Independent Republic and Statehood of Texas

The Republic of Texas (República de Tejas) was a sovereign state in North America that existed from March 2, 1836, to February 19, 1846, although Mexico considered it a rebellious province during its entire existence. It was bordered by Mexico to the west and southwest, the Gulf of Mexico to the southeast, the two U.S. states of Louisiana and Arkansas to the east and northeast, and United States territories encompassing parts of the current U.S. states of Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, and New Mexico to the north and west. The citizens of the republic were known as Texians.

The Republic-claimed borders were based upon the Treaties of Velasco, a treaty signed after the Battle of San Jacinto between General Sam Houston of the Texan Army and General Santa Anna of Mexico, who had been captured in the battle. The eastern boundary of Texas before the revolution had been defined by the Adams–Onís Treaty of 1819 between the United States and Spain, which recognized the Sabine River as the eastern boundary of Spanish Texas and western boundary of the Missouri Territory. Under the 1819 Adams–Onís Treaty, before Mexico's 1821 independence, the United States had renounced its claim to Spanish land known as Texas north of the Rio Grande, south of the Sabine River, because of the Louisiana Purchase of 1803.

Due to Santa Anna signing the Treaties of Velasco while in captivity, Mexico claimed the treaties were signed "under duress" and not valid. The republic's southern and western boundary with Mexico was disputed throughout the republic's existence, since Mexico refused to recognize the independence of Texas. Texas claimed the Rio Grande as its southern boundary, while Mexico insisted that the Nueces River was the boundary. In practice, much of the disputed territory was occupied by the Comanche and outside the control of either state, but Texian claims included the eastern portions of New Mexico, which was administered by Mexico throughout this period.

On September 5, 1836 the Constitution of the Republic of Texas was signed. Sam Houston was elected as the new President of the Republic and the Army, Navy, and Milita were established. The second Congress of the Republic of Texas convened a month later, in October 1836, at Columbia (now West Columbia). Stephen F. Austin, known as the Father of Texas, died on December 27, 1836 after serving two months as Secretary of State for the new Republic. The time between independence for the Republic of Texas and becoming a State in the United States were marked by competing arguments between Sam Houston and Mirambeau Lamar, the two men elected as presidents of the Republic of Texas between 1836 (independence) and 1846 (statehood)

In 1836, five sites served as temporary capitals of Texas (Washington-on-the-Brazos, Harrisburg, Galveston, Velasco and Columbia), before President Sam Houston moved the capital to Houston in 1837. The first flag of the republic was the "Burnet Flag." The second president, Mirabeau B. Lamar, moved the capital to the new town of Austin and adopted the Lone Star Flag in 1839.

But the New Republic was not all sunshine, roses, and glory. As with any New Nation, Texas struggled early on between several competing factions (opposition groups). During the Texas Revolution, Texas officials promised the Cherokees title to their lands in return for neutrality. When that promise was not delivered by the new Republic of Texas, the Cherokees would find their opportunity to strike back in 1838, it was called the Córdova Rebellion. A group of Nacogdochians searching for a stolen horse were attacked by a group of Tejanos, and later discovered a wider conspiracy by the Mexican regime to retake Texas. Vicente Córdova, a wealthy Nacogdochian, maintained contact with Mexican officials and joined forces with Cherokee tribes to retake Texas for Mexico. Chief Bowl, a local Cherokee chief, convinced Sam Houston that his tribe was neutral and further exacerbating tensions between Houston and Lamar. Once Lamar was elected as the second president in 1838, convinced Chief Bowles was lying, would wage the Cherokee War, which removed the Cherokee from Texas and would aid Andrew Jackson's (US President at the time) Indian Removal policies. Most Southeastern Native populations were forcibly relocated to what is now Oklahoma.

The newly elected president Mirabeau B. Lamar, (second president of the Republic), raised a force of 56 Texas Rangers such as John Coffee “Jack” Hays to fight the Cherokee and the Comanche, partly in retaliation for the support they had given the Mexicans at the Cordova Rebellion against the Republic. Ten rangers were killed in the Battle of Stone Houses in 1837. The size of the Ranger force was increased from 56 to 150 men by Sam Houston, as President of the Republic, in 1841 (the second time he was elected president of the Republic).

In 1841, in an attempt to gain control over the lucrative Santa Fe Trail and further develop the trade links between Texas and New Mexico, Mirabeau B. Lamar sent the Texan Santa Fe Expedition. It was a commercial and military expedition to secure the Republic of Texas's claims to parts of Northern New Mexico for Texas. The initiative was a major component of Lamar's ambitious plan to turn the fledgling republic into a continental power, which the President believed had to be achieved as quickly as possible to prevent the annexation of Texas to the United States. Among the men were merchants that were promised transportation and protection of their goods during the expedition, as well as commissioners such as José Antonio Navarro. Although officially a trading expedition, the Texas merchants and businessmen were accompanied by a military escort of some 320 men. The expedition succeeded in angering both Mexicans and Natives in the area.

