Texas Panhandle

“ To the towns of the Panhandle were drifting in cowboys, freighters, merchants, gamblers, cattle outfits, and a few rustlers from Colorado, New Mexico, and the more settled parts of Texas. They were the hardier sons of an adventurous race, for each man had to make good his footing by his own strength. At first there had been no law except that which lay in the good-will of men, and the holster by their side. The sheriff of Wheeler County had neither the deputies nor the financial backing to carry justice into the mesquite. ”

“ Not so many years ago the Pan-handle was distinctly a world apart, and a new one. With No-man's Land on the north, Indian Territory on the east and New Mexico on the west, civilization could come only from the south, and it did not come very fast. Indeed there was still plenty of territory to the southward to be subdued—two or three tiers of counties in fact—before the Pan-handle would be reached. So, it was a place apart—an isolated fertile land, justifying the assertion of a tramp that he had lost a hundred thousand dollars there in one year by not having cattle to eat up the grass. ”

“ In the physical world Time is accounted the destroyer; though in the moral, it is oft the restorer. Nowhere has it effected greater changes than in Texas—during the last decade—and especially in the settlements of the Nueces and Leona.
Plantations have sprung up, where late the chapparal thickly covered the earth; and cities stand, where the wild steed once roamed over a pathless prairie. ”

“ HOW CAPTAIN BILL MADE COW-STEALING UNPOPULAR
The Texas Pan-handle is that portion of the State which lies directly south of what was No-man's Land, extending from parallels 100 to 103, east and west. Its shape suggests its name, and its name suggests limitless areas of waving grass; vast roving herds; cowboys and ponies—both of the unbridled variety; bad men whose chief business was to start graveyards, and the glad primeval lawlessness that prevails when worlds are new. ”

“ The Burnt Prairie. On the great plain of Texas, about a hundred miles southward from the old Spanish town of San Antonio de Bejar, the noonday sun is shedding his beams from a sky of cerulean brightness. Under the golden light appears a group of objects, but little in unison with the landscape around them: since they betoken the presence of human beings, in a spot where there is no sign of human habitation. ”

“ Texas presents to the traveller three distinct natural regions. Along the shores of the gulf from the Sabine to the Rio Grande, a flat country extends from thirty to one hundred miles in the interior, widening, towards its centre on the Colorado, and gradually diminishing towards the Nueces. The sandy wastes and lagunes of the coast give place, at some distance in the interior, to a rich alluvial country, diversified by skirts of timber, insulated groves, and open prairies. ”

“ Around the corner from Padre, bordering the Valley, is the gay flavor of Mexico. Visits to the border towns are gala occasions, with little or no red tape. Dollars meet their usual welcome.
Opposite the northern tip of Padre Island is the booming city of Corpus Christi, one of the country’s most beautiful coastal towns. On the mainland, beside the long stretch of the island, Texas presents its most historical and natural points of interest.
To playfolk who want year-round resort recreation; to hunters and fishermen or to treasure hunters and those interested in legends and wildlife ”

“ Imagine such an extent of territory open to new settlers! A republic nearly eight times as large as the state of New York, nine times as large as the state of Ohio, and six times as large as all New England put together!
There was no longer any surprise in my mind that the people who made up the government of Texas would be willing to give six hundred and forty acres to every man with a family who would settle there, when, within their boundaries, they had more than two hundred million acres. ”

“ The Indians in the upper regions of Texas and on the frontiers of the United States, are numerous and warlike; and when engaged in war, they neither respect territorial lines, nor the rules of civilized nations. They inhabit the country from latitude thirty-four degrees north on Red River, to the Rio del Norte, extending to the road that leads from St. Louis (Mo.) to Santa Fe; south to the head waters of Trinity, Guadaloupe, Brazos and Colorado rivers of Texas—a country in length six hundred miles, and breadth from two hundred and fifty to four hundred miles, mostly prairie. ”

“ But there are those who, conceding all this to be true, assume the ground that the true western boundary of Texas is the Nueces instead of the Rio Grande, and that therefore in marching our Army to the east bank of the latter river we passed the Texan line and invaded the territory of Mexico. A simple statement of facts known to exist will conclusively refute such an assumption. Texas, as ceded to the United States by France in 1803, has been always claimed as extending west to the Rio Grande or Rio Bravo. ”

“ On the basis of this understanding of the term 'as it existed,' we held in our prior opinion that the present maritime boundary of the State of Texas is defined by the Republic of Texas Boundary Act of 1836, [6] because that Act was approved by Congress pursuant to its 1845 Resolution of Annexation of Texas. [7] That Act claimed for Texas a boundary 'three leagues from land.' As the United States here concedes, maritime boundaries defined by reference to the shore are inherently mobile with changes in the configuration of the shoreline. ”

“ He headed toward Wichita County, which was almost an unknown land in that day, driving his cattle before him, his young wife at his side, both eager to begin a new life in a new land.
To drive cattle across the wild Texas prairies, twenty-five years ago, was an experience worth while. There were no fences, no boundaries and few roads. Settlers were far between. The climate in any season was likely to be mild; the air was pure and stimulating; society, such as it was, had not many conventions. ”

“ Such business sagacity however, did not apply in later times to the Republic of Texas, where each succeeding year saw new settlers break ground and homestead farther up the river valleys, whose streams had their origins in the motherland plains of the Comanche and Kiowa. ”

“ You will, therefore, find negro servants, more or less, all over the country; but more, on the lowlands, to [Pg 201] wards the bays and seacoast. Large cotton plantations, in this section of the country, are cultivated by negroes; and here also are found some good houses and rich farmers.
Texas lies between the twenty-seventh and thirty-fourth degrees of north latitude; and between sixteen degrees thirty minutes, and twenty-seven degrees west longitude from Washington; and contains probably about one hundred and fifty thousand square miles—as large as all New-England and the State of New-York. ”

