Gone to Texas (24 page)

“Once these forts are constructed,” Mier y Terán remarked, “we've got to build up Mexican or European settlements around every one of them. Either we occupy Texas soon or it will be overrun by Americans. They make industrious citizens and Mexico needs them, but it would be folly not to balance them with Mexicans or Europeans. They carry their constitutions in their heads, and if they ever become dissatisfied with the government, Texas is lost forever. A reconquest from a base eight hundred miles away would be impossible. Don't you agree?”

Ellis shrugged, feeling uncomfortable. “I reckon you're right about that,” he admitted, “but Mexico has been generous to them, and I know most appreciate it. I guess some do resent having to change their religions.”

“Since there aren't any priests among them,” Mier y Terán responded, “I'm going to recommend that the government drop the religious requirement. It would be better to have any religion than none.”

When Haden Edwards' contract was canceled, Ellis and the Mexican liberal Lorenzo de Zavala both applied for it.

Before Mier y Terán left Nacogdoches early in 1829, he gave Ellis permission to visit Magdalena for a month. Leaving Candace and the children in a house he'd built in Nacogdoches, Ellis took a riverboat to New Orleans and boarded a schooner for Veracruz. As they approached the port city, Ellis stared at the grim fortress, with its black and red walls, looming up on the island of San Juan de Ulúa. He thought of the Castle of San Diego in Acapulco and shuddered.

To Ellis, Veracruz appeared unimpressive, partly because of the hundreds of black
sopilotes,
or buzzards, soaring in search of dead animals or circling around one they'd found. Behind the port city were hills of red sand, which did nothing to improve his opinion of Veracruz.

The men on the streets wore the typical wide-bottomed trousers split up the side, broad-brimmed hats, and
serapes.
Many of the women wore black dresses and mantillas. Others wore
rebosos,
or scarves, over their heads. Every-where Ellis saw
sopilotes
playing the role of street-cleaners, at least where carrion was concerned.

The coach jolted across the barren stretch, then entered the hills among a great variety of trees and vines. It passed through Indian villages, where women with their hair in braids and straw hats on their heads carried infants in slings on their backs. As the road climbed higher, the air became cooler, even cold.

Ellis recalled Jalapa's steep streets, the fine old houses and churches, and the ancient Franciscan convent. A few miles beyond Jalapa the coach stopped at Las Banderillas, and Ellis eagerly alit for a joyful reunion with Magdalena. During his month's stay, he told her of his success in quelling the Fredonian revolt and in making peace with the Indian tribes. “I've applied for the grant that Haden Edwards lost,” he told her. “With General Mier's support, I should get it as well as the border reserve. When I get it I'll have to fulfill the contract. That will take a while, but it should make me wealthy.”

She told him of her problems managing the
hacienda,
but with the vision of an
empresario
grant on his mind, he found it difficult to focus on them.

“When are you coming to stay?” she asked when his month was up and he prepared to leave.

“When I get things well in hand,” he replied. “I don't know when that will be, but I promise you that one day I'll come for good.” She wistfully watched him board the coach.

On his return to Nacogdoches, Ellis replied to an inquiry from Austin concerning a rumored Spanish invasion of Mexico from Cuba. He'd heard talk about it in New Orleans, he said, but the general view there was that if the Spanish troops left Cuba, the Cubans would immediately rebel. Most of the men he talked to thought that an invasion of Mexico was unlikely. He thanked Austin for sending him a copy of a state law that exempted colonists for twelve years from being sued for debts contracted before coming to Texas. He'd heard, he wrote, that American speculators were buying up the debts, expecting to use them to gain possession of valuable cotton plantations.

Ellis waited, hoping for good news from Saltillo, but in February, the state government decided that, although Ellis deserved to be rewarded for his services, his “personal difficulties” made it necessary to award the former Edwards grant to Zavala.

Disappointed again, Ellis still hoped Texas would be made a territory and that he would be named governor. But the Texians chose not to accept territorial status, for that would mean the federal government, not the state of Coahuila y Texas, would control all public lands. In the meantime, Ellis developed and leased a salt deposit. He also bought a league of land on Carrizo creek near Nacogdoches on which he built a house and sawmill. He lived alone in the house, while Candace and the children remained in Nacogdoches.

