Under the leadership of Alcalde James Dill Nacogdoches soon regained its
former prestige as the largest town in East Texas, and settlers from the
United States began coming in increasing numbers under the beneficient
colonization laws of the new government in Mexico; but things were much
changed. In 1825 Haden and Benjamin Edwards secured their ill-fated
contract as empresarios. When Edwards began to plant his colonists,
sometimes on land which had once belonged to the Mexican inhabitants and
had been abandoned temporarily in the flight of 1813, the friction
between the Americans and Mexicans increased. On the northwest of them
also had settled a tribe of Cherokee Indians, who claimed the right to
occupy a vast territory which had formerly been the habitation of the
friendly Tejas Indians.
This triangular situation bred distrust and antagonism that at last
broke out into open warfare, and threw the country into the wildest
disorder, in what is known as the Fredonian War in 1826. The coup of
Edwards was at first successful, and he and his followers were able to
seize the “Stone House” and fortify it; but the citizenship of
Nacogdoches and the surrounding country was not behind the movement, and
it was doomed to failure from its inception.
The Fredonian rebellion resulted in many of the prominent citizens of
the town being expelled in 1827—among whom were John S. Roberts, Haden
and Benjamin Edwards, Adolphus Sterne and Martin Parmer. The Mexican
general, Ahumada, who occupied Nacogdoches upon this occasion, was a
genuine diplomat, and with the assistance and advice of Stephen F.
Austin, who came to Nacogdoches with Ahumada, soon had the old town
peaceful again. However, the man whom Ahumada selected as comandante
here proved to be an unfortunate choice, and Colonel Jose de las Piedras
soon aroused the hostility of the American settlers with his
high-handed, arbitrary methods, as was the case with Col. Bradburn at
Anahuac.
[Illustration: Adolphus Sterne Home
Where Sam Houston was baptized. Standing at corner Lanana and Pilar
street. See page 22.]