H. W. Brands is a unbelievably prolific author. His expertise span the gamut from America's founding generation to the intricacies of the Cold War. he knows how to write one of these here history books. As such, he starts his biography of Texas with a brief geological history of the state. He describes how its gradual tectonic `rise from the ancient sea bed, with a slight northwestern tilt, resulted in the area witnessing many smaller fertile rivers making their way to the Gulf rather than many tributaries feeding one mighty river. Not one Texas river feeds into the Mississippi. It turns out that this feature will end up being important in the story of the Texas revolution.
When the first European settlers first set foot in Texas it was a place almost devoid of human life. This was not the result of any unsuitable nature of the region, but rather the result of a devastating pandemic that spread among the natives like waves on a pond, propagating outward from even the slightest contact with a European immune system. The first few Conquistador expeditions revealed a land rich in natural wonders and agricultural wealth, but lacking in gold and silver, which is what the Spanish crown and the Catholic church were really looking for. Spain promptly ignored Texas. But soon the French established settlements along the Mississippi river delta, and a lunatic named La Salle lead a doomed mission to begin a French colony in Matagordo Bay. Suddenly, Spain felt the need to create a buffer zone between the lucrative colonies in Mexico and the growing threat of French incursion. Texas was soon sparsely populated by missionaries sworn not only to spread the Catholic gospel but also to advance the interests of the Spanish crown.
In 1718, a mission and a fort were built along the San Antonio river. Spanish support for the missions in Texas would ebb and flow in conjunction with the tensions between Spain and France; after all, you only need a buffer zone if you perceive an enemy on the other side. But even in the lean times, San Antonio de Bexar and the missionary communities around it, would prove to be the center of European colonial life in Texas for more than a century to come. Brands states that, "By the 1770's, when it became the capital of Spanish Texas, [San Antonio] had a population of about two thousand."
As the eighteenth century gave way to the nineteenth, and the fledgling United States of America purchased the French Louisiana Territory and doubling their geographic size with the stroke of a pen, Texas remained a buffer for the Spanish colonies in Mexico. However, these colonies, inspired by the new American Republic born on the same continent only a few years earlier, were themselves wrestling with revolutionary ideas. The Mexicans bristled at the notion that their new Spanish king was Joseph Bonaparte, brother to none other than Napoleon himself. In 1810, all of Mexico erupted into a rebellion against the Spanish/Bonaparte rule. A small expeditionary force of American volunteers, lead by a Mexican named Jose Gutierrez, moved into Texas from the east. They hoped to not only assist fellow republicans in Texas, but to oust all Spanish influence form the North American continent. By 1812 they had gathered Tejano and even Indian volunteers as they approached San Antonio. This revolutionary army ran off a royalist force and even convinced hundreds of royalists to switch sides and join them as they all camped outside the walls of the San Antonio mission known as the Alamo, now converted into a fortress.
Eventually, the rebels were defeated in the bloodiest battle ever fought on Texan soil. At the Battle of Medina River, royalist general Joaquin Arredondo gave no quarter to the 1,400 rebel fighters and put down the first major rebellion against colonial authority in Texas. He even went so far as to execute the men who had surrendered to him. One of Arredondo's lieutenants, named Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, took note of the general's ruthlessness in dealing with rebels. Santa Anna would remember this example 23 years later when he would lead his own army to San Antonio to deal with another major rebellion.
Texas had moved from simply being a buffer zone between great powers and had become a battleground for colonials intent on shaking off colonial rule. But there were still few people living there. Mexico began to appoint impresarios to guide and facilitate legal immigration to the area with the hopes that hard working settlers could help make Mexico a more robust and financially independent state.
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