Transcript Document 7255201

Texas Population Explosion
700,000
600,000
500,000
400,000
300,000
200,000
100,000
0
1800
1821
Pop. 4,000
2,240
1834
1848
1850
1860
20,700 162,500 212,000 604,000
In order to encourage immigration, the
state government made the public lands
available at very cheap prices.
Families disembark their wagons for a welcome rest at Fort Concho. As
one observer has noted, army forts served "as the oasis in the desert"
for many a weary traveler. Courtesy Fort Concho NHL
Texas perpetuated the land policy of the republic and
thereby continued to attract immigrants. In 1854,
the legislature passed the Texas Preemption Act,
through which the state offered homesteaders 160acre parcels of land for as little as fifty cents an acre
(as compared to the concurrent U.S. price of $1.25
an acre.) (See p. 117.)
The first federal census taken
in Texas, 1850, revealed that
212,000 persons (including
slaves) inhabited the state.
By the eve of the Civil War, the
Texas population had tripled to
over 604,000.
(See pp. 116-117.)
Origins of the Texas Population, 1850
Percent of
State Total
Percent of
Group living
in Urban
Areas
114,040
53.7
3
9,965
4.7
11
58,558
11,212
1,071
11,534
27.5
5.3
0.5
5.4
3
13
29
32
3,900
2,312
1.8
1.1
23
--
Group
Numbers
Southern AngloAmerican
Northern AngloAmerican
Negro
Spanish-surname
French-surname
German element
Other foreign elements
Other
(See Table 5.1 on page 118.)
The production of cotton increased from about 58,000 bales in 1849
to 431,463 bales in 1859. While sugar and wool increasingly became
cash commodities raised in Texas, cotton remained the state’s staple.
Cotton, sugar, and wool constituted the main exports. (See pp. 117,
119.)
Between 1848 and the
eve of the Civil War,
lands worked by slaves
produced lucrative
returns for planters, the
profits auguring cotton’s
and the slave system’s
westward expansion.
Only about one-third of all Texas farms at midcentury had slaves as part of their workforce.
Texans constituting a planter elite (landholders who
owned more than 100 slaves) amounted to only a
small minority. In reality, the 20 percent of planters
heading the list of slaveowners monopolized 96
percent of the entire Texas population. Most Texas
slave owners held fewer than five bondspeople. (See
pp. 117-118.)
This document permits the transportation of four
slaves from the port of New Orleans to the port of
Galveston, Republic of Texas.
The reverse side, listing the slaves, is signed by Ashbel Smith, a
medical doctor who had been Surgeon General of the Republic
of Texas and was later a founder of the U.T. Medical School.
Many Native Americans welcomed African
Americans into their villages. Even as slaves
many African Americans became part of a
family group, and many intermarried with
Native Americans - thus many later became
classified as Black Indians. Therefore Black
Oklahoma evolved in many areas as biracial
communities within Indian nations. This is a
unique history, which developed in many of
the western communities where the two
groups came together.
Juan Cortina and his
supporters occupy
Brownsville and proclaim the
Republic of the Rio Grande.
Cortina sought the
restoration of all former
Mexican land between the
Nueces and Rio Grande.
Cortina initially defeats a
force of Texas Rangers and
local authorities, but when
they are reinforced by army
troops, he retreats into
Mexico where he wages a
guerilla war for another ten
years.
The state government’s
official policy toward
Indians in the mid1850s was to put the
Indians on reservations.
Hovering goddess-like above the westward moving pioneers, this
allegorical female came to symbolize the virtue of taming the western
frontier, what some considered America's "manifest destiny." Painting
entitled, "American Progress," by George Crogutt, 1873.
Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.
“Narratives portrayed the conflict as one in which while families
defended themselves from marauding Indians instead of one in which
Anglos moved and occupied Indian land. (Carrigan, p. 74.)
The Indian Fighter (1955) starring Kirk
Douglas.
John S. "Rip" Ford.
As a captain of
Texas rangers, Ford
played a critical role
in protecting the
Texas frontier.
Cotton wagons on their way from the gin to the
cotton yard in Elgin.
Photo courtesy of Leo Foehner, Institute of Texan Cultures, University of Texas at San Antonio.
Early travelers on a packed stage pause for
refreshment during their journey on the south Texas
frontier.
