Authors: T.R. Fehrenbach
Governor Martínez seemed impressed by young Austin, and he offered him time to survey the country and choose a site for his colony. During the summer of 1821, Stephen Austin explored. He went from Nacogdoches in the far north to La Bahía southeast of San Antonio, with a small party of Americans, to pick his land. At Nacogdoches Austin noticed that there were only about three dozen inhabitants all told, with five houses and a church. He did see certain Anglo-American squatters, settlers who had moved across the border and built cabins in the forest, on Spanish soil. Among these people were the Ambersons, Cartwrights, Englishes, and J. H. Bell. A few miles beyond Nacogdoches the land became virgin wilderness, with no break to the outskirts of Béxar. Traveling the Camino Real or Royal Road, which was more a trace than a highway, Austin's party ran into Mexicans who told of finding fresh corpses along the way—one Spanish and two American. Indians were raiding even in San Antonio, killing several men and stealing horses and mules. La Bahía, like Nacogdoches, showed evidence of Magee's invasion. The old town surrounding the presidio had not been repaired, and there had recently been an Indian raid. Austin wrote in his journal: " . . . the Spaniards live poorly. The inhabitants have a few horses and cattle and raise some corn." He also noted they ate with spoons and their fingers, having neither knives nor forks.
The most impressive region Austin found lay south of the Camino Real, between the Colorado and the Brazos. These rich river bottoms were part of the Southern coastal plains, with good rainfall, accessible to the Gulf. Austin described this country as the best in the world, "as good in every respect as man could wish for, land first rate, plenty of timber, fine water—beautifully rolling." The Brazos bottomland was perfectly suited to the American plantation economy. Austin could not have made a better choice.
The site also lay outside of dangerous Indian country. It was inland from the disappearing, but still dangerous, bad-smelling Karankawas of the coast, and separated from the fierce Comanches by a buffer of two friendly Wichita tribes, the Wacos, and Tawakonis.
When Austin returned again to Louisiana, to advertise for settlers, he found around a hundred letters awaiting him at Natchitoches. The word was already out: Land and Texas, and the price of foreign citizenship seemed no obstacle in the applicants' way.
In the fall of 1821, Austin was back in Texas, and he found some applicants for his colony already there, awaiting him. Others began to arrive every day, though one party, on the schooner
Lively
, became lost and never did find the mouth of the Colorado, which Austin had picked as his marshaling point. The first settler to enter Austin's colony proper, Andrew Robinson, crossed the Brazos in November. Here he stayed and began to operate a ferry, on the site that became Washington-on-the-Brazos. Three days later, the three Kuykendall brothers came by with families, then Josiah H. Bell, who had decided to become a legal colonist and deserted his holdings in east Texas. Others followed rapidly. In January 1822, Jared E. Groce, planter, lumberman, and capitalist of Georgia by way of Alabama, rumbled in with fifty wagons and ninety Negro slaves. One of the colonists wrote down for posterity that about this time he saw six sailing ships in Galveston Bay.
The oath these colonists took has been preserved in Spanish records; it was later changed slightly to meet the circumstances of Mexican independence:
In the name of God, Amen. In the Town of Nacogdoches before me, Don José María Guadiana, appeared Don Samuel Davenport and Don William Barr, residents of this place, and took a solemn oath of fidelity to our Sovereign, and to reside forever in his Royal Dominions; and to manifest this more fully, put their right hands upon the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, to be faithful vassals of His Most Catholic Majesty, to act in obedience to all laws of Spain and the Indies, henceforth adjuring all other allegiance to any other Prince or Potentate, and to hold no correspondence with any other foreign power without permission from a lawful magistrate, and to inform against such as may do so, or use seditious language unbecoming a good subject of Spain.
