions and is now also found in some common law jurisdictions...
, and adoption
Adoption
Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting for another and, in so doing, permanently transfers all rights and responsibilities from the original parent or parents...
.
West Texas: Comancheria
Comanche
The Comanche are a Native American ethnic group whose historic range consisted of present-day eastern New Mexico, southern Colorado, northeastern Arizona, southern Kansas, all of Oklahoma, and most of northwest Texas. Historically, the Comanches were hunter-gatherers, with a typical Plains Indian...
s were the dominant group in the Southwest, and the domain they ruled was known as Comancheria
Comancheria
The Comancheria is the name commonly given to the region of New Mexico, west Texas and nearby areas occupied by the Comanche before the 1860s.-Geography:...
. Hämäläinen calls it an empire. Confronted with Spanish, Mexican, and American outposts on their periphery in New Mexico, Texas, and Coahuila
Coahuila
Coahuila, formally Coahuila de Zaragoza , officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Coahuila de Zaragoza is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico...
and Nueva Vizcaya
Nueva Vizcaya
Nueva Vizcaya is a province of the Philippines located in the Cagayan Valley region in Luzon. Its capital is Bayombong. It is bordered by, clockwise from the north, Ifugao, Isabela, Quirino, Aurora, Nueva Ecija, Pangasinan, and Benguet.-History, people and culture:The name was derived from the...
in northern Mexico, they worked to increase their own safety, prosperity and power. The population in 1810-1830 was 7000 to 8000. The Comanches used their military power to obtain supplies and labor from the Americans, Mexicans, and Indians through thievery,looting and killing, tribute, and kidnappings. There was much violence committed by and against Commanches, before and after the European settlement of Texas. Although they made a living partially through raiding and violence, along with hunting/gathering, especially buffalo hunting, the Comanche empire also supported a commercial network with long-distance trade. Dealing with subordinate Indians, the Comanche spread their language and culture across the region. In terms of governance, the Comanches were nearly-independent but allied bands with a loosely hierarchical social organization within bands. Their empire collapsed when their camps and villiages were repeatedly decimated by epidemics of smallpox and cholera in the late 1840s, and in bloody conflict with settlers, the Texas Rangers, and the U.S. Army. The population plunged from 20,000 to just a few thousand by the 1870s. The Comanches were no longer able to deal with the U.S. Army, which took over control of the region after the Mexican American War ended in 1848. The long-term imprint of the Commanches on the Indian and Hispanic culture has been demonstrated by scholars such as Gelo (2000) and Marez (2001).
Mexican Texas: 1821–1836
New Spain
New Spain, formally called the Viceroyalty of New Spain , was a viceroyalty of the Spanish colonial empire, comprising primarily territories in what was known then as 'América Septentrional' or North America. Its capital was Mexico City, formerly Tenochtitlan, capital of the Aztec Empire...
, including Spanish Texas
Spanish Texas
Spanish Texas was one of the interior provinces of New Spain from 1690 until 1821. Although Spain claimed ownership of the territory, which comprised part of modern-day Texas, including the land north of the Medina and Nueces Rivers, the Spanish did not attempt to colonize the area until after...
. The 1824 Constitution of Mexico
1824 Constitution of Mexico
The Federal Constitution of the United Mexican States of 1824 was enacted on October 4 of 1824, after the overthrow of the Mexican Empire of Agustin de Iturbide. In the new constitution, the republic took the name of United Mexican States, and was defined as a representative federal republic, with...
joined Texas with Coahuila
Coahuila
Coahuila, formally Coahuila de Zaragoza , officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Coahuila de Zaragoza is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico...
to form the state of Coahuila y Tejas
Coahuila y Tejas
Coahuila y Tejas was one of the constituent states of the newly established United Mexican States under its 1824 Constitution.It had two capitals: first Saltillo, and then Monclova...
. The Congress did allow Texas the option of forming its own state "'as soon as it feels capable of doing so.'"
The same year, Mexico enacted the General Colonization Law
General Colonization Law
The Colonization Law of August 18, 1824 was a Mexican statute allowing foreigners to immigrate to the country.-Background:Under Spanish rule, New Spain was populated almost solely with native peoples or Spanish settlers. Foreign immigration was forbidden for much of the country...
, which enabled all heads of household, regardless of race or immigrant status, to claim land in Mexico. Mexico had neither manpower nor funds to protect settlers from near-constant Comanche raids and it hoped that settlers could control the raids. The government liberalized its immigration policies, allowing for settlers from the United States to immigrate to Texas.
The first empresarial
Empresario
An empresario was a person who, in the early years of the settlement of Texas, had been granted the right to settle on Mexican land in exchange for recruiting and taking responsibility for new settlers. The word is Spanish for entrepreneur.- Background :...
grant had been made under Spanish control to Moses Austin
Moses Austin
Moses Austin played a large part in the development of the American lead industry and is the father of Stephen F. Austin, a leading American settler of Texas. He was the first to be allowed to gather Anglo Americans for settlement in Spanish Texas...
. The grant was passed to his son Stephen F. Austin
Stephen F. Austin
Stephen Fuller Austin was born in Virginia and raised in southeastern Missouri. He was known as the Father of Texas, led the second, but first legal and ultimately successful colonization of the region by bringing 300 families from the United States. The capital of Texas, Austin in Travis County,...
, whose settlers, known as the Old Three Hundred
Old Three Hundred
The Old Three Hundred is a term used to describe the 297 grantees, made up of families and some partnerships of unmarried men, who purchased 307 parcels of land from Stephen Fuller Austin and established a colony near present day Brenham in Washington County, Texas.Moses Austin was the original...
, settled along the Brazos River
Brazos River
The Brazos River, called the Rio de los Brazos de Dios by early Spanish explorers , is the longest river in Texas and the 11th longest river in the United States at from its source at the head of Blackwater Draw, Curry County, New Mexico to its mouth at the Gulf of Mexico with a drainage...
in 1822. The grant was later ratified by the Mexican government. Twenty-three other empresarios brought settlers to the state, the majority from the United States of America.
Many of the Anglo-American settlers owned slaves. Texas was granted a one-year exemption from Mexico's 1829 edict outlawing slavery but Mexican president Anastasio Bustamante
Anastasio Bustamante
Anastasio Bustamante y Oseguera was president of Mexico three times, from 1830 to 1832, from 1837 to 1839 and from 1839 to 1841. He was a Conservative. He first came to power by leading a coup against president Vicente Guerrero...
ordered that all slaves be freed in 1830. To circumvent the law, the colonists converted their slaves into indentured servants for life; by 1836 there were 5,000 slaves in Texas.
Bustamante outlawed the immigration of United States citizens to Texas in 1830. Several new presidio
Presidio
A presidio is a fortified base established by the Spanish in North America between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. The fortresses were built to protect against pirates, hostile native Americans and enemy colonists. Other presidios were held by Spain in the sixteenth and seventeenth...
s were established in the region to monitor immigration and customs practices. The new laws also called for the enforcement of customs duties, angering both native Mexican citizens (Tejano
Tejano
Tejano or Texano is a term used to identify a Texan of Mexican heritage.Historically, the Spanish term Tejano has been used to identify different groups of people...
s) and Anglos. In 1832, a group of men led a revolt against customs enforcement in Anahauc. These Anahuac Disturbances
Anahuac Disturbances
The Anahuac Disturbances were uprisings of settlers in and around Anahuac, Texas in 1832 and 1835 which helped to precipitate the Texas Revolution. This eventually led to the territory's secession from Mexico and the founding of the Republic of Texas...
coincided with a revolt in Mexico against the current president. Texian
Texian
Texian is an archaic, mostly defunct 19th century demonym which defined a settler of current-day Texas, one of the southern states of the United States of America which borders the country of Mexico...
s sided with the federalists
Federalism
Federalism is a political concept in which a group of members are bound together by covenant with a governing representative head. The term "federalism" is also used to describe a system of the government in which sovereignty is constitutionally divided between a central governing authority and...
against the current government and drove all Mexican soldiers out of East Texas.
