Texas History Timeline
(Key Events in Early Texas)

 

Section 1: Early Exploration and Development

Before 1500 -- Prior to the arrival of the first European explorers, numerous tribes of the Indians of Texas occupied the region between the Rio Grande to the south and the Red River to the north.

Mid-1519 -- Sailing from a base in Jamaica, Alonso Alvarez de Pineda, a Spanish adventurer, was the first known European to explore and map the Texas coastline.

November 1528 -- Cabeza de Vaca shipwrecked on what is believed today to be Galveston Island. After trading in the region for some six years, he later explored the Texas interior on his way to Mexico.

1540-1542 -- In search of the fabled Seven Cities of Cibola, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado lead an expedition into the present southwestern United States and across northern Texas.

18 February 1685 -- Robert Cavelier, Sieur de LaSalle established Fort St. Louis at Matagorda Bay, and thus formed the basis for France's claim to Texas. Two years later, LaSalle was murdered by his own men.

22 April 1689 -- Mexican explorer Alonso de Leon reached Fort St. Louis, and found it abandoned, during an expedition planned to reestablish Spanish presence in Texas.

1716-1789 -- Throughout the 18th century, Spain established Catholic missions in Texas, and along with the missions, the towns of San Antonio, Goliad and Nacogdoches.

8 August 1812 -- About 130-men strong, the Gutierrez-Magee Expedition crossed the Sabine from Louisiana in a rebel movement against Spanish rule in Texas.

1817-1820 -- Jean Laffite occupied Galveston Island and used it as a base for his smuggling and privateering operation.

3 January 1823 -- Stephen F. Austin received a grant from the Mexican government and began colonization in the region of the Brazos River.

Mid-1824 -- The Constitution of 1824 gave Mexico a republican form of government. It failed, however, to define the rights of the states within the republic, including Texas.

6 April 1830 --Relations between the Texans and Mexico reached a new low when Mexico forbid further emigration into Texas by settlers from the United States.

26 June 1832 --The Battle of Velasco resulted in the first casualties in Texas' relations with Mexico. After several days of fighting, the Mexicans under Domingo de Ugartechea were forced to surrender for lack of ammunition.

1832-1833 -- The Convention of 1832 and the Convention of 1833 in Texas were triggered by growing dissatisfaction among the settlements with the policies of the government in Mexico City.

 

Section 2: Revolution and the Republic

2 October 1835 -- Texans repulsed a detachment of Mexican cavalry at the Battle of Gonzales. The revolution began.

9 October 1835 -- The Goliad Campaign of 1835 ended when George Collingsworth, Ben Milam, and forty-nine other Texans stormed the presidio at Goliad and a small detachment of Mexican defenders.

28 October 1835 -- Jim Bowie, James Fannin and 90 Texans defeated 450 Mexicans at the Battle of Concepcion, near San Antonio.

3 November 1835 -- The Consultation met to consider options for more autonomous rule for Texas. A document known as the Organic Law outlined the organization and functions of a new Provisional Government.

8 November 1835 -- The Grass Fight near San Antonio was won by the Texans under Jim Bowie and Ed Burleson. Instead of silver, however, the Texans gained a worthless bounty of grass.

11 December 1835 -- Mexicans under Gen. Cos surrendered San Antonio to the Texans following the Siege of Bexar. Ben Milam was killed during the extended siege.

2 March 1836 -- The Texas Declaration of Independence was signed by members of the Convention of 1836. An ad interim government was formed for the newly created Republic of Texas.

6 March 1836 -- Texans under Col. William B. Travis were overwhelmed by the Mexican army after a two-week siege at the Battle of the Alamo in San Antonio. The Runaway Scrape began.

10 March 1836 -- Sam Houston abandoned Gonzales in a general retreat eastward to avoid the invading Mexican army.

27 March 1836 -- James Fannin and nearly 400 Texans were executed by the Mexicans at the Goliad Massacre, under order of Santa Anna.

