Chapter 6
Rose Returns to Texas . . . Under Mexican Rule
NACOGDOCHES, TEXAS. A days ride from Louisiana, the overland gateway to Texas, this settlement had been Spain’s eastern fortress – first against the French in Louisiana, and then against the Americans after the Louisiana Purchase. In 1821, after their revolution placed the Mexicans in formerly Spanish Texas, the international border marked by the Sabine River, separating Texas and Louisiana, now also separated all of the possessions of Mexico to the west and the now 27 states of the United States to the east.
Because of its proximity to the U.S., Nacogdoches was the initial target in any attempt by Americans to seize Texas as the senior Bowie had tried in 1812, followed by his son seven years later.
Now it would be Rose’s turn.
ROSE RETURNED TO TEXAS for the opening conflict between the first generation of Texas-American colonists and the newly independent Mexicans.
Hayden Edwards was one of 25 empresarios (land agents), who Mexico gave military and civil responsibility to see that proper colonies were created and maintained. But Edwards refused to submit to Mexican authority over his Nacogdoches colony, where about 100 Americans had settled. The brash Edwards rode to Louisiana to recruit an army. Having heard of a man who had fought alongside Napoléon, Edwards sought out Moses Rose and promised him a good fight and land in his Nacogdoches colony, which he named “Fredonia” – a free state!
The soldier in Rose was ready to fight again – especially to return to Texas. In November of 1826, Rose picked up his rifle and, like the Bowies had done, rode his horse from Louisiana across the Sabine, across the international border – to return to Texas, where his dream at Le Champ d’Asile had been taken away from him eight years earlier. He had hoped to fight the Spanish for his return to Texas but he would settle for a battle with the Mexicans.
The Fredonian Rebellion however, like the Bowies’ expeditions, was short-lived. Edwards began expelling Mexican settlers if they could not establish (or locate) proof of title. After ousting a handful of Mexican soldiers from the territory, the Rebellion quickly collapsed with the approach of the Mexican Army, assisted by American colonists who disapproved of Edwards and his methods. Hayden Edwards fled back to the United States.
This time Rose stayed, settling in Nacogdoches, where from 1826 to 1832, as an American Texas colonist but under Mexican rule, he learned to speak fluent Spanish, added to his broken English (though he never learned to read or write in any language).
THE MEXICAN REVOLUTION had taken place five years before Rose arrived in Texas. In 1821, the indigenous Mexican population rose, won independence and expelled the Spanish from what is present-day Mexico and Texas. “Viva la Independencia!” was proclaimed in San Antonio, Texas, 150 miles northeast of the Rio Grande, the river which separated the interior of Mexico from Texas.
In time, the new Mexican government would, like Spain, conflict with the United States over westward expansion. But at first, like Spain, Mexico needed the Americans.
Taming Texas was about as arduous for the Mexicans as besting the Spanish: too far to control from the seat of power in Mexico City; locked in constant war with Comanches and Apaches, it seemed ungovernable. Spanish settlers had failed, Mexican settlers had failed, as had the Missionaries before them. With no more agreeable option, the new Mexican government opened Texas to the unruly Americans.
The empresario plan of Spain was chosen: small grants for farmers, larger grants for cattle raisers and vast land grants to American empresarios, commissioned by the government to exercise complete civilian control and military authority over newly created Texas colonies – under rule of the Mother country. The empresario received a large land grant for each 300 colonist families he brought to his section of Texas.
Stephen F. Austin, a former Mississippi legislator and Arkansas judge, attempted to secure the first grant from Spain but Mexican Independence intervened. Two years after the revolution, the new Mexican government approved the Austin grant and the first authorized American settlers arrived in Texas. They became colonists in San Felipe de Austin, over 150 miles southwest of Nacogdoches. Successfully fighting off Indian attacks and wild animals while braving heat and disease, clearing land, planting crops, raising livestock, and building homes – the colony prospered, encouraging Mexico to offer grants to other empresarios.
An empresario received his large grant only when he responsibly fulfilled his quota of colonists. Austin’s numerous colonies, comprising 8,000 persons, were functioning well because Austin was the model empresario: he required affidavits of good character before he would accept a colonist; he forcibly removed “undesirables” when necessary.
Hayden Edwards had not been a model empresario – and was responsible for bringing to Texas a Frenchman who Austin would have deemed an “undesirable.”
