Texas 1844....

[Uncle Russ]

Hope Craig doesn't mind a fellow Texan helpin him out a bit, but every time I see this I am flat-out amazed, and those of us truly interested in the history of this great State see it pretty often in different publications.
Anyway, here's a look at the "Stove Pipe" shape of Texas, as it really was....once upon a time.

    In 1844 all eyes were on Texas.

The Lone Star Republic was a whopping jewel set in the middle of the continent. To Great Britain and Mexico, Texas was the key to keeping the expansionist United States in check.

To expansion minded Americans, she was the key to Manifest Destiny.

1844 was an election year, and the politicos in Washington were speechifying and pamphletizing about how annexing Texas would affect the political balance of power.

The Army generals looked into their crystal balls and saw that a war over Texas was the most likely of all possible futures.

Planning for that contingency, the army ordered Lt. William H. Emory of the Corps of Topographical Engineers to produce a map.

In creating this map, Emory compiled the best information that was known about Texas and the surrounding territories.

Apart from being the most accurate depiction of Texas produced during the Republic era, this map also served as a political pronouncement in two ways.

First, it recognized Texas as a separate political entity. No US government map had done that before.

Second, it shows that the United States assumed that if Texas became a state, it would do so with boundaries as defined by the first Congress of the Republic of Texas in December of 1836.

Those boundaries remained in place until the Compromise of 1850, when in return for paying off $10 million of the former Lone Star Republic's debt, Texas gave up to the Federal Government her claims to the Eastern half of New Mexico, a third of Colorado, and portions of Kansas, Oklahoma and Wyoming. That's about twelve cents an acre.

So here is Texas at her grandest extent, before setting her star in the American constellation and being whittled by compromise.



**Such maps are continuously on sale by many "Historical Groups" within Texas, and the depiction of "how things used to be" is likely only meaningful to old folks like myself that have actually studied and live in the Lone Star State.

Uncle Russ...

[ballen1900]

Uncle Russ,
Al contrario, mi amigo! The "way things used to be" is a fascinating subject! And the history of Texas is so much a part of the history of the rest of the US, I think they should spend much more time on it in schools all over the country. The Republic of Texas and all the socio-political ramifications of it, and its end, can't be underestimated.

Now, would I have said that in high school 45 years ago. Nope, not a chance! Have I ever lived in Texas? Nope. But since I found out that my 3rd great-grandfather fought at the Battle of Taos Pueblo and in the Civil War, both under the command of Sterling Price, it has all become much more interesting. I have to ask myself, how did a boy from Virginia, come through Ohio in 1834, and end up in the Missouri Territory without his family all before the age of 18? What led him down that path, and how did he do it? Sure, it was Westward Expansion, and Manifest Destiny, and all that, but on a personal level, were the common settlers actually thinking of those things? You gotta wonder.

But in any case, my renewed interest in traditional firearms is a direct result of studying my family's history, so here we are,  writing about 170 year-old history using technology that hadn't even been dreamed about when we were born...
Bill

PS I'd love to get a higher res. copy of that map...

[Craig Tx]

Thanks Unca Russ!  And I don't mind very well at all...  Just ask my wife.

Craig

[Uncle Russ]

Thanks Unca Russ!  And I don't mind very well at all...  Just ask my wife.

Craig

A sure sign you are from Texas, IMO.

 

Uncle Russ...