The history of slavery in Texas , as a colonial territory, then the Republic in 1836, and the US state in 1845, had begun slowly, because the Spaniards did not rely on labor for many years in Spanish Texas. The use of slavery expanded in the mid-nineteenth century when British-American settlers from the Southeast United States crossed the Mississippi River and brought slaves with them. Although the Spanish colonies have had several slaves, they have not succeeded in creating a sustainable agricultural economy throughout New Spain, including Texas, Mexico, Central America, and other former Spanish regions of the Southwest America.
The problem of slavery became a source of conflict between Anglo-American settlers (so called that because they speak English) and the Spanish governor. The governor feared the growth of Anglo-American populations in Texas, and for various reasons, at the beginning of the 19th century, they and their superiors in Mexico City disapproved of the expansion of slavery. In 1829, the decree of Guerrero conditionally abolished slavery throughout the territory of Mexico. It was a decision that increased tension with slave owners among Anglo-Americans.
After the Texas Revolution ended in 1836, the Constitution of the Republic of Texas made slavery legal. General provisions of the Constitution prohibit slave owners to free their slaves without the consent of Congress and prohibit Congress from making laws that limit the trade of slaves or freedoms.
Americans from European extraction and slaves strongly contribute to population growth in the Republic and the State of Texas. Settlements grow and develop more land planted with cotton and other commodities. Cotton industry thrives in East Texas, where enslaved slavery becomes the most widely used. The central part of the country is dominated by subsistence farmers. Free blacks and escapade had great difficulty in finding jobs in Texas. Many work in other parts of the state when cowboys herd cattle or migrate for better opportunities in the Midwest, California, or south to Mexico.
Video History of slavery in Texas
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The first non-Native slave in Texas was Estevanico, a Moor from North Africa who had been captured and enslaved by the Spaniards when he was a child. Estevanico accompanied his master Captain AndrÃÆ' © s Dorantes de Carranza on the NarvÃÆ'¡ez expedition, which landed in Tampa today. Trying to surround the Gulf Coast, they built five barges, but in November 1528 it foundered off the coast of Texas. Estevanico, Dorantes, and Alonso Castillo Maldonado, the only survivors, spent several months living on the barrier island (now believed to be Galveston Island) before making their way in April 1529 to the mainland. American Indians capture and enslave the party, putting them to work as laborers. They survived with the help of Castillo's healing faith among the Indians. Then they merged with ÃÆ' lvar NÃÆ'ºÃÆ'  ± ez Cabeza de Vaca. Five years later, in September 1534, they fled into the interior. Although Estevanico was still enslaved, after these events the Spaniards treated him more as equal. Then he was given the leadership of the Spanish expedition. His account, along with others, led to a wider exploration of Spain than the new territory.
Maps History of slavery in Texas
Slavery in colonial times
Both the civil and religious authorities in Spanish Texas formally encourage the liberation of slaves, but the law is often ignored. Beginning in the 1740s in the Southwest, when the Spanish settlers arrested American Indian children, they often told them to be baptized and "adopted" into the homes of the townspeople. There they were raised to be servants. At first the exercise involved mainly Apache; eventually the Comanche's children were also adopted as servants.
The import of enslaved Africans is not widespread in Texas Spain. In 1751, after three Frenchmen were found settling along the Trinity River to trade with the American Indians, the Spaniards captured and expelled them from the colony. Census 1777 San Antonio shows a total of 2,060 people, with 151 African descendants. Of these, only 15 slaves, 4 men and 11 women. Census 1783 for the whole of Texas recorded a total of 36 slaves. There is a mixed marriage between 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 is 15 percent of a total of 2,992 people living in Spanish Texas.
