J:
PEIESTSANl" AT'IHNDAN IS I.KAN INw I Ml, M.AMO.
tablished on the San Pedro river, near the site of the present
city of San Antonio. Captain Don Ramon, who was the most
efficient and active in building up these missions, was a great
favorite among the Indians, who adopted him as a son, and as-
sisted him in his labors. In the year 1721, a post and mission
was located at the crossing of the ISTaches, and another on the
Bay of San Bernard, called "Our Lady of Loretto." In the
same year, the Mission of La Bahia (the bay), was established
at the lower crossing of the San Antonio river. In 1730, the
church of San Frando, in the present city of San Antonio, was
founded. In 1731 was established not far from the same
Dr. Kufus C. Burleson. 783
place, the Mission of La Purissimaa Conception de Acuna.
The Mission of San Jose alluded to above under another name
deserves a more extended notice. It was first founded on the
Rio Grande in 1703. Five years afterward it was moved to
a place called Ildephonso. In 1710 it was taken back to the
Rio Grande, where it continued under the charge of good
Father Jose de Soto until 1713, when it was removed to the
west bank of the San Pedro about a mile from the main plaza
of the present city of San Antonio. From this time it was
called San Antonio de Velero. Here it continued until 1722,
when, for better protection against the Indians, it was removed
with the post to San Antonio river. It remained here, and in
1744, the walls of the Church of the Alamo, which was never
finished, were erected.
The chapel was used in connection with the Mission of
San Antonio de Valero, called by some, San Jose del Alamo,
until the latter part of the eighteenth century, when all the
missions in Texas were secularized, or subordinated to the
Spanish civil authorities.
The missions of Texas yet stand, and will for many
centuries continue to speak from their crumbling ruins, in
trumpet tongues, of the self-sacrificing labors and devotions of
the Franciscan missionaries, whose efforts to convert the native
Indians to Christianity challenges the highest admiration.
THE ERA OF FREDONIAK'S OR FILIBUSTERS.
The third era of Texas History has been called the era
of Fredonians or Filibusters. And no part of Texas history is
so little understood as to its origin and intention. The
great leaders in the expeditions against Spanish rule were
Philip ISTolan, Magee, the gallant Kemper and Perry, Aaron
Burr, Aury and Mina and the heroic Gen. James Long. These
men have generally been regarded as armed banditti, seeking
by violence and sword to wrest from a peaceable nation their
territory and property merely for plunder and power. ISTo
doubt a love for excitement and heroic deeds had a powerful
784 The Life and Wkitings of
influence on the Fredonian leaders and their dauntless follow-
ers. But underlying these there were noble principles that
atone in part for their mistake.
These Fredonian expeditions originated in the spirit of
the times which grew out of the mighty commotions and that
ultimately culminated in the "Monroe Doctrine."
The crowned heads of Europe, alarmed at the powerful
spirit of Republicanism, as seen in the Republic of the United
States and the Republic of France, formed the Holy (unholy)
Alliance to crush the republican spirit in every part of the
world. As this was really a declaration of war against our
young republic, and as a means of self-preservation, there was
a burning desire to wipe from existence the last vestige of royal
authority over the American continent.
These sentiments were embodied in a heroic poem written
by a Kentuckian, called "The Fredonians." The heroic ro-
mance was dedicated to LaFayette, and represented the armies
of the Fredonians as pouring down from the United States 3xid
sweeping away the last vestige of kingly rule, and establishing
republics over this whole continent, north and south.
The first leader that caught the Fredonian spirit was
Philip Nolan, an Irishman by birth, but many years a citizen
of Kentucky, and then a successful trader at ISTatchez.
Nolan's plan was, under pretext of buying and catching
wild horses, to travel over all Texas, becoming acquainted with
the people, and draw up a map of the whole country and learn
the best points of attack.
He had secretly arranged, as soon as the horses could be
procured, for twelve hundred mounted Fredonians to sweep
over the prairies of Texas and wipe out the last vestige of
Mexican authority. But Gayoso, the French governor of
Louisiana, and one of Nolan's men, betrayed his plans, and the
Spanish governor, DeNavra, ordered Musquis, of Nacog-
doches, to arrest Nolan and his band.
Musquis vnth one hundred mounted soldiers was piloted
by Indians to Nolan's fort, near Richland creek, five miles
from Tehuacana Hills. A desperate battle followed. Nolai*
was killed by a cannon ball at the first fire. The heroic Ellis
P. Bean, a Tennesseean and boyhood friend of Gen. Sam
De. Rufus C. Burleson. Y85
Houston, succeeded in command and kept up the fight for
several hours. Overwhelmed by numbers and death-dealing
cannon balls, Bean and his men surrendered as prisoners of war
and were marched over the vast prairies to the City of Mexico.
The King of Spain ordered every fifth man to be hung and the
remainder were sentenced to ten years hard labor, during
which time they all perished except the gallant Bean, who was
in courage, a Hector, and in shrewdness a Ulysses. He by
turns was a hatter, a manufacturer of powder and shot. He
charmed a white lizard in his lonely cell, and on the streets
won the heart and hand of a beautiful Mexican heiress. He
became an adopted citizen of Mexico and a great leader of the
sons of freedom against Spanish tyrants. When Mexico be-
came a republic he was sent back to Texas as Mexican minis-
ter, especially to control the Indians in East Texas. He es-
tablished his headquarters at Mound Prairie, forty miles from
the spot where he w^as captured. Bean was afterwards sent as
Mexican minister to the United States. He crossed the gulf
on one of LaFitte's ships. Landing on the east coast of Louis-
iana, he and LaFitte hearing a great battle was pending against
the British, wended their way through the swamps to General
Jackson's army at New Orleans. Bean was well known to
General Jackson, who at once put him in charge of a battery.
He visited his old home in Tennessee, but returned to his
beautiful home and devoted wife in Mexico and became a great
leader in the wars of Mexico for her liberty. He spent the
last days of his heroic and wonderful life on his splendid
hacienda near Jalapa and died in 1845 at the age of 61.
His forty-five years of heroic deeds for liberty would
make a volume surpassing all the dreams of fiction.
The celebrated but ill-fated Aaron Burr planned the
second Fredonian expedition. As the base of his operations
he bought from the pure and knightly Baron de Bastrop,
four hundred thousand acres of land near Bastrop, La., and
was collecting men and means for invading Mexico. While
Burr was contemplating the invasion Gen. Wilkinson and
Governor Claiborne and even Gen. Adair, of Kentucky, and
Gen. Jackson looked encouragingly on his plans. But he had
murdered in a duel the high-souled Alexander Hamilton, and
50
7S6 The Life axd Writixgs of
bis mighty intellect Avas steeped in hate and wild aml3ition,
and it was soon found that he had conceived the treasonable
plan of disintegrating all the Mississippi valley from the
United States and uniting it to his Mexican territory as far
as the Sierra Madre mountains.
When it was hinted to Burr that the United States con-
gress might interfere with his plans, he said with the malignity
of a Catiline or Benedict Arnold, "If congress attempts to in-
terfere with my plans I will turn congress neck and heels out
of doors, assassinate the president, seize upon the treasury and
navy and declare myself the protector of an energetic govern-
ment." As soon as Burr's dark and treasonable designs Avere
known he was abandoned by all good men, was arrested for
treason and tried before Chief Justice Marshall at Richmond,
and the gifted but depraved man ended his old age in dark-
ness, poverty and gloom.
The third and most formidable Fredonian expedition was
inaugurated by Col. A. W. Magee, a distinguished graduate of
West Point, and an officer of the United States army, sent to
guard the interests of good citizens against a band of outlaws
who infested the neutral territory between Sabiner and Arroyo
Hondo. These outlaws were refugees from justice in the
United States and exiled republicans and criminals from Mex-
ico. The gallant Magee resolved to form an army of this reck-
less and daring element and rescue Texas from the imbecile
tyrants of Spain. Don Bernardo Gutierez, a Mexican repub-
lican leader who had been driven out of Mexico by the Royal-
ist forces, was made the nominal leader of the expedition,
called the Republican Army of the ISTorth."
A proclamation was issued inviting all lovers of liberty
and enemies of tyranny to join them. Many noble, chivalrous
young men from Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama and Louis-
iana flocked to the republican banner. An army variously es-
timated from eight hundred and fifty to thirteen hundred and
eighty-two crossed the Sabine in June, 1812. The small Roy-
alist army stationed at I^acogdoches fled on their approach.
The Fredonians captured Goliad without resistance ISTo-
vember 1, 1812, but on the 7th an army of two thousand Span-
iards under Salcedo and Herrera attacked the Fredonians
Dr. Rufus C. Burleson. 787
with infantry, cavalry and artillery, but were driven back with
great loss. The Eoyalists then resolved to cut off all supplies
by a regular siege which lasted three months, from November
9, 1812, to February 9, 1813, during which time the gallant
Magee died of consumption and the military stores were en-
tirely exhausted. The heroic Kemper was elected to succeed
Magee. The Fredonians, though outnumbered five to one,
resolved to sally forth and meet the besiegers in the open field.
The Eoyalists after a bloody battle of four hours fled in utter
confusion, leaving nearly four hundred dead and as many
wounded. The Fredonians lost two killed and thirty wounded.
In utter shame to be thus vanquished, the leaders rallied their
flying forces and returned to their former position, but after
ten days they secretly decamped by night and fled to San
Antonio. The Fredonians pressed them and captured immense
army stores and guns and wagons and fifteen hundred head of
horses and mules.
The retreating foe made another stand at Salado creek,
near San Antonio, but were speedily driven from their ambus-
cade and fled in utter route to San Antonio, leaving vast army
stores and three thousand horses and mules. On April 5 the
victors entered San Antonio. Generals Herrea and Salcedo
and the whole Royalist army now reduced to eight hundred,
surrendered as prisoners of war. On April 6, a local govern-
ment was formed and Gutierez, who had acted as subordi-
nate, now came to the front and was elected governor with a
council of eleven Mexicans and two Americans.
Intense dissensions arose as to the disposition to be made
of the prisoners, the Americans insisting they should be treated
humanely as prisoners of war, Avhile the Mexicans clamored
for their immediate execution. It so happened that the Roy-
alist leader, Salcedo, while governor of Texas at San Antonio,
had inhumanely cut off the head of the father of Antonio Dei-
gado and fastened it to the end of a pole at the lower crossing
of San Antonio river, to be picked and devoured by the
vultures.
Young Delgado now clamored for the revenge of his
father's murder. Under pretext of carrying Salcedo and the
fourteen leading Royalists to Matagorda to be sent to Spain
"TS8 The Life and Writings of
they were carried down into tlie San Antonio river bottom and
stripped and beheaded, and the head of Governor Salcedo was
raised on the top of a pole at the same spot where he had
formerly suspended the head of the elder Delgado.
While all the Americans readily admitted a son could
desire to revenge the death of a father, yet tliey were so dis-
gusted with this inhuman murder of prisoners that Kemper,
Ross and Hall and many others retired to the United States.
Those remaining elected Col. Perry.
While Governor Gutierez and the younger Delgado were
reveling in wine and the blood and plunder of their enemies,
suddenly Don Y. Elisonda with a large army appeared on the
heights of Alazan overlooking San Antonio on the west.
Eor a short time the Fredonians were in confusion and
•dismay, but they soon ralKed and rushed forth at daybreak
nnd defeated, after a long and tierce battle, and chased the
flying Royalists to the Medina river.
The Fredonians did not wait to be attacked in San An-
tonio, but rushed forth to attack the Royalists on the banks of
the Medina.
After a long and bloody battle and a reckless display of
courage and the dastardly desertion to the enemy of Captain
Musquiz with a large number of Mexicans, the Fredonians
were utterly routed. The Royalist cavalry chased them back
to the Sabine river. Only ninety-two of the thirteen hundred
and eighty-two recrossed the Sabine river. Among the cap-
tured was young Antonio Delgado. He was carried to that
same bloody spot where he murdered Salcedo for the murder
•of his father, and butchered. The brutal Arredonda impris-
oned seven hundred peaceable citizens. Three hundred were?
confined in one house on the 12th of August and eighteen of
them died from suffocation. He imprisoned five hundred of
the wives and daughters of the patriots and made them con-
vert twenty-four bushels of corn into tortillas for his brutal
soldiers.
From day to day patriots were shot without trial and their
property wholly confiscated. These scenes of savage brutality
continued for three weeks till Elisonda returned from pursu-
ing the routed Fredonians out of Texas. He returned driving
De. Eufus C. Burleson. Y89'
before him on foot the wives and daughters of those whom
he had murdered.
Thus ended the third Fredonian expedition.
The fourth expedition was organized and led by Commo-
dore DeAury. As the former expeditions by land had been
so unfortunate, Aury determined to attack Mexico by water.
Galveston was selected as the place of rendezvous and the port
from which they would sail. The terrible delusion of the
Fredonians was that if they could but get into Mexico thou-
sands of do^vn-trodden patriots would rally around the banner
of liberty,
Comiuodore Aury was joined by Commodore Xavier
Mina with two hundred men and several ships and also the
gallant Col. Perry who had so marvelously escaped from the
fatal rout at Medina, and had rallied one hundred heroic young-
men, and lastly several of the Old Guard of ISTapoleon who had
settled under Gen. L'AUemand at Liberty (Libertad), with
their undying hatred for tyrants, left their vineyards on the
Trinity and joined Aury to blot out roj^alty from this con-
tinent.
Thus equipped Commodore Aury set sail from Galveston
April 6, 1817, to attack the city of Sota la Maria on Santander
river, sixty miles from the coast.
After the easy conquest of the city the three leaders,
Aury, Mina and Perry, quarreled about that ancient, foolish,
little question that has ruined so many good men and causes :
"Who of us shall be the greatest?" Aury took his men and
ships and sailed away to Texas, but finding the pirate, LaFitte,
had been expelled from his Barataria home by Commodore
Patterson of the United States navy he landed at Matagorda,
and soon afterward abandoned Texas forever.
Gen. IMina gained some splendid victories, but to his
great disappointment the Eepublican forces in Mexico did not
rally to his support. His army wasted away by continual
fighting till he was captured and shot K'ovember 19, 1817.
The gallant Col. Perry, finding the army too small to main-
tain their position in Santa Marina, and the expected recruits-
not coming to their aid, fought his way back to Goliad, a dis-
tance of five hundred miles. With a reckless desire for blot-
790 The Life and Wkitings of
ting out the Royalist forces he resolved to capture the small
garrison at Goliad. But after terms of surrender were agreed
upon the great Rovalist, Gen. Arrodondo, arrived with a large
cavalry force. The Fredonians were fiercely assailed in front
and rear and when his last man fell the brave but misguided
Perry exclaimed : "I will never die by the hands of cowards,"
and blew out his own brains. Thus ended the fourth Fredon-
ian or Don Quixotic scheme for expelling the Royalists from
this continent.
Gen. James Long, a surgeon in Jackson's army at l^ew
Orleans, organized the fifth and last Fredonian expedition.
He was the son-in-law of Gen. Wilkinson and a wealthy
Mississippi planter. He and his heroic bride, nee Miss Jane
AVilkinson, pined for heroic deeds in banishing kingcraft
from this continent. And in despite of all the sad failures of
the past he collected an army of three hundred men at xs'acog-
doches and proclaimed the independence of Texas, and formed
a legislature and council, among whom was the unfortunate
Gutierez. He scattered his small force along the Brazos and
Trinity from Red River to Galveston.
He established his headquarters at Bolivar Point. He
sent General Gains to Galveston to enlist, by all means, that
brave and wily pirate, LaFitte, in his expedition. But that
wily chief knew too much of the Spanish character and their
hatred against foreign invaders to engage in such an imprac-
ticable scheme.
The Spanish General, Perez, aimihilated all Long's
scattered forces along the Brazos and Trinity rivers and killed
his brother, Da^dd Long. Yet, nothing daunted, he gathered
up what remained of his scattered forces and pushed onward
and captured Goliad. In the meantime Mexico had expelled
her royal tyrants and become a republic. The Spanish com-
mander at San Antonio claiming to be a Republican, assured
Long and his men they should be protected if they would join
him and submit to his authority. They were entrapped by
this false representation, disarmed and marched to the city of
Mexico where Long was basely assassinated and his one hun-
dred and eighty men were given the alternative of entering
the Mexican army or toiling on the public works. But the
Dr. Eufus C. Burleson. 791
noblest heroine of all the misguided Fredonians was Mrs. Jane
Wilkinson Long.
Gen. Long had left lier and her two children with her
sister, Mrs. Carit, in Louisiana, but when she heard of the
perils of her husband she mounted a war-horse, traveled five
hundred miles with Col. liandle Jones to join her husband at
Bolivar Point. When Gen. Long set out for Goliad, he left
his heroic wife to hold the fort till he returned.
After long delaj and hearing nothing of the fate of Gen.
Long, the soldiers began to desert. But she bravely said, "I
MRS. LONG FIRING THE CANNON.
wall never go hence till my husband returns. You may all
leave me, and I may die, but when he comes back my bones
will tell him I was faithful to him." When left alone with
her nurse and little babe she fired the morning and evening
artillery salute and kindled up a number of fires inside of the
fortification to make the Indians and Mexicans believe the
fort was strongly fortified. As indeed it was, for when, after
two years the E'ew Orleans merchants sent out a boat to bring
home the lone heroine, they found the fort strongly manned
by one brave praying woman.
