DOONAN HARRIS COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY COMPACT HISTORY “Archie P.McDonald Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2022 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation https://archive.org/details/texascompacthistO000mcdo Texas: A Compact History Archie P McDonald State“ House Press McMurry University Abilene, Texas Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data McDonald, Archie P. Texas: a compact history / Archie PR McDonald. pcm: ISBN-13: 978-1-933337-15-9 (pbk.: alk. paper) ISBN-10: 1-933337-15-X (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. Texas—History. I. Title. F386.M345 2006 976.4—dc22 2006033174 Copyright 2007, State House Press All Rights Reserved State House Press McMurry Station, Box 637 Abilene, TX 79697-0637 (325) 572-3974 (325) 572-3991 fax www.mcwhiney.org/press No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission from State House Press, unless by reviewers for reviews. Printed in the United States of America Distributed by Texas A&M University Press Consortium www.tamu.edu/upress 1-800-826-8911 ISBN-10: 1-933337-15-X ISBN-13: 978-1-933337-15-9 10987654321 Book Designed by Rosenbohm Graphic Design TABLE OF CONTENTS POH Ee COUNTY actexa < shan eu Mad eam eendea sd 9 BUreLeee GUCU Heine seer i een hain Grate oak Ga wie tong ke 19 eV N a SeTEs RSS. GS AAR eae eee eee ea ee ne 2 PO Me a aUPES an pee cd i ney. CaN gas of yeehie ce 40 Heels Pe CNUIES Olas pssca Cotas Poe kikia 0d e pels vs,5.5Groaware Da RED UMN iD LORI Sn Patna a veteran SA Gn Nh Hee Da Qan a on a boLea) EERIE epee aa aR gig nos ean ee eee a a, 86 GEREN eS ee che OR NE RN a Sn ae 101 Reconstruction and Indian Wars.s i. i052 44... 6. 4s: 116 Economical and Social Changes tine RE cat hottest: 136 ite Peet CoetaNN REA at, REEMA, Pate cihin Wi orale Skin ha 154 Weniess Mae aL Senses Site Nes iets Pea tke oy 173 Hess UPA OC HTINIEY ie ons ap adn esddes Mise nyo Se ors 189 Devittaladie seen tiie ere ceded aces toes coe Sonny a 208 orl ONTIA le MraSie iets dbo ny ai ea Some ao waves ees miann aes 225 MAPS AND TABLES tee ptOlS Olle kas akin acnd nese Ga RoR ekaGas 13 PGMs UAC S MEeA weenie Bent Wen rahiaden asa 21 MISSIONS ANC Presidios iN LEXAS..6 vec Ves bes addedes 32 PAETeMCH LlipeaL JOGO" IVeUie ces .4hS5 cere hue as 34 The Gutiérrez-Magee Expedition, 1812-1813......... 45 Empresario Colonies in Texas, 1824-1835............ 49 The Disturbances, 182, save Gc HGss oh oes kainswe ven 59 Pie salu {acinte Cam pale. Os. aces tie we occas Pie 69 LN eed es a8oc Pes yen a ge eR ae ee we 81 Tine NOLe Tot ANNexAtOG, LB45 ac.c ten ania aris 54 a eau 83 Texans in the Mexican War, 1846-1848............... 89 Texas Territory Ceded in the Compromise of 1850... . 92 southera Migration Routes-to Texas... <a6¢ oe os cannes oT ders and texans in te Civil War sac! sok ee ke ok 108 dS. Ponts ang Posts; 1848 -1860s a. fowls cst ssc eee 8 128 RSF Otis ARON POSS O69 80027 airs sto ek Acon gtels hea 130 MEETIE MLCALS oye am ois cee emis ari Rane ad 133 eat rons: 9 20 ee gear et hcc eeatneae > 139 World War DiramningsBases v.26 Jeske anid eau.’ 165 OirandiGas Producing Counties. 3.2 iy .5 bese a: 167 World War II Bases and Installations ............... 182 sWanizatOl OLlexaSancs. ins bi aclts se 6b ae e'sa0 191 Population Change, 1800-2004". 5.08 ae a. ale eas 193 Percent of Texas Population in 2000 by Ethnicity PUR este nage erie aia teeGress Ran aoe clade nceace oS Oe 215 (GOVETNIOLS SINCE ANNEXAUOMN, 2 Pe 5 104 ts ales as opie 2 Pr GlesslOnia OPOltSramsa wadad acs os nA aveiee oe unere ereed Maps by Donald S. Frazier INTRODUCTION A WHOLE OTHER COUNTRY “Beautiful, Beautiful Texas, Where the beautiful bluebonnets grow We're proud of our forefathers, Who fought at the Alamo You can live on the plains or the mountains Or down where the sea breezes blow And youre still in Beautiful Texas The most beautiful place that I know.” —FROM THE SONG “BEAUTIFUL, BEAUTIFUL TEXAS” BY W. LEE O’DANIEL Texas—“A Whole Other Country.” This familiar slogan promotes tourism as much within the Lone Star State as from elsewhere because Texans, either native born or the kind who “got here as quickly as they could,” think of their portion of the Union as a place apart. The state is as var- ied as East Texas timberland, hundreds of miles of seashore, the prairies of the central and High Plains, or the sandy, dry desert country of far West Texas. Texas’ var- ious regions are beautiful, each in its own way, and citi- Texas: A COMPACT HISTORY zens of the sum of the parts appreciate them