When the United States bought Louisiana in 1803, Spain declared that any slave crossing the Sabine River to Texas would be released automatically. For a time, many slaves escaped to Texas. Free blacks also emigrated to Texas. Most of the escaped slaves were joined by friendly American Indians, but others settled in the forests of East Texas. When some French and Spanish slave owners moved to Texas, they were allowed to retain their slaves. In 1809, the Provincial Interior Commander, Nemesio Salcedo, ordered the Texas-Louisiana border to be closed to everyone, regardless of ethnic background. His niece, Texas governor Manuel MarÃÆ'a de Salcedo, interpreted the order as allowing slave owners from the United States to enter Texas to reclaim escaped slaves.
The United States banned the importation of slaves in 1808, but domestic trade grew, especially in New Orleans during the prewar decades. Partly due to the slave trade, New Orleans was the fourth largest city in the US in 1840 and one of the richest. Between 1816 and 1821, Louis-Michel Aury and Jean Lafitte smuggled slaves into the United States via Galveston Island. To encourage citizens to report unlawful activities, most southern states allow anyone who gives information about a slave merchant to receive half of what the slaves will get imported at auction. The men sold slaves to James Bowie and others, who took slaves straight to the custom house and told themselves. The customs officer offers the slaves to be auctioned off, and Bowie will buy them back. Because of state legislation, he will receive half of the price he paid. After that, he can transport the slaves legally and sell them in New Orleans or further areas on the Mississippi River.
Mexican Texas
In 1821 at the end of the Mexican War of Independence, Texas was included in a new state. That year, Stephen F. Austin of America was given permission to bring Anglo settlers to Texas. Most of the settlers recruited in Austin come from the southern United States who have slaves. Under the Austin development scheme, each settler was allowed to purchase an additional 50 hectares (20 ha) of land for each slave he brought to the area. At the same time, however, Mexico offers full citizenship to release blacks, including land ownership and other privileges. The province continues to attract free blacks and slaves who flee from the southern United States. The favorable conditions for free blacks continued into the 1830s.
In 1823, Mexico prohibited the sale or purchase of slaves, and required slaves to be released when they reached the age of fourteen. However, in 1825, the Austin colonies census showed 1,347 Anglo-Americans and 443 African descent, including a small number of free-standing ninjas. In 1827, Coahuila y Tejas's legislative body prohibited the introduction of additional slaves and provided birthright for all children born from a slave.
In 1829 Mexico abolished slavery, but it gave an exception until 1830 to Texas. That year Mexico made imports of illegal slaves. The Anglo-American immigration to the province slowed down at this point, with settlers angry about changing regulations. To avoid the law, many Anglo-American colonies convert their slaves into obligatory slaves, but on the terms of life. Others simply call their slaves obliged as slaves without changing their status legally. Slave owners who try to enter Mexico will force their slaves to sign contracts claiming that slaves owe money and will work to repay debt. The low wages the slaves will receive make the payment impossible, and the debt will be inherited, even though no slave will receive wages until the age of eighteen. In 1832 the state passed a law prohibiting contract workers from those lasting more than ten years.
Many slaves who fled from masters in Texas or in the United States joined the various tribes of East Texas Indians. Although not considered to be the same in the tribe, they are generally treated well. Many former slaves battled with Cherokee against Texas troops who pushed the tribe from East Texas in 1838. However, the slaves often fought against the Comanche tribe. The Comanche killed slaves indiscriminately and their white lord during the raids. The Comanche sold captured slaves to Cherokee and Creek in the Indian Territory, as they were both slave retainer tribes.
In the 1800s, most slaves in Texas had been taken by slave owners from the United States. A small number of slaves were imported illegally from the West Indies or Africa. In the 1830s, the British consul estimated that about 500 slaves had been illegally imported into Texas. In 1836, there were about 5,000 slaves in Texas.
Exports in areas that have enslaved the country extend beyond areas that do not have slaves. A survey in Texas in 1834 found that the Bexar department, which consisted mostly of Tejanos, did not export goods. The Brazos department, including the Austin and Green DeWitt colonies, has exported 600,000 pesos, including 5,000 bales of cotton. The Texas Department, which includes the eastern settlements, is expected to export 2,000 bales of cotton and 5,000 head of cattle.