21 April 1836 -- Texans under Sam Houston routed the Mexican forces of Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto. Thus, independence was won in one of the most decisive battles in history.

November 1839 -- The Texas Congress first met in Austin, the frontier site selected for the capital of the Republic.

11 August 1840 -- The Battle of Plum Creek, near present-day Lockhart, ended the boldest and most penetrating Comanche challenge to the Texas Republic.

June 1841 -- The Texan Santa Fe Expedition set out for New Mexico. Near Sante Fe, they were intercepted by Mexican forces and marched 2000 miles to prison in Mexico City.

5 March 1842 -- A Mexican force of over 500 men under Rafael Vasquez invaded Texas for the first time since the revolution. They briefly occupied San Antonio, but soon headed back to the Rio Grande.

11 September 1842 -- San Antonio was again captured, this time by 1400 Mexican troops under Adrian Woll. Again the Mexicans retreated, but this time with prisoners.

Fall 1842 -- Sam Houston authorized Alexander Somervell to lead a retaliatory raid into Mexico. The resulting Somervell Expedition dissolved, however, after briefly taking the border towns of Laredo and Guerreo.

20 December 1842 -- Some 300 members of the Somervell force set out to continue raids into Mexico. Ten days and 20 miles later, the ill-fated Mier Expedition surrendered at the Mexican town of Mier.

29 December 1842 -- Under orders of Sam Houston, officials arrived in Austin to remove the records of the Republic of Texas to the city of Houston, touching off the bloodless Archives War.

25 March 1843 -- Seventeen Texans were executed in what became known as the Black Bean Episode, which resulted from the Mier Expedition, one of several raids by the Texans into Mexico.

27 May 1843 -- The Texan's Snively Expedition reached the Santa Fe Trail, expecting to capture Mexican wagons crossing territory claimed by Texas. The campaign stalled, however, when American troops intervened.

 

Section 3: Statehood and Beyond

29 December 1845 -- U. S. President James Polk followed through on a campaign platform promising to annex Texas, and signed legislation making Texas the 28th state of the United States.

25 April 1846 -- The Mexican-American War ignited as a result of disputes over claims to Texas boundaries. The outcome of the war fixed Texas' southern boundary at the Rio Grande River.

25 November 1850 -- In a plan to settle boundary disputes and pay her public debt, Texas relinquished about one-third of her territory in the Compromise of 1850, in exchange for $10,000,000 from the United States.

May 1852 -- The first Lone Star State Fair in Corpus Christi symbolized a period of relative prosperity in Texas during the 1850's. Organizer Henry L. Kinney persuaded Dr. Ashbel Smith to be the fair's manager.

29 April 1856 -- Backed by the US military, a shipment of 32 camels arrived at the port of Indianola. The resulting Texas Camel Experiment used the animals to transport supplies over the "Great American Desert."

1 February 1861 -- Texas seceded from the Federal Union following a 171 to 6 vote by the Secession Convention. Governor Sam Houston was one of a small minority opposed to secession.

22 October 1861 -- Advance units of the newly formed Brigade of General H. H. Sibley marched westward from San Antonio to claim New Mexico and the American southwest for the Confederacy.

1 January 1863 -- After several weeks of Federal occupation of Texas' most important seaport, the Battle of Galveston restored the island to Texas control for remainder of Civil War.

13 May 1865 -- The last land engagement of the Civil War was fought at the Battle of Palmito Ranch in far south Texas, more than a month after Gen. Lee's surrender at Appomattox, VA.

1866 -- The abundance of longhorn cattle in south Texas and the return of Confederate soldiers to a poor reconstruction economy marked the beginning of the era of Texas trail drives to northern markets.

30 March 1870 -- The United States Congress readmitted Texas into the Union. Reconstruction continued, however, for another four years.

17 January 1874 -- Coke-Davis Dispute ended peacefully in Austin as E. J. Davis relinquished the governor's office. Richard Coke began a democratic party dynasty in Texas that continued unbroken for over 100 years.

