The history of slavery in Texas began slowly at first during the first few phases in Texas' history. Texas was a colonial territory, then part of Mexico, later Republic in 1836, and U.S. state in 1845. The use of slavery expanded in the mid-nineteenth century as White American settlers, primarily from the Southeastern United States, crossed the Sabine River and brought enslaved people with them. Slavery was present in Spanish America and Mexico prior to the arrival of American settlers, but it was not highly developed, and the Spanish did not rely on it for labor during their years in Spanish Texas.
The issue of slavery became a source of contention between the Anglo-American settlers and Spanish governors. The governors feared the growth in the Anglo-American population in Texas, and for various reasons, by the early 19th century, they and their superiors in Mexico City disapproved of expanding slavery. In 1829 the Guerrero decree conditionally abolished slavery throughout Mexican territories. It was a decision that increased tensions with slave-holders among the Anglo-Americans.
After the Texas Revolution ended in 1836, the Constitution of the Republic of Texas made slavery legal. Sam Houston made illegal importation from Mexico a crime in 1836. The General Provisions of the Constitution forbade any owner of enslaved people from freeing them without the consent of Congress and forbade Congress from making any law that restricted the slave trade or emancipating slaves.
Americans of European extraction and enslaved people contributed greatly to the population growth in the Republic and State of Texas. Settlements grew and developed more land under cultivation in cotton and other commodities. The cotton industry flourished in East Texas, where enslaved labor became most widely used. The central part of the state was dominated by subsistence farmers. Free and runaway African Americans had great difficulty finding jobs in Texas. Many worked in other parts of the state as cowboys herding cattle or migrated for better opportunities in the Midwest, California, or southward to Mexico.
Early slavery The first known non-Native slave in Texas was Estevanico, a Moor from North Africa who had been captured and enslaved by the Spanish when he was a child.Williams (1997), p. 1. Estevanico accompanied his enslaver Captain Andrés Dorantes de Carranza on the Narváez expedition, which landed at present-day Tampa. Trying to get around the Gulf Coast, they built five barges, but in November 1528 these went aground off the coast of Texas.Barr (1996), p. 1. Estevanico, Dorantes, and Alonso Castillo Maldonado, the only survivors, spent several months living on a barrier island (now believed to be Galveston Island) before making their way in April 1529 to the mainland.Donald E. Chipman, "Estevanico", Handbook of Texas Online, accessed 13 Aug 2009 American Indians captured and enslaved the party, putting them to work as laborers. They survived with the help of Castillo's faith healing among the Indians. Later they were joined by Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca. Five years later, in September 1534, they escaped to the interior. Although Estevanico was still enslaved, after these events the Spaniards treated him more as an equal. Later he was given leadership of a Spanish expedition.Barr (1996), p. 2. His account, along with those of the others, led to more extensive Spanish exploration of the new territory.Williams (1997), p. 2.
Slavery in colonial times
Both the civil and religious authorities in Spanish Texas officially encouraged freeing enslaved people, but the laws were often ignored.Barr (1996), p. 5. Beginning in the 1740s in the Southwest, when Spanish settlers captured American Indian children, they often had them baptized and "adopted" into the homes of townspeople. There they were raised to be servants. At first, the practice involved primarily Apaches; eventually Comanche children were likewise "adopted" as servants.
Importation of enslaved Africans was not widespread in Spanish Texas. In 1751, after three Frenchmen were found to have settled along the Trinity River to trade with the American Indians, the Spanish arrested and expelled them from the colony.Barr (1996), p. 13. A 1777 census of San Antonio showed a total of 2,060 people, with 151 of African descent.Williams (1997), p. 4. Of these, only 15 were enslaved, 4 males and 11 females.de la Teja (1956), p. 123. The 1783 census for all of Texas listed a total of 36 enslaved people. There was intermarriage among blacks, Indians, and Europeans. In 1792 there were 34 blacks and 414 mulattos in Spanish Texas, some of whom were free men and women. This was 15 percent of the total 2,992 people living in Spanish Texas.Douglas Hales, "Free Blacks", Handbook of Texas Online, accessed 12 Aug 2009
When the United States purchased Louisiana in 1803, Spain declared that any enslaved person who crossed the Sabine River into Texas would be automatically freed. For a time, many enslaved ran away to Texas. Free blacks also emigrated to Texas. Most escapees joined friendly American Indian tribes, but others settled in the East Texas forests. When some French and Spanish slaveholders moved to Texas, they were allowed to retain their enslaved people.Barr (1996), p. 14. In 1809, the Commandant General of the Interior Provinces, Nemesio Salcedo, ordered the Texas-Louisiana border to be closed to everyone, regardless of ethnic background.Almaráz, p. 35. His nephew, governor of Texas Manuel María de Salcedo, interpreted the order as allowing slaveholders from the United States to enter Texas to reclaim runaways.Almaráz, p. 29.
