Republic of Texas

By Camden Bruner

        The inhabitants of the region we now call Texas have always been categorized as patriotic and distinctive. It is quite possible that Texans developed this attitude from there historical past. It is my theory that having once been there own country plays a big role in the typical Texans attitude. The goal of my paper is to lay out the events in and around the Republic of Texas creation and destruction to show how this historical event shaped the face of Texans and their state forever.

Overview:

The history of  (as part of the ) began in 1845, but settlement of the region dates back to the end of the  Period, around 10,000 BC ( Dobie, 31). Its history has been shaped by being part of six independent countries: , , , the , the , and the . Starting in the 1820s, American and European immigrants began arriving in the area; joined by Hispanic immigrants they  against Mexico in 1836 and defeated an invading army. After a decade as an independent country, Texas joined the Union (the United States) in 1845. The western frontier state was characterized by large-scale cattle ranching and cotton farming. In the 20th century, it grew rapidly, becoming the second largest state in population in 1994, and became economically highly diversified, with a growing base in high technology. The state has been shaped by the interactions of Mexican, , , and  cultures ( Montejano, 24).

Exploration:

        The first European to see Texas was , who led an expedition on behalf of the governor of , Francisco de Garay, in 1519. While searching for a passage between the  and Asia. Álvarez de Pineda created the first map of the northern . This map is the earliest recorded document of Texas history ( Montejano, 34).

French Texas

In April 1682, French nobleman  arrived at the Gulf of Mexico after traversing the  from  and claimed the entire Mississippi River Valley for France. La Salle believed the Mississippi River was very near the edge of , and knew that French control of the Mississippi would split Spanish Florida from New Spain. In 1683, he convinced  to establish a colony near the Mississippi (Fehrenbach, 43). 

The expedition left on ,  with four ships. One of the four ships was captured by Spanish  off the coast of . A combination of inaccurate maps, La Salle's previous miscalculation of the latitude of the mouth of the Mississippi River, and overcorrecting for the Gulf currents led the ships to be unable to find the Mississippi. Instead, they landed at  in early 1685, 400 outh west of the Mississippi. In February, the colonists constructed Fort Saint Louis. After the fort was constructed, one of the ships returned to France, and the other two were soon destroyed in storms. La Salle and his men searched overland for the Mississippi River, some traveling as far west as the  and as far east as the . By early January 1687, fewer than 45 people remained in the colony. That month, a third expedition left to explore . During a quarrel on , , La Salle was killed by other members of the expedition (Fehrenbach, 47).

The Spanish learned of the French colony in late 1685 from a Frenchman who had deserted in Santo Domingo. Feeling that the French colony was a threat to Spanish mines and shipping routes,  Council of war thought that "Spain needed swift action 'to remove this thorn which has been thrust into the heart of America. The greater the delay the greater the difficulty of attainment.'" Having no idea where to find La Salle, the Spanish launched ten expeditions, both land and sea, over the next three years. The last expedition discovered a  living in Southern Texas with Indians. Using this guide, the Spanish reached the French fort in late April 1689. The fort and the five crude houses surrounding it were in ruins (Fehrenbach, 54).

Despite the failure of their colony in Texas, the French continued to claim Texas, even after the Spanish arrived and colonized it (Dobie, 103). The French period of Texan history is memorialized in the Texas state seal and as the first of the traditional "" ( Fehrenbach, 62). In 1762, the French abandoned their claims to Texas and ceded  to Spain for forty years (until 1800). On   much of north Texas is retro ceded to France but later sold to the United States in the  of 1803 (Dobie,103).

Spanish Texas

The failure of the French colony became known throughout the world. A year thereafter, the Spanish entered Texas, eager to keep the French in Louisiana, far from the wealth of . Texas became an important but sparsely populated buffer between the claims of the world powers France and Spain. Spanish Texas lasted between 1690 and 1821 when Texas was governed as a  colony separate from New Spain, known as the "Kingdom of Texas". This period begins with the expedition of the governor of  to destroy the ruins of the  colony of  and establish a Spanish presence in the area, and ends with the  of  in 1821, facilitating . Slightly more than three centuries elapsed between the time the Texas shoreline was first viewed by a Spaniard in 1519 and , , when the flag of Castile and León was lowered for the last time at San Antonio. Those 300 years may be divided into three stages: the era of early exploration, in which there was a preliminary evaluation of the land and its resources; the period of cultural absorption, in which the Texas Indians began to acquire Hispanic cultural elements, at first indirectly from Indian intermediaries and then directly from the Spanish themselves; and the time of defensive occupation, in which the Spanish presence in Texas was more dictated by international considerations than caused by the momentum of an expanding empire (Fehrenbach,60-100).

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For most of the period of Spanish Texas, the area assumed a geopolitical importance vastly disproportionate to its economic or demographic place in the Spanish Empire ( Hogan, 38). During the initial period of Spanish expansion into Texas, the Empire moved to establish a  (often with an accompanying fort) to establish a toehold in the frontier land. Spanish expansion was as much about showing the extent of their power as much as actually settling the area ( Fehrenbach, 112). A system of mission-presidios were established at present day San Antonio, La Bahia, Los Adaes, El Paso, Loredao, Nagodoches, and San ...

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