The abolition of slavery created tensions between Mexican government and slave settlers from the United States. This tension comes to the head at Anahuac Disorder. In August 1831, Juan Davis Bradburn military commander of the customs office at Upper Galveston Bay granted asylum to two men who had fled from slavery in Louisiana. The slave owner hired William Barret Travis, a local lawyer, in an attempt to retrieve the men. When Bradburn arrested Travis on suspicion of planning a rebellion, the settlers rebelled. The disorder is resolved through a combination of weapons and political maneuvering. One result was the Bayou Turtle Resolution, which was an explanation of the complaints that caused the disturbance. One resolution challenges Bradburn to "advise and provide servants to stop serving their masters, and offer them protection, cause them to work for their profits, and refuse to compensate them for the same."
Republic
When the Texas Revolution began in 1835, some slaves sided with Mexico, which provided freedom. In the autumn of 1835, a group of nearly 100 slaves waged a rebellion along the Brazos River after they heard a rumor approaching Mexican troops. The white man in the area was defeated and severely punished. Some slaves escaped to serve Mexican troops. Texas troops executed a runaway slave who was taken prisoner and resold as a slave. The other slaves joined the Texans, with several people killed while fighting against the Mexican army. Three slaves are known to be at the Battle of the Alamo; a boy named John was killed, while slave slave Mary B. Travis and slave James Bowie, survived until freed by the Mexican Army.
Section 9 General Provisions of the Constitution The Republic of Texas, ratified in 1836, made legal slavery again in Texas and defined the status of slaves and colored persons in the Republic of Texas.
- A colored person who has been a lifelong waitress under Mexican law will become a property.
- Congress must not pass a law that restricts emigrants from bringing their slaves to Texas.
- The congress will have no power to free the slaves.
- Slaveowners may not free their slaves without congressional approval unless freed slaves leave Texas.
- Free Africans are required to petition the Texas Congress for permission to continue living in the country.
- Africans and descendants of Africans and Indians are excluded from the right class of "people".
The following year everyone who lived in Texas at the time of independence was allowed to remain. On the other hand, the legislature creates political segregation; it classifies free citizens with at least 1/8 African heritage (equivalent to one great-grandfather) as a separate category, and cancels the rights of their citizens, prohibits them from voting, owning property, testifying against whites in court, or intermarrying with white skin. When planters increase cotton production, they rapidly increase the purchase and transportation of slaves. In 1840 there were 11,323 slaves in Texas.
State Status
In 1845, the United States annexed Texas as a state. The state legislature passed legislation further restricting the rights of free blacks. For example, they are subject to punishment, such as working in a street gang if convicted of a crime, similar to a slave to a free man.
By 1850, the slave population in Texas had risen to 58,161; in 1860 there were 182,566 slaves, 30 percent of the total population. By 1860 almost 25 percent of all white families in Texas had at least one slave. Texas is ranked 10th in the total population of slaves and 9 in the percentage of the slave population (30 percent of the total population).
Forty percent of Texans live on plantations along the Gulf Coast and in the East Texas basin, where they grow cotton, corn and sugar. Fifty percent of slaves work alone or in groups of less than 20 people on small farms ranging from the River Nueces to the Red River, and from the Louisiana border to the edge of the western settlements of San Antonio, Austin, Waco, and Fort Bernilai. Some slaves lived among the breeders along the southern Gulf Coast and helped herd the sheep and cattle. Rarely, a slave also breaks a horse, but generally only white men are used for that dangerous task. If they die, the boss does not experience monetary losses. The slaves were not detained between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande. The huge supply of cheap Mexican labor in the area makes purchasing and slave care too expensive.
Although most slaves live in rural areas, more than 1000 live in Galveston and Houston in 1860, with several hundred in other major cities. Unlike in most cities in the south, the number of city slaves in Texas grew throughout the 1850s. Most work as domestic workers or in suburban farms, but others serve as chefs and waitresses in hotels, as team middlemen or boatmen, or as skilled coaches and craftsmen, such as blacksmiths, carpenters and barbers.