The United States outlawed the importation of enslaved people in 1808, but domestic trade flourished, especially in New Orleans during the antebellum decades. In part due to the trade in enslaved people, New Orleans was the fourth largest city in the US in 1840 and one of the wealthiest. Between 1816 and 1821, Louis-Michel Aury and Jean Lafitte smuggled enslaved people into the United States through Galveston Island.Barr (1996), p. 14. To encourage citizens to report unlawful activity, most southern states allowed anyone who informed on a slave trader to receive half of what the imported enslaved people would earn at auction. The men sold enslaved people to James Bowie and others, who brought them directly to a customhouse and informed on themselves. The customs officers offered the enslaved people for auction, and Bowie would buy them back. Due to the state laws, he would receive half of the price he had paid. After that, he could legally transport the enslaved people and sell them in New Orleans or areas further up the Mississippi River.Hopewell (1994), p. 19.Edmondson (2000), p. 91.
Mexican Texas
In 1821 at the conclusion of the Mexican War of Independence, Texas was included in the new nation.Chipman (1992), p. 239 That year, the American Stephen F. Austin was granted permission by Mexican authorities to bring Anglo settlers into Texas.Williams (1997), p. 6. Most of the settlers Austin recruited came from the southern slave-owning portions of the United States. Under Austin's development scheme, each settler was allowed to purchase an additional of land for each enslaved person he brought to the territory. At the same time, however, Mexico offered full citizenship to free blacks, including land ownership and other privileges. The province continued to attract free blacks and escaped enslaved people from the Southern United States. Favorable conditions for free blacks continued into the 1830s.
In 1823, Mexico forbade the sale or purchase of people, and required that the children of the enslaved be freed when they reached age fourteen. By 1825, however, a census of Austin's Colony showed 1,347 Anglo-Americans and 443 people of African descent, including a small number of free blacks. In 1827, the legislature of Coahuila y Tejas outlawed the introduction of additional enslaved people and granted freedom at birth to all children born to an enslaved person.
In 1829, Mexico abolished slavery, but it granted an exception until 1830 to Texas. That year, Mexico made the importation of enslaved people illegal. Anglo-American immigration to the province slowed at this point, with settlers angry about the changing rules. To circumvent the law, numerous Anglo-American colonists converted their enslaved people to indentured servants, but with life terms. Others simply called their enslaved people indentured servants without legally changing their status.Barr (1996), p. 15. Slaveholders trying to enter Mexico would force the people they enslaved to sign contracts claiming that they owed money and would work to pay the debt. The low wages the enslaved person would receive made repayment impossible, and the debt would be inherited, even though no enslaved person would receive wages until age eighteen.Vazquez (1997), p. 57. In 1832, the state passed legislation prohibiting worker contracts from lasting more than ten years.Vazquez (1997), p. 63.
Many enslaved people who escaped from slaveholders in Texas or in the United States joined various East Texas Indian tribes. Although not considered equals in the tribes, they were generally treated well. Many former enslaved people fought with the Cherokee against the Texan army that drove the tribe from East Texas in 1838.Barr (1996), p. 28. Enslaved people often fought against the Comanche tribe, however. The Comanche indiscriminately killed enslaved people and their white owners during raids. The Comanche sold any captured enslaved people to the Cherokee and Creek in Indian Territory, as they were both slaveholding tribes.Barr (1996), p. 29.
By the 1800s, most enslaved people in Texas had been brought by slaveholders from the United States. A small number of enslaved were imported illegally from the West Indies or Africa. In the 1830s, the British consul estimated that approximately 500 enslaved people had been illegally imported into Texas.Barr (1996), p. 16. By 1836, there were approximately 5,000 enslaved people in Texas.Barr (1996), p. 17.
Exportation in the slave-owning areas of the state surpassed that of the non-slave-owning areas. A survey of Texas in 1834 found that the department of Bexar, which was mostly made up of Tejanos, had exported no goods. The Brazos department, including Austin's colonies and those of Green DeWitt, had exported 600,000 pesos worth of goods, including 5,000 bales of cotton.de la Teja (1997), p. 91. The department of Texas, which included the eastern settlements, expected to export 2,000 bales of cotton and 5,000 head of cattle.de la Teja (1997), p. 92.
The abolition of slavery created tensions between the Mexican government and slave-holding settlers from the United States. These tensions came to a head in the Anahuac Disturbances. In August 1831, Juan Davis Bradburn, the military commander of the customs station on Upper Galveston Bay, gave asylum to two men who had escaped from slavery in Louisiana. The slaveholder hired William Barret Travis, a local lawyer, in an attempt to retrieve the men. When Bradburn arrested Travis on suspicion of plotting an insurrection, settlers rebelled. The disturbances were resolved through a combination of arms and political maneuvering. One result was the Turtle Bayou Resolutions, which were an explanation of the grievances that had led to the disturbances. One of the resolutions challenged Bradburn for "advising and procuring servants to quit the service of their masters, and offering them protection; causing them to labor for his benefits, and refusing to compensate them for the same."
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