Everything about Stephen F Austin totally explained
Stephen Fuller Austin (
November 3,
1793 –
December 27,
1836), known as the "Father of Texas" led the second and ultimately successful colonization of the region by the
United States. The capital city,
Austin, Texas,
Austin County, Texas,
Stephen F. Austin State University in
Nacogdoches, Texas,
Austin College in
Sherman, Texas, as well as a number of
K-12 schools are named in his honor.
Early years
Stephen F. Austin was born in the
mining regions of
southwestern Virginia (
Wythe County), in what is now known as
Austinville, some southwest of
Richmond, Virginia. He was the second child of
Moses Austin and Mary Brown, the first, Eliza, having lived only one month. On
June 8,
1798, when he was four years old, his family moved forty miles west of the
Mississippi River to the lead mining region in present-day
Missouri. His father Moses Austin received a
Sitio from the Spanish government for the mining site of Mine á Breton. In 1813, his father lobbied the territorial legislature to create the county of Washington and to locate the new county seat at the town he created, called
Potosi in present-day
Washington County, Missouri.
When Austin was eleven years old, his family sent him to be educated at
Bacon Academy in
Connecticut and then at
Transylvania University in
Lexington, Kentucky, from which he graduated in 1810. After graduating in Kentucky, Austin began studying to be a lawyer, at age twenty one he served in the
legislature of the
Missouri Territory. As a member of the territorial legislature, he was influential in obtaining a charter for the struggling
Bank of St. Louis.
Austin was left penniless after the
Panic of 1819, and decided to move south to the new
Arkansas Territory.
He made his home in
Hempstead County, Arkansas. Two weeks before the first territorial elections in 1820, Austin declared his candidacy for Congress. His late entrance meant that his name didn't appear on the ballot in two of the five counties, but he still placed second in the field of six candidates. He was later named a judge for the First Circuit Court. A family of a husband, wife and two children would receive at twelve and a half cents per acre. In December 1821, the first U.S. colonists crossed into the granted territory by land and sea, on the Brazos River in present day
Brazoria County, Texas.
Empresario Austin
Austin's plan for a colony was thrown into turmoil by the
independence of Mexico from Spain in 1821. Governor Martínez informed Austin that the
junta instituyente, the new
rump congress of the government of
Agustín I of Mexico, refused to recognize the
land grant authorized by Spain, based on a new policy of using a general
immigration law to regulate new settlement in Mexico. Austin traveled to
Mexico City and managed to persuade the
junta instituyente to authorize the grant to his father, as well as the Law signed by the Spanish Emperor on
January 3,
1823. The old Imperial Law offered heads of families a league and a labor of land, 4,605 acres (19 km²), and other inducements. It also provided for the employment of agents, called
empresarios, to promote
immigration. As empresario, Austin himself was to receive 67,000 acres (270 km²) of land for each two hundred families he introduced. According to the law, immigrants were not required to pay fees to the government. This fact soon led some of the immigrants to deny Austin's right to charge them for services at the rate of 12½ cents an acre ($31/km²).
When the Emperor of Mexico,
Agustín de Iturbide,abdicated in
March 1823, the law was annulled once again. In April 1823, Austin induced the congress to grant him a contract to bring 300 families into Texas. He wanted honest, hard-working, people who would make the colony a huge success. In 1824 the congress passed a new immigration law that allowed the individual states of Mexico to administer public lands and open them to settlement under certain conditions. In March 1825 the legislature of the Mexican state of
Coahuila y Tejas passed a law that was similar to the one authorized by Iturbide. The law continued the system of empresarios, as well as granting each married man a league of land, 4,428 acres (18 km²), with the stipulation that he must pay the state thirty dollars within six years.
By late 1825, Austin had brought the first 300 families, now known in
Texas history as the
Old Three Hundred, to the grant. Austin had obtained further contracts to settle an additional 900 families between 1825 and 1829. He had effective civil and military authority over the
settlers, but he was quick to introduce a semblance of American law - the Constitution of Coahuila y Tejas was agreed on in November 1827. Also, Austin organized small, informal armed groups to protect the colonists, which evolved into the
Texas Rangers. Despite his hopes Austin was making little money from his endeavors; the colonists were unwilling to pay for his services as
empresario and most of the money gained was spent on the processes of government and other public services.
