The History of Texas. Robert A. Calvert
settlements in an effort to halt the encroachment on their land. Developing new entrepreneurial skills, some Plains bands traded with unscrupulous Anglo Americans in the United States, exchanging horses, mules, and other property they had stolen from the Texas settlements for desired American‐made weapons. The Comanches, for their part, continued to rely on the old dependable custom of extorting gifts from the Mexican government in exchange for peace. But with national leaders unable to raise money for tribute, the Comanches–making use of Texas as a virtual stockroom–by the mid‐1830s had arrested farm and ranch development in a line extending from San Antonio to Goliad.
The Caddos of East Texas, who had long lived in farming communities, now contended with problems that threatened to unravel their civilization. Alcohol, provided them by American traders, enfeebled many tribespeople almost at the same time that outsiders began penetrating long‐held Caddo territory. Interlopers included other Native American peoples from the US South as well as Anglo empresarios bearing contracts to establish colonies in Caddo land. By the late 1820s, the Caddos numbered no more than 300 families; they attempted to survive by farming but also by trading beaver, deer, and otter pelts for weapons and household and other personal items in Louisiana.
The cultural diversity of Indian society was enhanced in 1819–20 when a band of Cherokees, bowing to legal and extralegal pressure by Anglos to abandon their homelands in Georgia and Alabama, arrived in northeastern Texas near Caddo land. Other southern tribes, including Kickapoos, Shawnees, Delawares, and Alabama‐Coushattas, also emigrated to East Texas. The Cherokee leader Duwali (known also as Chief Bowles) originally located the Cherokees on the Trinity River, in the proximity of present‐day Dallas. Friction with the Plains Indians soon forced the Cherokees to relocate in today’s Van Zandt, Cherokee, and neighboring counties. During the late 1820s, the Cherokee settlement in Texas included about eighty families that made their living from a combination of farming, livestock raising, and trade with nearby Nacogdoches. From the time of their arrival until the mid‐1830s, Duwali and his people actively sought to acquire legal title to their new homeland from the Mexican government, but they never received anything more than vague promises.
The Centralists Back in Power, 1834–1836
Santa Anna returned from retirement in May 1834 to remove Gómez Farías, his acting president, whose liberalism had thoroughly alienated the Church and the established military. Resurfacing as a reactionary, Santa Anna abolished the Federalist Constitution of 1824 and held elections for a new congress composed of conservatives: that is, Centralists and others supportive of the powers of the military and the Catholic Church. In October 1835, the new congress took steps to create a Centralist state in Mexico. It dissolved all state legislatures and turned the former states into military departments, over which presidential appointees would now govern.
The dissolution of federalism produced revolts in several states. Zacatecas opposed the new order most resolutely, but Santa Anna crushed an uprising there unmercifully. The people in Yucatán broke with the government at this time, managing to retain their separatism until 1846. Meanwhile, in Monclova (which had become the capital of Coahuila y Tejas in 1833), liberal politicians denounced Santa Anna’s new government in the summer of 1834. The legislature refused to obey Centralist orders and in March and April of 1835, it passed two laws designed to raise money for resisting the Centralists. The decrees authorized the governor to sell up to 400 leagues of public land in order to meet the “public exigencies” that the state then faced with Santa Anna, and they designated another 400 leagues with which to compensate militiamen willing to take up arms against hostile Indians.
Many in Texas disapproved of investors acquiring real estate for the sake of profit, but Anglo Texans present in Monclova acquired grants during the crisis by promising to raise and equip 1000‐man companies on these lands, though most of these agents beat a swift retreat back to Texas to try to sell their newly acquired property. Fearing that some of these speculators might in fact raise a militia to be used against the central government, Domingo de Ugartechea, the principal commandant in Béxar, called upon General Martín Perfecto de Cós to muster reinforcements. Cós, the commanding general of the northeastern Mexican states, relayed the request to President Santa Anna.
Responding to reports that Mexico was preparing to send troops into Texas, a band of men (historians provide different numbers, anywhere from twenty‐five to fifty) led by William Barret Travis and armed with cannon descended on Anahuac on June 30, 1835, forcing the surrender of the forty‐four Mexican troops stationed there. The immediate cause behind the assault on the Mexican installation dealt with the old grievance regarding import tariffs, which people could ill afford to pay on needed goods. But the war party, which traced its origins to 1832, banked on the assumption that the episode would rally people in support of their cause of seeing Texas achieve its independence from Mexico. However, committees of (political) correspondence, which had organized by the early summer of 1835, still held divided views on what stand Texas should take in its relationship with Mexico. Some even assured Mexican officials that Texans, overall, had nothing to do with the acts that had induced troop movements into Texas.
But to Mexican political and military figures long wary of the Texans, the Anahuac incident represented the beginning of a revolt, and the refusal of Texan authorities to arrest the Anahuac agitators (primarily Travis) as the government wished, pointed to a widespread opposition. Moreover, the speculators stayed at large, mainly because by August they had either left Texas or gone into hiding. Among those lying low was Lorenzo de Zavala, once one of Mexico’s most prominent Federalists, who had fled to Texas not only to escape the Centralist regime but to be closer to his East Texas land possessions, which he had been using from afar for speculative purposes.
Meanwhile, other, more radical committees of correspondence called for another consultation but resolved not to surrender the fugitives to the authorities. By August, stories circulated that Mexico’s troops were on the move into Texas; communities reacted by calling general meetings to decide their best course of action: reason with the government, or openly resist it. Then, in early September 1835, Austin, newly freed from jail in Mexico City, arrived back in Texas and threw his prestige behind the ideals of the war party. On the twentieth of that month, Cós landed with men and materiel at Cópano Bay, whence they marched into the interior, reinforcing Goliad before heading toward Béxar. Reports that the Centralist forces intended to free the slaves, oppress Texans, and lay waste to the region influenced communities to take necessary measures for an expected confrontation. Even before the Centralist armies from Mexico skirmished with the Texans, the first episode between Anglos and the Mexican military occurred at Gonzales, where Lieutenant Francisco de Castañeda arrived on September 30, 1835, to request the transfer of a cannon that the Mexican government had given to the colonists four years earlier to help them protect themselves from Indians. Because he feared provoking a fight should he cross the Guadalupe River into Gonzales, Castañeda found himself negotiating for the surrender of the artillery piece in a rather awkward manner–he on one side of the river and local officials, determined to retain possession of the cannon, on the other. Without much hope of success and still reluctant to start a conflict, Castañeda retreated. Then, on the morning of October 2, the rebels fired upon the government forces in their camp, some four miles upriver from Gonzales, using the very cannon in question: on the artillery piece the Anglos had draped a white banner bearing the combative phrase “COME AND TAKE IT.” A brief and minor encounter ensued. Shortly, the Anglos called for Castañeda’s surrender, resuming their fire with the cannon when the lieutenant refused. With orders from his superior to withdraw “without compromising the honor of Mexican arms,” Castañeda left Gonzales without further ado, and the Anglos proclaimed victory.
The insurgents claimed another triumph a week later when Goliad fell to them. With the capture of the presidio and the soldiers Cós had left there, the Texans obtained a new cache of military goods recently brought in by Cós; more important, they could now prevent the general from using the Gulf to import additional troops or to escape in case of an impending defeat.
By the end of the month, Texas volunteers under the command of Stephen F. Austin began moving into San Antonio. In late October, they quarantined the city, which was by then under