The conquest of the Southwest

Front matter

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Preface

So far as I know there is no book devoted entirely and specifically to the subject of this monograph, unless it be Jay's Review, referred to below, which has long been out of print. We have general histories in which the subject is treated at more or less length; and special histories, as of Texas or of the Mexican War, or of Slavery, in great number ; as well as many biographies of the principal actors in the transactions hereinafter described. But there is no book with which I am acquainted which begins with the Treaty of 1819 and closes with the Compromise of 1850.

Of the four most memorable periods in our vii

PREFACE

national history, including (1) the Revolution and the foundation of the Government, (2) the Conquest of the Southwest, (3) the Civil War, and (4) the new complexion put upon our relations with the rest of the world by the Spanish- American War and its immediate results, of which we are still a part, with the future not quite determined, the one here under discussion was not the least interesting or important. I hope, therefore, amid the many books on American history a place and a welcome may be found for this one.

In the preparation of this essay I have ransacked a vast number of books and documents, published and unpublished. In notes in the body of the work I have taken care to give references to the authorities for statements about which there is liable to be any question or dispute. A complete bibliography of the period would include so great a numviii

PREFACE

ber of titles that it would be out of place in a book of this kind. I may, however, call attention especially to several publications of great value, in addition to the widely known general histories.

First and foremost of these is The American Statesmen Series, perhaps the noblest in plan, and the ablest in results, of all the different series of books dealing with American history which have yet appeared. Another series of great importance, especially to the student of military matters, is The Great Commanders Series. For Texas affairs a monumental, if little known, work in two immense volumes, entitled A Comprehensive History of Texas from 1685 to 1897, edited by Dudley G. Wooten and published by William H. Scarff at Dallas in 1898, is indispensable. It contains a wealth of reminiscence, personal memorabilia, and valuable documents and papers, besides sevix

PREFACE

eral histories of Texas not otherwise available. I have found it of great service.

To these I may add William Jay's unique and invaluable Review of the Causes and Consequences of the Mexican War, Alfred M. Williams' Sam Houston and the War of Independence in Texas, General Cadmus M. Wilcox's History of the Mexican War, and The Messages and Papers of the Presidents of the United States, as being helpful and interesting. In conclusion, I take advantage of this opportunity to acknowledge valuable assistance, in searching records and verifying quotations and calculations, from my son, Cyrus Townsend Brady, Jr.

C. T. B.

Brooklyn, N. Y., December 7, 1904»

Part I Texas And Its Independence Chapter Page

I. — Preliminary Discussion 1

II. — Texas to the Close of the Fredonian War . 15

III. — Beginnings of the Texan Revolution . . 37

IV.— General Sam Houston 65

V. — The Declaration of Independence — The Constitution 79

VI.— The Alamo and Golla.d 99

VII. — San Jacinto — The New Republic — Stephen F.

Austin 121

PART II the MEXICAN WAR AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

VIII. — Causes of the Mexican War .... 143 IX. — Causes of the Mexican War, Continued — Contrasting Opinions 165

X. — The Mexican War — General Taylor XI. The Mexican War— General Scott XII. — First Efforts at Negotiation XIII. — The Final Settlement .

XIV.— What it Cost— A Cheaper Way . XV. — Concluding Remarks — Compromise of 1850 Index .

xi

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

TACINQ PAGE

The Death-Struggle in the Alamo — Bowie's Last Shot ....... Frontispiece

Portrait of General Sam Houston. F7'om an old daguerreotype 68

A View of the Alamo 102

The Death of David Crockett 108

Portrait of General Zachary Taylor 190

The Capture of Monterey. From the original hy Nehel . 202

Portrait of General Winfield Scott 208

The Bombardment of Vera Cruz. From the original hy

Nehel 210

The Battle of Buena Vista. From the original hy Nehel. 214 The Battle of Cerro Gordo. From the original painting

hy Chappel 218

The Storming of Chapultepec. From the original painting hy Poivell 222

General Scott's Entrance into IMexico. From the original

hy Nehel 224

MAPS AND PLANS

The United States on March 4, 1825. Showing territory then owned by Mexico, but since acquired for the United States by conquest 18