“ But the question was settled during Governor Bell’s term of office. The disputed territory was bought by the United States from Texas for the sum of ten million dollars.
During these years Texas grew in prosperity; all boundary questions were settled, and the public debt was paid. Settlements sprung up to the very border. This, however, caused fresh trouble among the Indians, who from time to time fell upon isolated settlements, burning the houses and killing the settlers or carrying them into captivity. As late as 1847 two hundred Lipans on the war-path swept the western frontier. ”

“ There are the Comanches of the woods, and the Comanches of the prairie. The Texas Indians do not receive their annuities in Texas, but they are brought into Kansas, a great distance from us, where they receive the munificence of the Government in their annuities, on the east of the Red River and the Arkansas. What is the consequence? They believe Texas is not their friend, or that the Federal Government, from their crude notions of it, would pay them in Texas, and would not make them travel over rivers, and through trackless prairies, to receive their presents. ”

“ Order is not only the first law of Heaven, but of the frontier, and by the sturdy Frontier Battalion has the fight for order been made, and won. For in [Pg 389] spite of plague-spots here and there (and in a State of so vast an area, and so recent and motley a settlement, it would be strange indeed if these did not exist) , Texas is to-day a splendid empire of beautiful towns and cities—of fair and fruitful farms, and of handsome, hardy law-abiding men and women. ”

“ That Congress referred us to an ancient boundary claim hardly justifies our assuming that that claim is self-explanatory.
Whether the words 'three leagues from land,' written in 1836, should now be held to mean 'three leagues from the natural shore' or 'three leagues from the coast line' as that phrase would be interpreted today is of course not an easy question. So far as we know, Texas had no artificial extensions of its coast in 1836 or 1845, and there is every reason to assume that it gave no thought to the present problem. ”

“ So complete became the desolation of this southwestern section that, when General Taylor marched with his army from Corpus Christi to the Rio Grande, in 1846, it is said that not an inhabitant existed there. It was not till 1850 that the repopulating of this portion of Texas commenced, when the mustangs were caught or killed, and the foundations laid for that great enterprise of stock-raising, to which alone this arid region is adapted. ”

“ The only arguments in the President's message, which sustain the right of Texas to territory beyond the Nueces, are contained in those passages, in which it is asserted, that the jurisdiction of Texas had been extended and exercised beyond the Nueces: that the country between that river and the del Norte had been represented in the Congress and Convention of Texas, had taken part in the annexation itself, and was now included within one of our congressional districts. ”

“ At that remote period Texas belonged, if not de facto, still de jure, to Mexico. Marvellously situated on the Mexican Gulf, endowed with a temperate climate and a fertile soil, which, if tickled with a spade, laughs with a harvest, Texas is assuredly one of the richest countries in the New World. ”

“ The rich fields will produce an abundant harvest, and large herds of cattle will be seen feeding on the luxuriant grass. He will soon gain a competency, live at ease, and become contented and happy.
The inhabitants have a strong belief that Texas will at some future day become one of the United States; but I think this, extremely doubtful. It is more probable, that it will in time become an independent sovereignty. It is now one of the Mexican States, and the seat of the general government is in the city of Mexico. ”

“ It is deemed necessary to station a small force at Laredo, on the east bank of the Rio Grande, for the purpose of protecting that frontier from Indian depredations, and enabling the Government of Texas to extend its jurisdiction with more facility to that river. ”

“ In 1810, when the great revolution in Mexico against Spain had begun, the Southerners sympathized intensely with the natives, and before very long were lending secret aid to Mexico. A filibustering expedition into Texas was led by James Long, a Natchez merchant and ex-officer in the United States Army. At Nacogdoches Texas was declared a republic and a provisional government organized; but the Spanish forces soon broke it up. For several years the coast of Texas became a rendezvous for pirate and adventurer. ”

“ They will illustrate the fertility in buried treasure legend of all that stretch of Texas, for the most part yet unploughed, lying towards the Rio Grande and populated by Mexicans and by Texans of frontier stock. McMullen County itself has as yet neither railroad nor bank. The people are as yet unhackneyed by the plow or commercial secretary. They still talk a language seasoned with Mexican idiom and honest with the soil’s honesty; they have their old-time dances; they welcome heartily any decent stranger. ”

“ They were not ordinary malefactors, but choice selections from the world at large. "What was your name before you came to Texas?" was a common inquiry in those earlier days, and it was often added that a man could go to Texas when he couldn't go anywhere else. It was such a big State, with so many remote fastnesses, so many easy escapes across the borders. It was the natural last resort of men who could not live elsewhere with safety or profit. There is a story of a man arrested in Texas in those days for some misdemeanor, who was advised by his lawyer to leave the State without delay. ”

“ The heart of the Texan claim is that the United States and Mexico recognized that there was a three-league maritime belt which each would respect and that this was done in recognition of the validity of the claims contained in the 1836 statute of Texas. This belt was called a 'boundary'; but, as I have tried to demonstrate, it was not a territorial claim but only a demarcation of zones where the parties' respective law enforcement activities would be recognized and approved. The Gulf presents peculiar problems due to its shallow coast. ”

“ It rages with violence in Maine, disturbs the quiet villages of New-England, keeps the western world alive, and visits the shores of Texas. I was at a loss to know how speculation could get hold of Texas lands; for they are only granted to the actual settler and only one grant given to each. Human ingenuity has devised a plan. When an emigrant arrives in the country, he is met by a land speculator, who tells him he knows of a good location, and if he will go and settle on it, he shall have one half of the league for nothing. ”