individually as much as they take pride in their state’s uniqueness. We're From Texas. When traveling abroad and asked “where are you from,” residents of forty-nine states are likely to answer, “The USA.” Most who live in the fiftieth state, on the other hand, will respond, “Texas.” Author John Bainbridge called Texans “Super Americans,” mean- ing that they expand every trait of Americanness, both positive and negative, a bit beyond others. So when Texans answer the question that way, they are not being un-American—instead, most just want the inquisitor to know exactly where in America they call home. The world encourages Texans in their chauvinism. Mass media celebrates and exploits Texas and Texans in television shows and motion pictures about the Alamo, Texas Rangers, the oil industry, politics, and athletics, to name only a few genre. So what it means to be a Texan is paraded—and even satirized—but Texans remain proud of their distinctiveness and consciously “pass it on” to each succeeding generation. Real Texans. The last official Census Day—January 2004—found 22,490,022 residents of Texas; natural birth and migration doubtless raised that number well beyond twenty-three million within months. Texas’ population has been increasing by approximately five million per- sons per decade over the last two decennial censes. Most recent available figures report over fifty-three percent of the population as “white,” or actually “Anglo;” nearly thir- ty-two percent Hispanic, twelve percent black, and slight- ly over three percent “other,” mainly Asian. On an ordinary day 1,020 new Texans are born and only 426 die, yielding an average daily gain of 594. Nearly 10 A WHOLE OTHER COUNTRY 1,000 Texans marry each day, but 468 of them also divorce. Over two million Texans live in Houston, 1.2 mil- lion in San Antonio and Dallas, and a significant number also reside in Austin—the state capital—and in Fort Worth and El Paso. Houston is the state's largest city in physical spread and population, but the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, including Arlington, Plano, Mesquite, and Garland, not to mention numerous incorporated communities surrounded by such larger entities, is com- parable to Los Angeles or Chicago in size. The Natural Environment. Texas sprawls over 268,581 square miles, with over 6,000 square miles covered by the waters of lakes and rivers. Nearly 900 miles separates Texarkana or Orange, located on the state’s eastern bor- der, and El Paso in the far west, or Brownsville in South Texas and Dalhart, located in the Panhandle not far from the border with Oklahoma and New Mexico. Texas is usually wet and lush in the east, where Newton County averages fifty-five inches of precipitation yearly, and dry in the west, where El Paso receives only eight inch- es, as likely snow as rain. It gets cold in Amarillo, in the Panhandle, but usually remains warm in South Texas, yielding a growing season range of only 200 days per year in the north to as much as 350 days in the south. Principal Products. Texans are proud of their state government's pro-business attitude, low taxes, and mini- mum regulation beyond national standards. Texas’ tradi- tional products—‘“cotton, cattle, and crude’—are still abundant, but chickens, vegetables and citrus, nursery stock, and especially petrochemicals and natural gas pro- duction now contribute significantly to a gross state product that exceeds $800 billion and increases annually. dal Texas: A COMPACT HISTORY Politics. The Democratic Party dominated Texas poli- tics from Redemption—or chasing out the Carpetbaggers and Scalawags of Reconstruction infamy—for nearly a century. Texans voted Republican only three times during that century, once for Herbert Hoover in 1928 and twice for Dwight Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956. Dividing Texans between liberals and conservatives, however, they tended toward conservatism after the 1920s except for embracing Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal in the desperate days of the Depression in the 1930s. After World War II and the recovery it yielded, a “Texas Democrat” often meant a voter who stuck with the Democratic Party in local and state elections, but those they elected were more conser- vative than many Republicans in other states. The election of Republicans John Tower to represent Texas in the U.S. Senate in 1961 and William P. Clements as governor in 1978 started a shift to one-party govern- ment by Republicans. By the first decade of the twenty- first century, Republicans held