The Boundaries of Texas, 1819-1850 38 '

A Part of Texas and Northern Mexico. Showing the field

of General Taylor's operations 188

The Route from Vera Cruz to Mexico .... 206

xiii

PART I TEXAS AND ITS INDEPENDENCE

Chapter I Preliminary Discussion Chapter I

PKELIMINAKY DISCUSSION

Fkom that Treaty of Paris in 1783 whereby our Independence was formally acknowledged by Great Britain, to that other Treaty of Paris in 1898 which terminated the War with Spain, the territory of the United States, with one notable exception, was increased by the peaceful method of negotiation and purchase. Viewing the series of operations which began with the colonization of Texas and closed with the Gadsden Purchase as a single transaction, this one exception to the usual mode of procedure — which I call the Conquest of the Southwest — added the largest single increment to the original territory, not even excepting the Louisiana Purchase.

The whole proceeding may be described as 2 3 the story of the spoliation of a weaker power by a stronger, and is the one serious blot upon our national history. The conduct of the United States was wholly indefensible in a large part of the operations about to be discussed, and no truly patriotic citizen can think of it without an abiding sense of shame. Nor can our mortification be diminished by our recognition of the fact that in many particulars the conduct of Mexico during the period was an affront to civilization.

There are three methods of accounting for the Conquest of the Southwest, which is the general name under which I include all of the various acts hereafter to be described. Each of these methods pointedly ignores the others. After much study and a careful consideration of the evidence, I have come to the conclusion that each is in large measure correct. Briefly stated, one cause for the conquest was the desire on the part of the slave-holding states to add new territory to the Union out of which other slave-holding states could be constituted from time to time as needed, thus preserving the balance of power as between the slave-holding and the free states.

The second cause was the jealousy, tyranny and misgovernment of the Mexican state of Texas by the Mexican authorities; their refusal to permit the American settlers to enjoy those privileges to which from time immemorial they had been accustomed in England and the United States under the common law; 'the attempt to keep them under the operation of the Roman or civil law ; and the anarchical confusion and instability of the Mexican general government. These brought about the inevitable revolution of Texas against Mexico, in which the sympathy and more material assistance of the United States were freely given to Texas, in violation of international comity, but in conformity to natural relationship. The independence of Texas being assured, thereafter the resulting boundary line on the west was ill defined, and the attempt by the United States, after Texas had been annexed, to delimit its territory by maintaining the extreme Texan claim, naturally produced war.

The third cause is admirably expressed by Theodore Roosevelt, who says, with regard to our encroachments upon the boundaries of neighboring powers, especially beyond the Mississippi and beyond the somewhat indefinite lines of the Louisiana Purchase:

'* The general feeling in the West upon this last subject afterward crystallized into what became known as the ' Manifest Destiny ' idea, which, reduced to its simplest terms, was: that it was our manifest destiny to swallow up the land of all adjoining nations who were too weak to withstand us ; a theory that forthwith obtained immense popularity among all statesmen of easy international morality. . . . Recent historians, for instance, always speak as if our grasping after territory in the Southwest was due solely to the desire of the Southerners to acquire lands out of which to carve new slave-holding States, and as if it was merely a move in the interests of the slave power. This is true enough so far as the motives of Calhoun, Tyler, and the other public leaders of the Gulf and Southern Seaboard States were concerned. But the hearty

Western support given to the government was due to entirely different causes, the chief among them being the fact that the Westerners honestly believed themselves to be created the heirs of the earth, or at least of so much of it as was known by the name of North America, and were prepared to struggle stoutly for the immediate possession of their heritage. ' ' ^

Thomas H. Benton voiced the popular feeling of his section in these fiery words, quoted by Roosevelt:

^' The magnificent valley of the Mississippi is ours, with all its fountains, springs, and floods ; and woe to the statesman who shall undertake to surrender one drop of its water, one inch of its soil to any foreign power."