792 The Life a^d Writings of
Thus ended the fifth and last Fredonian expedition, ex-
tending over an era of more than twenty years.
These invasions had so embittered the Mexicans against
the people of the United States, or "Los Americanos Diabolos,"
that Salcedo and Martinez said if possible they would kill
every bird that flew over the dividing line between the United
States and Mexico.
The whole Fredonian blunder was:
1. In not remembering the eternal hatred that has
burned in every Spanish bosom against foreign invaders. The
fire nursed by the songs of the Cids burns as fiercely to-day
as it did in 1609, when they expelled the last of the Moorish
invaders from Spain.
2. The only true way to extend our republican institu-
tions is not by the sword, but by showing by our examples that
we have the best form of government in the world. And in
ail commercial, railroad and. social relations with all nations
powerful or weak, show our profound, honest regard for their
rights.
These are the only methods for dethroning kings and
girdling this planet with light, liberty and Christian civiliza-
tion.
The reader will note the true Fredonians must never be
confounded with the lawless followers of Hayden Edwards
who unjustly and for bad purposes assumed the name Fre-
donians, in 1826. The true Fredonians were struggling for
liberty, Hayden Edwards was for seizing land not his o^vn.
ERA OF COLOmZATIOX.
AVe now propose to discuss the fourth and grandest step
in Texas' greatness — the Era of Colonization by our heroic
pioneers, Moses Austin and Stephen F. Austin, S. C. Robert-
son, Ben E. Milan, Green DeAVitt, and their noble co-laborers,
the real founders of Christian civilization in Texas. To un-
derstand fully the liberal yet changeable and contradictory
colonization laws and policy of Mexico, four great underlying
Dk. Eufus C. Burleson. 793
facts must be remembered. 1st. Mexico wanted a barrier
between her northern states and the dreaded Comanches, who
often rode into San Antonio and other to^vns and plundered
and murdered the inhabitants. They wanted brave Anglo-
American colonists to hold in check and chastise these dreaded
Arabs of our prairies. 2nd. They wanted to imitate the
example of the United States, not only in her republican con-
stitution and government, but in her encouragement of foreign
immigration by which the United States had grown so
powerful.
But these two powerful motives in favor of colonization
were modified by two other powerfully opposing principles,
first, an inherent dread and hatred of foreigners, which all
Spaniards have cherished since their conflicts in expelling
their terrible enemies, the Moors, from Spain in 1350, and
second, their special dread of Americans from their twenty
years' conflict with the Fredonians led on by the dauntless
!N"olan, Magee, Kemper and Long. Influenced by the two
first motives, Mexico gave every colonist with a family, one
league, or four thousand four hundred and forty-eight acres,
and one labor or one hundred and seventy-seven acres of land
and freedom from all taxes for six years, and granted them all
the rights of freemen, and by the constitution of the republic
forbade any change in regard to colonization prior to 1840.
But under the strong influence of the last principles of
hate and prejudice the Mexicans violated their plighted faith,
violated their constitution and forbade all future immigration
and sought to disarm the colonists to be massacred by the
bloody savages, and also made the fair land of Texas a penal
colony for Mexican convicts and outlaws. We must ever re-
member these great and contradictory principles influencing
the Mexican people if we desire to understand fully the era
of colonization and the God-like courage, wisdom and hero-
ism that enabled the Austins and their noble co-laborers to
overcome great diiflculties and to prepare Texas to become
the home of millions, and the grandest state between the
oceans. Every thoughtful person must be led to adore that
all-wise Providence that prepared men so perfectly qualified
to be the pathfinders and the foundation builders of liberty
794 The Life and Wkitixgs of
and civilization in this vast territory — the Paradise of ths
West — which, in 1820, was filled with savage beasts and stili
more savage men. Sixty thousand bloody savages roamed
over our vast prairies and six thousand bigoted Catholic Mexi-
cans skirted along the coast country from Matamoras and San
Antonio to Nacogdoches and San Augustine. Stephen F.
Austin, led by his noble father, Moses, was the forerunner
or the John the Baptist of the Gospel of American civilization
in Texas. The Austins, father and son, were men of great
natural refinement, finished education, fine address, daunt-
less courage, great common sense a.nd integrity unsurpassed
by Fabricius himself. Of them Pyrrhus would have said
that it is easier to turn the noon day sun from his course than