Texians took advantage of the lack of oversight to agitate for more political freedom, resulting in the Convention of 1832
Convention of 1832
The Convention of 1832 was the first political gathering of colonists in Mexican Texas. Delegates sought reforms from the Mexican government and hoped to quell the widespread belief that settlers in Texas wished to secede from Mexico...
. The convention which, among other issues, demand that U.S. citizens be allowed to immigrate, and requested independent statehood for Texas. The following year, Texians reiterated their demands at the Convention of 1833
Convention of 1833
The Convention of 1833 , a political gathering of settlers in Mexican Texas, was a successor to the Convention of 1832, whose requests had not been addressed by the Mexican government...
. After presenting their petition, courier Stephen F. Austin
Stephen F. Austin
Stephen Fuller Austin was born in Virginia and raised in southeastern Missouri. He was known as the Father of Texas, led the second, but first legal and ultimately successful colonization of the region by bringing 300 families from the United States. The capital of Texas, Austin in Travis County,...
was jailed for the next two years in Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
on suspicion of treason. Although Mexico implemented several measures to appease the colonists, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna
Antonio López de Santa Anna
Antonio de Padua María Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón , often known as Santa Anna or López de Santa Anna, known as "the Napoleon of the West," was a Mexican political leader, general, and president who greatly influenced early Mexican and Spanish politics and government...
's measures to transform Mexico from a federalist to a centralist state provided an excuse for the Texan colonists to revolt.
Texas Revolution
The vague unrest erupted into armed conflict on October 2, 1835 at the Battle of GonzalesBattle of Gonzales
The Battle of Gonzales was the first military engagement of the Texas Revolution. It was fought near Gonzales, Texas, on October 2, 1835, between rebellious Texian settlers and a detachment of Mexican army troops....
, when Texian
Texian
Texian is an archaic, mostly defunct 19th century demonym which defined a settler of current-day Texas, one of the southern states of the United States of America which borders the country of Mexico...
s repelled a Mexican attempt to retake a small cannon. This launched the Texas Revolution, and over the next three months, the Texian forces
Texian Army
The Texian Army was a military organization consisting of volunteer and regular soldiers who fought against the Mexican army during the Texas Revolution. Approximately 3,700 men joined the army between October 2, 1835 during the Battle of Gonzales through the end of the war on April 21, 1836, at...
successfully defeated all Mexican troops in the region.
On March 2, 1836, Texans signed the Texas Declaration of Independence
Texas Declaration of Independence
The Texas Declaration of Independence was the formal declaration of independence of the Republic of Texas from Mexico in the Texas Revolution. It was adopted at the Convention of 1836 at Washington-on-the-Brazos on March 2, 1836, and formally signed the following day after errors were noted in the...
at Washington-on-the-Brazos
Washington-on-the-Brazos, Texas
Washington-on-the-Brazos is an unincorporated area along the Brazos River in Washington County, Texas, United States. It was founded when Texas was still a part of Mexico, and the settlement became the site of the Convention of 1836 and the signing of the Texas Declaration of Independence...
, effectively creating the Republic of Texas. The revolt was justified as necessary to protect basic rights and because Mexico had annulled the federal pact. The colonists maintained that Mexico had invited them to move to the country and they were determined "to enjoy" the republican institutions to which they were accustomed in their native land, the United States of America.'"
Many of the Texas settlers believed the war to be over and left the army after the initial string of victories. The remaining troops were largely recently arrived adventurers from the United States; according to historian Alwyn Barr, the large number of American volunteers "contributed to the Mexican view that Texan opposition stemmed from outside influences". The Mexican congress responded to this perceived threat by authorizing the execution of any foreigner found fighting in Texas; there would be no prisoners of war.
As early as October 27, Mexican president Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna
Antonio López de Santa Anna
Antonio de Padua María Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón , often known as Santa Anna or López de Santa Anna, known as "the Napoleon of the West," was a Mexican political leader, general, and president who greatly influenced early Mexican and Spanish politics and government...
had been preparing to quell the unrest in Texas. In early 1836 Santa Anna personally led a 6000-man force toward Texas. At the Rio Grande
Rio Grande
The Rio Grande is a river that flows from southwestern Colorado in the United States to the Gulf of Mexico. Along the way it forms part of the Mexico – United States border. Its length varies as its course changes...
, the Mexican troops separated; Santa Anna led the bulk of the troops to San Antonio de Bexar to besiege the Alamo Mission while General Jose de Urrea
José de Urrea
José de Urrea was a noted general for Mexico. He fought under General Antonio López de Santa Anna during the Texas Revolution. Urrea's forces were never defeated in battle during the Texas Revolution...
led the remaining troops up the coast of Texas. Urrea's forces soon defeated all the Texian resistance along the coast, culminating in the Goliad Massacre
Goliad massacre
The Goliad Massacre was an execution of Republic of Texas soldiers and their commander, James Fannin, by Mexico, reluctantly carried out by General Jose de Urrea.-Background:...
, where 300 Texian prisoners of war were executed. After a thirteen-day siege
Battle of the Alamo
The Battle of the Alamo was a pivotal event in the Texas Revolution. Following a 13-day siege, Mexican troops under President General Antonio López de Santa Anna launched an assault on the Alamo Mission near San Antonio de Béxar . All but two of the Texian defenders were killed...
, Santa Anna's forces overwhelmed the nearly 200 Texians defending the Alamo. "Remember the Alamo!" became a battle cry of the Texas Revolution.
News of the defeats sparked the Runaway Scrape
Runaway Scrape
The Runaway Scrape was the name given to the flight and subsequent hostilities that occurred, as Texan, Tejano, and American settlers and militia encountered the pursuing Mexican army in early 1836....
, where much of the population of Texas and the Texas provisional government fled east, away from the approaching Mexican army. Many settlers rejoined the army, now commanded by General Sam Houston
Sam Houston
Samuel Houston, known as Sam Houston , was a 19th-century American statesman, politician, and soldier. He was born in Timber Ridge in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, of Scots-Irish descent. Houston became a key figure in the history of Texas and was elected as the first and third President of...
. After several weeks of maneuvering, on April 21, 1836, the Texian Army
Texian Army
The Texian Army was a military organization consisting of volunteer and regular soldiers who fought against the Mexican army during the Texas Revolution. Approximately 3,700 men joined the army between October 2, 1835 during the Battle of Gonzales through the end of the war on April 21, 1836, at...
attacked Santa Anna's forces near the present-day city of Houston at the Battle of San Jacinto
Battle of San Jacinto
The Battle of San Jacinto, fought on April 21, 1836, in present-day Harris County, Texas, was the decisive battle of the Texas Revolution. Led by General Sam Houston, the Texian Army engaged and defeated General Antonio López de Santa Anna's Mexican forces in a fight that lasted just eighteen...
. Santa Anna was captured and forced to sign the Treaties of Velasco
Treaties of Velasco
The Treaties of Velasco were two documents signed at Velasco, Texas, on May 14, 1836, between Antonio López de Santa Anna of Mexico and the Republic of Texas, in the aftermath of the Battle of San Jacinto ....
, ending the war.
Republic of Texas: 1836–1845
Congress of the Republic of Texas
The Congress of the Republic of Texas was the national legislature of the Republic of Texas established by the Constitution of the Republic of Texas in 1836. It was a bicameral legislature based on the model of the United States Congress...
convened in October 1836 at Columbia (now West Columbia
West Columbia, Texas
West Columbia is a city in Brazoria County in the U.S. state of Texas within 50 miles of Eastern Columbia. The population was 4,255 at the 2000 census....
). Stephen F. Austin, known as the Father of Texas, died December 27, 1836, after serving two months as Secretary of State
Secretary of State
Secretary of State or State Secretary is a commonly used title for a senior or mid-level post in governments around the world. The role varies between countries, and in some cases there are multiple Secretaries of State in the Government....
for the new Republic. In 1836, five sites served as temporary capitals of Texas (Washington-on-the-Brazos, Harrisburg, Galveston
Galveston, Texas
Galveston is a coastal city located on Galveston Island in the U.S. state of Texas. , the city had a total population of 47,743 within an area of...