ROSE WAS LIVING A PEACEFUL LIFE IN NACOGDOCHES, working for Frost Thorn, brother-in-law of Hayden Edwards. Rose began at the Thorn sawmill as a log-cutter and then as a hauler, riding from Nacogdoches to Nachitoches on the other side of the border. Natchitoches – called ’Nackitosh’ by its inhabitants – had been a frontier outpost in Louisiana for more than a century, the conduit through which flowed most of the goods and raw materials (much of it contraband) between the Louisiana Territory and Texas. To travel from one community to the other meant crossing a 75-mile neutral zone on both sides of the international boundary line, a no-mans land where no nations laws was enforced and where bandits of many nations assembled.
To protect the four wagons that carried cotton and other produce between the two communities, Thorn set up a network of hearty settlers along the way who would repair his wagons and supply his teamsters with feed for livestock and other provisions on “short credit.” Rose’s new, more important position was to protect the supplies from bandits, bear the money and pay certain debts as contracted. He also carried the mail across the international border on a private contract, since there was no government mail on this dangerous route.
Life in Nacogdoches was very satisfying for Rose. With a good job, he became a landowner, acquiring one hundred acres of land “for services rendered,” and built a ranch near the Angelina River. In keeping with his new stature, Rose took up with a Spanish woman who struck his fancy; the townspeople gave knowing smiles when the old Frenchman purchased gifts for her.
And he had his acquaintances with whom he spent most evenings when he was not travelling. They would meet in the saloon, drink, play cards and gossip: mostly about which Mexican faction would eventually control Mexico (and Texas).
Rose had arrived just two years after the new Mexican government enacted the Constitution of 1824. This compact provided for a democratically elected national government of Mexico to oversee state governments (as Texas sought to be) as part of one vast Mexican republic, each state permitted to write its own laws, develop public lands and enjoy “a high degree of free speech.” (Attempts to nullify this landmark decree precipitated the Texas Revolution.)
The benefits of the Constitution came with obligations: new residents had to pledge loyalty to Mexico; take vows as Roman Catholics (although most Americans were Protestants and resented loss of religious freedom); and, most provocative, pledge not to bring additional slaves to Texas – demanded of a community mostly of Southerners who vehemently supported slavery. (Austin only temporarily resolved this issue by providing for “life-indentured servants,” not “slaves.”) To Rose, the oath of loyalty and religious vows were mere formalities he did not take seriously, the anti-slavery policies he favored.
But those who complained of the drawbacks were mollified by what else the Mexicans offered each Texan: no taxes for six years, no tithes or excises (for a time), imports of farm implements and household goods without duty . . . and good land, cheap and available: 170 acres for farming, 4400 acres for cattle. Also, important to many Texans who arrived with creditors at their heels, Mexican law relieved them from payment on their debts for 12 years.
Most of the colonists, including Rose, were relatively satisfied.
NOT SATISFIED WERE THE MEXICANS who had set in motion the empresario plan and now believed they had made a major miscalculation. Within a decade, Americans in Texas outnumbered Mexican settlers three to one, most locating at San Antonio, Nacogdoches, Anahuac and Gonzales . . . as well as San Felipe de Austin.
And most Mexicans were convinced that the Americans planned to seize Texas. The Fredonian Rebellion was only a small factor; more threatening was the 1828 election of President Andrew Jackson, who was known to covet Texas.
In reaction to those occurrences, as well as problems in the interior of Mexico, control of the Mexican government passed from those who backed the 1824 Constitution (the “Republicans” or “Liberals”) to those who favored a strong central government at the expense of the colonies (the “Centralists”). The new Centralist government passed the anti-American Laws of 1830, which closed Texas borders to any further Americans (but not Europeans), and allowed Mexican convict-soldiers (presidarios) to occupy the colonies (and remain when their prison terms were up). The Laws also provided for reinforcing existing garrisons* at San Antonio and Nacogdoches, and creating new ones at Anahuac, Goliad and elsewhere. Finally, custom houses would soon enforce excise duties, previously ignored.
Rose and the other American-Texans intended to be good citizens, but they would only do so under a Republican government – as called for by the Constitution of 1824. It was said the Americans “carried their Constitution in their pockets.”
Even Austin protested the anti-American immigration laws – but for different reasons. He argued that barring Americans would not stop U.S. immigration, only that the stable, hard-working, religious Americans with families would no longer come. Instead, he predicted, Texas would now face “ignorant, self-willed ’mobbish’ mountaineers and frontiersman who ’hold to lynch law.”’ They would ruin Texas forever, he feared.
He was partly right: mostly the adventurers came thereafter.