In return for this oath, each colonist received title to land at terms unheard of in the United States. The rich river bottoms along the Brazos, the Colorado, and the Bernard, from the vicinity of Brenham, Navasota, and La Grange to the Gulf, were parceled out as follows: one
labor
(177 acres) to each family engaged in farming; one
sitio
or
legua
(4,428 acres) to each family head who planned to raise stock. Spanish-Mexican law, unlike that of the United States, already recognized the fundamental difference between ranching and farming. For obvious reasons—although this was plantation land and these men were Southern planters—most colonists classified themselves as stock raisers. Less than twenty land titles called for less than a square league. Single ranchers were entitled to one-third a league, or about 1,500 acres—and some twenty-six "family" grants went to bachelors who joined up in twos or threes to create a family and satisfy the letter of the law.
The colonists were supposed to pay Stephen Austin a
medio
, or one-half silver
real
($0.125), per acre, but most of this was later remitted; the government charged a flat title fee, part of the money going to Austin. It was also Austin's boast that he never turned a deserving man away simply because he could not pay. By law, colonists were exempted from customs duties for seven years and from general taxation for ten. Leaving out customs duties and taxation, these bottomlands were sold at a tenth of the price of public lands in the United States.
Substantial men were given extra acres for improvements they planned to build, or for the importation of slaves. Jared Groce, for example, got in all ten
sitios
or leagues. Austin, as empresario, received title to twenty-two.
In this fashion the Baron de Bastrop, who was rewarded with the position of Austin's land commissioner, issued 297 titles. The law required the grant to be developed within two years. Only seven of the first 297 of Austin's land titles were forfeited for cause.
A typical grant was recorded as follows:
Third Seal: Four Reales ($.50)
Validated by the Mexican Nation for the Year 1824.
No. 235.
Honorable Commissioner the Baron de Bastrop: I, Arthur McCormick, a native of the United States of America and a present resident of the province of Texas, appear before you and say that having come to this place with the intention of settling in the colonial settlement granted to the Empresario Stephen F. Austin by the Supreme Government of the Mexican Nation: I trust that you will admit me and my family as settlers, and will be pleased to have surveyed for me and put in my possession the land which the law allows, with the understanding I am ready to cultivate that which is assigned to me, subjecting myself in every respect to the laws that govern and defend the rights of independence and liberty of the country. Therefore, I beg that you will be pleased to do as I have asked; in this I shall receive favor and justice.
THE TOWN OF SAN FELIPE DE AUSTIN. AUGUST 7, 1824.
(Signed)
Arthur McCormick.
Honorable Commissioner:
. . . I say that the petitioner, Arthur McCormick, is worthy of the favor he solicits, and can be admitted as a resident of this new colony because of good qualities and circumstances, and his well-known application to agriculture, cattle raising, and industries. In consideration of this a league of land may be granted to him.
SAN FELIPE DE AUSTIN. AUG. 7, 1824.
Estévan F. Austin
(Rubric)
In the Town of San Felipe de Austin on the 9th day of the month of August of the year one thousand eight hundred twenty-four: The Baron de Bastrop, sixth member of the most excellent deputation of the Province of Texas, Commissioner of the Government, and Estévan F. Austin, Empresario. In virtue of the Commission which the Governor of this Province, Lieutenant Colonel Don Luciano Garcia conferred on the former . . . and of the order of the political chief of this province, Don José Antonio Saucedo . . . and of the powers granted to both by the order of the Superior Mexican Government, ratified by the decrees of the sovereign Congress, and that of the Commandant General of these Provinces, Brigadier Don Felipe de la Garza issued to said Empresario Don Estévan F. Austin: Exercising these powers and considering the merit of the petitioner Arthur McCormick, according to the preceding, by these presents, we grant and concede in the name of the Mexican nation to the said Arthur McCormick, his heirs and successors, a league of land situated on the west bank of the San Jacinto River. . . .
