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Read Ebook: Texas A Brief Account of the Origin Progress and Present State of the Colonial Settlements of Texas; Together with an Exposition of the Causes which have induced the Existing War with Mexico by Wharton William H William Harris
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TEXAS.
A BRIEF ACCOUNT
OF THE
ORIGIN, PROGRESS AND PRESENT STATE
OF THE
COLONIAL SETTLEMENTS OF TEXAS;
Extracted from a work entitled "A Geographical, Statistical and Historical account of Texas," now nearly ready for the press.
Some of these numbers have appeared in the New Orleans Bee and Bulletin.
PREFACE
CURTIUS.
TO AN IMPARTIAL WORLD.
The lands granted were in the occupancy of savages and situated in a wilderness, of which the government had never taken possession, and of which it could not with its own citizens ever have taken possession. They were not sufficiently explored to obtain that knowledge of their character and situation necessary to a sale of them. They were shut out from all commercial intercourse with the rest of the world, and inaccessible to the commonest comforts of life; nor were they brought into possession and cultivation by the colonists without much toil and privation, and patience and enterprise, and suffering and blood, and loss of lives from Indian hostilities, and other causes. Under the smiles of a benignant heaven, however, the untiring perseverance of the colonists triumphed over all natural obstacles, expelled the savages by whom the country was infested, reduced the forest into cultivation, and made the desert smile. From this it must appear that the lands of Texas, although nominally given, were in fact really and clearly bought. It may here be premised that a gift of lands by a nation to foreigners on condition of their immigrating and becoming citizens, is immensely different from a gift by one individual to another. In the case of individuals, the donor loses all further claim or ownership over the thing bestowed. But in our case, the government only gave wild lands, that they might be redeemed from a state of nature; that the obstacles to a first settlement might be overcome; that they might be rid of those savages who continually depredated upon the inhabited parts of the nation, and that they might be placed in a situation to augment the physical strength and power and revenue of the republic. Is it not evident that Mexico now holds over the colonized lands of Texas, the same jurisdiction and right of property which all nations hold over the inhabited parts of their territory? But to do away more effectually the idea that the colonists of Texas are under great obligations to the Mexican government for their donations of land, let us examine at what price the government estimated the lands given. Twelve or thirteen years ago, they gave to a colonist one league of laud for coming, he paying the government , and this year they have sold hundreds of leagues of land for each. So that it appears that the government really gave us what in their estimation was worth . A true statement of facts then is all that is necessary to pay at once that immense debt of endless gratitude which, in the estimation of the ignorant and interested is due from the colonists to the government. I pass over the toil and suffering and danger which attended the redemption and cultivation of their lands by the colonists, and turn to their civil condition and to the conduct and history of the government. It is a maxim no less venerable for its antiquity than its truth--a maxim admitted and illustrated by all writers on political economy--and one that has been corroborated by experience in every corner of the earth, that miserable is the servitude and horrible the condition of that people whose laws are either uncertain or unknown. I ask, with a defiance of contradiction, if ours is not and has not always been, in Texas, the unhappy condition and miserable bondage spoken of in this maxim? Who of us knows or can by possibility arrive at a knowledge of the laws that govern our property and lives? Who of us is able to read and understand and be entirely confident of the validity of his title to the land he lives on, and which he has redeemed from a state of nature by the most indefatigable industry and perseverance? Who knows whether he has paid on his land all that government exacts, or whether he has not paid ten times as much? Look at the mere mockery of all law and justice which has always prevailed in place of an able and learned judiciary. Alcaldes, most of them unlearned in any system of jurisprudence, and unconversant with legal proceedings of any description, have been elected to administer a code, scattered through hundreds of volumes and written in languages of which they did not understand one word.
Who among us is able to confer with his rulers; to represent his wants and grievances; to ask advice, or recommend salutary changes? Have we had more than one or two organs of communication with the government, and must not they have been omniscient to have always understood the wishes of the people, and incorruptible to have always correctly represented them? Who of us feels or ever has felt any reliance or can place any confidence in governmental matters, or can predict with any sort of certainty what in this respect a day may bring forth? There are thousands of other evils growing out of our present situation, too hourly, universally and bitterly felt to require to be mentioned. Who will say that these things do not exist? Who will say that we have not suffered the harassing uncertainty and miserable bondage here represented?