, Velasco
Velasco, Texas
Velasco was a town in Texas, United States, that was later annexed by the city of Freeport. Founded in 1831, Velasco is situated on the east side of the Brazos River in southeast Texas. It is sixteen miles south of Angleton, Texas, and four miles from the Gulf of Mexico.The town's early history is...
and Columbia) before president Sam Houston moved the capital to Houston in 1837. In 1839, the capital was moved to the new town of Austin
Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...
by the next president Mirabeau B. Lamar
Mirabeau B. Lamar
Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar was a Texas politician, diplomat and soldier who was a leading Texas political figure during the Texas Republic era. He was the second President of the Republic of Texas, after David G. Burnet and Sam Houston.-Early years:Lamar grew up at Fairfield, his father's...
.
Internal politics of the Republic were based on the conflict between two factions. The nationalist faction, led by Mirabeau B. Lamar
Mirabeau B. Lamar
Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar was a Texas politician, diplomat and soldier who was a leading Texas political figure during the Texas Republic era. He was the second President of the Republic of Texas, after David G. Burnet and Sam Houston.-Early years:Lamar grew up at Fairfield, his father's...
, advocated the continued independence of Texas, the expulsion of the Native Americans
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
, and the expansion of Texas to the Pacific Ocean. Their opponents, led by Sam Houston, advocated the annexation of Texas to the United States and peaceful co-existence with Native Americans.
Although Texas governed itself, Mexico refused to recognize its independence. On March 5, 1842, a Mexican force of over 500 men, led by Ráfael Vásquez
Ráfael Vásquez (Mexican general)
Ráfael Vásquez was a 19th-Century General in the Mexican Army during the Mexican rebellion against the centralist style rule of government.-Early life:...
, invaded Texas for the first time since the revolution. They soon headed back to the Rio Grande after briefly occupying San Antonio. 1,400 Mexican troops, led by the French mercenary general Adrian Woll
Adrián Woll
Adrián Woll was a French soldier of fortune and mercenary who served as a general in the army of Mexico during the Texas Revolution and the Mexican-American War.-Biography:...
launched a second attack and captured San Antonio on September 11, 1842. A Texas militia retaliated at the Battle of Salado Creek. However on September 18, this militia was defeated by Mexican soldiers and Texas Cherokee Indians during the Dawson Massacre
Dawson Massacre
The Dawson Massacre, also called the Dawson Expedition, was an incident during the Mexican Invasions of Texas, in which thirty-six Texan militiamen were killed by Mexican soldiers with artillery on September 17, 1842 near San Antonio de Bexar...
. The Mexican army would later retreat from the city of San Antonio.
Mexico's attacks on Texas intensified the conflict between the political factions in an incident known as the Texas Archive War
Texas Archive War
The Texas Archive War was an 1842 dispute over an attempted move of the Republic of Texas national archives from Austin to Houston and, more broadly, over then-president Sam Houston's efforts to make Houston the capital of Texas.-Background:...
. To "protect" the Texas national archives, governor Sam Houston ordered them out of Austin. Austin residents suspicious of the governor's motives, because of Houston's disdain of the capital, forced the archives back to Texas at gunpoint. The Texas Congress admonished Houston for the incident, and the incident would solidify Austin as Texas's seat of government for the Republic and the future state.
Statehood, war, and expansion: 1845–1860
Texas Annexation
In 1845, United States of America annexed the Republic of Texas and admitted it to the Union as the 28th state. The U.S. thus inherited Texas's border dispute with Mexico; this quickly led to the Mexican-American War, during which the U.S. captured additional territory , extending the nation's...
and on March 1 U.S. President John Tyler
John Tyler
John Tyler was the tenth President of the United States . A native of Virginia, Tyler served as a state legislator, governor, U.S. representative, and U.S. senator before being elected Vice President . He was the first to succeed to the office of President following the death of a predecessor...
signed the bill. The legislation set the date for annexation for December 29 of the same year. On October 13 of the same year, a majority of voters in the Republic [of Texas] approved a proposed constitution that specifically endorsed slavery and the slave trade. This constitution was later accepted by the U.S. Congress, making Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
a U.S. state
U.S. state
A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...
on the same day annexation took effect (therefore bypassing a territorial phase).
The Mexican government had long warned that annexation would mean war with the United States. When Texas joined the U.S., the Mexican government broke diplomatic relations with the United States. The United States now assumed the claims of Texas when it claimed all land north of the Rio Grande. In June 1845, President James K. Polk
James K. Polk
James Knox Polk was the 11th President of the United States . Polk was born in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. He later lived in and represented Tennessee. A Democrat, Polk served as the 17th Speaker of the House of Representatives and the 12th Governor of Tennessee...
sent General Zachary Taylor
Zachary Taylor
Zachary Taylor was the 12th President of the United States and an American military leader. Initially uninterested in politics, Taylor nonetheless ran as a Whig in the 1848 presidential election, defeating Lewis Cass...
to Texas, and by October, 3,500 Americans were on the Nueces River
Nueces River
The Nueces River is a river in the U.S. state of Texas, approximately long. It drains a region in central and southern Texas southeastward into the Gulf of Mexico. It is the southernmost major river in Texas northeast of the Rio Grande...
, prepared to defend Texas from a Mexican invasion. On November 10, 1845, Polk ordered General Taylor and his forces south to the Rio Grande, into disputed territory that Mexicans claimed as their own. Mexico claimed the Nueces River
Nueces River
The Nueces River is a river in the U.S. state of Texas, approximately long. It drains a region in central and southern Texas southeastward into the Gulf of Mexico. It is the southernmost major river in Texas northeast of the Rio Grande...
— about 150 miles (241.4 km) north of the Rio Grande
Rio Grande
The Rio Grande is a river that flows from southwestern Colorado in the United States to the Gulf of Mexico. Along the way it forms part of the Mexico – United States border. Its length varies as its course changes...
— as its border with Texas. On April 25, 1846, a 2,000-strong Mexican cavalry detachment attacked a 63-man U.S. patrol that had been sent into the contested territory north of the Rio Grande and south of the Nueces River. The Mexican cavalry routed the patrol, killing 16 U.S. soldiers in what later became known as the Thornton Affair
Thornton Affair
The Thornton Affair, also known as the Thornton Skirmish, Thornton's Defeat, or Rancho Carricitos was a battle between the military forces of the United States and Mexico. It served as the primary justification for U.S. President James K. Polk's declaration of war against Mexico in 1846,...
. Both nations declared war. In the ensuing Mexican-American War, there were no more battles fought in Texas, but it became a major staging point for the American invasion of northern Mexico.
One of the primary motivations for annexation was the Texas government's huge debts. The United States agreed to assume many of these upon annexation. However, the former Republic never fully paid off its debt until the Compromise of 1850
Compromise of 1850
The Compromise of 1850 was a package of five bills, passed in September 1850, which defused a four-year confrontation between the slave states of the South and the free states of the North regarding the status of territories acquired during the Mexican-American War...
. In return for $10 million, a large portion of Texas-claimed territory, now parts of Colorado
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...
, Kansas
Kansas
Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...
, Oklahoma
Oklahoma
Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...
, New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
, and Wyoming
Wyoming
Wyoming is a state in the mountain region of the Western United States. The western two thirds of the state is covered mostly with the mountain ranges and rangelands in the foothills of the Eastern Rocky Mountains, while the eastern third of the state is high elevation prairie known as the High...
, was ceded to the Federal government.
Post-war Texas grew rapidly as migrants poured into the cotton lands of the state. German immigrants started to arrive in the early 1840s because of economic, social and political conditions in their states. In 1842, German nobles organized the Adelsverein
Adelsverein
Society for the Protection of German Immigrants in Texas, better known as Adelsverein , organized on April 20, 1842, was a colonial attempt to establish a new Germany within the borders of Texas.-History:...