The Comanche were the most effective opposition to the Texas Republic. They raided settlements, captured, and rape of female pioneers, torture killings, and trafficking in captive slaves. In the late 1830s, Sam Houston negotiated a peace between Texas and the Comanches. When Lamar replaced him in 1838 he returned to war and invaded the Comancheria, sparking a series of conflicts. Peace talks ended in 1840 with the massacre of 34 Comanche leaders in San Antonio, known as the Council House Fight. The Comanches launched a major attack deep into Texas, known as the Great Raid of 1840. 500 to 700 Comanche cavalry warriors swept down the Guadalupe River valley, killing and plundering all the way to the shore of the Gulf of Mexico, where they sacked the towns of Victoria and Linnville. The Comanches retreated after being pursued by 186 Texas Rangers, and were caught at the Battle of Plum Creek. Houston became president again in 1841 and, with both Texians and Comanches exhausted by war, a new peace was established.

There were also domestic disturbances in Texas' new republic. Internal politics of the Republic centered on two factions. The nationalist faction, led by Lamar, advocated the continued independence of Texas, the expulsion of the Native Americans, and the expansion of Texas to the Pacific Ocean. Their opponents, led by Houston, advocated the annexation of Texas to the United States and peaceful coexistence with the Indians when possible. The Texas Congress even passed a resolution over Houston's veto claiming the Californias for Texas.

Although Texas achieved self-government, Mexico refused to recognize its independence. In 1841, Sam Houston was elected President for the second time, and appointed Anson Jones to Secretary of State. In 1842, the Mexican Army captured San Antonio. A Texas militia retaliated at the Battle of Salado Creek while Mexican soldiers massacred fifty-three Texas volunteers who had surrendered less than a mile away. Mexico's attacks on Texas caused conflicts, including an incident known as the Texas Archive War. To "protect" the Texas national archives, President Sam Houston ordered them removed from Austin. The archives were eventually returned to Austin, albeit at gunpoint. The Texas Congress admonished Houston for the incident, and this episode in Texas history solidified Austin as Texas's seat of government for the Republic and the future state.

The 1844 presidential election split the electorate dramatically, with the newer western regions of the Republic preferring the nationalist candidate Edward Burleson, while the cotton country, particularly east of the Trinity River, went for Anson Jones, who would become the Republic’s fourth and final President.

In 1844, the Tyler-Texas Treaty proposed to induct Texas into the Union as a territory, following constitutional protocols. Texas would cede all its public lands to the United States, and the federal government pay it's debts. The boundaries of the Texas territory were left unspecified. Any allusion (reference) to slavery was omitted (removed or left out) from the document so as not to antagonize (provoke) anti-slavery sentiments during Senate debates, but it provided for the "preservation of all [Texas] property as secured in our domestic institutions." Upon the signing of the treaty, Tyler complied with the Texans' demand for military and naval protection, deploying troops to Fort Jesup in Louisiana and a fleet of warships to the Gulf of Mexico. Opponents became alarmed at the constitutional implications of Tyler's application of military force without congressional approval, a violation of the separation of powers. The treaty and the Packenham letter were leaked to the public. The nature of the Tyler-Texas negotiations caused a national outcry, in that "the documents appeared to verify that the sole objective of Texas annexation was the preservation of slavery." US President John Tyler became very unpopular and it lead directly to the election of James K. Polk in the United States, an advocate of manifest destiny. His solution was the Compromise of 1850, which established the Texas border, attempted to temporarily solve the slavery crisis in the United States, and settled Texas' debt.

Texas was annexed by the United States on December 29, 1845 and was admitted to the Union as the 28th state with the transfer of power from the Republic to the new state of Texas formally taking place on February 19, 1846. However, the United States inherited the southern and western border dispute with Mexico, which had refused to recognize Texas' independence or U.S. offers to purchase the territory. Texas annexation was a trigger for the Mexican–American War (1846–1848). In other words, Texas independence and annexation by the United States started another war, this time between the United States including Texas and Mexico, whose president was Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.

The Compromise of 1850 was a package of five separate bills passed by the United States Congress in September 1850 that defused a political confrontation between slave and free states on the status of territories acquired in the Mexican–American War. It also set Texas's western and northern borders and included provisions addressing fugitive slaves and the slave trade. The compromise was brokered by Whig senator Henry Clay and Democratic senator Stephen Douglas with the support of the US President.

Mexico treated the Nueces River as its northern boundary control. A vast, largely-unsettled area lay between the two rivers. Neither Mexico nor the Republic of Texas had the military strength to assert its territorial claim. When the Republic of Texas was annexed to the United States and became the 28th state in 1845 it became part of an ongoing conflict in the United States about slavery. Texas was staunchly committed to slavery, with its constitution making it illegal for the legislature to free slaves. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo made no mention of the claims of the Republic of Texas; Mexico simply agreed to a Mexico–United States border south of both the "Mexican Cession" and the Republic of Texas claims. After the end of the Mexican–American War, Texas continued to claim a large stretch of disputed land that it had never effectively controlled in present-day eastern New Mexico. New Mexico had long prohibited slavery, and had a history of conflict with Texas dating back to the 1841 Santa Fe Expedition. Many Southern leaders supported Texas's claims to New Mexico to secure as much territory as possible for the expansion of slavery. Another issue that would affect the compromise was Texas's debt; it had approximately $10 million in debt left over from its time as an independent nation, and that debt would become a factor in the debates over the territories.

The transformation of Texas from wilderness controlled by Native Americans, to a Spanish colony, to a Mexican state, to an independent nation would have been something special to witness, as it all happened, historically speaking, extremely fast. Texas was and always has been a harbor for diversity, citizens such as William Goyens or Maverick Mary Mexican vaqueros, and Texian ranchers more accurately portray the history of Texas than the politics of slaveholding white men who held most of the political power at the time.

William Goyens