4 October 1876 -- The opening of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas marked the state's first venture into public higher education. Tuition totaled $10 per semester.

15 September 1883 -- The University of Texas opened its doors in Austin for its inaugural session. First courses were offered in the Academic Department and a Law Department.

16 May 1888 -- The dedication of the present state capitol in Austin ended seven years of planning and construction. The building was funded with 3,000,000 acres of land in north Texas.

20 January 1891 -- Based on a campaign platform calling for the regulation of railroads and big business, James Hogg took office as the first native-born governor of Texas.

10 January 1901 -- The discovery of "black gold" at the Spindletop oil field near Beaumont launched Texas into a century of oil exploration, electronics, and manned space travel.

 

History

The forerunners of the West Texas Indians lived in camps that were made perhaps as much as 37,000 years ago. Possessing only crude spears and flint-pointed darts, these hunters survived primarily on wild game. In the more fertile areas of East Texas, some of the tribes established permanent villages and well-managed farms and evolved political and religious systems. Forming a loose federation in order to preserve peace and to provide for mutual protection, they came to be known as the Caddo confederacies. By 1528, when the first Europeans entered the interior of Texas, the area was sparsely settled, but the culture and habitation of the Indians exerted measurable influence on the later history of the region.

Settlement

By the 1730s the Spanish had sent more than 30 expeditions into Texas. San Antonio, which by 1718 housed a military post and a mission, had become the administrative centre. Missions, with military support, were established in Nacogdoches in East Texas, Goliad in the south, and near El Paso in the far west. The French also explored Texas. The explorations of Robert Cavelier, Lord de La Salle, and his colony at Matagorda Bay were the bases of French claims to East Texas.

Anglo-American colonization gained impetus when the United States purchased the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803 and claimed title to lands as far west as the Rio Grande. By 1819, however, the United States had accepted the Sabine River as the western boundary of the Louisiana Territory. Moses Austin secured permission from the Spanish government to colonize 300 families on a grant of 200,000 acres. When Mexico became an independent country in 1821, his son, Stephen F. Austin, received Mexican approval of the grant. He led his first band of settlers to the area along the lower Brazos and Colorado rivers. By 1832 Austin's several colonies had about 8,000 inhabitants. Other colonies brought the territory's Anglo-American population to about 20,000.

Revolution and the republic

Unrest throughout Mexico, including Texas, resulted in a coup by Antonio López de Santa Anna, who assumed the presidency in 1833. Texans, hopeful for relief from restrictive governmental measures, supported Santa Anna. Austin expected a friendly hearing about these grievances but instead was imprisoned in Mexico City for encouraging insurrection. He was freed in 1835 and returned home to find that skirmishes had already developed between the colonists and Mexican troops and that Santa Anna was preparing to send reinforcements. Texans formed a provisional government in 1835, and in 1836 issued a declaration of independence at Washington-on-the-Brazos. David G. Burnet was chosen ad interim president of the new Republic of Texas, Sam Houston was appointed its military commander, and Austin became commissioner to the United States with the mission of securing strategic aid and enlisting volunteers.

The famous siege of the Alamo in San Antonio lasted from February 23 to March 6, 1836. The strategic objective of the stand was to delay Mexican forces and thereby permit military organization of the Texas settlers. As the battle climaxed with a massive attack over the walls, the defenders (about 183) were all killed. Among the dead were the famous frontiersmen Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett. On April 21 Sam Houston led a surprise attack on the Mexican troops at the San Jacinto River, where he succeeded in capturing Santa Anna and in securing victory for the Texans.

The Texan revolution was not simply a fight between the Anglo-American settlers and Mexican troops; it was a revolution of the people who were living in Texas against what many of them regarded as tyrannical rule from a distant source. Many of the leaders in the revolution and many of the armed settlers who took part were Mexicans.

The Republic of Texas was officially established with Sam Houston as president and Stephen Austin as secretary of state. Cities were named in their honour: Houston was the capital until 1839, when Austin was approved as the permanent capital.