, banding together to buy land in central Texas to enable German settlement. The Revolutions of 1848
Revolutions of 1848 in the German states
The Revolutions of 1848 in the German states, also called the March Revolution – part of the Revolutions of 1848 that broke out in many countries of Europe – were a series of loosely coordinated protests and rebellions in the states of the German Confederation, including the Austrian Empire...
acted as another catalyst for so many immigrants that they became known as the "Forty-Eighters
Forty-Eighters
The Forty-Eighters were Europeans who participated in or supported the revolutions of 1848 that swept Europe. In Germany, the Forty-Eighters favored unification of the German people, a more democratic government, and guarantees of human rights...
." Many were educated artisans and businessmen. Germans continued to arrive in considerable numbers until 1890.
The first Czech immigrants started their journey to Texas on August 19, 1851 headed by Jozef Šilar. The rich farmland of Central Texas attracted the Czech immigrants. The counties of Austin, Fayette, Lavaca, and Washington had early Czech settlements. The Czech-American communities are characterized by a strong sense of community and social clubs were a dominant theme of Czech-American life in Texas. By 1865, the Czech population numbered 700 and climbed to over 60,000 Czech-Americans by 1940.
With their investments in cotton cultivation, Texas planters imported enslaved blacks from the earliest years of settlement. They established cotton plantations mostly in the eastern part of the state, where labor was done by enslaved African Americans. The central area of the state had more subsistence farmers.
Confederate Texas and Reconstruction: 1860–1876
As part of the Cotton Kingdom, planters in parts of Texas depended on slave labor. In 1860 30% of the population of state total of 604,215 were enslaved. In the statewide election on the secession ordinance, Texans voted to secede from the Union by a vote of 46,129 to 14,697 (a 76% majority). The Secession Convention immediately organized a government, replacing Sam HoustonSam Houston
Samuel Houston, known as Sam Houston , was a 19th-century American statesman, politician, and soldier. He was born in Timber Ridge in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, of Scots-Irish descent. Houston became a key figure in the history of Texas and was elected as the first and third President of...
when he refused to take an oath of allegiance to the Confederacy.
Texas declared its secession from the United States on February 1, 1861, and joined the Confederate States of America
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...
on March 2, 1861. Texas was mainly a "supply state" for the Confederate forces until mid 1863, when the Union capture of the Mississippi River made large movements of men, horses or cattle impossible. Texas regiments fought in every major battle throughout the war.
On August 1, 1862 Confederate troops killed 34 pro-Union German Texans in the "Nueces Massacre
Nueces massacre
The Nueces massacre was a violent confrontation between Confederate soldiers and German Texans on August 10, 1862 in Kinney County, Texas. Many Germans in Central Texas were first-generation immigrants from Germany. They tended to support the Union and were opposed to the institution of slavery. ...
" of civilians. The last battle of the Civil War, the Battle of Palmito Ranch
Battle of Palmito Ranch
The Battle of Palmito Ranch, also known as the Battle of Palmito Hill and the Battle of Palmetto Ranch, was fought on May 12–13, 1865, during the American Civil War. It was the last major clash of arms in the war...
, was fought in Texas on May 12, 1865. In which the 2nd Texas cavalry battallion U.S. (one of only two from the state) took part.
Historiography
During the 20th century, national historiographical trends influenced the scholarship on the Civil War in Texas. Beginning in the 1950s, historians focused on military campaigns in Texas and other areas of the Southwest, a region previously neglected. Since the 1970s, scholars have shifted their attention to South Texas and how its relations with Mexico and Mexican Americans affected both Confederate and Union Civil War military operations. Also since the 1970s, the "New Social History" has stimulated research in war-related social, economic, and political changes. This historiographical trend is related to a growing interest in local and regional history.Reconstruction, Democratic control and disfranchisement
When the news arrived in Galveston, on June 19, 1865, of the Confederate collapse, the freed slaves rejoiced, creating the celebration of JuneteenthJuneteenth
Juneteenth, also known as Freedom Day or Emancipation Day, is a holiday in the United States honoring African American heritage by commemorating the announcement of the abolition of slavery in the U.S. State of Texas in 1865...
. The State had suffered little during the War but trade and finance was disrupted. Angry returning veterans seized state property and Texas went through a period of extensive violence and disorder. Most outrages took place in northern Texas and were committed by outlaws who had their headquarters in the Indian Territory
Indian Territory
The Indian Territory, also known as the Indian Territories and the Indian Country, was land set aside within the United States for the settlement of American Indians...
and plundered and murdered without distinction of party. President Andrew Johnson appointed Union General A. J. Hamilton as provisional governor on June 17, 1865. Hamilton had been a prominent politician before the war. He granted amnesty to ex-Confederates if they promised to support the Union in the future, appointing some to office. On March 30, 1870, although Texas did not meet all the requirements, the United States Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
restored Texas to the Union
Union (American Civil War)
During the American Civil War, the Union was a name used to refer to the federal government of the United States, which was supported by the twenty free states and five border slave states. It was opposed by 11 southern slave states that had declared a secession to join together to form the...
.
Like other Southern states, by the late 1870s white Democrats regained control, often with a mix of intimidation and terrorism by paramilitary
Paramilitary
A paramilitary is a force whose function and organization are similar to those of a professional military, but which is not considered part of a state's formal armed forces....
groups operating for the Democratic Party. They passed a new constitution
Texas Constitution
The Constitution of the State of Texas is the document that describes the structure and function of the government of the U.S. State of Texas.Texas has had seven constitutions: the constitution of Coahuila y Tejas, the 1836 Constitution of the Republic of Texas, the state constitutions of 1845,...
in 1876 that segregated schools and established a poll tax
Poll tax
A poll tax is a tax of a portioned, fixed amount per individual in accordance with the census . When a corvée is commuted for cash payment, in effect it becomes a poll tax...
to support them, but it was not originally required for voting. In 1901 the legislature passed a poll tax as a prerequisite for voter registration. Given the economic difficulties of the times, the poll tax caused participation by poor whites, African Americans and Mexican Americans to drop sharply. By the early 20th century, the Democratic Party in Texas started using a "white primary," which the state legislature authorized in 1923. Since the Democratic Party dominated the state after 1900 for decades, the "white primary" provision reduced what little minority participation there was as the primaries were the true competitive contest. These provisions extended deep into the 20th century.
19th century Post-Reconstruction
The coming of the railroads in the 1880s ended the cattle drives and allowed ranchers to sell their cattle easily, and farmers move their cotton to market cheaply. They made Dallas and other cities the centers of commercial activity.Texas A&M University
Texas A&M University is a coeducational public research university located in College Station, Texas . It is the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System. The sixth-largest university in the United States, A&M's enrollment for Fall 2011 was over 50,000 for the first time in school...
opened, and seven years later the University of Texas at Austin
University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...
began conducting classes. New land use policies drafted during the administration of Governor John Ireland
John Ireland (politician)
John Ireland was the 18th Governor of Texas from 1883 to 1887. During Ireland's term, the University of Texas was established, and construction on the Texas State Capitol began...
enabled individuals to accumulate land, leading to the formation of large cattle ranches. Many ranchers ran barbed wire
Barbed wire
Barbed wire, also known as barb wire , is a type of fencing wire constructed with sharp edges or points arranged at intervals along the strand. It is used to construct inexpensive fences and is used atop walls surrounding secured property...
around public lands, to protect their access to water and free grazing. This caused several range war
Range war
A range war is a type of conflict that occurs in agrarian or stockrearing societies. Typically fought over water rights or grazing rights to unfenced/unowned land, it could pit competing farmers or ranchers against each other...
s. Governor Lawrence Sullivan Ross
Lawrence Sullivan Ross
Lawrence Sullivan "Sul" Ross was the 19th Governor of Texas , a Confederate States Army general during the American Civil War, and a president of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, now called Texas A&M University.Ross was raised in the Republic of Texas, which was later annexed to...
guided the Texas Legislature to reform the land use policies.
