Texians

“ In spite of their disadvantages, the Texians repulsed the Comanches with considerable loss, till the morning, when the men were literally tired with killing and the prairie was covered with the corpses of two thousand savages; the Texians themselves having lost but thirty or forty men, and these people of little consequence, being emigrants recently arrived from the States. ”

“ WYNN, AFTON. "Pioneer Folk Ways," in Straight Texas, Texas Folklore Society Publication XIII, 1937.
10. Fighting Texians
THE TEXAS PEOPLE belong to a fighting tradition that the majority of them are proud of. The footholds that the Spaniards and Mexicans held in Texas were maintained by virtue of fighting, irrespective of missionary baptizing. The purpose of the Anglo-American colonizer Stephen F. Austin to "redeem Texas from the wilderness" was accomplished only by fighting. The Texans bought their liberty with blood and maintained it for nine years as a republic with blood. ”

“ As soon as the Texians declared their independence, their rulers, thinking that no better population could exist in the northern districts than that of the Cherokees, invited a few hundred more to come from the Red River, and settle among them; and to engage them so to do, the first session of congress offered them a grant of two or three hundred thousand acres of land, to be selected by them in the district they would most prefer. Thus enticed, hundreds of wealthy Cherokee planters migrated to Texas, with their wealth and cattle. ”

“ From the time that father began to talk of joining Peters's colony, I spent a good portion of my time learning all that was possible concerning this republic, the people of which were eager to come into the United States. I found, as any one can who will make diligent search, the most interesting stories not only about hunting, but about the early troubles between Texas and Mexico, the Texans' fight for independence, and the many Indian raids. ”

“ But for the fact that many others have told the story of how Texas won her independence, how she flourished or decayed as a free republic during ten years, and how she was finally annexed to the United States, I would be glad to tell more of these things to you. They [152] could not fail to be entertaining as well as instructive, for they show how a people with a true purpose before them overcame the many obstacles which confronted them and finally made Texas what she is to-day, one of the brightest stars in the blue field of Old Glory. ”

“ When the war between the states began to stir the hearts of the people of the South, after a brief delay, Texas, that great empire with more than two hundred and sixty-six thousand square miles, but thinly populated area, caught the patriotic spirit of the hour, and cast herself, body and soul, into the struggle of the Southland for liberty and independence. ”

“ A purer patriot never trod Texan soil. Amiable, enlightened, excellent, he was respected and beloved by the colonists, and ever will his incorruptible virtues and unsullied fame be treasured by the people of Texas. The stories of his sufferings in his long imprisonment reached Texas, and a deep sensation was produced everywhere. ”

“ In our Republic's life that period is not a great way off. And in that hour Texas will need men—I am speaking now to the young men—to the bright-eyed boys of Texas. In that hour your State will need men, not, oh! not the paid politicians of the present, who seek office for its gold, and not its glory; who trade in honor and traffic in eminence! But she will need statesmen in her councils and warriors on her battle-fields. She will want the mighty in intellect, the grand in soul; more than that—the pure in heart. Do you want an example? Look at the Texas veterans! ”

“ It is much to be lamented that Texas had not been populated by a more deserving class of individuals; it might have been, even by this time, a country of importance and wealth; but it has from the commencement been the resort of every vagabond and scoundrel who could not venture to remain in the United States; and, unfortunately, the Texan character was fixed and established, as a community wholly destitute of principle or probity, before the emigration of more respectable settlers had commenced. ”

“ When I sought my berth that night, the third of the journey, we were still speeding across the boundless Indian prairies; but when I awoke, next morning, the beautiful plains, with vast herds of cattle feeding on them, and covered with flowers of every color, proclaimed our entrance into Texas. Diagonally across this grandest of States we drew a southward-trending line, and the thousand pictures that danced before our eyes—that appeared, vanished, and were replaced by others, which in turn waltzed away into space—were seen through the crystal plate of a hotel-car window. ”

“ 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. ”

“ After a long and somewhat stormy series of negotiations, Texas, first visited by La Salle in his vain quest for the mouth of the Mississippi, and afterward colonized by the Spanish from Mexico, was ceded to the all-powerful American republic, and, being rapidly settled by enterprising emigrants from the East, it soon in its turn formed the starting-point for new expeditions westward. ”

“ I believe in my heart that the young men of Texas are worthy of the glorious burden borne by them. Listen not to the serpent hiss of him who would counsel State or national division. He that would wish to dim and divide the splendor of the Lone Star's beams is as little a patriot as one who would seek to shatter the constellation of which Texas is the brightest member. ”

“ Soon after the establishment of independence in the United States of Mexico, the colonization and settlement of Texas became a favorite subject of national policy with the new government. To attract population for the settlement of the country, colonization laws were enacted, to encourage enterprising individuals from foreign countries to establish large colonies of emigrants within the limits of Texas. ”

“ The fame of Texas as a stock-growing country went abroad in the land, and soon after her admission to the Union, unto her were turned the eyes of many young men born and reared in the older Southern States, who were poor in this world's goods, but were ambitious to make for themselves a home and a fortune. Many of this class went to Texas, then a new and comparatively thin and unsettled country, and began in humblest manner, perhaps for nominal wages, to lay the foundation for future wealth and success. ”

“ For Texas, the beautiful flower state, blessed with turf and blessed with pines, has still the stern commencements of American life before it—that rapid, fierce process of civilization which begins with cards and whisky and murder, which finds its first protection in the "Vigilantes" who hold their grim tribunals under the roadside trees, but which suddenly one day wrenches itself, as it were, from its bad, lawless past, and takes its first firm step on the high road to order and prosperity and the world's respect. ”