all statewide elected offices, controlled both houses of the state legislature, and dominated the state judiciary, which is elected. Sections. Texas is situated in the south central region of the United States. Because of this location, all three major landforms of North America converge here. The Eastern Forest Region extends into Texas approximately a hundred miles. The state's far western section is part of the Mountain and Desert region that continues to the Pacific Ocean, and the central and northern portions of Texas represent the southernmost extension of the Great Plains. Texas can be divided. into distinct regions, including East Texas, the Coastal Plain, the Lower Rio Grande Valley, the Basin and Mountain Region, the Central Plains, and the High Plains. 12 A WHOLE OTHER COUNTRY 106 ip 104 | coe rete 100' * O8' 96 | | ee a baa _| | | | au eaN aa A] ie | Tram arillo | ? } | ree: uy nN a a Wie OD he {eet Red River ie é | } 4 ‘steel a | | Abilene an El Capitan} lara 1X. <a EI Paso, juadalupe Peak pee PLAINS } B NAND MQUNTAIN < if| / Seed oan Antonio / i | “A = f Kingsville * Corpus Christ Be | The Regions < \\ foe BIG” THICKET Kountzes Silsbee Beaumont } : LE RBGHON # & eaustin : | <0 Par ieie oe b> SF 2 ES ful - oo a ane |i 2a Houston rt Arthur?) ytown |S— ‘| Pasadena” Se a , 7 | ( wv ‘\ \RIO GRANDE oF lexas” © eas PL —— _ sae | Sees : |Brownsyjlle East Texas. East Texas lies north of the Coastal Plain along the Sabine River, the state’s border with Louisiana. It is the western extremity of the United States’ Southern Forest, characterized by extensive growth of various species of pine trees with hardwoods interspersed, especially along streams and on ridges. The area north of Silsbee and Kountze is known as the Big Thicket because of the density of the forest, especially the undergrowth. Early settlers described the thicket as “tight eye,’ so dense one could not see into it for an appreciable distance. East Texas hosts the Big Thicket 13 Texas: A COMPACT HISTORY Biological Preserve, which represents a modified victory for environmental preservationists. East Texas featured family farms until World War II; since then the primary agricultural crop has been timber and wood products, plus pastures for cattle, and chicken houses that feed out millions of birds for processing plants in Pittsburg, Nacogdoches, and Lufkin. East Texas still produces crude oil, and Nacogdoches County leads the state in natural gas production. The Coastal Plain. The Coastal Plain begins in the Golden Triangle—Beaumont, Port Arthur, and Orange— on the southeastern border with Louisiana and extends approximately 400 miles around the rim of the Gulf of Mexico to Brownsville. The Port Arthur/Beaumont, Galveston and Houston via the Ship Channel, Corpus Christi, and Brownsville areas offer excellent port facili- ties. Otherwise the coastal plain includes sandy beaches, bays rich in marine life, Padre Island—a long barrier island partially occupied by a national seashore and resorts especially popular with Spring Breakers and salt water fishermen—and natural savannahs. The coastal area between Beaumont/Port Arthur and Corpus Christi is home to the majority of Texas petrochemical plants and refineries, especially in the Baytown/Pasadena/ Houston areas. Rio Grande Valley. Called simply “The Valley” by most Texans, the lower Rio Grande area is the cornucopia of Texas’ row-crop agricultural production made possible by irrigation. The Valley produces truck crops and citrus, especially the famous Ruby Red grapefruit. The King Ranch, known for its Santa Gertrudis breed of cattle, quarter horses, and oil and gas production, sprawls just 14 A WHOLE OTHER COUNTRY to the north of The Valley proper on the Rio Grande Plain. Its offices at Kingsville serve as headquarters for an inter- national agricultural enterprise. The Valley's Mexican- American population dominates its labor force, culture, and in politics. Basin and Mountain Region. The area west of the Pecos River to El Paso contains Texas’ true desert and mountain region. Guadalupe Peak located near the boundary between Texas and New Mexico is the state’s highest peak. Southeast of El Paso the Rio Grande forms a huge “V,” or Big Bend, on its course to the Gulf of Mexico. This is the southern boundary of the Big Bend National Park, a part of the National Park Service. El Paso and Juarez, twin cities located across the Rio Grande, wit- nessed revolutionary strife at the beginning of the twen- tieth century but now co-exist in international tranquili- ty based on the workforce