Political strife in Mexico would soon make Mexicans look back on the years of peace under Guadalupe Victoria with nostalgia. In 1828 Gómez Pedraza had been elected President, but Santa Anna led a revolt that ousted him in favor of old rebel Vicente Guerrero. King Ferdinand VII still regarded Mexico as a colony in rebellion, and the political strife offered an opportunity to intervene to restore order and to recover Mexico. He seized it.

Spanish troops from Cuba landed on the coast of Tamaulipas, but the admiral, who had quarrelled with the general, immediately abandoned them there and returned to Cuba. The troops seized the fortress at Tampico, where General Mier bottled them up until yellow fever decimated them. Santa Anna, smelling an opportunity for vainglory, hastened there without orders. With his usual luck, he arrived in time for the surrender but, when the Mexicans learned of the Spanish surrender, they erroneously gave Santa Anna credit for engineering it. With his encouragement, they bestowed on him the undeserved laurel of “Hero of Tampico.”

Late in 1829, Vice-President Bustamante drove Guerrero from office, and in January 1830, proclaimed himself president. He named archconservative Lucas Alamán as Minister of the Interior, and his friend Mier y Terán, as commandant general of the Eastern Interior States, with headquarters at Matamoros. Although Bustamante was honest and well-intentioned, he was manipulated by more astute men, particularly Alamán.

Alamán's deep distrust of Americans had been reaffirmed by the Fredonian revolt, and he reminded the congress of the recommendation to colonize Texas with Europeans and Mexicans to offset the American settlers before it was too late. Alamán wanted no half measures. He urged military occupation and military rule over Texas, and the exclusion of immigrants from the United States. The congress complied by enacting the Law of April 6,1830, which went far beyond the reasonable recommendations of Mier y Terán. It provided for a loan to cover the cost of bringing Mexican families to Texas and opened the coastal trade to foreign vessels for four years. It recognized existing slavery but prohibited the importation of slaves in the future. Article 11 banned further immigration from the United States and canceled all
empresario
contracts.

Fortunately for the Texians, Mier y Terán was named commissioner of colonization and administered the law. Aware that both Austin and DeWitt had introduced colonists who made desirable citizens, he canceled only the contracts of
empresarios
who had brought less than one hundred families and allowed the two men to continue bringing colonists to fulfill their contracts. Soon after the law was passed, many more troops were sent to Nacogdoches, San Antonio, and La Bahia, which had been renamed Goliad, an anagram for Hidalgo. Work on the new posts began immediately.

To soothe the Texians who viewed the law as an ugly turn in their relations with the government, the ever-prudent Austin tried to point out its presumed advantages in the
Texas Gazette.
The troops that were being sent would protect the colonists from the Indians, he wrote, and allowing foreign vessels in the coastal trade would provide them better access to markets. Viewing the law quite differently, most Texians resented it, for many had friends or relatives in the States who had been planning to move to Texas. Now the door was slammed shut in their faces. They were also alarmed by the troop build-up.

Because the number of troops in Nacogdoches increased to four hundred, Colonel Piedras arranged for building a larger
cuartel,
buying lumber from Ellis' sawmill on credit. Ellis was ordered to build the small post of Terán on the lower Neches, then to remain there as its commander, with a company of fifty men. Candace, who he now saw infrequently, remained in Nacogdoches.

It wasn't long before the new law's teeth were felt in East Texas. Both the state and federal governments had agreed earlier that the squatters there should be given titles even though many were in a restricted border area. The first commissioner who came in 1830 to issue titles was arrested on what were suspected to be trumped up charges of embezzlement and murder. The disappointed people of the border area urgently petitioned the state government to send another, and it complied. In January 1831, commissioner Francisco Madero published in the
Texas Gazette
his plan to issue titles to families that had arrived before April 6,1830.

At the new presidio of Anáhuac at the head of Galveston Bay, Colonel John D. Bradbum saw the notice and arrested Madero and his surveyor on the grounds they were violating the Law of April 6. Bradbum was an irascible Kentuckian who fought in the Mexican Revolution and then later rejoined the Mexican army. Once more the East Texas settlers were disappointed and angry.