The state continued to deal with racial tensions, and Ross had to personally intervene to resolve the Jaybird-Woodpecker War
Jaybird-Woodpecker War
The Jaybird-Woodpecker War was a feud between two factions fighting for political control of Fort Bend County, Texas, just west of Houston. It occurred during the U.S...
. Under Jim Hogg
Jim Hogg
James Stephen "Big Jim" Hogg was a Texas lawyer, doctor and statesman, and the 20th Governor of Texas. He was born near Rusk, Texas. Hogg was a follower of the conservative New South Creed which became popular following the U.S. Civil War, and was also associated with populism. He was the first...
, the state turned its attention toward corporations violating the state monopoly laws. In 1894, Texas filed a lawsuit against John D. Rockefeller's
John D. Rockefeller
John Davison Rockefeller was an American oil industrialist, investor, and philanthropist. He was the founder of the Standard Oil Company, which dominated the oil industry and was the first great U.S. business trust. Rockefeller revolutionized the petroleum industry and defined the structure of...
Standard Oil Company and its Texas subsidiary, the Waters-Pierce Oil Company of Missouri. Hogg and his attorney general argued that the companies were engaged in rebates, price fixing
Price fixing
Price fixing is an agreement between participants on the same side in a market to buy or sell a product, service, or commodity only at a fixed price, or maintain the market conditions such that the price is maintained at a given level by controlling supply and demand...
, consolidation, and other tactics prohibited by the state's 1889 antitrust act. The investigation resulted in a number of indictments, including one for Rockefeller. Hogg requested that Rockefeller be extradited
Extradition
Extradition is the official process whereby one nation or state surrenders a suspected or convicted criminal to another nation or state. Between nation states, extradition is regulated by treaties...
from New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, but the New York governor refused, as Rockefeller had not fled from Texas. Rockefeller was never tried, but other employees of the company were found guilty.
Texas in prosperity, depression, and war
Galveston, the fourth-largest city in Texas and then the major port, was destroyed by a hurricaneGalveston Hurricane of 1900
The Hurricane of 1900 made landfall on the city of Galveston in the U.S. state of Texas, on September 8, 1900.It had estimated winds of at landfall, making it a Category 4 storm on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale...
with 100 mph (160.9 km/h) winds on September 8, 1900. The storm created a 20 ft (6.1 m) storm surge
Storm surge
A storm surge is an offshore rise of water associated with a low pressure weather system, typically tropical cyclones and strong extratropical cyclones. Storm surges are caused primarily by high winds pushing on the ocean's surface. The wind causes the water to pile up higher than the ordinary sea...
when it hit the island, 6–9 ft (1.8–2.7 m) higher than any previously recorded flood. Water covered the entire island, killing between 6,000 and 8,000 people, destroying 3,500 homes as well as the railroad causeway and wagon bridge that connected the island to the mainland. To help rebuild their city, citizens implemented a reformed government featuring a five-man city commission. Galveston was the first city to implement a city commission government, and its plan was adopted by 500 other small cities across the United States.
In the aftermath of the Galveston disaster, action proceeded on building the Houston Ship Channel
Houston Ship Channel
The Houston Ship Channel, located in Houston, Texas, is part of the Port of Houston—one of the United States's busiest seaports. The channel is the conduit for ocean-going vessels between the Houston-area shipyards and the Gulf of Mexico.-Overview:...
to create a more protected inland port. Houston quickly grew once the Channel was completed, and rapidly became the primary port in Texas. Railroads were constructed in a radial pattern to link Houston with other major cities such as Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio, and Austin.
By 1900 the Dallas population reached 38,000 as banking and insurance became major activities in the increasingly white-collar city, which was now the world's leading cotton center. Businessmen took control of civic affairs; with little municipal patronage, there was only a small role for the Democratic party to play (and no role for the predominantly black Republican party.) A dramatic sign of progress was the towering 190-foot steel-frame skyscraper—the fourteen-story Praetorian Building, built in 1909 to house the Praetorian insurance company. Dallas became the regional headquarters of the Federal Reserve in 1914, strengthening its dominance of Texas banking. The city reached 260,000 population in 1929 when the Great Depression hit Texas, causing a sharp drop in the prices of oil, cotton and cattle, and growth came to a standstill.
Anthony F. Lucas
Anthony Francis Lucas
Anthony Francis Lucas was a Croatian-born oil explorer. With Pattillo Higgins he organized the drilling of an oil well near Beaumont, Texas that became known as Spindletop...
, an experienced mining engineer drilled the first major oil well at Spindletop
Spindletop
Spindletop is a salt dome oil field located in the southern portion of Beaumont, Texas in the United States. The Spindletop dome was derived from the Louann Salt evaporite layer of the Jurassic geologic period. On January 10, 1901, a well at Spindletop struck oil . The new oil field soon produced...
, on the morning of January 10, 1901 the little hill south of Beaumont, Texas
Beaumont, Texas
Beaumont is a city in and county seat of Jefferson County, Texas, United States, within the Beaumont–Port Arthur Metropolitan Statistical Area. The city's population was 118,296 at the 2010 census. With Port Arthur and Orange, it forms the Golden Triangle, a major industrial area on the...
. The East Texas Oil Field
East Texas oil field
The East Texas Oil Field is a large oil and gas field in east Texas. Covering and parts of five counties, and having 30,340 historic and active oil wells, it is the largest oil field in the United States outside of Alaska, both in extent and in total volume of oil recovered since its discovery in...
, discovered on October 5, 1930 is located in east central part of the state, and is the largest and most prolific oil reservoir
Oil reservoir
A petroleum reservoir, or oil and gas reservoir, is a subsurface pool of hydrocarbons contained in porous or fractured rock formations. The naturally occurring hydrocarbons, such as crude oil or natural gas, are trapped by overlying rock formations with lower permeability...
in the contiguous United States. Other oil fields were later discovered in West Texas
West Texas
West Texas is a vernacular term applied to a region in the southwestern quadrant of the United States that primarily encompasses the arid and semi-arid lands in the western portion of the state of Texas....
and under the Gulf of Mexico
Gulf of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico is a partially landlocked ocean basin largely surrounded by the North American continent and the island of Cuba. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States, on the southwest and south by Mexico, and on the southeast by Cuba. In...
. The resulting Texas Oil Boom
Texas Oil Boom
The Texas Oil Boom, sometimes called the Gusher Age, was a period of dramatic change and economic growth in U.S. state of Texas during the early 20th century that began with the discovery of a large petroleum reserve near Beaumont, Texas...
permanently transformed the economy of Texas, and led to the first significant economic expansion after the Civil War.
The creation of the New Mexico Territory
New Mexico Territory
thumb|right|240px|Proposed boundaries for State of New Mexico, 1850The Territory of New Mexico was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from September 9, 1850, until January 6, 1912, when the final extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of...
in 1850 fixed the boundary with the state of Texas at the Rio Grande
Rio Grande
The Rio Grande is a river that flows from southwestern Colorado in the United States to the Gulf of Mexico. Along the way it forms part of the Mexico – United States border. Its length varies as its course changes...
. Between then and 1912, when New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
became a state, the course of the river shifted. In what became known as the Country Club Dispute
Country Club Dispute
The Country Club Area is a suburb of El Paso, Texas. It was the object of a lengthy border dispute between Texas and New Mexico.-Origins:As part of the Compromise of 1850, Texas gave up its claim to portions of present-day New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas and Oklahoma in exchange for...
, a boundary dispute case was filed with the Supreme Court of the United States
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
in 1913. The court settled the matter in 1927 by determining where the river had flowed in 1850, largely in agreement with the claims of Texas.