Image courtesy Kinney County Historical Society.
By 1860 Texas had only 400 miles of track
Elise Waerenskjold.
Before the Civil War the
government of Texas
maintained the university
endowment, but it took
little action to establish a
university campus until
much later. (See p. 131)
The largest religious
denominations in Texas before the
Civil War were Methodists and
Baptists.
Church leaders prior to the
beginning of the Civil War tended
to defend slavery.
See page 132.
Debating the Compromise of 1850
Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky proposed the
Compromise Measures of 1850, a set of five bills
favoring compromise among the states on the issue
of slavery. President Millard Fillmore signed all five
measures into law.
The compromise of 1850 (proposed by Henry Clay): the slave trade should
be ended in the nation’s capital; a strong fugitive slave law should be
passed; the territories acquired from Mexico should be organized without
prohibiting the importation of slaves into those regions; and California
should be admitted into the Union as a free state. For Texas, the most
important economic consequences of the Compromise of 1850 was the
payment of the state’s public debt in return for Texas’s surrender of its
claims to New Mexico. (See pp. 133-134.)
Texas Politics in the 1850s
Politically, the majority of Texans before the
Civil War considered themselves Democrats.
The Whigs briefly existed in Texas, attracting
professionals, merchants, and prosperous
planters.
In the mid-1850s, the Know-Nothing party
attracted many Texans with its criticism of
immigrants and Catholics.
See pages 134-135.
Hardin R.
Runnels
Sam
Houston
Hardin R. Runnels defeated Sam Houston for the governorship in
1857 on a platform supporting the reopening of the African slave
trade. Runnels resided in Old Boston and was buried in a family
cemetery in Bowie County in 1873. In the election of 1859,
Houston put Runnels on the defensive by criticizing the latter’s
inadequate protection of the frontier, highlighting Runnels’ wishes
to see the slave trade renewed, and reminding voters of the
governor’s preference for secession. Sam Houston’s victory in the
1859 gubernatorial race was hailed as a tribute to Unionism.
Unfortunately, it was Houston’s last political position.
Sam Houston was
elected governor in
1859. It was his
last political
position
John C. Breckinridge
Candidate of the
Southern Democrats
John Bell
Stephen A. Douglas Candidate of the
Candidate of the
Unionist Party (A coalition
Northern Democrats of Unionist Democrats, exKnow-Nothings and former
Whigs
Disintegration of the Democratic Party.
Texas Democrats faced an excruciating decision
over which Democrat to support. By the summer
of 1860, however, most Texans began to swing
over to Breckinridge, who most closely mirrored
the sentiments of pro-slavery Texans and seemed
most likely to win. (See p. 137)
Abraham Lincoln
In its declaration of secession, Texas stated that it intended to go to war
to preserve a southern way of life that made racial distinctions, in part,
by maintaining blacks in a condition of servitude. (See. p. 138)
5TH TEXAS VOLUNTEER INFANTRY, CO. K
The two highest-ranking Texans in the Confederate
army were Albert Sidney Johnston and John Bell Hood.
Texas-Mexico Trade Routes
Texas was economically important to the Confederacy because
the Confederacy was able to conduct foreign trade through
Mexico by way of Texas. (See p. 142.)
Cotton bales on Matamoros wharf arrived across the
Rio Grande from Brownsville, Texas (background)
"There is no parallel in ancient or modern warfare to the victory of
Dowling and his men at Sabine Pass considering the great odds
against which they had to contend" Jefferson Davis
The Battle of
Sabine Pass
September 8, 1663
In the fall of 1863, Confederate
forces under the command of
Lt. Richard Dowling turned back
a much larger Union invasion
force at the battle of Sabine
Pass. (See pp. 140-141.)
In Gainesville (Cooke County), North Texas
Confederates—responding to reports of a plot by
members of the Peace Party to take over local
ordnance depots and to revolt at the same time that
Unionists forces invaded Texas from Kansas and
Galveston—executed some forty-two alleged
conspirators (most of the innocent) in October 1862
and proclaimed martial law in the county. (See p. 145)
Some 24,000 Texans perished during the four years of fighting. The
war left a legacy of deep personal hatreds. Many sought to continue
to fight the Northern Army of Occupation through terrorist
organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan.