A Time to Stand (3 page)

“Perhaps,” answered the friend quietly, “it might be proper under the circumstances.”

“Damn him, let him take the horse.”

Yet Houston liked the man. Unlike Austin, who always sniffed at Bowie as an impossible adventurer, Houston saw in him the admirable qualities of a born leader, a good friend.

And Bowie was all this. Generous, even extravagant, he gave much to his friends and expected much in return. Once in San Antonio Bowie got into a fracas and asked a companion why he didn’t offer better support. “Why, Jim,” the man said, “you were in the wrong.”

“Don’t you suppose I know that? That’s just why I needed a friend.”

Underneath this hard, uncompromising approach ran a streak of curious gentleness. To people in distress he was
instantly helpful. Once he intervened in a marriage ceremony to save a girl from a well-known charlatan. On another occasion he brought order to a rowdy congregation so that a frightened young Bible student might be heard. And in his relations with women he was positively courtly.

Perhaps it was this gentleness that made his marriage such a success. He was the most devoted of husbands, and Ursula a perfect wife. As the daughter of Vice Governor Juan Martin Veramendi, a proud aristocrat of pure Spanish blood, she might have been impossibly sheltered and aloof. Actually, she was wise, tactful and immensely helpful in Bowie’s myriad business deals. She seemed especially useful in fending off various Mexicans who had given Bowie unsecured funds for investment. She would write him tactfully that “here they have another way of thinking.” But whatever the problem, she would always close her letters: “Receive thou the heart of thy wife.”

All this ended in 1833. When cholera broke out that summer, Bowie packed Ursula and their two children off to the safer climate of the Veramendi summer home at Monclova. Then he took off himself on a business trip East. He was in Mississippi when he got the shattering news—the cholera had swept Monclova too; Ursula, the children, her father and mother were all dead.

Bowie couldn’t get over it. For months he grieved in Louisiana, then returned to San Antonio, where he tried to pick up the strings again. More dealing, but his heart was no longer in it. He lived a lonely life in the big empty Veramendi house on Soledad Street, surrounded by odds and ends of the past—Ursula’s black dress, Ursula’s apron. People noticed that he was drinking more than before.

Bowie’s career was of course anything but typical. Few other Americans, even in San Antonio, mixed as deeply in
Mexican affairs. Most of the new arrivals took the opposite course—they stayed clear of the Mexicans completely. Instead, they formed new towns of their own, or settled in the American-dominated communities flourishing in eastern Texas. John McGregor, a jaunty Scot devoted to his bagpipes, moved to Nacogdoches near the Louisiana line. This was the convivial center for gamblers, smugglers and other shadowy figures who found it convenient to operate near an international border.

The more ambitious flocked to San Felipe, center of Stephen Austin’s colony. Here Green B. Jameson set up a legal practice in 1830. He soon found he had anything but the town to himself. The place swarmed with lawyers, surveyors and investors of every sort. Everyone had a scheme to make money. Small deals involving a calf or two; big deals that made men giddy—like the huge land speculations of Samuel Swarthout, Collector of the Port of New York, who preferred Eastern life but had local lieutenants. They all played the game—Houston himself was Swarthout’s man.

But the real strength of Texas lay not in the nimble minds of San Felipe; far more important were the sturdy families beating back the wilderness in little American settlements like Columbia, Brazoria, Gonzales. These people too loved their deals and swaps, but basically they had come to work, to farm, to build a new life in a new country.

It was not easy. One night at Gonzales Mrs. Isaac Baker barely escaped from a wildcat that sprang out from the dark and mauled her dog to death. Far worse, it might have been Indians—whooping and howling, stealing the horses, raiding the crops. When a party of Comanches murdered a French trader near Gonzales, the men of the town decided to act. Next day, Jacob Darst, Wash Cottle, Jesse McCoy and Almeron Dickinson helped avenge the killing with a raid on
the Indian camp. No wonder these men found themselves gradually drawn together by tighter bonds than they ever dreamed possible.

Life was a challenge even when nothing was happening. The crude log cabins, with their puncheon floors and glassless windows, were anything but comfortable. Homemade stools and plank tables graced the rooms; gourds were used for glass and china. Clothes were buckskin or homespun, and had to be, for it was astronomically expensive to bring anything in. If Almeron Dickinson paid only four cents a pound for pork, he had to spend five dollars for a razor and two dollars for even a pencil.

It was hard on the women especially. The very roughness of the life gave a man satisfaction—hunting, fishing, riding the prairies, even the occasional “shooting scrapes.” But the women put in long, lonely hours of drudgery—pounding corn into meal, spinning cotton, pouring soap, molding candles in cane stalks. There was more than a little truth in pioneer Noah Smithwick’s observation that “Texas was heaven for men and dogs; hell for women and oxen.”

But the good part made up for everything: the land … the spirit of sharing … decent neighbors … even a government that let a man alone. “A live mastodon would not have been a greater curiosity than a tax collector,” remarked John J. Linn, another early arrival.

There seemed no limit to the Mexicans’ easygoing tolerance. “So reasonable are all the parties in Mexico of the dependence on public sentiment,” explained Woodman’s
Guide to Texas Immigrants,
“that none have even ventured to attempt any change in the fundamental principles of government. Neither do the feuds of the different parties in Mexico reach Texas, or have any influence over the minds of the people there. The colony is too far off to feel the throes of political convulsion in Mexico.”

It wasn’t quite that simple. Mexico had gone through many political upheavals since the Colonization Law of 1825—and the government was indeed preoccupied with troubles closer to home—but down underneath was a growing, deep-rooted fear of “Anglo-American” expansion in Texas.

There was much to worry about. By 1830, Americans made up over 75 per cent of the population. American syndicates illegally controlled huge blocks of territory. American traders engaged in wholesale smuggling. American planters disregarded the government’s stand against slavery. American settlers refused to pay taxes—only 1,665 pesos collected in two years. American families ignored the religious requirement; many openly called themselves “Muldoon Catholics” in honor of a genial San Felipe padre who didn’t care what they did. To top it all, the American government itself was offering to buy the province, and each overture somehow conveyed the impression that if Mexico didn’t sell, she would lose Texas anyhow.

And underlying everything was the difference in background and temperament. It hadn’t mattered in the early days, but as the Mexicans realized they were losing control, the idea became an obsession. They bitterly pictured a host of Viking invaders, “possessed of that roving spirit that moved the barbarous hordes of a former age in a far remote north.”

The first distant rumblings came in February, 1830, when the influential Mexican Minister of Relations, Lucas Alamán, blurted out his pent-up feelings on the subject. Action quickly followed. Under a new law that April, no foreigner could settle in Mexican territory bordering the country he came from—a clear slap at American immigrants. In addition, the law suspended all unfilled colonization contracts … ended the colonists’ monopoly on coastal shipping … banned future slavery … required all foreigners to have passports issued by the Mexican Consulate at their place of residence.
Most trying of all, the colonists lost the duty exemption which Mexico had given them on essential goods and materials.

Things moved slowly in Mexico, but by 1831 General Manuel Mier y Teran was stationing troops all over Texas to see that the law was enforced. He jailed two minor officials … dissolved the council or
ayuntamiento
at the town of Liberty … closed all the ports except Anáhuac.

The Texans were indignant. They believed they were guaranteed self-government under the Mexican Constitution of 1824. Now it was being scrapped in favor of “centralism.” They thought there was a tacit understanding about little things like smuggling and slavery—and suddenly this easy tolerance was gone. They felt cheated and deceived. Protest meetings were held; incidents erupted. A growing number of American settlers were sure that Mexico had finally shown her colors. The only course was for Texas to break free. Of this group, none was more vocal than William Barret Travis.

In many ways Travis was typical of these men who had come to Texas for a fresh start in life. Like so many others he came from the South—born 1809 near Red Bank, South Carolina. When he was nine, his family joined the great trek west, finally settling in southern Alabama. Here Travis grew up—a tall, raw-boned young man. He studied law in nearby Claiborne, taught school on the side to earn his way. This proved unexpectedly rewarding: in 1828 he married one of his pupils, Rosanna Cato, daughter of a prosperous farmer. They soon had a son, another child on the way. With a promising legal practice, Travis seemed heading for a smooth, if uneventful life.

Then came the crushing blow. The marriage blew up early in 1831. No one ever knew why, but Travis certainly considered Rosanna unfaithful. Loose tongues said he even killed the other man. In any case, he stormed away and headed west alone.

