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This is Episode 43 – Texas finally becomes a state –  I’m you host and guide Hank Wilson.

There is a major misconception among people today  about exactly what Texas and Texans wanted when they rebelled against Mexico. Some of today’s Texas citizens believe the reason was the settlers wanted to be an independent country. That’s not true, while wanting to be free of Mexico, the vast majority of those who were living in Texas at the time wanted to be a part of the United States. That was a major source of conflict among the early politicians, and that’s why there was not a major push for statehood until the mid-1840s.

In 1844 Texas held its final presidential race. The citizens elected Secretary of State Anson Jones. Due to his backing by Sam Houston, Jones easily won the election. He was inaugurated on December 9, and his administration’s policies included economy recovery, trying to establish peaceful relations with the Indians, and a policy of nonaggression against Mexico. Perhaps most importantly, he began to tackle the idea and process of having Texas annexed by the United State. He, more than anyone else is known as the “Architect of Annexation.”

The thing he and those who were in favor of annexation knew was important was timing. He wasted no time in beginning his effort and he instructed Isaac Van Zandt, Texan who was the official chargé d’affaires to the United States, to not negotiate any treaty until they could be assured the United States Senate would ratify it. Almost simultaneously President John Tyler reopened negotiations on annexation and Mexico began expressing interest in becoming an ally of Texas. Meanwhile, Mexico told the United States that she would declare war if the United States approved annexation. Two events, both of which were embarrassing to Texans,  would help spur American interest in annexing Texas.

In 1841, then Texas president Lamar, as part of his dream to have Texas expand all the way to the Pacific Ocean authorized what is known as the Santa Fe expedition. This was one of those grand adventures that was doomed from the start. The group got lost, they were attacked by almost every tribe along the route, and when they actually reached New Mexico they were met with armed resistance. The entire expedition surrendered without firing a shot, were imprisoned in Mexico City, and eventually released in 1842.

Also in 1842, Mexico invaded Texas.

A force of 700 lead by Gen. Rafael Vásquez entered Texas and seized San Antonio. They only stayed for two days before travelling back over the Rio Grande and returning to Mexico, but their presence in Texas caused many Anglos to become very nervous. Since Sam Houston had taken office from Lamar, in March of 1842, he instructed the Texas representative to Washington, James Reily, to begin to explore the possibility of annexation. The federal government was receptive because the British had indicated they wanted to help mediate the Texas-Mexico issues. Of course, this would have provided England with an opening to establish their influence in Texas affairs. Meanwhile President Tyler, a Whig who adhered to the traditional Southern support of slavery, was a proponent of annexation and by October discussions that would lead to the eventual annexation of Texas by treaty had begun.

The treaty was completed on April 12, 1844, and signed by Secretary of State John C. Calhoun, Isaac Van Zandt, and Van Zandt’s assistant, J. Pinckney Henderson.

Texas was an issued during the U.S. presidential election of 1844. Democrat James K. Polk, of Tennessee, ran under the slogan “the Re-Annexation of Texas and the Re-Occupation of Oregon.,” He was trying to capitalize on the growing belief among Americans that it was their destiny to control the entire continent. He won by a very significant amount. Since Polk would not take office until March of 1845, the current president Tyler viewed Polk’s election as a mandate for immediate annexation.

In December he urged Congress to approve annexation. Congress did so in February of 1845 and Tyler signed the resolution on March 1, Doing his best to insure he received credit for the annexation he instructed Andrew Jackson Donelson, to travel to Texas and press for a quick acceptance. In order to achieve this, the U.S. granted several significant terms. Texas would come in as a slave state rather than a territory. Texas would keep her public lands and pay her own public debts. She could divide herself into as many as four additional states. Contrary to what some current Texans believe, there was NEVER any part of the agreement that would allow Texas to break free of the Union. I’ll talk more about that in later episodes.