needs of El Paso and maquiladoras manufacturing based south of the border. The most western part of the region operates on Mountain Time, while the rest of Texas functions in the Central Time Zone. When El Pasoans say, “Let’s go to the beach,” they mean San Diego, not Galveston, because California’s beaches are closer. The Central Plains. Most of Texas is plains, the physi- cal feature of the central United States from its border with Canada, or the 49th parallel. The central plains extend at least as far south as the Edwards Plateau, or the region located just north of San Antonio, and includes such subregions as the Hill Country, or the Austin area, and the rolling landscapes that continue northward to the Red River. Sheep, goats, and grains are leading prod- ucts, along with bluebonnets—the official state flower— ibs) TExAs: A COMPACT HISTORY and Indian paintbrushes, native wildflowers that bring color to the area in the spring. The High Plains. The High Plains, called “South Plains” around Lubbock and “High” nearer Amarillo, when quickened by what historian Don Green called the “underground rain” of the Ogallala Aquifer, became Texas’ row crop agricultural headquarters for corn and cotton many decades ago. Motorists comment that cot- ton fields there are so extensive one cannot see the end of the rows while speeding by on Interstate 27. Grains grown in the area also enable numerous feedlots for cattle to operate on the High Plains. Soils and Fauna. The soils of Texas vary from the sandy loam of East Texas to the thin, rocky Hill Country to the rich loess of the High Plains. Eastern Texas is home to the many animals of the forest, and its large, man-made reser- voirs—Toledo Bend, Sam Rayburn, Texoma, and Lake of the Pines—teem with large-mouthed bass and bream. Farther west live jackrabbits and white-tailed deer, and even antelope in the Davis Mountains. In recent years the banded armadillo has become a state mascot for Texas. Texas: Sum of its Parts. All these areas make Texas, at least from the perspective of its tourism promoters, “A Whole Other Country” despite its true status as the twen- ty-eighth state of the United States of America. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, Texas is the second largest state in the Union—second to Alaska in physical size and second to California in population. Texas is as modern as the National Air and Space Agency, based in Houston, and as ancient as prehistoric pictographs etched in the walls of caves at Hueco Tanks and the energy cap- tured in its subterranean parts millions of years ago. 16 A WHOLE OTHER COUNTRY Texas has been invaded by American Indians, Spaniards, the French, and Anglo-Americans, even “Yankees,” especially during Reconstruction, again by out-bound Rust Belt refugees and the “Snow Birds” who winter in Texas’ warmer climes. All marked it, changed it, and eventually made it the Texas the state is today. This is their story—how Texas came to be as it is. Ms INDIANS IN TEXAS “High in the sky I go, waking in the sky I go, High above the way below, way below. By my side a bird will go Bird and I above the way below, way below. High across the sky Igo, walking with a bird I go, All around the sky we go All around we go, in the sky we go, bird and I.” —“DREAM SONG” FROM SEA TO SHINING SEA BY AMY COHN, TEXAS STATE LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES COMMISSION American Indians. American Indian migrations spanned thousands ofyears. Their reasons for moving are unknown, but we may assume that the Indians were “running from” something negative rather than “running to” something positive. Some may have crossed a land bridge no longer extant, or at least an Arctic ice bridge, and some could have made the trip via out-rigger vessels. They were called “Indians” by Europeans for cen- turies, a name applied to them by the first Spaniards because they lived in what the Spaniards called the Indies. Toward the end of the twentieth century, some 19 TEXAS: A COMPACT HISTORY preferred to be called Native Americans because their ancestors arrived in the New World before the Europeans. American Indian Culture. American Indians eventu- ally occupied the entire Western Hemisphere, though their total numbers never exceeded a few million people. The first Indians survived as hunters and gatherers, but eventually some developed agricultural practices and more or less permanent residences, at least in a specific area. Indian farmers ultimately developed approximately one-half of the world’s edible crops and were especially successful