The Men Who War the Star: The Story of the Texas Rangers (7 page)

Austin was one of the most complex and sophisticated men ever to influence the course of Texas. When his fortunes were at their height, he was devious and cynical. He dispensed land titles as though they were the largesse of a feudal lord, which, in effect, they were. As the sole administrator of the colonization laws and the only person authorized to deal with the government, he was suspected by many settlers of manipulating the laws to his own benefit and at their expense. But when fortune left him and others usurped his leadership, he became magnificent, giving the colonies what Smithwick called “his protecting care,” which, in the end, was Austin’s greatest gift.
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A native of Virginia, where his father had business interests, Stephen Fuller Austin was five years old when the family immigrated to Missouri, and the cosmopolitan mixture of French-speaking Canadians, Spaniards, and newly arriving Americans grounded him early in the social and diplomatic niceties that would serve him in good stead as an adult. He was twenty-seven when his father’s death gave him responsibility for the Texas colonies. Arriving in San Antonio on August 12, Austin met with Governor Martínez, who pointed out that the region that Austin planned to colonize was a wilderness, and that the government was not yet in a position to extend civil administration that far beyond San Antonio and the other principal settlements. Once Austin brought the colonists, Martínez said, “You will cause them all to understand that until the government organizes the authority which is to govern them and administer justice, they must be governed by and subordinate to you.”
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Perhaps the most important asset Austin inherited from his father was the friendship with Bastrop. The worldly old schemer took the younger man under wing and soon made himself indispensable by securing an appointment from the governor to serve as Austin’s land commissioner. As such, he ordered surveys, handed out titles, and, as the situation required, bullied or bluffed both the settlers on their tracts and officials in San Antonio.

Austin, meanwhile, had inspected the area of the Brazos and Colorado rivers and determined the boundaries of his grant, which he dispatched back to Governor Martínez. By late fall, the first of some three hundred families carefully screened by Austin—known in Texas history as the “Old Three Hundred”—were beginning to move in.

Now a new complication arose. After eleven years of sporadic rebellion and civil war, the three-hundred-year-old Spanish regime collapsed, and Mexico became independent. This raised the question of whether Austin’s Spanish grant was even valid. Of more immediate concern to the colonists, however, were Indian depredations that commenced almost from the outset of their arrival.

IN THE EARLY
days of Austin’s grant, the trouble came not so much from Kiowas or Comanches, who ranged to the west of the colonies, but from native tribes. Austin’s cousin Mary Austin Holley wrote:

The Carancuhua [i.e., Karankawa] Indians were very hostile on the coast. The Wacos and Tawakanies were equally so in the interior, and committed constant depredations. Parties of Tankaways [Tonkawas], Lepans [Lipans], and other tribes, were intermingled with the settlers. These Indians were beggarly and insolent, and were restrained from violence the first two years, only by presents, forbearance, and policy. There was not force enough in the colony to awe them. One imprudent step with these Indians, would have destroyed the settlement. . . .
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The Lipans and Tonkawas were more of a nuisance than a threat, but the Karankawas did not hesitate to attack small groups of settlers when the opportunity presented itself. A coastal people, they lived among the estuaries and barrier islands running south from Galveston to Corpus Christi, traveling in canoes and waylaying colonists who went downriver to get supplies from ships anchored in the bays. The warriors averaged six feet tall. They painted their faces half red and half white, and smeared themselves with alligator grease as protection against mosquitoes. Each carried a bow equal to his height, and could shoot a three-foot arrow one to two hundred yards with accuracy.
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Most colonists insisted, and many authorities agree, that they practiced at least a ritual form of cannibalism, as did many of the Texas tribes.
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Nevertheless, of all the Indians of that period, the Karankawas appear to have been the most hated. Pioneer settler and historian J. W. Wilbarger called them “the Ishmaelites of Texas, for their hands were against every man, and every man’s hand was against them.”
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Although the scrapes between Indians and settlers did not have the character of the later systemized Kiowa and Comanche raids, encounters were frequent enough to demonstrate the need for some sort of organized frontier defense force.

LIKE MANY TEXAS
institutions, the militia force that developed into the Rangers was a hybrid of Anglo-Saxon and Hispano-Mexican traditions. The ranger concept itself came to Texas with Austin, who, given the responsibility of protecting a colony beyond the pale of white civilization, recognized the need for a ranger-style defense force. Yet it was not Austin but the new Mexican governor, Col. José Félix Trespalacios, who ordered the American colonists to establish a frontier police using a Spanish militia system that had been carried over into Mexico. This called on citizens to organize armed companies to preserve local order. The structure was such that there was no need for a large force, just one that could come together as needed. It was ideal for the colonists.
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Austin himself was in Mexico City when the first ranger-style militia company was created. He spent most of 1822 and the early part of 1823 in the capital in an effort to resolve legal disputes concerning the validity of his Spanish colonial land grant under an independent Mexican government. In Texas, meanwhile, Indian depredations and cloudy land titles had so discouraged the settlers along the Colorado that by the fall of 1822 many were preparing to repatriate to the United States. The problem of titles could not be immediately resolved, but Governor Trespalacios could take measures toward defense and at least give the colonists some feeling of permanence. Accordingly, he directed Bastrop to convene the Americans in the two main settlements to elect an
alcalde,
or political chief, and ranger commanders. On November 20, Bastrop called a convention in the Colorado settlement, which elected John Tumlinson
alcalde,
Robert Kuykendall captain, a man named Jackson as first lieutenant, and Moses Morrisson as second lieutenant.
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At his direction a convention of the Brazos settlement elected Josiah H. Bell
alcalde,
Samuel Gates captain, and Gibson Kuykendall, Robert Kuykendall’s nephew, lieutenant. Despite these efforts, the colonists were slow to organize. They were still new to the country, and in the absence of Austin with clear instructions, they feared taking any action that might bring them into conflict with the Mexican government.
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By January 1823, however, the Indian situation reached a point where the
alcalde
Tumlinson and Robert Kuykendall wrote Trespalacios asking permission to enlist expert riflemen from among the Colorado settlers. They would build blockhouses along the coast and boats for cruising the bays to protect vessels landing cargo for the settlements. Trespalacios ordered the enlistment of fourteen men, who mustered on May 5 and were posted near the mouth of the Colorado.
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The record of this unit is sketchy, and it appears that only ten men were actually recruited and their length of service is not certain. The commanding officer, Lt. Moses Morrisson, was listed on an 1823 census of American settlers as thirty years old and a farmer who also raised horses and hogs. He had served in the United States Army on the upper Mississippi, where he gained experience in fortifications and boat construction. Another thirty-year-old farmer, John McCroskey, was named corporal. The other eight were privates. All were armed with rifles except Pvt. John Frazer, who carried a musket. Morrisson’s pay was set at $40 a month, McCroskey’s at $26, and the privates at $24 each. From this beginning came the Texas Rangers.
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The new unit immediately encountered problems, the most critical of which seemed to be a shortage of ammunition. By July, after two months in the field, the company’s total supply was reduced to only 111 charges of powder and a like number of ball. Explaining the shortage, Morrisson advised the governor that

