Karen Hagan, Ph.D.

​MEXICAN TEXAS:This lecture provided a standard narrative and timeline approach to Texas when it was under Mexican control.  It jumps back and forth from Texas to Mexico, covering both histories.  Subjects include the nature of Mexican Texas, the reasons why Mexico wanted settlement in the region, Moses Austin and his argument for letting Americans settle in Texas, the Empresario system, Colonization Laws and their rules, the various Empresarios, their effect on Texas, the Constitution of 1824, the cultural impact Americans had on Texas, and the Mier y Teran Report of 1828.​

 

You should understand/be able to locate the following information:​

• Conditions in Texas when Mexico took over the region.  

• Moses Austin and his background

• Moses Austin's argument for why Americans would make effective settlers

• Stephen F. Austin's role in bringing settlers to Texas

• The reasons Americans had for wanting to live in Texas

• The Colonization Laws of 1820, The General Colonization Law of 1824

• The risk/reward situation for Empresarios

• The Constitution of 1824 and why Americans liked this document

• The Centralist/Federalist division in Mexico

• Why Mexico had difficulties making itself into a unified nation.

• Martin DeLeon, Green Dewitt, James Power, Hayden Edwards and the Republic of Freedonia.  Understand what is important about these colonies and their location.

• Americans in Texas and their effect on the region

• Americans in Texas and their effect on Native Americans, especially tribes like the Karankawa

• Why the Karankawa began to fail in the face of American colonization in Texas

• Why Mexico allowed slavery in Texas, and how Americans got around the Mexican ban on slavery

• The Mier Y Teran Report - what Teran discovered and his recommendations.

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​​TEXAS REVOLUTION: This is a complex lecture dealing with a highly unstable period.  Periods like this in history require not just the timeline but also an examination of the context and the people involved.  Therefore, it traces the road to the Texas Revolution, touching on the major turning and triggers, but also sidetracks periodically to offer short biographies of the men and women who influenced Texas through this difficult period. ​

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You want to break this subject into the pre-revolutionary period, the instigators who fanned the flames, and the fighting itself.

 

Pre-Revolutionary -The Initial Problems:

• GTT

• The Separate Statehood issue in Texas

• Mexican recommendations to address the changing situation in Texas.

• Bustamante's April 6, 1830 Law

• American and Empresario Reactions to this law

• David Lundy and what his story is telling us about what was taking place in Texas

• ​The Anahuac Disturbances and the role Bradburn and Travis played in exacerbating the situation.

• William Travis, his nature, and the prank he played on Bradburn

• The Battle of Velasco

• The Turtle Bayou Resolutions and their pledge of loyalty to the Constitution of 1824

• Pre-Revolutionary - The Instigators

• The commonalities between men like Bowie, Houston, Travis, and Crockett

• Jim Bowie, his past, and the origins of the Bowie knife

• Sam Houston - His behavior in Texas and his odd backstory

• Santa Anna's rise to power, his nature, and his tendency to flip-flop

• The influences on Santa Anna - especially when it comes to his decision to kill every rebel he encountered in Texas

• Santa Anna's dictatorial actions and his destruction of Zacatecas

• Santa Anna's actions against Texas, and the American reaction

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Revolutionary  - The Fighting Begins

• The factors that shifted Americans into open resistance - Santa Anna ordering an army into Texas, and Stephen F. Stephen F. Austin's statement that Texans had to resist Santa Anna and why he came to this conclusion

• The conflict at Gonzales

• The Siege of Bexar and the Battle of Conception

• Ben Milam and his significance

• The fighting in San Antonio and the occupation of the Alamo

• The Texas Declaration of Independence and its resemblance to the United States' document.

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​MILITARY REVOLUTION:A standard narrative about the Texas Revolution, this written lecture simply tells the story of what happened during the conflict.  The Texas Revolution has a tragic nature due to the decision by Santa Anna to take no prisoners.  We have a lot of last words and desperate, sad moments.  ​You should understand/be able to locate the following information: 

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• ​The controversy over selecting Sam Houston as the commander of the Texas army

• The decision to maintain and man the Alamo

• The Army of Operations

• Travis and Crockett and why they were at the Alamo, the mystery surrounding Crockett's fate

• Juan Seguin's role in helping to defend the Alamo

• William Travis' last letter from the Alamo

• The fall of the Alamo and the fate of the defenders

• Sam Houston's decision to retreat from Gonzales and the Runaway Scrape that resulted.

