Americans Come to Texas to Stay

In 1820 Moses Austin appeared in the Texas capital of San Antonio with a proposal for the Spanish governor - to found a settlement of 300 US settlers in east Texas...all Roman Catholic who would become Spanish subjects. Surprisingly, the governor accepted because Austin had lived in Spanish Louisiana territory and was therefore a Spanish citizen. 

Austin returned home to Missouri to gather the settlers but died before he could return to Texas.  His son, Stephen agreed to carry out his father's last wishes.  The 28 year old brought his first "Texans" in 1821 to an empty, fertile area centered on the Columbia and Brazos Valleys.  The entire population of Texas at that  time (excluding the Indians) was 4000, most living in San Antonio and Nacogdoches.

The determined pioneers cleared land, built cabins, sowed crops, repeatedly drove off Apache and Comanche Indians, and in two short years had their capital, San Felipe de Austin.  Rugged living and hard work were rewarded in corn and cotton with inexhaustible pasture land "green year round".  The forests and rivers were rich in game and fish.  One Texan wrote "there does not appear possible that there can be a land more lovely."

Included in the new capital were settlers like blacksmith Gail Borden, future inventor of condensed milk.  The only other commercial building in the new capital belonged to Copper and Cheves Saloon, the village's only frame building.  All the rest of the buildings were log cabins.

The Anglo Saxons settlers spread through the wooded eastern area while the Mexicans preferred the dry southern grasslands of Texas.

Next time...a closer look at Stephen Austin
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On this Day in Pioneer History:  "On August 22, 1898, the hired assassin Jim Miller briefly joins the Texas Rangers, demonstrating how thin the line between outlaw and lawmen often was in the West.