Slaves of plantations generally live in one or two log cabin rooms. Most field workers receive two sets of clothes twice each year, with hats and coats for winter. Foods often consist of bread, molasses, sweet potatoes, grits, and beef, chicken, and pork. Slaves often live with white people in Texas, especially those new to the area and just getting started. White people, however, can expect to improve their lives with their own hard work, while slaves can not have such hope or hope, of course, their work is legal to the owner and not to them.
Many churches in Texas accept slaves as members. Both Baptist and Methodist churches appoint missionaries to slaves and enable their active participation. In 1860, the Methodists claimed 7,541 slaves among their members in Texas. Some slaves become servants, but their masters often try to teach them what they should preach. As in other southern countries, however, slaves make their own Christianity and they develop a strong religious faith.
Many local communities adopted laws prohibiting slaves from having liquor or weapons, from selling agricultural products, renting their own time, or being employed by free blacks. In rural areas, districts often form patrols to impose restrictions on slave travel without permission from plantation owners. City slaves often have greater freedom and opportunity. Unlike most southern states, Texas does not explicitly prohibit the education of slaves, but most slave owners do not allow the practice. In 1865, 95% of slaves were illiterate.
Many slaves escaped. Some hide in the bay for a while, while others live among the Indians, and some manage to board a ship that leads to the northern or foreign port. Most of the escaped slaves tried to go to Mexico. By 1850, some 3,000 slaves had managed to flee to Mexico, and an additional 1,000 crossed into Mexico between 1851 and 1855. Ninety percent of the men who fled were male, mostly between the ages of 20 and 40, because they are best prepared for a long and arduous journey. All ages are represented, however, from 5 months to 60 years. In early 1836, Texas slave owners sent representatives to Matamoros to try to reclaim their escaped slaves, but Mexico refused.
A group of slaves killed Gonzales sheriff as he tried to stop Matamoros leaving. More than 30 fugitives survived freedom in Mexico. From 1849 to 1860, Texas tried to convince the United States government to negotiate an agreement with Mexico to allow the escape of escaped slaves, but that did not work. Some slave hunters illegally travel to Mexico and catch the runaway. After JosÃÆ'Â © MarÃÆ'a JesÃÆ'ºs Carvajal promised to return all the escaped slaves, more than 400 Texans joined his rebellion in 1851. He tried to create the Sierra Madre Republic in Northern Mexico but was defeated by the Mexican Army.
White Texans were afraid of a slave uprising, and like in other southern states, rumors of a rebellion were rapid, often in times of economic and social tensions. In 1854, residents in Austin and other cities drove many poor Mexicans from the area for fear they might be assisting in a slave uprising. Two years later, Colorado County hung several slaves and rode a white man and several Mexicans from the area after finding a plan to equip 200 slaves with a gun and a knife to escape to Mexico.
In 1860, mass hysteria occurred after a series of fires erupted across the state. The planters had hundreds of slaves arrested and questioned by force. Some claim to plot by white abolitionists to avenge John Brown's execution by burning food supplies and poisoning slaves. Up to 80 slaves and 37 whites have probably been executed as a result of the supposed plot. Later, the newspaper account reveals that most of what is admitted under torture seems wrong. Many fires coincide with the summer dry season, and new games are prone to spontaneous combustion. The "poison" found in the slave is the baby powder. There is a slave auction block next to Hotel Menger and near the Alamo.
Confederation
Texas broke away from the United States in 1861, and joined the United States Confederation during the American Civil War. The continuation of slavery was the main reason for Texas to join the Confederacy. It replaces pro-Union governor, Sam Houston, in the process. During the war, slavery in Texas was slightly affected, and prices for slaves remained high until the last few months of the war. The number of slaves in the state increased dramatically when the Union Army occupied parts of Arkansas and Louisiana. Slave owners in those areas often transfer their slaves to Texas to avoid them being released. In 1865 there were about 250,000 slaves in Texas. Many planters, however, lose part of their temporary labor to the Confederate Army, which impresses a quarter of slaves on each plantation to build defensive ground work for the Texas coast and to push the military supply carts. Anyone convicted of providing weapons to slaves during the war was sentenced between two and five years of forced labor.