To the mind of Benton, who was accustomed to point westward and say, " There is the East, there is India," the Mississippi Valley doubtless transcended the Rocky Mountains and extended to the Pacific.

' American Statesmen, vol. xxiii. Thomas H. Benton, by Theodore Roosevelt.

For this spoliation, the United States has been condemned absolutely on the one hand, while on the other, with equal zeal, it has been entirely justified. It does not seem to have occurred to any one that all these motives for action worked together to bring about the end achieved. And it is undoubtedly true that, while the preponderance of wrong-doing was with us, we were not entirely to blame, for there were some extenuating circumstances.

It is absolutely certain — indeed, it is nowhere authoritatively denied, but on the contrary it has been affirmed many times by the people of the South, through their representatives, that they did most earnestly desire to acquire territory south of the line of the Missouri Compromise out of which to create slave-holding states ; that their desire for the annexation of Texas was based primarily upon that possibility ; that they prosecuted the war with Mexico for the avowed purpose of securing the territory between 36° 30' (the line of the compromise) and the Rio Grande, clear to the Pacific, in order that they might have some place of overflow for their slave-holding population, to counterbalance the possible free states in the upper portion of the Louisiana Purchase in which the bulk of that vast increment lay.^

It is equally obvious that such vacillation, such misgovernment, such exploitation of the public for private ends, as was exhibited by the Mexican government and the successive adventurers who assumed the Dictatorship during the earlier years of Texan history, inevitably would have produced a revolution among a people trained under the free and orderly democratic institutions of America, as the Texans had been. This revolution would have

* The solidarity and the political domination of the South in our affairs for the first eighty years of our national existence is one of the most remarkable facts in our history — an Imperium in Imperio! The solidarity still remains ; if a charge is brought against an Alabamian, for instance, the whole South is affronted and resentful ! When a New Yorker or a Chicagoan is faulted, the North or the West do not feel that they have been insulted. It will be good for the South, and the country, when the solidarity is broken ; but that will never be, I fear, until the negro question is settled definitely in some way. The political domination is ended long since.

occurred entirely independent of the question of slavery. The Texan Republic must inevitably have been established if there had not been a slave in the United States, although the action of the Mexican government — one of the few good things to its credit, by the way — on the question of slavery, undoubtedly greatly increased the irritation of Texans. Nor could the United States be justly blamed for the subsequent annexation of the Texan territory, even though the prime reason for annexation was the possible creation of slave states, if the United States had stopped with annexation. As a matter of fact, the possession of Texas whetted the desire of the United States for the acquisition of further territory which, in pursuance of that " Manifest Destiny," we took iniquitous and unjust means to acquire, the indefinite boundary line and certain shadowy and fictitious claims furnishing the necessary pretext The utter helplessness of Mexico after the war, rendered the seizure of California easy, and that without any pretext at all. 10

In the whole transaction, from a legal and moral standpoint, Mexico occupied the correct position, but — and it is a singular commentary on that fact — Mexico had largely forfeited her claim to consideration by the hideous crimes and excesses of which she had been guilty, and the frightful punishments she had inflicted upon her victims, as well as by her failure to establish a stable and efficient government. I am sure that in the minds of the people of the United States there was a contempt for her vacillation only surpassed by the positive hatreds engendered by her unspeakable cruelties in Texas. For the former we might have had charity; to the true patriots among her citizens — and there were not a few — we might, we should, have given the help and encouragement a weak and struggling country seeking independence and stability has a right to expect from a great, a free, and an enlightened people.

But all these considerations were lost sight of in a righteous indignation over the butchery 11 of the Alamo and tlie massacre at Goliad ; and it was felt that Mexico should be punished, and punished she accordingly was — by conquest and robbery. In other words, the gross misconduct of Mexico had to a large extent obscured the moral issue, and by many of our citizens the issue therefore was not seen clearly. That is one of the extenuating circumstances to which I have alluded, and perhaps the principal one. A nation may have a righteous cause and yet forfeit the good opinion of its neighbors by unrighteous conduct in its endeavor to maintain it.

