Lone Star Nation (19 page)

So what was to be done? How could Texas be defended against the invasion of the Americans?

This was a hard problem, not least on account of the invaders' infuriating smugness regarding land. “Nature tells them that the land is theirs,” Terán wrote, “because, in effect, everyone can appropriate what does not belong to anyone or what is not claimed by anyone. When the occasion arises, they will claim the irrefutable rights of first possession.” Terán conceded a distinction between the legal colonists of empresarios like Austin and the illegal immigrants who arrived without permission and settled where they would. The former followed the laws of Texas and Mexico, such as the laws were; the latter followed no laws but their own desires. Yet Terán wondered whether much, in the end, would really distinguish the lawless Anglos from the law-abiding. “I must say in all frankness that everyone I have talked to here who is aware of the state of the country and devoted to its preservation is convinced, and has convinced me, that these colonies, whose industriousness and economy receive such praise, will be the cause for the Mexican federation to lose Texas unless measures are taken soon.”

So what did Terán recommend? First, the Mexican army's presence in Texas must be increased. “On the frontier there are intrigues,” Terán wrote; and the way to prevent intrigues from becoming rebellions was to have troops at the ready. The garrison at Béxar should be expanded and one or more military colonies established, starting along the Medina River below Béxar. Second, immigration of North Americans should be suspended. Existing American colonies, most notably Austin's, should be left alone. Indeed, it was in Mexico's interest that the faithful, law-abiding Austin prosper, so that his colony could inoculate Texas against the lawless elements. But no further American colonies should be allowed, and certainly no more independent American settlements.

The most important measure the Mexican government could adopt, and the one without which the others would be but temporary solutions, was to make Texas truly Mexican. “The land of Texas, or at least its eastern part where its principal rivers begin to be navigable, should be reserved for Mexican settlers,” Terán declared. He granted that this recommendation came late, as the Americans already occupied most of the best land in Texas. And he acknowledged the deficiencies of Mexicans as colonists. Even so, the government must do whatever it could to populate Texas with Mexicans. This was “absolutely necessary . . . in order to counterbalance foreign ways.” Terán proposed that the government transplant five thousand Mexicans along the Trinity River as a barrier to further American encroachment. Terán allowed that such a project would be costly. “The national treasury will have to spend a hundred thousand pesos or a bit more.” But he saw no other choice. “In our country nothing is done if the government does not do it.” If the government did take the lead, there was cause for optimism. “The way for Mexicans to become industrious entrepreneurs is for them to be encouraged once, twice, or even three times. If they are spurred, we can rely on their perseverance, and we should expect that if they are infused with the colonizing spirit, colonization will become popular. They will be filled with this frenzy for the north country and will populate its wilderness in just a few years.”

Here Terán was trying to persuade himself as much as his political superiors. He hoped Mexicans would fill Texas and thereby secure it for Mexico, but the evidence suggested otherwise. After helping Santa Anna defeat the Spanish at Tampico, Terán received command of the northeastern states of the Mexican federation (Tamaulipas, Nuevo León, and Coahuila y Texas). From his headquarters at Matamoros he monitored the continuing immigration to Texas, and he continued to try to stop it. “The department of Texas is contiguous to the most avid nation in the world,” he wrote to the Mexican war department in late 1829. “The North Americans have conquered whatever territory adjoins them. In less than half a century, they have become masters of extensive colonies which formerly belonged to Spain and France, and of even more spacious territories from which have disappeared the former owners, the Indian tribes. There is no power like that to the north, which by silent means has made conquests of momentous importance. Such dexterity, such constancy in their designs, such uniformity of means of execution which always are completely successful, arouses admiration.”