Anticipating the annexation would upset Mexico the United States sent a fleet of warships to protected the Texas coast in May 1845. In February of 1846, President Anson Jones lowered the flag of the republic for the last time. The framework for what was to happen in Texas over the next 15 years was in place.  The great majority of the new state’s approximately 100,000 White inhabitants migrated from states of the old South. They settled into the eastern part of the state and the south-central plains. It was there they built a lifestyle that closely resembled the life they had left.

 They were dependent on agriculture, first as subsistence farmers and livestock and then on they began to produce cotton for cash. Needless to say with cotton came what southerners called their “Peculiar Institution”-slavery. By 1846 there were more than 30,000 slaves and the plantations were able to produce even more cotton. The state’s political institutions became even more like other states of the South. The State Constitution of 1845, was written by a group dominated by  natives of Tennessee, Virginia, and Georgia.  The writers depended heavily on Louisiana’s fundamental law as well as on the existing Constitution of the Republic of Texas. The constitution prohibited banking and required a two-thirds vote of the legislature to charter any private corporation.

Article VIII guaranteed the institution of slavery.

Texans thought everything was in place for an extended period of prosperity. They were wrong. Texas suddenly found they were being drawn deeper and deeper into the war between the U.S. and Mexico. A war that broke out within months of annexation, and which the annexation was partly responsible for.

The southwestern boundary between Texas and Mexico lit the match. Texas claimed the state reached all the way to the Rio Grande, Mexico said it only reached to the Nueces River.

President Polk backed Texas and after failing to settle the disagreement through diplomacy ordered Gen. Zachary Taylor to occupy the disputed area. Taylor not only occupied the area of the Rio Grande, he marched troops close to Matamoros. There are differing reports about which side fired on the other first, regardless multiple battles between Taylor’s troops and Mexican soldiers occurred north of the river in May. Polk demanded that Congress declare war and they did.  During the conflict approximately 5,000 Texans served with United States forces. They fought for both General Taylor in northern Mexico and later for Gen. Winfield Scott as he tried to capture Mexico City. Finally in 1848, in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Mexico recognized Texas as a part of the United States and confirmed the Rio Grande as its border.

While settling on dispute, another one popped up, this time between Texas and the U.S. Texas wanted to use the Rio Grande from the gulf to the eastern half of what is now the state of New Mexico. When the Texas legislature declared there was a new Texas county by the name of Santa Fe County, then Governor George T. Wood sent Spruce M. Baird to organize the local government and serve as its first judge. This didn’t go as planned because the people of Santa Fe, were not willing to accept Texas authority. Additionally federal troops of the United States troops who were in the area supported the local citizens.

Finally Baird gave up and in July 1849, he left. If Texas had been able to secure that part of New Mexico it would have expanded the territory marked as slave states. Meanwhile back in Washington a bitter controversy that would eventually fail to solve the slavery issue was brewing in Congress between representatives of the North and the South. The controversy was over the ability to expand slavery into the territory taken from Mexico after the war of 1848.  The Texans’ western boundary claims became involved in this larger dispute, and the Lone Star State was drawn into the crisis of 1850 on the side of the South.

I’m going to stop here, because the issues that affected Texas during the next 10 years require they be given their own time and space. So that’s going to do it for this episode. Please subscribe to the podcast, I try to keep posting new episodes, sometimes though life gets in the way and there’s a gap between. But hey and remember if you want more information on Texas History, visit the website of the Texas State Historical Association. I also have three audiobooks on the Hidden History of Texas one which deals with the 1500s to about 1820,  one 1820s to 1830s, and the latest release the 1830 to 1836, the Texas revolution period. You can find the books pretty much wherever you download or listen to audiobooks. Just do a search for the Hidden History of Texas by Hank Wilson and they’ll pop right up. Links to all the stores are on my website https://arctx.org. By the way if you like audiobooks, visit my publisher’s website there’s an incredible selection of audiobooks there. In addition to mine you’ll find the classics, horror, science fiction, mental-health, and much more. Check it out visit https://ashbynavis.com

Thanks for listening y’all