SANTA ANNA: A PARADOX
Some call his era the “Age of Santa Anna.” He was known as a brave soldier and a cunning politician. Over his forty-year career, he served multiple times as a general and eleven times as president of Mexico. He thought of himself as “the Napoleon of the West,” yet historians say he was among the […]
What Happened to the Twin Sisters?
In November 1835, three months before Texas declared its independence from Mexico, war clouds had grown into a full rebellion and the citizens of Cincinnati, Ohio, eager to lend support, began raising money to purchase two cannons for the looming battle. Since the United States remained neutral throughout the war, the two iron six-pounders were […]
The Question of Santa Anna’s Leg
I usually try to tell the tale and let readers make up their own minds about the merits of the case. This time, I am admitting up front that I am siding with the state of Illinois against my own birthplace of Texas. Here’s the conundrum: The Illinois State Military Museum owns and proudly displays […]
Elizabeth McAnulty Owens, Pioneer Reminiscences
Thanks to the stories that Elizabeth Owens told her daughters, we know about life in Victoria, headquarters for the De León Colony, during some of its most turbulent times. Elizabeth McAnulty was two years old when her mother and stepfather, Margaret and James Quinn, moved the family from New Jersey to Texas in 1829 as […]
Angelina Eberly, Innkeeper/Cannoneer
Famous for firing the howitzer that started Texas’ “Bloodless War,” Angelina Eberly was really a smart businesswoman. Born in Tennessee in 1798, Angelina Belle married her first cousin Jonathan C Payton in 1818 and began a journey that ended in 1825 in San Felipe de Austin, headquarters of Stephen F. Austin’s colony. The couple operated […]
Don Martin De Leon, Empresario
Soon after winning independence from Spain in 1821, Mexico began issuing empresarial grants, contracts allowing men to bring settlers into Mexico’s northernmost state of Texas. Ironically, of approximately thirty empresarial grants issued between 1821 and 1832, only one went to a Mexican. Don Martín De León and his wife Doña Patricia De León were wealthy […]
The Texas Navy
The Republic of Texas existed from March 2, 1836 until February 19, 1846 and during most of that time it boasted its own navy with a history as colorful as its government. As Texas settlers, unhappy with the Mexican government, prepared to go to war for independence from Mexico, officials of the interim government realized […]
Texas’ First Settlers: Canary Islanders
After the Frenchman René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle missed the mouth of the Mississippi where he planned to establish a colony and landed instead in 1685 on the middle Texas coast, the Spanish Colonial government became concerned about the French encroaching on Spanish Texas. The worry led to constructing missions in East Texas […]
Houston: The Second Choice
Houston reigns as the largest city in Texas and the fourth largest in the United States, but it hasn’t always enjoyed top billing. In 1832 brothers Augustus C. and John K. Allen came to Texas from New York and joined a group of land speculators. During the 1836 Texas War for Independence from Mexico, the […]
Stephen F. Austin, “Father of Texas”
Stephen F. Austin fits the image of a reluctant father. He came to Spanish Texas in response to his own father Moses Austin’s deathbed wish for Stephen to continue with Moses’ dream of settling 300 families in Texas. Like many apprehensive fathers, Stephen F. Austin embraced his responsibilities and spent the remainder of his life […]