It also aroused alarm, or ought to. Terán declared that Mexico was about to lose Texas, not to American soldiers but to American immigrants and the ideas they brought with them. “Instead of armies, battles, or invasions—which make a great noise and for the most part are unsuccessful—these men lay hand on means that, if considered one by one, would be rejected as slow, ineffective, and at times palpably absurd. They begin by assuming rights, as in Texas, which it is impossible to sustain in a serious discussion, making ridiculous pretensions based on historical incidents which no one admits—such as the voyage of La Salle, which was an absurd fiasco but serves as a basis for their claim to Texas.” The extravagant claims were echoed in the American press, creating a popular demand for their vindication. Enterprising Americans acted on this demand, often disingenuously. “The territory against which these machinations are directed, and which has usually remained unsettled, begins to be visited by adventurers and empresarios; some of these take up their residence in the country, pretending that their location has no bearing upon the question of their government's claim or the boundary disputes.” Terán was willing to grant that certain of these disclaimants—he was thinking especially of Austin—were sincere in their denials. But sincere or facetious, they introduced a political dynamic that was ineluctable. “Shortly, some of these forerunners develop an interest which complicates the political administration of the coveted territory; complaints, even threats, begin to be heard, working on the loyalty of the legitimate settlers, discrediting the efficiency of the existing authority and administration.”

This was the current condition of Texas, Terán said, and it would only worsen. The government of the United States would be drawn in, from professed concern for the rights of its nationals. Diplomatic pressure would increase, and Mexico would find itself dispossessed of Texas in much the way that Spain had lost Florida and France Louisiana.

Terán didn't weep for Spain or France or mourn their colonial losses. After all, Mexico owed its independence to its success in dispossessing Spain. But for Mexico to lose Texas would be a different matter altogether. Texas wasn't an ocean away from Mexico, as North America was from France and Spain. Texas was part of Mexico itself, a strategically vital part. For Mexico to lose Texas would threaten the security of the republic. “How can it be expected to cut itself off from its own soil, give up to a rival power territory advantageously placed in the extremity of its states, which joins some of them and serves as a buffer to all? How can it be expected to alienate two hundred and fifty leagues of coast, leaving on them vast resources for the construction of boats, the shortest channels for commerce and navigation, the most fertile lands, and the most copious elements for providing means of attack and defense?” In a deeper sense, yielding Texas to the Americans would undermine everything Mexican patriots like Terán had fought for since the start of the revolution. “If Mexico should consent to this base act, it would degenerate from the most elevated class of American powers to that of a contemptible mediocrity, reduced to the necessity of buying a precarious existence at the cost of many humiliations.”

C h a p t e r   8

What Will Become of Texas?

T
erán's warnings gave rise to a radical change in Mexican policy toward Texas. In the spring of 1830, Foreign Minister Lucas Alamán shaped Terán's advice into a bill the Mexican congress duly adopted. The law—known by the date of its enactment, April 6—authorized the construction and manning of military posts on the Texas frontier and encouraged colonization of the province by Mexican nationals. It prohibited further immigration to Texas from the United States. It suspended empresario contracts not already completed, and it banned the introduction of additional slaves.

“A more impolitic measure could not have been adopted by this Government,” Stephen Austin declared upon learning of the April 6 law. Austin had sensed that change was afoot; the uneasiness of Terán during his tour of Texas wasn't a secret. But Austin had hoped for something less drastic, something that wouldn't rekindle the anger that had given rise to the Fredonian rebellion. The April 6 law singled out Americans in its ban on immigration to Texas, and by fastening new garrisons on the settlers, it treated them as traitors-in-waiting. In so doing, Austin feared, the law might make rebels out of peaceful men. “They were becoming sincerely attached to this Government and they always have been faithful and always would be,” he said of his colonists. But the suspicions that inspired the new law threatened to alter everything. “They are well calculated to create discontent and disgust where it has never existed.”

The heart of the colonists' complaint was that Mexico City was arbitrarily changing the rules upon which they had made life plans. The ban on immigration meant that Texas would remain a frontier society indefinitely. Very few Americans, even among westerners, loved the frontier for its own sake. They migrated to the unsettled regions because they could afford land there, but no sooner did they purchase their plots than they wanted the frontier to look like the settled regions back east. They wanted the markets and services and stability of settled life; many also wanted their land to appreciate in value so that they could sell it at a profit (and perhaps repeat the cycle farther west). Nearly all the Americans in Texas had assumed that more of their compatriots would follow them there, and that the Texas frontier would fill with towns and eventually cities and the rising standard of living towns and cities entailed. By outlawing immigration, the Mexican government overthrew this assumption, and with it the plans of the settlers.

