Nacogdoches Nacogdoches Texas United States
Related Events
Showing 10 events out of 18 total
De Soto notes the presence of the Caddo, a group of linguistically related tribes who inhabit the Red River valley of present northeastern Texas and adjacent areas of Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana.
The Caddo, who live in dispersed communities loosely united into three confederacies, cultivate maize, beans, and squash, and supplement their diet by the hunting of deer, buffalo, and bear.
They live in conical, grass-thatched dwellings similar to those of their neighbors, the Wichita.
Political and religious authority is intertwined with ranked matrilineal clans and includes hereditary chiefs who are carried about on tribesmen's shoulders.
They are followed by fur traders from outposts along the Gulf Coast, and later by missionaries from France and Spain, who also travel among the people.
The Europeans carry infections such as smallpox and measles, because these are endemic in their societies.
As the Caddo peoples have no acquired immunity to such new diseases, they suffer epidemics with high fatalities that decimate the tribal populations.
Influenza and malaria also devastate the Caddo.
French traders build forts with trading posts near Caddo villages, that already are important hubs in the Great Plains trading network.
These stations attract more French and other European settlers.
Among such settlements are the present-day communities of Elysian Fields and Nacogdoches, Texas, and ...
Spain, seeing no need to continue to maintain settlements near French outposts once France had finally relinquished their claim to Texas by ceding all of Louisiana west of the Mississippi River to Spain as part of the treaty to end the Seven Years War, orders the closure of Los Adaes, making San Antonio the new provincial capital.
The residents of Los Adaes had been relocated in 1773 and, after several attempts to settle in other parts of the province, return to East Texas without authorization and establish Nacogdoches in 1778.
The Comanche agree to a peace treaty with New Spain in 1785.
They are willing to fight the enemies of their new friends, and soon attack the Karankawa.
Over the next several years, the Comanches kill many of the Karankawa in the area and drive the others into Mexico.
The Comanche also help the Spanish fight a large battle against the Mescalero and Lipan Apaches at Soledad Creek west of San Antonio in January 1790.
The Apaches are resoundingly defeated and the majority of the raids stop.
James Long, a physician from Natchez, Mississippi, leads an expedition to Texas in hopes of making the region an independent state.
He captures Nacogdoches, but is defeated soon afterwards.
...Nacogdoches, and ...
The country had divided itself into several states, and the area known as Mexican Texas became part of the border state Coahuila y Tejas.
To assist in governing the large area, the state had created several departments; all of Texas was included in the Department of Béxar.
The department is further subdivided into municipalities, which are each governed by an alcalde, similar to a modern-day mayor.
A large portion of East Texas, ranging from the Sabine to the Trinity Rivers and from the Gulf Coast to the Red River, has become part of the municipality of Nacogdoches.
Most residents of the municipality are Spanish-speaking families who have occupied their land for generations.
An increasing number are English-speaking residents who had immigrated illegally during the Mexican War of Independence.
Many of the immigrants are adventurers who had arrived as part of various military filibustering groups, at least two of which which had attempted to create independent republics within Texas during Spanish rule.
For better control of the sparsely populated border region, in 1824 the Mexican federal government had passed the General Colonization Law to allow legal immigration into Texas.
Under the law, each state sets its own requirements for immigration.
After some debate, on March 24, 1825, Coahuila y Tejas had authorized a system granting land to empresarios, who would each recruit settlers for their particular colony.
In addition, for every hundred families an empresario settled in Texas, they would receive twenty-three thousand acres of land for cultivation and settlement.
During the state government's deliberations, many would-be empresarios had congregated in Mexico to lobby for land grants.
Among them was Haden Edwards, an American land speculator known for his quick temper and aggressiveness.
Despite his abrasiveness, Edwards was granted a colonization contract on April 14, allowing him to settle eight hundred families in East Texas.
The contract contains standard language requiring Edwards to recognize all pre-existing Spanish and Mexican land titles in his grant area, to raise a militia to protect the settlers in the area, and to allow the state land commissioner to certify all deeds awarded.
Edwards's colony encompasses the land from the Navasota River to twenty leagues west of the Sabine River, and from twenty leagues north of the Gulf of Mexico to fifteen leagues north of the town of Nacogdoches.
To the west and north of the colony are lands controlled by several Native tribes that had recently been driven out of the United States.
The southern boundary is a colony overseen by Stephen F. Austin, the son of the first empresario in Texas.
East of Edwards's grant is the former Sabine Free State, a neutral zone, which had been essentially lawless for several decades.
The boundaries of the new colony and the municipality of Nacogdoches partially overlap, leading to uncertainty over who has jurisdiction over which function.
The majority of the established settlers live outside the eastern boundary of the Edwards colony.
Mistakenly believing that he has the authority to determine the validity of existing land claims, Edwards, demands written proof of ownership in September, or the land will be forfeited and sold at auction.
His action is at least partially driven by prejudice; Edwards scorns those who were poorer or of a different race.
By removing less-prosperous settlers, he can assign their lands to wealthy planters, like himself, from the Southern United States.
Very few of the English-speaking residents have valid titles.
Those who have not arrived as filibusters have been duped by fraudulent land speculators.
Most of the Spanish-speaking landowners have lived on grants made to their families seventy or more years previously and are unable to produce any paperwork.
Anticipating the potential conflict between the new empresario and the long-time residents of the area, the acting alcalde of the municipality, Luis Procela, and the municipality clerk, Jose Antonio Sepulveda, begin validating old Spanish and Mexican land titles, a function legally assigned to the state land commissioner.
In response, Edwards accuses the men of forging deeds, further angering the residents.
As required under his contract, Edwards organizes a local militia open to his colonists and established residents.
When militia members elect Sepulveda as their captain, Edwards nullifies the results and proclaims himself head of the militia.
After that debacle, Edwards, acting outside his authority, calls for elections for a new alcalde.
Two men are nominated for the position—Edwards's son-in-law, Chichester Chaplin, seen as the representative for the newly-arrived immigrants, and Samuel Norris, an American who had married the daughter of a long-time resident and was sympathetic to the more-established residents.
After Chaplin's victory, many settlers allege vote-stacking in an appeal to Juan Antonio Saucedo, the political chief of the Department of Béxar.
In March, Saucedo overturns the election results and proclaims Norris the winner.
Edwards refuses to recognize Norris's authority.
Benjamin cannot maintain stability in the colony, and the situation deteriorates rapidly.
A vigilante group of earlier settlers harasses many newcomers, and Benjamin makes several complaints to state authorities.
Unhappy with his tone and the increasing tension, Mexican authorities revoke the land grant in October and instruct the Edwards brothers to leave Mexico.
Rumors that Haden Edwards had returned to the United States to raise an army and not just to recruit settlers likely influenced the government action.
Unwilling to abandon his fifty thousand dollars (about one eleven hundred thousand dollars as of 2018) investment in the colony, Haden Edwards rejoins his brother in Nacogdoches in late October, continuing their business affairs despite the cancellation of his colonization contract.