“ French traders went there with fancy goods from New Orleans, and Spanish Dons from the wealthy cities of Central Mexico came there to buy. From the villages of Connecticut, from the woods of Tennessee, and the lagoons of the Mississippi, adventurous Americans entered the Spanish-Texan Territory at Nacogdoches, going through the land buying horses, and lending their stout hearts and ready rifles to every effort for freedom which the Texans made. ”

“ I am doubly gratified that the good work should have begun in Texas, which has such cause to entertain the kindliest feeling toward every section of our common country, for each and all contributed to her past glory and present greatness. Among those who cast their lot in Texas when every step was a challenge to destiny and every hour was darkened by a danger; who faced unflinchingly the trials of frontier life and carved out an independent republic with the sword, were men from every State of the American union. ”

“ Its beautiful site, overlooking the city, is this summer to be crowned with its comely edifice, which, beyond the outer shell, is to await the incoming of funds for its completion. This trip has resulted with me in a profound impression as to the need of this institution and as to the grand sweep of its future usefulness. Nothing better can be done for the Freedmen of Texas. This empire, stretching a thousand miles on the Rio Grande and eight hundred miles eastward to the Sabine, calls mightily for such an institute to train those who shall be the teachers of her sable children. ”

“ He held two articles of belief which no man might dispute without getting sight of the knife in his bootleg or the revolver on his hip. One was that Texas was the biggest and best State in the Union; and the other, that the cow business was no longer fit for a gentleman to follow. He lounged on a bench beside the door and told me tales of the range and the round-up, of herds of cattle stampeded by the smell of water, of long rides in blinding sand storms, of the taking in of the tenderfoot, of centipedes and side-winders, of Indian fights and narrow escapes. ”

“ Texas was originally a state belonging to the republic of Mexico. It extended from the Sabine River on the east to the Rio Grande on the west, and from the Gulf of Mexico on the south and east to the territory of the United States and New Mexico—another Mexican state at that time—on the north and west. An empire in territory, it had but a very sparse population, until settled by Americans who had received authority from Mexico to colonize. ”

“ He gave me some curious information as to the state of things in Texas; and did not think it necessary to conceal from me, as an American, and one who intended settling in the country, that there was a plan in agitation for throwing off the Mexican yoke, and declaring Texas an independent republic. The high-spirited, and, for the most part, intelligent emigrants from the United States, who formed a very large majority of the population of Texas, saw themselves, with no very patient feeling, under the rule of a people both morally and physically inferior to themselves. ”

“ But why should an Ohioan, and a printer, be induced to migrate to Texas, where civilization has but begun, and where men still fancy that there is something diabolical in the process of producing books and newspapers? In Texas—a land of contrarities, where all is abundance, by the mere act of nature, or sterility beyond the power of art to fertilize; where one only looks up stream for water; where rivers are narrow at their mouths, and wide at their fountains; where the ground is never dusty, though parched with drouth; where grass grows green in winter ”

“ Centuries cannot repair this serious evil, and the Texans have made bitter and implacable foes of those who would have been their friends. No distinction is made between an American and a Texan, and the Texans have raised up a foe to the United States, which may hereafter prove not a little troublesome.
In another point, Texas has been seriously injured by this total want of probity and principle. ”

“ Then followed the legend in the time-honored style sacred to legendary lore, impossible for me to imitate.
A more charming landscape cannot be found than the hills and dales of Bandera County. The Indians loved this country, and every year resorted thither, to fish in the waters of the Medina and to hunt deer and turkeys on the mountains. But their intentions were not always so peaceful, and Texas Rangers were not infrequently called upon to protect the few white settlers who were bold enough to call this region home. ”

“ When the Texas pioneers inherited the Spanish sitios and porciones of land, the leagues and labors, marked off by varas and pasos, they inherited too from the Spaniard and his Mexican successor something of the lure of ungained treasure. The imagination that images a cave in the Llano hills filled with five hundred jack loads of silver bullion is hardly so audacious as that which pictured the Seven Cities shining with their jeweled portals in the sun and peopled mostly by goldsmiths ”

“ It is a fight for Protestant freedom, at my own door. I am not going to be denied.”
“Your duty is at home, Richard. You can help with your prayers and purse. You could not leave your plantation now without serious loss, and you have many to think for besides yourself.”
Of the final success of the Texans no one doubted. Their cry for help had been answered from the New England hills and all down the valley of the Mississippi, and along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico and the coasts of Florida. In fact, the first settlers of Texas had been young men from the oldest northern colonies. ”

“ At that early hour there was no traveller—Texan, or stranger—to test the truth of the conjecture; but, for all that, it was true.
At a point in the chapparal, about a quarter of a mile from the blood-stained path, lay stretched upon the ground the object that was engaging the attention of the vultures.
It was not carrion, nor yet a quadruped; but a human being—a man!
A young man, too, of noble lineaments and graceful shape—so far as could be seen under the cloak that shrouded his recumbent form—with a face fair to look upon, even in death. ”

“ If we turn from the Spanish and Mexicans to the early American colonists of Texas, we find that the prospect of mineral riches had little part in motivating their colonization. Though Stephen F. Austin “denounced” a mine—perhaps coal—on the upper Trinity,6 and though the Bowie brothers, with a small band of men, staked their lives on the chance of gaining silver ore from the San Saba country,7 thereby giving basis to the most remarkable of all Texas legends, nevertheless, the pioneer settlers of [6] Texas came hither to plough and herd, to trade and labor, not to prospect.8 ”