The Baron de Bastrop
(Rubric)
Estévan F. Austin
(Rubric)
The said commissioner the Baron de Bastrop and Empresario Estévan F. Austin, the witnesses, the adjoining owners . . . the surveyor, and the interested party repaired to the tract we have granted . . . [described]. We put the said Arthur McCormick in possession of said tract, taking him by the hand, leading him over it, telling him in loud and clear voices that in virtue of our Commission and Powers, in the name of the Government of the Mexican nation, we put him in possession . . . and the said Arthur McCormick in token of finding himself in real and personal possession . . . shouted aloud, pulled up grass, threw stones, fixed stakes, and performed the other ceremonies fixed by custom. He was warned of the obligation to cultivate it within two years. And for proof we certify our signatures below, in the Town of San Felipe de Austin on the 10th day of the month of August, 1824.
El Baron de Bastrop
Witness:
David McCormick
Estévan F. Austin
Witness:
Samuel M. Williams
Austin's first settlers, although actually only 297 land grants were made, were called the "Old Three Hundred." These families were able to choose some of the best farming land in Texas. Not all of them prospered or survived, but out of this group came the first Anglo planter-gentry in the province. Most of these people came as farmers from the United States, but a substantial number arrived as men of means. Ancestry traced to the Old Three Hundred names, such as Bell, Borden, Kuykendall, McCormick, McNair, McNeel, Varner, or Rabb was to become a mark of Texas pride. With only a few exceptions, all these names came from the British Isles.
These people were not frontiersmen or mountaineers. Austin did not want "leatherstockings." The rules of his colony provided that "no frontiersman who has no other occupation than that of hunter will be received—no drunkard, no gambler, no profane swearer, no idler." These rules were enforced. Austin drove a number of families out of his settlements as undesirable, and on more than one occasion ordered some such unwanted immigrant into his plantations publicly whipped. Thus Austin's colony—but not, as it turned out later, the state—was kept free of certain characteristic classes of the Old Southwest. Only four of Austin's Old Three Hundred were not literate or possessed of some education.
These Americans, who were characteristic of all the land-grant immigrants, came overwhelmingly from the Trans-Appalachian South. Records show that the most common states were, in order, Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Missouri. Of some 776 colonial families examined, 669 registered from the Border South, and only 107 showed their origin in the East. Many people born east of Appalachia came to Texas, but very few had reached maturity there. The Texas population was part of the immense stream moving west.
The vast majority immigrated to Texas for no other reason than economic opportunity: the chance to get cheap land. Some left debts behind in the States, but most brought some form of capital: seeds, equipment, stock, or slaves. After 1820, the minimum price for public lands in the United States was $1.25 per acre, and because of the recent speculations, credit-buying was no longer allowed. For the price of 80 acres of plantation ground in the South, a Texas settler could acquire a square league, or 4,428 acres. The original price of $0.125 per acre was greatly reduced, and Austin himself lent generous credit.
The first year of the colony, 1822–23, while Austin was forced to stay in Mexico defending his commission before a succession of new, independent Mexican governments, was incredibly rough. A disastrous drought ruined the first crops. The Karankawa Indians attacked and killed a large number of settlers. Immigration to Texas stopped, and some families already there went back. But upon Austin's return, in the summer of 1823, matters quickly improved. Austin organized a militia and scoured the Karankawas completely out of his colony; some finally sought protection of the padres at La Bahía, far to the south. He made treaties with the friendlier tribes, Wichitas and Tonkawas. Some of these Indians were caught stealing horses in the colony; Austin did not hang them but had them flogged. Whatever this did to warrior pride, it effectively stopped further horse raids along the Brazos.
The colony was subject, of course, to all the laws, rules, regulations, of intricate governmental bureaucracies, first of Spain, then of independent Mexico. But actually, the Anglo settlements lay completely outside Mexican Texas. They were planted on completely empty ground, hundreds of miles from the nearest historic town or fort. By their location, high up on the Texas coastal plain, they were removed from and outside the economic sphere of San Antonio de Béxar. Lack of money and the absence of good roads handicapped trade with San Antonio; the Anglo colonies looked back north, toward the United States. Nacogdoches began a rapid growth, as a way station and trading center between the Brazos and Louisiana. The cessation of customs duties granted by the Mexicans permitted this commerce to continue.