Mission Frontier

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Conflicts on the Mission Frontier

During the first half of the 1700s, the Spanish mission presence in Texas continued to expand. Although the missions had some success, the Spanish hold on Texas grew weaker and weaker as the 1700s passed. Indians in East and South Texas resisted the missionaries. Plains Indians from West Texas raided Spanish settlements almost at will. These and other problems made Texas ripe for filibustering (armed invasions by groups of private citizens) from the United States.

Click on the map for a larger image.

Map of Spanish Missions in Texas in the 1700s. (Courtesy of University of Texas Perry-Casta�eda Library Map Collection.)

In 1800, Phillip Nolan led one such filibuster but was caught and executed by the Spaniards. In 1810, Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla led a revolution against Spain because Indians, Creoles (Spaniards born in Mexico) and Mestizos (people of mixed Indian-Spanish heritage ) were being discriminated against by "pure" Spaniards born in Spain. His revolt failed, but the idea of Mexican independence lived on. Many of Hidalgo�s supporters were in Texas, and the idea of Texas independence became popular, too.

In 1813, the Mexican revolutionary Bernardo Gutierrez joined forces with former United States Army officer Augustus Magee. The two created the Republican Army of the North. They gained control of the settlements of Nacogdoches, Goliad and San Antonio. Then they declared Texas independence and adopted a republican constitution. However, Spanish forces defeated the revolutionaries on August 18, 1813, at a battle fought near the Medina River.

The next attempt for Texas independence was led by Dr. James Long of Natchez, Mississippi. In 1819, he led an expedition into Texas and took Nacogdoches. He established a republic with himself as president. After the Spaniards drove Long and his supporters away, Long went to Galveston Island where he asked the French pirate, Jean Laffite, for help. The pirate refused, so Long recruited more men elsewhere and continued to fight the Spanish. He was captured and taken to prison in Mexico where he was killed by a guard. Dr. Long�s wife, Jane, was about to have a baby. She remained in the Galveston area and gave birth to a daughter in 1821. The baby was the first white American born in Texas (as best accurate records can show). Since then, Jane Long has been called the "mother of Texas."

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