The republic had a difficult 10-year life. Financing proved critical, and efforts to secure loans from foreign countries were unsuccessful. Protection against raids from Mexico and occasional attacks by Indians required a mobile armed force. During the republic a squad of armed men, the famous Texas Rangers, was maintained to ride long distances quickly to repel or punish raiding forces.

Annexation and statehood

As early as 1836, Texans had voted for annexation by the United States, but the proposition was rejected by the Jackson and Van Buren administrations. Great Britain favoured continued independence for Texas in order to block further westward expansion of the United States, but this attitude only helped to swing Americans toward annexation. Annexation was approved by the Texas and the U.S. congresses in 1845, and the transfer of authority from the republic to the state of Texas took place in 1846. One unique feature of the annexation agreements was a provision permitting Texas to retain title to its public lands.

The U.S. annexation of Texas and dispute over the area between the Rio Grande and the Nueces River brought about the Mexican War. Troops led by Winfield Scott and Zachary Taylor invaded Mexico, and Scott captured Mexico City on Sept. 14, 1847. In the Treaty of Guadalupe Hildago, signed on Feb. 2, 1848, Mexico gave up its claim to Texas and also ceded an area now in the states of New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, California, and western Colorado. Texas claimed most of this additional area but later relinquished it in the Compromise of 1850.

Texas seceded from the Union on Jan. 28, 1861. The American Civil War brought disruption to the state. Governor Sam Houston strongly opposed secession, and, after refusing to take the oath of allegiance to the Confederacy, he was removed from office. During the war Texans had to defend themselves from Indian attacks, from Mexican encroachments, and from Federal gunboats and invading soldiers. Federal forces ultimately gained control of the lower Gulf Coast but were unable to move far inland.

The modern period

During the last three decades of the 19th century there were rapid developments in the population and economy of Texas. The state was readmitted to the Union under a new constitution in 1869. By 1875 the Comanche had been forced onto a reservation in present-day Oklahoma. Under waves of immigration, towns were established, farming spread throughout the central areas of the state, and the cattle industry began to thrive on the plains of West Texas. Railroad building and increased shipping fashioned new links with the rest of the world. Manufacturing, encouraged by the Civil War years, continued to grow. By 1900 the population had grown to more than 3,000,000.

The Lucas gusher that blew in at Spindletop (Beaumont) in 1901 opened a new economic era for the state. Oil companies were formed, oilmen began to search for and find new deposits in the state, and refining and marketing activities provided new jobs and incomes for Texas. Like the rest of the nation, Texas suffered throughout the Great Depression of the 1930s but later benefited from the tremendous industrial expansion that took place during World War II.

Economic and population growth continued in the postwar era. Oil refining, chemicals, and petrochemicals continued to dominate, but electronics, aerospace components, and other high-technology items became increasingly important in the last quarter of the 20th century. The population of Texas increased fourfold between 1900 and 1980, and by 1980 one-third of all Texans were either black or Hispanic.

Since the mid-20th century, Texans have played an increasingly important role in national politics. Sam Rayburn, of Bonham, served as speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives for 17 years, a tenure longer than that of any other person. Lyndon B. Johnson, who earlier had served as a Texas congressman, was majority leader of the U.S. Senate in the late 1950s, vice president of the United States from 1961 to 1963, and president from 1963 to 1969. In 1988 George Bush of Houston, who served as vice president of the United States from 1981 to 1989, was elected president.

Texas is a constituent state of the United States of America, lying in the south-central United States. It is bounded on the north by Oklahoma, on the east by Arkansas and Louisiana, on the southeast by the Gulf of Mexico, on the southwest by Mexico, and on the west by New Mexico. The capital is Austin.