He turned up in Texas in May, 1831. Applying for his headright, Travis quickly fell in with the Texans’ knack of burying the past. He listed himself as “single,” later as “widower.” He settled first in the little port of Anáhuac, then moved to San Felipe, where he plunged into the town’s wildly varied legal practice. He wrote wills … recovered a stolen rifle … fought the sale of a blind horse. He took on anything and accepted any fee—once a yoke of oxen.

Socially, he was now very much a bachelor at loose ends. He lived out of a satchel at Peyton’s boardinghouse, inveigling Mrs. Hamm to mend his shirts. He drank a little and gambled a lot—faro, monte, brag, poker—usually losing more than he won. He liked racy clothes; his white hat and red pantaloons were quite a sight in this buckskin community. And of course he had girls—casual affairs noted briefly in Spanish in the diary he meticulously kept. He liked wild evenings, and the dance after Christmas, 1833 must have been terrific. In his diary next day, all he could say was, “Hell among the women about party.”

But that very night he fell in love again. She was Rebecca Cummings, a lively, capable girl who managed her brother John’s inn at Mill Creek. Travis pursued her with schoolboy ardor. He bought her a brooch, took a lock of her hair. He gave her brother tobacco and legal advice. He explained about Rosanna and his plans for divorce. And she said she was willing to wait.

Meanwhile his practice prospered. No more stolen rifles and blind horses, he was now deep in land. By May, 1834 he needed a law clerk. And still the clients came: “Williamson retains me to represent the Alabama Company … retained by Hoxie to defend title … retained by Major Reynolds to defend eleven-league claim.” Yet true to the Texas tradition, he could never resist even the smallest deal: one day he carefully wrote in his diary, “Gave a bad dollar for 50¢.”

Typical, yet in many ways so different. Despite those gay evenings, Travis usually seemed formal and proper; it was no coincidence that his name was used as reference for a girls’ boarding school. He was quite religious; he actively tried to persuade clergymen to come to Texas. He was intellectual—read Herodotus, Disraeli, Addison, Steele, Scott, even owned bookplates. He was farsighted: one of the first to back a steamboat for Austin’s colony. He was moody, touchy, easily offended, given to long spells of reverie that once led a friend to write, “I almost think sometimes that was you with me, you could enjoy some pleasure.”

Above all, he was ambitious. Intensely self-centered, by the time he was twenty-three he had already written his autobiography. He liked to dramatize himself and had a deep, almost mystical sense of mission. Perhaps the most significant line in his whole diary came the day after mud and high water kept him from visiting Rebecca:
“The first time I ever turned back in my life.”

Such a man might never be popular—yet still be born to lead. Sheer ability and determination can do a lot; and Travis had plenty of both.

From the start his heart was with the American colonists in the growing friction with Mexico. By May, 1832, he felt it was time to act. When Colonel John Bradburn, the Mexican commander at Anáhuac, began using high-handed tactics to stop smuggling, Travis and his friend Patrick Jack warned Bradburn that a hundred angry colonists had risen in arms. The Colonel stayed up all night waiting for the onslaught, and it didn’t help when he learned it was all a practical joke. He arrested both Travis and Jack.

Now the colonists really rose. Hundreds of them marched on Bradburn, demanding that the prisoners be released. They found Travis and Jack pinioned to the ground, with Bradburn threatening to kill them both if anyone fired a shot. It was
a moment made for Travis. Dramatically he called on his friends to fire: he would rather die a thousand deaths than permit this oppressor to remain unpunished.

The colonists laid siege instead, and soon groups were rising all over eastern Texas. Ultimately the storm blew over. Bradburn was replaced, Travis and Jack were released, and an uneasy truce restored. Peace seemed insured by news of another revolution in Mexico—the fierce Presidente Bustamente was out, and the new strong man was General Santa Anna, a professed liberal who seemed sympathetic to the Texans. As a sign of good faith, customs duties were lifted for another two years.

Travis was not impressed, but a far more important Texan saw reason to hope. Stephen Austin, the original
empresario,
had always believed in co-operating with the government. In every way he tried to be a loyal Mexican citizen. Now he urged caution and patience with all his strength. The real source of Texas’ troubles, he felt, lay in the poor local administration from distant Coahuila. The two provinces were run as one, but Texas had always been promised separate statehood as soon as it had enough people. Surely this new liberal government would agree that the time was ripe. He would go to Mexico City himself and persuade them to act. So, with a petition for statehood and a proposed constitution in his pocket, Austin hopefully set off for Mexico in the summer of 1833.