as we are altogether Depending upon hunting for our Subsistence at present it will be but a short time in all probability that what we have will be Expended. I therefore Dispatch two men to St. Antonio
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to endeavour to procure a supply from the Government Charging the Company with the amount to be deducted from their pay as there is ma[n]y of my men who is destitute of money at present [and] therefore would be unable to procure any [ammunition] from an individual at St. Antonio.

Likewise, he said, powder was completely unavailable in the vicinity, and the need to keep his men hunting for food had made it impossible to begin work on blockhouses.
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The following day, the
alcalde
John Tumlinson and a companion, Joseph Newman, started for San Antonio with Morrisson’s letter, hoping to obtain the ammunition. They had reached the Guadalupe River within forty miles of the city when they encountered three Indians. Newman was suspicious, but Tumlinson advised friendliness, and extended his hand to one of the Indians. The warrior jerked him off his horse and lanced him. Newman spurred his pony and escaped, although the Indians chased him six miles before giving up.
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SHORTLY AFTER TUMLINSON’S
death, Luciano García succeeded Trespalacios as governor. Far from adversely affecting the situation, the change strengthened Bastrop’s hand, for on July 16, García advised him that Austin’s grant had been confirmed, as was the administrative apparatus that Bastrop had already set into motion under Trespalacios. Austin’s authority included the responsibility

to administer justice in that District and to form a Regiment of National Militia of which, for now, he may serve as first chief with the grade of Lt. Colonel; to which end You [Bastrop] will serve notice to all the inhabitants of the aforementioned District to recognize Austin’s authority and when ordained relative to good order, to serve the Fatherland and in the defense of the Nation to which they are dependent [i.e., Mexico].
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Morrisson’s company of volunteers now had full legal sanction of the government and military authorities.

Official sanction did not alleviate the shortages Morrisson had listed in his report, and these imposed limitations on the ability of his company to effectively pacify the area under its jurisdiction. Late that summer, five colonists took a boat down to the mouth of the Colorado, where they bought corn for the settlers upriver. A short distance above the mouth of the river, they were waylaid by a band of Karankawas near the confluence with Skull Creek. Four were killed, and the fifth, J. C. Clark, received a gunshot wound that broke his thigh. Bleeding profusely, he managed to slip into the water and swim to a canebrake, where he hid while he tried to stanch the flow of blood. The Indians apparently lost interest and moved on, leaving Clark to hope he would be found.

The same night about fifteen miles upriver, settler Robert Brotherton encountered a band of Indians on the road, probably the ones who had attacked Clark’s party earlier in the day. Believing they were friendly, he continued toward them until one opened fire, severely wounding him. Dismounting, Brotherton managed to hide in the brush, leaving his horse and gun to the Indians.
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When Brotherton reported the attack, Capt. Robert Kuykendall, ranger/militia chief of the Colorado, organized about a dozen settlers to go after the Karankawas. A band of Tonkawa Indians was camped near the settlement, and to assure these Indians’good behavior while the men were away, they invited the Tonkawa chief Carita to accompany the expedition as guest and hostage.

The settlers halted about nightfall near the mouth of Skull Creek, where Kuykendall, John H. Moore, and a man named Strickland left the main group and scouted ahead for the Indians. In the darkness, Moore heard an unusual sound and stopped the others. Strickland said it was the thumping of wild turkeys, but Moore believed the Indians were pounding brier root into a starchy pulp for food. Then they heard a baby crying, confirming they had found the Indian camp. Returning to the others, Kuykendall left the horses in charge of Judge William Rabb and Chief Carita, while he took the remaining settlers back to the Karankawa camp. The Indians, in the meantime, had finished their work and gone to sleep. About dawn, the settlers slipped down between the camp and the creek and began moving up among the sleeping Karankawas. They were almost inside the camp when one warrior awoke and grabbed his bow. Kuykendall killed him and the other settlers came in shooting, driving the Indians out of the thicket and onto the prairie. Several were killed and the others escaped. The scalp of one warrior was taken, together with his six-foot bow, which Kuykendall later gave to his nephew Gib.
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The badly wounded J. C. Clark, still hiding in the canebrake after his encounter with the Indians on the river, heard the shooting and managed to make his way to the camp, where he was rescued by the other whites. He recovered and lived for many years afterward.
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