Spanish explorations into Texas, previously sparsely settled by American Indians, began in 1528, but not until 1685, when the French attempted to establish a colony at Matagorda Bay, did the Spanish take settlement in Texas seriously. The number of missions increased, and San Antonio (founded 1718) became the main settlement of Spanish Texas. In 1820 Moses Austin of Virginia secured permission to begin a colony in Texas. When Mexico became independent of Spain in 1821, it consented to the colonial venture under the leadership of Austin's son, Stephen. This colony was the beginning of the Anglo-American settlement of Texas. Texans, both Anglo-Americans and Mexicans, became disgruntled with Mexican rule, particularly after General Antonio López de Santa Anna assumed the Mexican presidency in 1833. The Texans declared independence as the Republic of Texas in 1836 and defeated a Mexican military effort to retain the territory. After a 10-year struggle to remain a viable independent nation, Texas entered the United States in 1845 as the 28th state. Like other Southern states, Texas seceded in 1861 at the beginning of the American Civil War, forcing the ouster of its unionist governor, Sam Houston. Readmission to the Union came in 1869. The discovery of oil in 1901 transformed the state's economy.

Texas is the largest of the U.S. states except for Alaska. The Coastal Plains stretch inland from the Gulf Coast and encompass about two-fifths of the state's land area. These flat, low prairies form a fertile crescent varying in width from 50 to 200 miles (80 to 320 km). At the Balcones Escarpment farther north, the Coastal Plains merge into the Great Plains, and there is hill country and tableland varying in elevation from 750 to 2,500 feet (230 to 775 m) above sea level. The North Central Plains in northern Texas are bordered on the west, in the Panhandle, by the High Plains, a flat, dry area with frequent sandstorms. The Trans-Pecos region, west of the Pecos River, contains the state's most rugged terrain and its highest peak, Guadalupe, 8,750 feet (2,667 m) above sea level.

Generalizations about Texas weather on a statewide basis are almost meaningless. The Gulf Coast around Houston has an average annual temperature of 70º F (21º C) and rainfall of 45 inches (1,145 mm), whereas the Panhandle averages about 60º F (16º C) and about 20 inches (510 mm) of rainfall. The driest region is the Trans-Pecos country, and the wettest is the southeast. Southern areas have freezing weather only rarely. In Brownsville, the southernmost city, no measurable snow has fallen in the 20th century, but the northwestern corner of the state averages 23 inches (584 mm) of snowfall annually.

Texas has a diverse population. Some 67,000 American Indians live in Texas, but this figure fails to account for the many families in the state who have some Indian ancestry. By far the largest minority group in the state is the Hispanic: more than one-fourth of the population is of Hispanic origin, nearly all of whom are Mexican-Americans. Blacks, who have been in Texas since the earliest European penetration, constitute about one-eighth of the population. Texas remains one of the fastest-growing states in the country. Between 1970 and 1990, its population growth rate was about two and a half times the national average.

Texas is rich in natural resources. It is the leading cotton-producing state, and in total value of farm-crop production it consistently ranks high among the states. The state leads all others in the raising of beef cattle and sheep. Texas also has more than one-fourth of the nation's proved oil reserves, leads all other states in oil and natural-gas production, and is first in petroleum-refining capacity. Sulfur is also an important resource. The petrochemical industrial complex along the Gulf Coast is one of the largest in the country. The electronic and electrical-machinery industry, however, is the largest manufacturing employer. The manufacture of nonelectrical machinery and finished consumer products continues to grow.

Improvements in water transportation have made Houston an international port, one of the largest in the nation in tonnage moved. The western part of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway runs from New Orleans (via Orange, Port Arthur, Galveston, and Corpus Christi) to Brownsville. Texas leads the nation in both road and rail mileage, and the Dallas-Fort Worth airport is one of the largest in the country.

Both Dallas and Houston have well-known symphony orchestras and theatres. The Houston Grand Opera Association is world famous, and the city has a major ballet company. The University of Texas at Austin houses the presidential library containing the papers of former president Lyndon B. Johnson. Texas has approximately 150 colleges and universities, about one-fourth of which are private or church-supported. Area 266,807 square miles (691,027 square km). Pop. (1994 est.) 18,291,000.