The economy, which had experienced significant recovery since the Civil War, was dealt a double blow by the Great Depression
Great Depression in the United States
The Great Depression began with the Wall Street Crash of October, 1929 and rapidly spread worldwide. The market crash marked the beginning of a decade of high unemployment, poverty, low profits, deflation, plunging farm incomes, and lost opportunities for economic growth and personal advancement...
and the Dust Bowl
Dust Bowl
The Dust Bowl, or the Dirty Thirties, was a period of severe dust storms causing major ecological and agricultural damage to American and Canadian prairie lands from 1930 to 1936...
. After the Stock Market Crash of 1929, the economy suffered significant reversals and thousands of city workers became unemployed, many of whom depended on federal relief programs such as FERA
Federal Emergency Relief Administration
Federal Emergency Relief Administration was the new name given by the Roosevelt Administration to the Emergency Relief Administration which President Herbert Hoover had created in 1932...
, WPA
Works Progress Administration
The Works Progress Administration was the largest and most ambitious New Deal agency, employing millions of unskilled workers to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads, and operated large arts, drama, media, and literacy projects...
and CCC
Civilian Conservation Corps
The Civilian Conservation Corps was a public work relief program that operated from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men from relief families, ages 18–25. A part of the New Deal of President Franklin D...
. Farmers and ranchers were especially hard hit, as prices for cotton and livestock fell sharply. Beginning in 1934 and lasting until 1939, an ecological disaster of severe wind and drought caused an exodus from Texas and Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...
, the Oklahoma Panhandle
Oklahoma Panhandle
The Oklahoma Panhandle is the extreme western region of the state of Oklahoma, comprising Cimarron County, Texas County, and Beaver County. Its name comes from the similarity of shape to the handle of a cooking pan....
region and the surrounding plains, in which over 500,000 Americans were homeless, hungry and jobless. Thousands left the region forever to seek economic opportunities along the West Coast.
World War II
World War II had a dramatic impact on Texas, as federal money poured in to build military bases, munitions factories, POW detention camps and Army hospitals; 750,000 young men left for service; the cities exploded with new industry; the colleges took on new roles; and hundreds of thousands of poor farmers left for much better paying war jobs, never to return to agriculture.Existing military bases in Texas were expanded and numerous new training bases were built: Texas World War II Army Airfields
Texas World War II Army Airfields
In today's United States Air Force, many personnel have spent some of their military service being trained in Texas during World War II. Be it basic military training at Lackland Air Force Base, technical training, officer training, or flight training at other facilities across the state...
, Brooke Army Medical Center
Brooke Army Medical Center
Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio is part of the United States Army Medical Command. It is a University of Texas Health Science Center and USUHS teaching hospital and contains the Army Burn Center....
, Camp Mabry
Camp Mabry
Camp Mabry is a military installation in Austin, Texas that houses the headquarters of the Texas Military Forces. Its original site, three miles northwest of downtown west of Mopac Expressway, was deeded from the city to the state in 1892. It was named for Brigadier General Woodford H. Mabry the...
, Corpus Christi Army Depot
Corpus Christi Army Depot
Corpus Christi Army Depot is a United States Department of Defense Center of Industrial and Technical Excellence for rotary wing aircraft...
, Fort Bliss
Fort Bliss
Fort Bliss is a United States Army post in the U.S. states of New Mexico and Texas. With an area of about , it is the Army's second-largest installation behind the adjacent White Sands Missile Range. It is FORSCOM's largest installation, and has the Army's largest Maneuver Area behind the...
, Fort Hood, Fort Sam Houston
Fort Sam Houston
Fort Sam Houston is a U.S. Army post in San Antonio, Texas.Known colloquially as "Fort Sam," it is named for the first President of the Republic of Texas, Sam Houston....
, Ingleside Army Depot, Red River Army Depot
Red River Army Depot
The Red River Army Depot is an facility located west of Texarkana, Texas in Bowie County. The facility has over of storage capacity. RRAD was activated in 1941 to create an ammunition storage facility. The depot was supposed to be deactivated after the findings of the 1995 Base Realignment...
, especially for aviation training. The good flying weather made the state a favorite location for Air Force training bases. In the largest aviation training program in the world, 200,000 graduated from programs at 40 Texas airfields, including 45,000 pilots, 12,000 bombardiers, 12,000 navigators, and thousands of aerial gunners, photographers, and mechanics. Allison (1999) in a study of Majors Field, the Army Air Forces Basic Flying School, at Greenville during 1942–45, shows that the base—like most military bases in rural Texas—invigorated the local economy, but also changed the cultural climate of the conservative Christian town, especially around unprecedented freedom regarding alcohol, dating and dancing, and race relations.
Lone Star Army Ammunition Plant
The Lone Star Army Ammunition Plant was a government-owned, contractor-operated facility 12 miles west of Texarkana, Texas that was established in 1942. The land was taken from the local citizens by eminent Domain from the Federal Government. The Lone Star Defense Corporation, a subsidiary of...
and the Longhorn Army Ammunition Plant
Longhorn Army Ammunition Plant
The Longhorn Army Ammunition Plant is a government-owned, contractor-operated facility in Karnack, Texas that was established in 1942. The Monsanto Chemical Company selected the site in December 1941 to produce TNT. The plant produced 393,000,000 pounds of TNT throughout World War II...
were built as part of the WWII buildup. Hundreds of thousands of American (and some allied) soldiers, sailors and airmen trained in the state. All sectors of the economy boomed as the homefront prospered.
During WWII, Texas became home to as many as 78,982 enemy prisoners, mainly Germans; that was 15% of the total POW's in the United States. There were fourteen prisoner of war camps in the state. The men in the camps were used to supplement the local farm labor lost to the war. Though contemporary War Department officials claimed that government attempts at denazification of the prisoners were highly successful, in reality Nazi influence upon prisons in individual camps was common for the duration of the POW program. Walker (2006) examines Nazi activities in Texas POW camps during 1943–45 to indicate the severity of this problem and the failure of the military authorities to eradicate it.
A largely rural area, East Texas became more urban as workers were recruited for the oil, shipbuilding, and aircraft industries. East Texans made many contributions to the war effort, both at home and in the armed forces. High schools had patriotic programs as well, but so many teachers and older students left for the military or for defense jobs that budgets were cut, programs dropped and the curriculum had to be scaled down. Hospitals reported a shortage of supplies and medical personnel, as many doctors and most of the younger nurses joined the services.
One of the Army's largest hospitals, Harmon General Hospital opened in Longview in November 1942 with 157 hospital buildings and a capacity of 2,939 beds. The facility was designed for the treatment of soldiers with central nervous system syphilis, psychiatric disorders, tropical illnesses, and dermatological diseases. At the end of the war the facility became the campus of LeTourneau University.
Baylor University, like most schools, was successful in the multiple missions of aiding national defense, recruiting soldiers, and keeping the institution operational while the war continued. Texas Tech University likewise had many roles in the war; the most famous was the War Training Service Pre-Flight program during 1943–44. It prepared Air Force pilots for full-fledged military aviation training. The efforts of Clent Breedove and M. F. Dagley, private contractors for the Civilian Pilot Training Program at the university site since 1939, with Harold Humphries as chief pilot, brought an economic boost to Lubbock, and 3,750 cadets received classroom instruction and flying time. From February 1943 to January 1944 more than two thousand women completed training at the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps Branch Number One, Army Administration School, at Stephen F. Austin State Teacher's College in Nacogdoches.
Nowhere was the impact greater than in Houston
History of Houston
This article documents the wide-ranging history of the city of Houston, the largest city in the state of Texas and the fourth-largest in the United States.-Houston's turbulent beginning:...
, which in 1940 was a city of 400,000 population dependent on shipping and oil. The war dramatically expanded the city's economic base, thanks to massive federal spending. Energetic entrepreneurs, most notably George Brown, James Elkins and James Abercrombie, landed hundreds of millions of dollars in federal wartime investment in technologically complex facilities. Houston oil companies moved from being mere refiners and became sophisticated producers of petrochemicals. Especially important were synthetic rubber and high octane fuel, which retained their importance after the war, The war moved the natural gas industry from a minor factor to a major energy source; Houston became a major hub when a local firm purchased the federally-financed Inch pipelines. Other major growth industries included steel, munitions, and shipbuilding. Tens of thousands of new migrants streamed in from rural areas, straining the city's housing supply and the city's ability to provide local transit and schools. For the first time high paying jobs went to large numbers of women, blacks and Mexican Americans. The city's African American community, emboldened by their newfound prosperity, became a hotbed of civil rights agitation; the Smith v. Allwright Supreme Court decision on voting rights was backed and funded by local blacks in this period.