Nor may it be gainsaid, in the light of subsequent developments, that it was vastly better for humanity in general and for the conquered section in particular, that it should become a part of the United States rather than remain a part of Mexico. Mexico probably never could have administered and developed California and the West as we have done. And Mexico, now a homogeneous state south of the Rio Grande, has probably become 12 mucli better able to work out her destiny without the lost territory — just as Spain really profited by the loss of her rebellious colonies in 1898.

All this, however, does not condone our method of acquiring the territory in question.

Chapter II Texas To The Close Of The Fredonian War

CHAPTER II

TEXAS TO THE CLOSE OF THE FKEDONIAN WAR

Texas is the only portion of our territory wliieh has been under six flags — the Spanish, French, Mexican, Texan, Confederate and United States ensigns. ^^ The name of Texas is said by some to have had its origin in the greeting given De Leon by the Indians, who called the Spaniards ^ Tejia ' or * Tejas,' meaning friends. On the other hand, the origin of the name has been ascribed by others to the covering of the tents or wigwams of the Indians, which was called Tejia (plural, Tejas). Hence Tejas or Texas — * The land of Tents.' A more correct derivation is, perhaps, that which traces the name to the Tejas Indians, a tribe formerly living between the Neches and the Trinity Rivers." ^

^ Seth Shephard : Introduction to A Comprehensive History of Texas.

''If the evidence of one of the missionaries can be accepted — and there seems no good reason to the contrary — Tejas was the name, not of a single tribe, but of a confederacy of nearly thirty including nine tribes of the Asinais or Cenis. It was but natural that this name should be extended to the whole region, theretofore without one of its own. Neuvas Filipinas, which was for some time the official designation, was not sufficiently upon the popular tongue, and was at length displaced entirely by Texas. ' ' ^

The first European to set foot upon the territory between the Mississippi and the Rio Grande was a Spaniard, Alonzo Alvarez de Pineda, in 1519. The wanderings of Cabeza de Vaca led him through it in 1528. Vasquez de Coronado crossed it in 1540. Hernando de Soto entered it in 1542, and Franciscan Missions were established among the Indians in 1580-83 by Spanish priests. The first white colony was planted on its shores in Matagorda Bay by the heroic and unfortunate Frenchman,

* American Commonwealths: Texas, by George P. Garrison.

Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle, in 1685. Actual settlement of the country was effected by the Spaniards who continually thereafter held the territory west of the Sabine in spite of the expeditions and claims of France.

In 1762 the Louisiana territory had been ceded to Spain by Louis XV; but in 1801 it was receded to France by Carlos IV, and in 1803 was purchased by the United States. In these successive changes of ownership the western limits of this purchase were nowhere accurately defined. The claims of Spain extended to the Mississippi River, those of the United States to the Rio Grande. A vast zone was thus in dispute. Practically the boundary was the Sabine River. West of that the Spanish held title, east of it the Americans. There was no question but that the Spaniards were in actual possession of the greater part of the territory, but that counted for little in the final settlement of the question.

Several expeditions west of the Sabine, which were neither more nor less than filibus- 19 tering enterprises, were undertaken by Americans during the first quarter of the last century. Among them the most notable were those of Nolan in 1801, Magee in 1812, and Long, who in 1821 actually declared a republic at the Spanish settlement of Nacogdoches — one of the three oldest towns in Texas, the two others being San Antonio de Bexar and Goliad, or La Bahia. These three at that time were practically the only towns in the territory. Some of these expeditions were of considerable magnitude, that of Magee, an of&cer in the United States Army, who had resigned his commission to lead this adventure, being the largest and most important. These filibustering expeditions had but one result, the utter devastation and ruin of the country. Desperate battles were fought. Magee's forces won several important victories, but after his death they were defeated with great slaughter ; out of eight hundred Americans in the final battle only ninety-three returned to the United States.