Mier y Terán had instructed presidio commanders to maintain cordial relations with the Texians and to cooperate with local officials. But while building his presidio, Bradbum had seized supplies from settlers, used their slaves without compensation, and harbored runaways. Later he arrested Patrick C. Jack for organizing a militia company to protect families against Indians, and lawyer William B. Travis for trying to recover runaway slaves for their owners. They and others were held indefinitely in the guardhouse without being formally charged or brought to trial. Finally, in June 1832, a small force of angry men under Patrick Jack's brother William set out from Brazoria to rescue the prisoners, by force if necessary. By the time they reached Anáhuac, their numbers had grown to 160.

When Bradburn refused to release the prisoners, the Texians attacked and seized a building. Bradburn then agreed to free the prisoners if the Texians withdrew. But when they set up camp at Turtle Bayou he sent calls for help to Colonel Piedras and to Colonel Ugartechea at Velasco, recovered a supply of gunpowder from the building the Texians had held, then defied them. At Turtle Bayou, the Texians drew up resolutions in which they declared their support of the constitution and the liberal party. Incensed by Bradburn's duplicity they sent calls for reinforcements, while John Austin, a friend but not a relative of the
empresario,
and others headed for Brazoria. Their purpose was to return with two cannon that the steamer
Ariel
had unloaded there to enable it to get across the bar at the mouth of the Brazos. While they were gone, the force at Anáhuac swelled to more than two hundred.

On receiving Bradburn's call for help, Colonel Piedras set out with part of his force and sent word to Ellis to join him. Hoping to restore peace without a confrontation with the Texians, Piedras sent Ellis and another officer to invite them to a conference. Seeing another Anglo in a Mexican uniform, some were suspicious of him, but he persuaded them to talk to Piedras. What they told him convinced Piedras that their grievances against Bradburn were justified. He promised to turn the prisoners over to civil authorities, to pay for property Bradburn had seized, and to persuade him to leave, promises he kept. The Texians soon disbanded. A few days later, the whole garrison at Anáhuac declared for Santa Anna and sailed for Mexico. Ellis was greatly relieved.

At Velasco, near the mouth of the Brazos, Colonel Ugartechea properly refused to permit John Austin and the others to sail past his post with cannon to be used against Mexican troops at Anáhuac. Early on June 25, John Austin and 112 Texians demanded that Ugartechea surrender and leave Texas with his garrison. Ugartechea refused. The next day, forty Texians moored a small armed schooner near the fort and opened fire, while the others attacked by land. The fighting continued all day, as Ugartechea's losses mounted. At the day's end he capitulated and agreed to leave Texas. A year or two later, he would be named commander at San Antonio.

At Nacogdoches the colonists were determined that Colonel Piedras should declare for Santa Anna and the Constitution of 1824, which his officers favored. Piedras stubbornly announced his support for Bustamante, and ordered the settlers to surrender their guns. Ellis, who disliked Piedras, encouraged men from Ayish Bayou to join those around Nacogdoches, who were gathering on Pine Hill east of the town, but he took no other action. They elected James W. Pollock of San Augustine as commander and sent a delegation to tell Piedras to join them against Bustamante or fight. He chose to fight. The Texians marched to the center of the town, where they repulsed a cavalry charge and took possession of houses around the square. That night they heard the whole garrison riding out of town.

The tall James Bowie, whose brother Rezin invented the famous Bowie knife, had migrated to San Antonio years earlier. There he'd married Ursula Veramendi, but after losing her and their child to cholera, he settled at Nacogdoches. An experienced fighter and bom leader, he picked twenty men and dashed along the lower road to get ahead of the troops and check them at the Angelina crossing. When the advance party of troops reached the crossing the next morning, Bowie's men opened fire on them, and the whole force forted up in a house on a hill. The rest of the Texians soon arrived, and the firing kept up all day, while Mexican losses mounted. On the following morning, Piedras turned over command to Major Francisco Medina and was escorted away. Medina and the rest of the command quickly proclaimed Santa Anna and were soon on their way to Mexico. Not long after this, Major Francisco Ruiz marched the Tenoxtitlan garrison to San Antonio over the protests of the settlers, who were left exposed to Indian raids. Only the garrisons at Goliad and San Antonio remained.