The embargo against slaves threatened less havoc but enough to warrant concern. Austin, like many Americans of his day, was of two minds regarding slavery: he didn't like it, but he couldn't figure out how to do without it. (In time much southern rhetoric would celebrate slavery, but in the 1820s this was still a minority view.) Austin accepted slavery as necessary for the development of Texas: most of his colonists were southerners, and many wouldn't come without their slaves. But he shuddered at the thought that Texas—
his
Texas—might someday be as slave-ridden as large parts of the American Gulf Coast. “The idea of seeing such a country as this overrun by a slave population almost makes me weep,” he wrote an acquaintance. He had tried to make others share his fear, by raising the specter of a slave rebellion, but without success. “It is in vain to tell a North American that the white population will be destroyed some fifty or eighty years hence by the negroes, and that his daughters will be violated and butchered by them.” As for arguing the morality of slavery with the determined supporters of the institution, that was a hopeless cause. “To say any thing to them as to the justice of slavery, or its demoralizing effects on society, is only to draw down ridicule upon the person who attempts it.” For himself, Austin was happy that the Mexican congress had barred further import of slaves. “Slavery is now most positively prohibited by our Constitution and by a number of laws,” he wrote in June 1830, “and I do hope it may always be so.” All the same, he couldn't deny that the ban on slavery would complicate the settling of Texas.

On its face, the April 6 law was a disaster for Austin. But he had discovered in nearly a decade in Mexico that laws were only as effective as their enforcement, and he set about ensuring that the enforcement of this law didn't undo his decade's work. General Terán, besides being commander for the northeastern states, had been appointed commissioner to implement the new settlement regime in Texas; Austin lobbied the general furiously. He complained that the April 6 law impugned his motives as an empresario, not to mention his loyalty as a citizen of Mexico. “My objects in coming to Texas were sound and pure, the purest,” he told Terán. “I have worked in good faith. My highest ambition has been to win this country from the desert; and to add by this means to the prosperity, wealth, and physical and moral strength of the republic which I have adopted for my own, my rule has been fidelity and gratitude to Mexico.” His colonists stood shoulder to shoulder, heart to heart, with him in this regard. And what was the reward to their labors? “To be destroyed!!!”

Austin's protests bore fruit. Terán interpreted the law to allow Austin to fulfill his pledges to immigrants on the road to Texas. And he winked as Austin stretched the road to Texas far back into the United States—and into the minds of persons he had neither met nor communicated with. Perhaps Terán was persuaded by Austin's arguments; more likely he reckoned that he needed Austin's help if he hoped to stem the tide of illegal immigration into Texas. Whatever the reason, he essentially waived the anti-immigrant provision of the April 6 law as it applied to Austin.

Austin was tremendously relieved. In a letter sent east for publication, he explained that the pertinent article of the April 6 law exempted his colony from its strictures against immigration. “No embarrassments can be legally interposed to the immigration of honest and good men of families who are comprehended in my contracts.” Interpreting the statute for the benefit of American readers, he added, “The main object of the law of 6th of April is to keep out turbulent and bad men, vagabonds and slaves, and the true prosperity and happiness of this country requires that all those classes should be forever kept out. The honest and industrious farmer who brings his family has nothing to fear and will be well received and obtain more benefits and privileges than have ever been granted by any government on earth.”

Yet in private moments Austin appreciated that damage had been done. Not all the settlers had the same confidence in the Mexican government he did, and although Terán was construing the law casually for now, he might change his mind—or be replaced. Besides, the mere fact that the Mexican government could overturn established policy on immigration raised serious doubts regarding the future of Texas. Only with difficulty had Austin managed to convince many of his colonists of the good faith of the government in Mexico City; with the April law, the convincing became much harder.