• Slaves in the Runaway Scrape

• James Fannin's loss at Coleto Creek and the execution of his command

• The Battle of San Jacinto

• The Treaty of Velasco and the reasons this treaty did not guarantee Texas Independence,

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​TEXAS REPUBLIC I - II:  This timeline lecture covered the three periods of the Texas Republic and the difficulties each encountered.  There's a lot here, as we deal with an independent country and all of its problems and leaders.  This is the last of the really complex parts of Texas history.  Up to this point, we've been dealing with Spain, Mexico, multiple Native American cultures, the Mexican Revolution, US History, a military war, and border history.  Now we have to examine an fully independent country with a complex demographic and an intense history of its own.  After that, it's all downhill.

 

Break this lecture into two parts to make finding information easier.​I - II includes the following:​

• Information about the position in which prominent Tejanos found themselves after the Revolution, and what happened to them in the Texas Republic.

• The fate of Martin De Leon

• The Americanization of the Republic of Texas

• The size of the Republic of Texas

• The Republic's Constitution of 1836 and the ways it differed from the US Constitution

• Free blacks and their status in the Republic, compared to what they had enjoyed in Mexican Texas

• The problems facing the Republic of Texas - crime, Native American attacks, border issues, debt

• The attack on Parker's Fort and Cynthia Parker's story

• The selection of Houston as capital of the Republic and then the move to Austin

• The reasons why the US didn't immediately annex Texas

• Texas decision to recognize Spanish land Grants

• Lamar's vision for the Republic

• Lamar's policies that sought to strengthen the Republic - the creation of a Permanent School Fund, the Homestead Law

• The Pig War in Austin and why Lamar wanted to work with France

• Also, why the Republic of Texas found it difficult to locate trade partners

• Lamar's attitude towards Natives

• Why Lamar wanted the Cherokee removed from Texas and the Cherokee War

• The Cordova Rebellion and its role in Cherokee Removal

• Chief Bowles - his leadership and his fate

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​THE TEXAS REPUBLIC III - IV​

• The threat posed by the Comanche

• The use of Ranging troops against the Comanche and the early development of the Texas Rangers​

• Melinda Lockhart and the Council House Fight; the questions over her condition

• The Great Comanche Raid of 1840/The Battle of Plum Creek

• The Battle of Walker's Creek and the significance of the Colt Five-Shot

• Lamar's Peace By the Sword approach to Mexico and the Santa Fe Expedition

• The debt and money problems Lamar left the Republic. Remember, his policies required money the Republic simply did not have.

• Redbacks

• Sam Houston's last term and his efforts to manage the debt and the rate of the Republic.  To make cut costs, remember, he tried for peace with the natives, moved the capital, and cut back expensive policies.  

• The Austin Archive War of 1842, when Houston decided to move the capital

• Angelina Eberly and her actions

• The reprieve Houston offered Free Blacks

• The Treaty of Tehuacana Creek

• The Mexican invasions of Texas in the 1840s

• The Mier Expedition and the Black Bean Episode

• How Houston manipulated the US into working towards annexation

• The joint resolution of Congress that joined Texas to the United States, ending the Texas Republic

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​THE STATE OF TEXAS:  This thematic lecture covered a variety of topics having to to with the effects transitioning into the United States had on Texas.  It begins with the international issues generated by annexation by examining the Mexican-American War.  Then it looks at the cultural and demographic effects of annexation and what annexation meant to the Tejanos in Texas.  It covers the arrival of slavery, the nature of slavery and the class system it involved, and talks about development in the state, and the problems it posed for the United States.  ​

 

You should understand/be able to locate the following information:​

• The border Issues between Mexico and the US - who claimed what border for Texas

• President Polk's attitude about the Texas border and his decision to provoke Mexico in 1846

• The Thornton Affair

• The relationship between Texas' joining the US and the Mexican-American War

• The result of the Mexican -American War in terms of US territory and expansion

• What the census reveals about the changing nature of the state of Texas

• The State Constitution of 1845 

• The "Free White Only" arguments about citizenship in the state of Texas and the fate of Tejanos in Texas