Unlike in other Southern countries, only a small number of Texas slaves, estimated at the age of 47, joined the Union Army. Some of the fighting took place in Texas, which acted as a supplier country for the Confederation. Since Texas is much farther from the Union Army line for most of the war, the slaves can not reach them. The last battle of war took place at Palmito Ranch (near Brownsville, TX) in 1865.
Emancipation
On June 19, 1865, Union General Gordon Granger and more than 2,000 federal troops arrived in Galveston Island to seize control of the state and enforce a two-year Emancipation Proclamation. There, he proclaimed "General Order No. 3" on the balcony of Ashton Villa:
The Texans were told that, in accordance with the proclamation of the Executive of the United States, all slaves were free. It involves the absolute equality of personal rights and property rights between former employers and slaves, and the existing relationship between them being between employer and mercenary. People who are released are advised to remain silent in their current homes and work for wages. They are told that they will not be allowed to collect at the military post and that they will not be supported in laziness either there or elsewhere.
In some plantations, many slaves leave immediately after hearing emancipation, even if their former owners offer to pay wages. Throughout the summer, many East Texas newspapers continue to recommend that slave owners oppose the ratification of the Third Amendment, which abolishes slavery, in the hope that emancipation can be applied gradually. Some slave owners did not release their slaves until the end of 1865.
Slavery was officially abolished by the Thirteenth Amendment which took effect on 18 December 1865. The theoretical slavery was abolished by the proclamation of the Emancipation of President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed, in 1863, that only slaves located in rebel territory of the United States were free. Because the US government did not have effective control over many of these areas until later in the war, many of these slaves proclaimed freely by the Emancipation Proclamation were still held in slavery until those areas returned under the control of Union.
Legacy
June 19, the anniversary of Emancipation, has been celebrated annually in Texas and other countries as Juneteenth.
The long-term effects of slavery can be seen to this day in the country's demographics. The eastern part of the state, where cotton production depends on thousands of slaves, is considered the most western extension of the Deep South. It contains a very significant amount of the African-American population of Texas. On the other hand, western Texas remained a border during the American Civil War. While settled mainly by Anglo-South after the war; with the history of farms, some of these passages are more related to the Southwest than the South.
After the white Democrats regained power in Texas and other southern states in the 1870s, they adopted a system of racial segregation and legalized white supremacy. In 1876, white Democrats in Texas passed a new constitution requiring separate schools and imposing a voting tax, which reduced the number of poor voters both black and white. At the end of the 19th century, they passed other Jim Crow laws. The school support system is inadequate, and schools for racial minorities are very under-funded. Texas does not use techniques that are common in other Southern countries such as complicated voter registration rules and literacy tests; even "white primers" were not implemented throughout the state until 1923.
In 1900, African Americans made up 30% of the state population of 3,084,710. The decline in the proportion of the population reflects the rise of European immigration to the country in the 19th century, as well as population growth.
Like Georgia, the Texas Democratic Party adopted a white primer. Because they politically dominated the country for decades after 1900, the only contest for office was at the ground level. The white primer is another way to exclude African Americans from making electoral decisions, and it was not overturned by the Supreme Court until 1944 at Smith v. Allwright . Countries that have used it adopt other ways to make the most of African Americans do not vote.
African Americans are soon beginning to step up legal challenges for the revocation of rights, but preliminary cases of the Supreme Court, such as Giles v. Harris (1903), upholds the states. Through organizations such as the National Association for Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), African Americans continue to work to regain their ability to exercise their civil rights and voting rights as citizens. The civil rights movement led to the US Congress and President Lyndon Johnson issuing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 1965 Constitution Act, which protects the rights of all citizens to integrated public facilities and the enforcement of voting rights.
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