in cultivating corn—what much of the world’s people call maize—and utilizing this remarkable grain in a variety of ways. Most Indians of the Americas existed in primitive cul- tures. The “highest” Indian civilizations—meaning those most like European cultures with developed religious, economic, and civic institutions and languages—devel- oped in southern Mexico and Central America. This was because the most people accumulated where food could be obtained more easily—in the tropical climate. Yet the land mass was smallest, and these demographic and geo- graphic factors meant that the people had to work out customs and laws to survive. Indians and Geography. The Indians’ adaptation to their geography led to their eventual identification by scholars as Forest Indians, Plains Indians, and Inter- Mountain Seed Gatherers, after the three major land- forms of North America. All three groups occupied parts of Texas. Forest Indians. Caddos lived in eastern Texas and por- tions of Louisiana, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. The Hasinai Caddos lived in villages along tributaries of the Angelina 20 INDIANS IN TEXAS CHEYENE, SIOUX, AND OTHER PLAINS TRIBES PAWNEE ( f me La Junta “% 3 - Texas Indians 1821 2 TEXAS: A COMPACT HISTORY and Neches rivers in conical-shaped houses. They sur- vived on the yield of the forests and streams of East Texas and eventually cultivated some crops before the arrival of European diseases and attempts to impose a different culture caused their demise. Caddos were basically pacific, though they would fight fiercely to defend their territory, and they were known as great traders, exchang- ing baskets and similar products made from wood and pine needles with other Indians for flint and goods not available in East Texas. Contrary to the popular media presentation of American Indian stoicism, Caddos showed emotion through weeping to express gladness as well as sadness. The Atakapa Indians lived south of the Caddos, as far east as southern Louisiana and westward toward the home of the Karankawas. Atakapas, divided into Orecoquisacs and Bidai branches, also earned their way hunting and fishing. Coastal Indians. Karankawas lived in the woodlands of southeastern Texas in the lower Brazos and Colorado valleys. Karankawas were the first American Indians to encounter Spaniards in Texas, who branded them as cannibals. Actually, most Indians in Texas participated in some ritualistic cannibalism—perhaps they would see the Christian sacrament of the Eucharist the same way— but few utilized human flesh as a regular part of their diet. Karankawa anointed their bodies with foul- smelling decayed plant or animal residue to ward off the ubiquitous mosquitoes that abounded in their marshy homeland. Farther west and south, to San Antonio and beyond, lay the territory of the Coahuiltecans and Tonkawas. True Ze INDIANS IN TEXAS grubbers and diggers, they survived on whatever they could find—sometimes consuming spiders, ants, and other indelicate items that were good sources of protein, even if not attractive to European palates. Plains Indians. Apaches, a branch of the Navajo nation, lived in western Texas and New Mexico. Divided into clans such as Chiracahua, Mescalero, Lipan, and Jicarillas, Apaches grew some corn, squash, beans, and melons but are remembered mostly for their ability to hunt buffalo. In fact, the buffalo provided Apaches, and later Comanches, with just about all they required. Its meat, when the hunt proved successful, filled their bel- lies. They made tools of its bones and tendons. Buffalo hides stretched around-Apache lodge poles and some- times the Apaches themselves, for shelter or clothing, although Indians preferred to make what clothes they wore from deer hides because it could be softened more easily. Comanche. Spaniards and later Anglo-Americans considered Apaches the most warlike of all Indians, at least until Comanches came southward from Colorado, adopted the horse culture of the Spanish, and became the “Lords of the Plains.” All Indian cultures were impacted, mostly negatively, by their interaction with Europeans. Sometimes the destruction of the Indian culture was deliberate, such as when missionaries substituted Christianity for the Indians’ worship practices; some- times such destruction was accidental, such as the unin- tentional introduction of highly contagious and often fatal disease. But the horse was an equalizer for the small- ish Comanche; astride their mounts, they became the greatest light cavalry in the world. Comanches resisted 23