• American aggression for land and land-grab activities, especially the use of delinquent taxes to seize land

• The emergence of Anglo ranching in the state of Texas and Richard King's role in this development

• Slavery in Texas - the cost of slaves, the class system it brought, the crops Texans wanted to grow, the brutality

• Jeff Hamilton's story

• Railroads and stagecoaches in the early state of Texas

• How Texas addressed its debt problems - how the US helped and who the state received money for giving up some land

• How Texas retained its land and avoided giving it up to the federal government

• United States actions on the Frontier, especially in regards to reservations

• Indian attacks in the state of Texas as settlers began to press into the Frontier, and why this made people dislike or distrust reservations

• Sul Ross and the Peace River Battle that recovered Cynthia Parker

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​SECESSION IN TEXAS:This straightforward timeline lecture dealt with the reasons why North and South began to diverge in US history, how western expansion exacerbated those issues, and the eventual push for secession.​You should understand/be able to locate the following:​

 

The first part of the lecture deals with the issues that started to split north and south. 

• These included the rising concern about balancing free states with slave states in the US. The Missouri Compromise first worked to balance the two sides.  

• Later events leading to the north/south split start with the Oregon Trail and the emergence of Manifest Destiny thanks to John O'Sullivan

• The expansion into the west and the Wilmot Proviso

• What the Wilmot Proviso signaled in US history

• The Kansas-Nebraska Act and its effects

• John Brown's Raid and its effects

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​Then the lecture moved into how all of this affected Texas:

• The Texas Troubles and the context that caused this issue to arise

• Who suffered most in the Texas Troubles

• The Bewley Letter and what it caused

• Prairie Matches and CA Williams

• Why Texas had a moderate reaction to the growing push for southern secession - the presence of Germans, the presence of people who didn't like slaveowners

• The January convention

• The mention of slavery in the Texas secession document

• Sam Houston's stand against the secessionists and his ultimate loss of the Governor's office due to his unwillingness to take the oath

• The question of secession itself, whether southern states actually seceded or whether they engaged in unlawful rebellion - Lincoln and Johnson's arguments to that effect

• The ruling and reasoning in Texas v White, the most boring but important lawsuit in US history.

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​THE CIVIL WAR:A straightforward military lecture that details Texas' actions and contributions to the war.  The second part examined the homefront in Texas during the Civil War, highlighting the state's unique experience in this conflict.  Here, you want to get a sense of how Texas' Civil War experience differed from that of places like Virginia or Georgia.  Differences include where Texans fought, the state's freedom from invasion, the prosperity parts of the state experienced in the war, the frontier situation, the state's unique problems with unionists, deserters, and anti-Confederacy feeling in general.  ​

 

You should know where to find and understand the following:​

• Texas' early actions in the war in Oklahoma and the reason for this action

• The New Mexico Campaign and the reasons for southern movement west

• Glorietta Pass, the Gettysburg of the West

• The Civil War in Galveston

• Battle of the Sabine Pass and the United States' inability in general to invade Texas in general.  The Red River Campaign's failure is part of this.

• How many Texans fought in the war and that Tejanos, Germans, Anglos and Natives all contributed.

• How Texans trained and formed into units here in the state

• Famous Generals from Texas

• Where most Texans ended up fighting in the Civil War.  Remember, Texas liked to keep its men close to home,

• War in the East

• Hood's Brigade and the First Texas at Gettysburg

• Conditions on the homefront in Texas, especially the prosperity in Houston

• Sarah Jane Newman/Sally Skull and what she tells us about the changing role of women in Civil War Texas

• Germans on the homefront, their attitude about the Civil War, and the Nueces Massacre

• Violence in Texas during the Civil War, epitomized in the Great Hanging at Gainesville

• The historical context for the Great Hanging at Gainesville

• The Confederate draft and the substitution rule

• The situation in Texas with union sympathizers and people antagonistic to the Confederacy in general

• The issue with deserters and the Honeycutt Expedition

• Conditions on the frontier during the Civil War, Comanche raids, and the situation with the Kickapoo

• The Dove Creek Massacre

• Albert Sidney Johnson and Bernard Bee - their claims to fame in the Civil War

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