TEXAS TO TEE FREDONIAN WAR

As there were Mexicans on both sides of these affairs, many having espoused the cause of the American adventurers, and thus being in rebellion against the Spanish government, the contests were marked by frightful atrocities and were, in effect, wars of extermination. So ruthlessly were the laws of war broken, that many of the American officers in Magee's following withdrew in disgust from further participation in a campaign, the excesses and cruelties of which they were unable to moderate or to prevent, and which they were not willing to countenance. Prisoners were usually murdered. Long^s Republic was quickly put down. Long himself was captured, taken a prisoner to Mexico and while in captivity assassinated.

Various military commanders had attempted to come to some temporary modus vivendi about the boundary. Generals Wilkinson and Herrera had agreed, for instance, to consider the territory between the Sabine and Arroyo Hondo as neutral ground, the Spanish gov- 21 ernor being moved thereto by fear of Aaron Burr's proposed enterprise.

Wilkinson, one of the meanest characters in our history, can not be held innocent of encouraging and even inciting some of these expeditions. He was commander-in-chief of the American army, and, as he was stationed in the Southwest, he might and should have prevented them. The country had been devastated. In 1820 it is estimated that in the whole vast extent of Texas there were not above four thousand people exclusive of aborigines. The Franciscans, with heroic courage and devotion to the church, had established a chain of mission stations, whose chapels, churches and other buildings remain to-day as evidence of their consecration; but their missionary work had largely come to naught, owing to the frightful disorders in the country.

The boundary question continued in the indeterminate state in which Wilkinson and Herrera had left it, until the Adams-Onis Treaty with Spain in 1819. By this, in return 22 for the substantial cession of Florida to the United States, the United States relinquished vague and indefinite claims to certain territorywest of the Mississippi. The boundary between Louisiana and the Spanish possessions was established by Article III as follows :

'' The boundary line between the two countries, west of the Mississippi, shall begin on the Gulph of Mexico, at the mouth of the river Sabine, in the sea, continuing north, along the western bank of that river, to the 32d degree of latitude; thence, by a line due north, to the degree of latitude where it strikes the Rio Eoxo of Nachitoches, or Red River ; then, following the course of the Rio Roxo westward, to the degree of longitude 100 west from London and 23 from "Washington; then, crossing the said Red River, and running thence, by a line due north, to the river Arkansas ; thence, following the course of the southern bank of the Arkansas, to its source, in latitude 42 north ; and thence, by that parallel of latitude, to the South Sea. The whole being as laid down in Melish's map of the United States, published at Philadelphia, improved to the first of January, 1818. But if the source of the Arkansas River shall be found to fall north or south of latitude 42, then the line shall run from 23 the said source due south or north, as the case may be, till it meets the said parallel of latitude 42, and thence, along the said parallel, to the South Sea: All the islands in the Sabine, and the said Red and Arkansas Rivers, throughout the course thus described, to belong to the United States ; but the use of the waters, and the navigation of the Sabine to the sea, and of the said rivers Roxo and Arkansas, throughout the extent of the said boundary, on their respective banks, shall be common to the respective inhabitants of both nations.

* ' The two high contracting parties agree to cede and renounce all their rights, claims, and pretensions to the territories described by the said line, that is to say: The United States hereby cede to His Catholic Majesty, and renounce forever, all their rights, claims, and pretensions, to the territories lying west and south of the above-described line; and, in like manner. His Catholic Majesty cedes to the said United States all his rights, claims, and pretensions to any territories east and north of the said line, and for himself, his heirs, and successors, renounces all claim to the said territories forever. ' ' ^

^ Treaties and Conventions Between the United States and Other Powers Since July 4, 1776 : Government Printing Office, 1871.

The treaty was signed on February 22, 1819, at Washington, by John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State, on the part of the United States, and Don Luis de Onis, Spanish Minister, on the part of Spain. Adams was justly proud of his work, and noted in his diary that it was "perhaps the most important day of my life." This treaty was not ratified by Spain until October 24, 1820, nor by the United States until March 3, 1821.

