Traditional Muzzleloading Association
The Center of Camp => People of the Times => Topic started by: Craig Tx on November 25, 2023, 10:04:29 AM
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11/25/1835: First Texas Navy created
On this day in 1835, the first Texas Navy was established when the General Council authorized the purchase of four schooners and granted letters of marque and reprisal to privateers until the ships were armed.
Established to protect the supply line to New Orleans, the navy included the 60-ton Liberty, the 125-ton Independence, the 125-ton Brutus, and the 125-ton Invincible. All four ships were lost by mid-1837, and the Texas Navy virtually ceased to exist until March 1839, when the first ship of the second navy was commissioned. A cruise ending in July 1843 marked the end of the operative career of the Texas Navy, as a truce with Mexico came that summer and the United States undertook to protect Texas until annexation. In June 1846 the ships of the Texas Navy were transferred to the United States Navy. The officers of the Texas Navy desired to be included in the transfer, but seniority-minded United States naval officers opposed the proposal. In 1857 the claims of the surviving Texas Navy officers were settled, and the Texas Navy was no more.
11/25/1850: Texas gives up nonexistent New Mexico counties
On this day in 1850, Texas gave up its claim to disputed land in New Mexico.
In 1841, seeking a share of the Santa Fe trade, President Mirabeau Lamar dispatched the Texan Santa Fe Expedition to secure the territory for the Republic of Texas, but Mexican authorities captured the entire expedition without firing a shot. U.S. troops occupied New Mexico during the Mexican War, and in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed in February 1848, Mexico relinquished all claim to territory north and east of the Rio Grande. A month later the Texas legislature established Santa Fe County, and in January 1850 subdivided it into Worth, El Paso, Presidio, and Santa Fe counties. But the residents of the area, in part because of their opposition to slavery, resisted incorporation into Texas. Governor Peter Bell sent Robert S. Neighbors to organize the alleged Texas property, but Worth and Santa Fe counties never got beyond the planning stage. Texas finally ceded the land they were to occupy to the United States, and reduced Presidio and El Paso counties in area, in the Compromise of 1850.