It was during these years that Austin sought to establish
Freemasonry in Texas. Freemasonry was well established among the educated classes of Mexican society. It had been introduced among the aristocracy loyal to the
House of Bourbon, and the conservatives had total control over the Order. By 1827 Americans living in
Mexico City had introduced the American
York Rite of Freemasonry as a liberal alternative to the established European-style
Scottish Rite. On
February 11,
1828, Austin called a meeting of Freemasons at
San Felipe for the purpose of electing officers and petitioning the Masonic
Grand Lodge in Mexico City for a charter to form a lodge. Austin was elected
Worshipful Master of the new lodge. Although the petition reached
Matamoros, and was to be forwarded to Mexico City, nothing more was heard of it. By 1828, the ruling faction in Mexico was afraid that the liberal elements in Texas might try to gain their independence. Fully aware of the political philosophies of American Freemasons, the
Mexican government outlawed Freemasonry on
October 25,
1828. In 1829, Austin called another meeting where it was decided that it was "impolitic and imprudent, at this time, to form Masonic lodges in Texas."
He was active to promote trade and to secure the good favor of the Mexican authorities, aiding them in the suppression of the
Fredonian Rebellion of
Haden Edwards. However, with the colonists numbering over 11,000 by 1832 they were becoming less conducive to Austin's cautious leadership, and the Mexican government was also becoming less cooperative - concerned with the growth of the colony and the efforts of the U.S. government to buy the state from them. The Mexican government had attempted to stop further U.S. immigration as early as April 1830, but again the skills of Austin had gained an exemption for his colonies.
He gave 640 acres to the husband, 320 to the wife, 160 for every child, and 80 for every slave.
Relations with Mexico
The application of the immigration control and the introduction of
tariff laws had done much to dissatisfy the colonists, peaking in the
Anahuac Disturbances. Austin then felt compelled to involve himself in Mexican politics, supporting the upstart
Antonio López de Santa Anna. Following the success of Santa Anna, the colonists sought a compensatory reward, proclaimed at the
Convention of 1832—resumption of immigration, tariff exemption, separation from Coahuila, and a new state government for Texas. Austin wasn't in favor of these demands, he considered them ill-timed and tried his hardest to moderate them. When they were repeated and extended at the
Convention of 1833, Austin traveled to
Mexico City on
July 18,
1833, and met with Vice President
Valentín Gomez Farías. Austin did gain certain important reforms; the immigration ban was lifted, but not a separate state government. Separate statehood required a population of 80,000 before it could be granted, and Texas had only 30,000.
Texas Revolution
In his absence, a number of events propelled the colonists toward confrontation with Santa Anna's centralist government. Austin took temporary command of the Texan forces during the
Siege of Bexar from
October 12 to
December 11,
1835. After learning of the
Disturbances at Anahuac and Velasco in the summer of 1835, an enraged Santa Anna made rapid preparations for the Mexican army to sweep Anglo settlers from Texas. War began in earnest in October 1835 at
Gonzales. The
Republic of Texas, created by a new constitution on
March 2,
1836, won independence following a string of defeats with the dramatic turnabout victory at the
Battle of San Jacinto on
April 21,
1836, and the capture of Santa Anna the following morning.
Austin in the Republic of Texas
In December of 1835 Austin, Branch Archer and
William H. Wharton were appointed commissioners to the U.S. by the provisional government of the republic. On
June 10,
1836, Austin was in New Orleans when he received word of Santa Anna's defeat by
Sam Houston at San Jacinto. Austin returned to Texas to rest at
Peach Point in August. On August 4, he announced his candidacy for president of Texas. Austin felt confident he could win the election until with two weeks before the election, on August 20, Houston entered the race. Austin wrote,
"Many of the old settlers who are too blind to see or understand their interest will vote for him." Houston carried East Texas, the Red River and most of the soldier vote. Austin polled 587 votes to
Sam Houston's 5,119 and
Henry Smith's 743 votes.
Death
On
October 28,
1836, Houston confirmed Austin as secretary of state by the Texas senate. In December of 1836 Austin was in the new capital of Columbia (now known as West Columbia) where he caught a severe cold; his condition worsened. Doctors were called in, but couldn't help him. Austin died of
pneumonia at noon on
December 27,
1836, at the home of George B. McKinstry right outside of what is now West Columbia, Texas. Austin's last words were "The independence of Texas is recognized! Don't you see it in the papers?..." Upon hearing of Austin's death, Houston ordered an official statement proclaiming: "The Father of Texas is no more; the first pioneer of the wilderness has departed." Austin's body was re-interred in 1910 in the
Texas State Cemetery in
Austin, Texas.
Monuments
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