Throughout East Texas black family growth and dissolution came more rapidly than in peacetime; blacks were more mobile as an adjustment to employment opportunities; and there was a more rapid shift to factory labor, higher economic returns, and a willingness of whites to tolerate the change in black economic status so long as the traditional "Jim Crow" social relations were maintained.
1960s
On Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time (18:30 UTC) Lee Harvey OswaldLee Harvey Oswald
Lee Harvey Oswald was, according to four government investigations,These were investigations by: the Federal Bureau of Investigation , the Warren Commission , the House Select Committee on Assassinations , and the Dallas Police Department. the sniper who assassinated John F...
assassinated John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
, the thirty-fifth President of the United States. Oswald shot the president from the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository
Texas School Book Depository
The Texas School Book Depository is the former name of a seven-floor building facing Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas . Located on the northwest corner of Elm and North Houston Streets, at the western end of downtown Dallas, its address is 411 Elm Street. The building is notable for its connection to...
. The Texas Governor, John B. Connally, was also critically injured but survived. The vice president, the Texan Lyndon Baines Johnson, sworn in as President on Air Force One in Dallas at Love Field Airport.
Higher education
During World War II the main universities gained a new national role, The wartime financing of university research, curricular change, campus trainee programs, and postwar veteran enrollments changed the tenor and allowed Texas schools to gain national stature.From 1950 through the 1960s, Texas modernized and dramatically expanded its system of higher education. Under the leadership of Governor Connally, the state produced a long-range plan for higher education, a more rational distribution of resources, and a central state apparatus that managed state institutions with greater efficiency. Because of these changes, Texas universities received federal funds for research and development during the John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
and Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
administrations.
See also
- Comanche historyComanche HistoryForming a part of the Eastern Shoshone linguistic group in southeastern Wyoming who moved on to the buffalo Plains around 1500 AD , proto-Comanche groups split off and moved south some time before 1700 AD. The Shoshone migration to the Great Plains was apparently triggered by the Little Ice Age,...
- Forts of TexasForts of TexasThe Forts of Texas include a number of historical and operational military installations. For over two hundred years, various groups fought over access to or control over the region that is now Texas...
- History of vice in TexasHistory of vice in TexasThe history of vice in the U.S. state of Texas has been an important part of the state's past and has greatly influenced its development. Vice activities, such as gambling and prostitution, have historically been a significant facet of both the state's culture and its economy.Law enforcement...
- History of Texas forestsHistory of Texas forestsThe forests in the U.S. state of Texas have been an important resource since its earliest days and have played an major role the state's history. The vast woodlands of the region, home to many varieties of wildlife when Europeans first arrived, provided economic opportunities for early settlers...
- History of the Southern United StatesHistory of the Southern United StatesThe history of the Southern United States reaches back hundreds of years and includes the Mississippian people, well known for their mound building. European history in the region began in the very earliest days of the exploration and colonization of North America...
- History of the Western United States
- Texas divisionismTexas divisionismTexas divisionism is a mainly historical movement that advocates the division of the U.S. state of Texas into as many as five states, a prerogative guaranteed to Texas as a condition of the former Republic of Texas joining the Union in 1845....
- Texas Historical CommissionTexas Historical CommissionThe Texas Historical Commission is an agency dedicated to historic preservation within the state of Texas. It administers the National Register of Historic Places for sites in Texas....
- Texas Oil BoomTexas Oil BoomThe Texas Oil Boom, sometimes called the Gusher Age, was a period of dramatic change and economic growth in U.S. state of Texas during the early 20th century that began with the discovery of a large petroleum reserve near Beaumont, Texas...
Surveys
- Handbook of Texas Online (2010), thousands of articles by scholars; the most useful starting point online edition
- Randolph B. Campbell, Gone to Texas: a History of the Lone Star State (Oxford University Press, 2003, 500 pages)
- De León, Arnoldo, Gregg Cantrell, Robert A. Calvert. The History of Texas (2002) online edition; short survey by scholars
- Garrison, George P. Texas: A Contest of Civilizations (1903) old textbook by scholar online edition
- Hendrickson Jr., Kenneth E. Chief Executives of Texas: From Stephen F. Austin to John B. Connally, Jr (1995) online edition
Geography and environment
- Doughty, Robin W. "Settlement and Environmental Change in Texas, 1820–1900," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 1986 89(4): 423–442
- Gould, Lewis L. Lady Bird Johnson and the Environment (1988)
- Guthrie, William Keith. "Flood alley: An environmental history of flooding in Texas," Ph.D. dissertation, The University of Kansas, 2006, 397 pages; AAT 3243474
- Gutmann, Myron P. and Christie G. Sample. "Land, Climate, and Settlement on the Texas Frontier," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 1995 99(2): 136–172
- Horgan, PaulPaul HorganPaul Horgan was an American author of fiction and non-fiction, most of which was set in the Southwestern United States. He was the recipient of two Pulitzer prizes in History...
, Great River, The Rio Grande in North American History, (1977), ISBN 0-03-029305-7 - Meinig, D. W. Imperial Texas: An Interpretive Essay in Cultural Geography, University of Texas Press, 1969, 145 pages.
- Platt, Harold L. City Building in the New South: The Growth of Public Services in Houston, Texas, 1830–1910 (1983) covers waste removal, sewage and clean water
- Pratt, Joseph A. "Growth or a Clean Environment? Responses to Petroleum-Related Pollution in the Gulf Coast Refining Region," Business History Review 1978 52(1): 1–29 in JSTOR
- Schmidly David J. Texas Natural History: A Century of Change (2002) 534 pp.
- Stephens, A. Ray. Texas: A Historical Atlas (U. of Oklahoma Press, 2010) 432pp; ISBN 9780806138732
- Steely, James Wright. Parks for Texas: Enduring Landscapes of the New Deal (1999) 274 pp.
- Webb, Walter PrescottWalter Prescott WebbWalter Prescott Webb was a 20th century U.S. historian and author noted for his groundbreaking historical work on the American West. As president of the Texas State Historical Association, he launched the project that produced the Handbook of Texas...
. More Water for Texas (1954) - Webb, Walter PrescottWalter Prescott WebbWalter Prescott Webb was a 20th century U.S. historian and author noted for his groundbreaking historical work on the American West. As president of the Texas State Historical Association, he launched the project that produced the Handbook of Texas...
. The Great Plains: A Study in Institutions and Environment (1931)
Ethnicity and minorities
- De Leon, Arnoldo. Mexican Americans in Texas: A Brief History (2nd ed. 1999). online edition
- Deleón, Arnoldo. "Whither Tejano History: Origins, Development, and Status," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 2003 106(3): 348–364
- Hinojosa, Gilberto M. "The Enduring Hispanic Faith Communities: Spanish and Texas Church Historiography," Journal Of Texas Catholic History and Culture 1990 1(1): 20–41
- Montejano, David. Anglos and Mexicans in the Making of Texas, 1836–1986 (1987).
- San Miguel, Guadalupe, Jr. “Let All of Them Take Heed”: Mexican Americans and the Campaign for Educational Equality in Texas, 1910–1981 (1987).