And there was a deeper problem: Austin's own confidence in Mexico had been shaken. “I will die sooner than violate my duty to this government, and if it would let me work I would make Texas the best state that belongs to this nation,” he wrote a friend. “But, my dear sir, the truth is that the Mexicans cannot sustain a republic. The present form must fall, and what is then to become of Texas? We are too weak to set up for ourselves, unless under the protection of our powerful neighbor; and the protection which the strong affords the weak is much to be feared.”

Yet Austin wanted to believe that the situation would improve. The critical issues were numbers and time. “If we had population, our course would be a very plain one. . . . I am in hopes the federal system may stand a few years longer, and that by that time we shall get in some thousands of Swiss, Germans, etc., and North Americans.” In the short term there was definite cause for optimism. “The emigration is still uninterrupted to my colony, and there will be a great accession of strength this fall.”

Had Austin known everyone who was coming that season, he might have thought differently. William Barret Travis was a generation younger than Austin (and Sam Houston and Santa Anna), having been born in 1809. But the South Carolina native found enough trouble in twenty years to fill forty, including bad luck in love that matched the woes of Houston. Travis grew up in frontier Alabama and taught school briefly—just long enough to meet the pupil who became his wife and to discover that he couldn't survive on a teacher's pay. An attorney in Claiborne, on the Alabama River, agreed to tutor him, and within a year Travis was ready to practice on his own. To supplement his income he acquired a newspaper, the weekly
Claiborne Herald
. In an era when papers were often the organs of political parties, Travis's
Herald
asserted its independence on its masthead: “Thou Shalt Not Muzzle The Ox That Treadeth Out The Corn.”

This ox was hungry, though, and before long Travis had trouble feeding it. (In the process he discovered why papers were attached to parties: the parties provided reliable business.) The
Herald
's circulation lagged, and the poor circulation discouraged the advertising nearly every newspaper needs to cover costs.

To make matters worse, the paper distracted him from his law practice. Sundry civil suits and the odd criminal case brought him modest but irregular fees, and although he took his practice on the road to adjacent counties, his neighbors weren't sufficiently litigious or criminal to keep him busy. The law practice broke about even financially, but with the paper losing money Travis fell further behind each month.

This did nothing good for his marriage, which like many teenage matches suffered growing pains. Rosanna Cato was barely sixteen—and Travis only nineteen—when they wed. This wasn't unusual in that era, when the de facto alternative to early marriage was often illegitimate children, but neither did it make for blissful unions. As Travis and Rosanna grew up, they grew apart, despite—or perhaps because of—the son who arrived only several months after the wedding. Travis's ambition didn't help matters, especially as it remained frustrated, and his debts compounded his frustration and the tension building at home. The expected arrival of a second child aggravated the situation further, leaving both parties feeling overburdened and underappreciated. Suspicions of infidelity arose, reflecting, besides youthful passion and marital grief, the time Travis was spending on the road. Village busybodies whispered that the child Rosanna was carrying was another man's.

By the beginning of 1831, Travis's predicament had grown insupportable. His creditors were hounding him; the walls of the home he shared with Rosanna were closing in on him; her baby—and his? or some other man's?—would be arriving shortly. Travis's moment of truth came in March, when he failed to fend off the combined legal assault of several creditors. With the sheriff on the way and debtors' prison looming, Travis fled Claiborne, abandoning Rosanna (who apparently wasn't brokenhearted to see him go), their small son, her unborn child, his law practice, his newspaper, and his debts, and headed west.

Like everyone else in Alabama, Travis had heard of Texas—heard how easy it was to start a new life there and how hard it was for American creditors and sheriffs to follow deadbeats and criminals across the Sabine. And so to Texas he turned his face, traversing the Alabama River, the Mississippi, and the Sabine before reaching San Felipe in April or May. He promptly applied to Austin for a grant of land. As befit one who wished to shed an embarrassing past, he lied about his age and marital status, saying he was twenty-two (he was twenty-one) and single. He didn't have to lie about his intentions regarding the quarter league Austin awarded him (for a down payment of ten dollars), for although Austin much preferred actual farmers, so many speculators had taken up his offer of cheap land that one more rated scant notice on that account.