When the people of the United States commenced their war for independence against Great Britain, the friends of Britain charged them with ingratitude. They said that Britain had founded the colonies at great expense--had increased a load of debt by wars on their account--had protected their commerce, &c. This cannot be said of Mexico. Not one dollar has she spent for Texas--not one Mexican soldier has ever fought by our side in expelling the savages. She has given us no protection whatever; and as allegiance and protection are reciprocal, we have a right on this principle to cast off her yoke. However, in my next I pledge myself to demonstrate that the Mexicans are wholly incapable of self-government, and that on that principle we are bound by the first law of nature--self-preservation--to dissolve all connexion, and take care of ourselves.
I now proceed to demonstrate that the Mexicans are wholly incapable of self-government, and that our liberties, our fortunes and our lives are insecure so long as we are connected with them. At the onset I cannot but advert to the spirit of prophecy and truth with which that unequalled expounder and defender of the rights of man, Mr. Jefferson, spoke more than 18 years ago in regard to this very matter. In a letter to the Marquis de Lafayette, dated Monticello, 14th May, 1817, he says, "I wish I could give you better hopes of our Mexican brethren. The achievement of their independence of old Spain is no longer a question. But it is a very serious one what will then become of them. Ignorance and bigotry, like other insanities, are incapable of self-government. They will fall under military despotism, and become the murderous tools of their respective Bonapartes. No one I hope can doubt my wish to see them and all mankind exercising self-government. But the question is not what we wish--but what is practicable. As their sincere friend, then, I do believe the best thing for them would be to come to an accord with Spain, under the guarantee of France, Russia, Holland, and the United States, allowing to Spain a nominal supremacy, with authority only to keep the peace among them, leaving them otherwise all the powers of self-government, until their experience, their education, and their emancipation from their Priests should prepare them for complete independence." Jefferson's works, vol. 4, page 303. Mr. Jefferson well knew that from the discovery of America to the date of his letter, the Mexicans had unfortunately been the persecuted, pillaged, and priest-ridden slaves of the kings of Spain--a line of kings, with but few exceptions, more inimical to the rights of man, more opposed to the advancement of truth, and light, and liberty, more practised in tyranny, more hardened in crime, more infatuated with superstition, and more benighted with ignorance, than any other monsters that ever disgraced a throne in christendom, since the revival of letters. Yes, humanity shudders, and freedom burns with indignation at a recital of the barbarities and oppressions practised upon the ill-fated Mexicans from the bloody days of Cortes up to the termination of their connexion with Spain. The produce of their cultivated fields was rifled--the natural products of their forests pillaged--the bowels of their earth ransacked, and their suffering families impoverished to glut the grandeur and enrich the coffers of their trans-Atlantic oppressors. To make their miserable servitude less perceptible, they were denied the benefits of the commonest education, and were kept the blind devotees of the darkest and most demoralizing superstition that ever clouded the intellects, or degraded the morals of mankind. From this it is evident, that up to the period of their independence, having been so long destitute of education, so long unaccustomed to think or legislate for themselves, and so long under the complete dominion of their liberty-hating Priests, they must have been totally unacquainted with the plainest principles of self-government. Let us examine what their subsequent opportunities of improvement have been.
In my last I contended that none of those ties which are necessary to bind a people together and make them one, existed between the colonists and Mexicans. That there was an almost total dissimilarity in the soil, climate and productions of the regions of territory they respectively inhabited; and that superadded to this, there was no identity of pursuits, habits, manners, education, language or religion. I now proceed to show, that these circumstances have engendered towards the colonists in the mass of the Mexican nation, feelings of unconquerable jealousy and hostility. Yes! our superiority in enterprise, in learning, in the arts and in all that can dignify life, or embellish human nature, instead of exciting in them a laudable ambition to emulate, to equal, or excel us--excites the most hateful of all the passions--envy--and has caused them to endeavor for years past, by an unremitting series of vexatious, oppressive and unconstitutional acts, to retard our growth and prosperity, and if possible, to get rid altogether of a people whose presence so hourly reminds them of their own ignorance and inferiority. Some of these acts I now proceed to enumerate.
As another evidence of the hostility of the Mexicans to the Colonists, I will instance the following:
CURTIUS.
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