- Storey, John W., and Mary L. Kelley, eds. Twentieth Century Texas: A Social and Cultural History (2008)
- Willett, Donald, and Stephen Curley, eds. Invisible Texans: Women and Minorities in Texas History (2005) 236pp ISBN 0-07-287163-6
- Zamora, Emilio et al. eds. Mexican Americans in Texas History: Selected Essays (2000) 226pp ISBN 0-87611174-6
Historiography
- Bell, Walter F. "Civil War Texas: A Review of the Historical Literature," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 2005 109(2): 204–232
- Crouch, Barry A. "'Unmanacling' Texas Reconstruction: A Twenty-Year Perspective," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 1990 93(3): 275–302
- Cummins, Light Townsend, and Alvin R. Bailey Jr. eds A Guide to the History of Texas (1988) online edition
- Deleón, Arnoldo. "Whither Tejano History: Origins, Development, and Status," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 2003 106(3): 348–364
- Hinojosa, Gilberto M. "The Enduring Hispanic Faith Communities: Spanish and Texas Church Historiography," Journal Of Texas Catholic History and Culture 1990 1(1): 20–41
- Poyo, Gerald E. and Gilberto M. Hinojosa. "Spanish Texas and Borderlands Historiography in Transition: Implications for United States History," Journal of American History 1988 75(2): 393–416 in JSTOR
- Sneed, Edgar P. "A Historiography of Reconstruction in Texas: Some Myths and Problems," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 1969 72(4): 435–448
- Wooster, Ralph A. and Robert A. Calvert, eds. Texas Vistas (1987) reprinted scholarly essays
Arts and culture
- Storey, John W., and Mary L. Kelley, eds. Twentieth Century Texas: A Social and Cultural History (2008)
Pre–1865
- Bell, Walter F., “Civil War Texas: A Review of the Historical Literature,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly, 109 (Oct. 2005), 205–32.
- Campbell, Randolph B. An Empire for Slavery: The Peculiar Institution in Texas, 1821–1865 (1989).
- Campbell, Randolph B., and Richard G. Lowe. Wealth and Power in Antebellum Texas (1977).
- Carroll, Mark M. Homesteads Ungovernable: Families, Sex, Race, and the Law in Frontier Texas, 1823–1860 (2001).
- Chipman, Donald E. Spanish Texas, 1519–1821 (1992) online edition
- De Leon, Arnoldo. The Tejano Community, 1836–1900 (1982).
- Grear, Charles David. Why Texans Fought in the Civil War (2010) 239 pages; shows how kinship ties elsewhere in the South spurred many Texans to fight for the Confederacy.
- Howell, Kenneth W., ed. The Seventh Star of the Confederacy: Texas during the Civil War. (Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2009). 348 pp. isbn 978-1-57441-259-8 essays by scholars
- Jewett; Clayton E. Texas in the Confederacy: An Experiment in Nation Building (2002) online edition
- Jordan, Terry G.Terry G. Jordan-BychkovTerry G. Jordan-Bychkov was a Professor at the Department of Geography and the Environment at University of Texas at Austin.-Early life:...
German Seed in Texas Soil: Immigrant Farmers in Nineteenth Century Texas (1966). - Pace, Robert F., and Donald S. Frazier. Frontier Texas: History of a Borderland to 1880 (Abilene: State House Press, 2004) 272pp. ISBN 1-880510-83-9
- Poyo, Gerald E., ed. Tejano Journey, 1770–1850 (1996).
- Silverthorne, Elizabeth. Plantation Life in Texas (1986).
- Wooster, Ralph. Texas and Texans in the Civil War (1996) 308pp
1865–1920
- Barr, Alwyn. Reconstruction to Reform: Texas Politics, 1876–1906 (1971)
- Buenger, Walter L. The Path to a Modern South: Northeast Texas between Reconstruction and the Great Depression (2001)
- Campbell, Randolph B. Grass-Roots Reconstruction in Texas, 1865–1880 (1997).
- Crouch, Barry A. The Freedmen's Bureau and Black Texans. (1992).
- Crouch, Barry A. "'Unmanacling' Texas Reconstruction: A Twenty-Year Perspective," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 1990 93(3): 275–302
- Gould, Lewis N. Progressives and Prohibitionists: Texas Democrats in the Wilson Era (1973).
- Jordan, Terry G.Terry G. Jordan-BychkovTerry G. Jordan-Bychkov was a Professor at the Department of Geography and the Environment at University of Texas at Austin.-Early life:...
Trails to Texas: Southern Roots of Western Cattle Ranching (1981). - McArthur, Judith N. Creating the New Woman: The Rise of Southern Women's Progressive Culture in Texas, 1893–1918. (1998).
- Martin, Roscoe C. The People's Party in Texas: A Study in Third Party Politics (1933).
- Moneyhon, Carl H. Edmund J. Davis of Texas: Civil War General, Republican Leader, Reconstruction Governor (Texas Christian University Press, 2010) 337 pp. isbn 978-0-87565-405-8
- Pitre, Merline. Through Many Dangers, Toils, and Snares: The Black Leadership of Texas, 1868–1900 Eakin Press, 1985.
- Ramsdell, Charles William. Reconstruction in Texas (1910). full text online
- Rice, Lawrence D. The Negro in Texas, 1874–1900 (1971)
- Sneed, Edgar P. "A Historiography of Reconstruction in Texas: Some Myths and Problems," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 1969 72(4): 435–448
- Spratt, John Stricklin. The Road to Spindletop: Economic Change in Texas, 1875–1901. (1955).
- Utley, Robert M. Lone Star Justice: The First Century of the Texas Rangers (2002). online edition
- Wooster, Ralph. Texas and Texans in the Great War (2010) 256pp
- Work, David, “United States Colored Troops in Texas during Reconstruction, 1865–1867,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly, 109 (Jan. 2006), 337–57.
1920–present
- Blackwelder, Julia Kirk. Women of the Depression: Caste and Culture in San Antonio, 1929–1939. Texas A&M University Press, 1984.
- Brown, Norman D. Hood, Bonnet, and Little Brown Jug: Texas Politics, 1921–1928 (1984).
- Caro, Robert A. The Path to Power (The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Volume 1) (1990); Means of Ascent (The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Volume 2) (1991)
- Cox, Patrick. Ralph W. Yarborough, The People's Senator. (2001).
- Cunningham, Sean P. Cowboy Conservatism: Texas and the Rise of the Modern Right. (2010).
- Dallek, Robert. Lone Star Rising: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1908–1960. (1991).
- Davidson, Chandler. Race and Class in Texas Politics. (1990).
- Foley, Neil. The White Scourge: Mexicans, Blacks, and Poor Whites in Texas Cotton Culture University of California Press, 1997.
- Green, George Norris. The Establishment in Texas Politics: The Primitive Years, 1938–1957 (1979).
- Knaggs, John R. Two-Party Texas: The John Tower Era, 1961–1984 Eakin Press, 1986.
- Lee, James Ward, et al., eds. 1941: Texas Goes to War. University of North Texas Press, 1991.
- Miller, Char. Deep in the Heart of San Antonio: Land and Life in South Texas Trinity University Press 2004.
- Olien, Diana Davids, and Roger M. Olien. Oil in Texas: The Gusher Age, 1895–1945 (2002)
- Patenaude, Lionel V. Texans, Politics, and the New Deal (1983).
- Perryman, M. Ray. Survive and Conquer, Texas in the '80s: Power—Money—Tragedy ... Hope! Dallas: Taylor Publishing Company, 1990.
- Reston, James. The Lone Star: The Life of John Connally (1989)
- Volanto, Keith J. Texas, Cotton, and the New Deal (2005).
- Whisenhunt, Donald W. The Depression in Texas: The Hoover Years Garland Publishing, 1983.
- Wooster, Ralph. Texas and Texans in World War II (2005) 296pp
External links
- Texas Historical Commission
- Texas State Historical Association
- The Texas State History Museum
- Texas Untamed: Wild at Heart - slideshow by Life magazine
- Focus on Texas History: Colonization through Annexation (online collection of primary documents from Center of American History at the University of Texas at Austin)
- The Portal to Texas History
- Alvin R. Bailey Jr. and Light Townsend Cummins, eds. A Guide to the History of Texas. Greenwood Press. 1988.
- Texas Heritage Society
- Texas Independence Website