About this time the attention of a Connecticut Yankee named Moses Austin was attracted to the possibilities of Texas as a home for colonies composed of men who were already American citizens. Austin was born in Durham, Connecticut, about 1764. He emigrated to Wythe County, Virginia, while yet a young man, and engaged in mining, but without much success. There, in 1793, his son Stephen Fuller was born. Moses Austin was a slaveholder. In 1797, with his family and slaves, he moved to the Louisiana territory and continued in the mining business with somewhat 25 better success tlian before, at Mine-a-Burton, afterward Potosi, about forty miles west of St. Genevieve in what is now Missouri.

Austin had the Puritan passion for education and the means to gratify it. He sent his son to the best schools and colleges in that part of the country in which he lived. In 1820 he went to Texas to obtain permission, if possible, to introduce American colonists. He applied to the Spanish provincial governor at Bexar, but was rebuffed and ordered to return immediately to the United States.

Preparing to comply with this command, he happened to meet an acquaintance who knew him personally and by reputation as a man of honor and probity. This was a German soldier of fortune, the Baron de Bastrop, who was then in the service of the Spanish government. The meeting was a chance one. Here again, we see how much depends upon accident! The discouraged American promoter and the German free-lance, running across each other without design, changed the course of history in that part of the continent. Through the influence of the Baron de Bastrop, Austin got a further hearing from the Spanish governor, when his project was received with favor and a message was despatched to the Spanish viceroy at Mexico asking his consent. Austin waited a long time for his reply, and as it did not come, and as his affairs at home needed his attention, he left the country for Missouri. On his return journey he suffered great hardships and died shortly after he reached his home, but not until he learned that his petition had been granted.

Austin's son Stephen at that time had gone to New Orleans to look after the affairs of the colonists whom it was hoped he and his father might be able to introduce into Texas, when to him was brought the news that the desired permission had been given. It was decreed by the Spanish government that all the colonists should be of the Roman Catholic religion, and that they should be people of good character who would make worthy subjects of 27 the King of Spain, to whom they were required to take the oath of allegiance. Each male colonist over twenty-one years of age was to be allowed six hundred and forty acres. If he were married, he was to have three hundred and twenty additional acres for his wife, one hundred and sixty for each child, and eighty for each slave. Thus the introduction of slavery into the territory was legally permitted at the very beginning. The promoter of the enterprise, who was called the Empresario, was to have large grants of land, which were to become his own holdings, and depending in area upon the number of families he introduced. Each family was required to pay the Empresario a trifling sum per acre for the grants he received, in order to provide for the necessary expenses of the undertaking, which the Empresario himself assumed.

Austin, who was a man of parts and energy, took up his father's project vigorously and led his first colonists into Texas in December, 1821. In the spring of 1822, Mexico threw oft' her allegiance to Spain and became an independent country. It was necessary, therefore, for Austin to go to the capital at once in order to secure a reaffirmation of his grant from the new government. By the time he reached the city of Mexico, Augustin de Iturbide had made himself Emperor. On February 18, 1823, after some difficulty, the decree was reaffirmed, with such alterations as had been made necessary by the political changes of the country, but in all the essential particulars it was confirmed by Iturbide.

Before Austin could leave for Texas, there occurred another revolution in Mexico, and Iturbide was deposed. Mexico became a republic with a triumvirate, composed of Negrete, Bravo and Guadalupe Victoria, as the temporary executive, while the congress busied itself with making a constitution under which the government should be established and conducted. As the sessions of this congress were protracted, Austin realized that it would be some time before he could get anything from 29 it, and so appealed to the triple executive for a second reaffirmation of his charter, which he received on the 14th of April, 1823.

There was one difference between the first charter of the Spanish government and that issued by the Emperor Iturbide and confirmed by the triumvirate. In the latter it was stated that in Texas there should be "no sale or purchase of slaves and that children of slaves born in the Empire were to be free at fourteen years of age." This provision would have brought about the gradual and orderly abolition of slavery. The colonists do not appear to have been greatly troubled by these restrictions.