The treaty between Santa Anna and the Texan Congress was concluded at
Velasco (May 14), and to the written paper was affixed the seal of the
Republic.
The choice of this seal was the result of an accident. When the
declaration of independence was adopted at San Felipe, Governor Smith,
having no other seal, used one of the brass buttons from his coat. Its
device chanced to be a five-pointed star encircled by a wreath of oak
leaves. The Lone Star with its wreath thus became the official signet of
the Texas Republic.
[Illustration: Flag of Texas Republic.]
Santa Anna was conducted on board the war-schooner _Invincible_, which
had orders to convey him and his staff to Vera Cruz on the coast of
Mexico. But public feeling was so strong against setting free the arch
enemy of Texas that President Burnet was obliged to have him brought on
shore again. He was sent from Velasco to Columbia, and thence to
Orizaba, the country place of Dr. Orlando Phelps, on the Brazos River. A
plot for his release was soon afterward discovered. This caused him to
be put in irons, and to receive a small taste of the ill-treatment he
had so often accorded to others. It was not until after the return of
Houston from New Orleans in the fall that the captive general was
finally released.
Meantime there was great dissatisfaction in the army. The soldiers,
having no fighting to do, began to remember that they were hungry and in
rags. They clamored for money which the poverty-stricken government
could not give them; and they still demanded loudly the death of Santa
Anna.
In June Major Isaac Burton, with a company of mounted rangers on the
lookout for Mexican vessels at Copano, succeeded in decoying into port
and capturing three supply ships which belonged to the enemy. These were
the _Watchman_, the _Comanche_, and the _Fanny Butler_. The supplies,
valued at twenty-five thousand dollars, were sent at once to the army.
This timely relief and the re-imprisonment of Santa Anna restored the
soldiers to good humor.
In September a general election was held. General Houston was made
President, and Mirabeau B. Lamar Vice-President. The new term was to
begin in December; but President Burnet, glad to lay down the burden
which he had borne wisely and virtuously, resigned his office, and on
the 22d of October Houston was inaugurated.
The ceremony took place at Columbia. Among those present were many who
had been prominent in the revolution: Stephen F. Austin, ex-Governor
Smith, Branch T. Archer, the Whartons, Mosely Baker, Sidney Sherman,
John T. Austin, William Austin, and many others.
Santa Anna, in his guarded apartment not far away, might almost have
heard the echoes of his old enemy’s voice when, at the conclusion of his
address, Houston unbuckled his sword and handed it to the Speaker of the
House, with the assurance that if his country should ever call for his
services again he would resume his sword and respond to that call with
his blood or his life.
Stephen F. Austin was made Secretary of State in Houston’s cabinet. He
had but lately returned from the United States, where he had rendered
important service to Texas during her struggle for independence. He now
saw his highest hopes realized. His beloved colonists had become a free
people. His chosen land would now blossom like a rose in the fair
sunshine of peace.
He began his new duties with ardor. But constant anxiety and the
hardships of prison life had left him weak and delicate. The unfinished
room where he worked was without fire; he was seized suddenly with
pneumonia, and after a short illness he died (December 27, 1836).
The Father of Texas was but forty-three years old. His life had been
noble, useful, and unselfish, and his death was a public loss. His body
was conveyed in the steamer _Yellowstone_ to Peach Point on the Brazos,
near Columbia. There, in the presence of the President and his cabinet,
the officers of the army and navy, and a large concourse of citizens, he
was buried with military honors.
[Illustration: Mirabeau B. Lamar.]
The first regular Congress had a hard task before it. The people of
Texas were in favor of annexation to the United States. But a strong
faction in that nation, though willing to acknowledge Texas as an
independent country, was strongly opposed to receiving another slave
state. The young Republic was therefore obliged to stand alone.
There was a large public debt, but no money in the treasury. Mexico
still laid claim to her rebellious province, and it was necessary to
maintain an army to repel invasion, and a navy to defend the coast. The
Indians were troublesome. The civil law, in the confusion and disorder
of the war, had become almost a dead letter.
This was a tangled skein, but Congress set to work with hearty good will
to unravel the threads. The legislature provided for the public debt and
other state expenses by issuing land scrip (government paper entitling
the holder to so many leagues of land).
[Illustration: First Capitol of Texas. At Columbia (1836).]
County and magistrate courts were organized; a Supreme Court was formed,
and the Spanish code of laws was displaced by the code used by the
United States. The soldiers instead of their pay received permission to
go home on long visits to their families. Some vessels were bought for
the navy, and commissioners were sent to the different Indian tribes to
make treaties of friendship.
Congress adjourned in December. The following May it met in the new town
on Buffalo Bayou named in honor of the President.
Monsieur Le Clère (Le Clare), a Frenchman who visited Texas about this
time, writes thus of Houston: “I cannot say that Houston is a great
city, although it is a capital. The principal street, Main Street, which
is laid out in a straight line, and handsome enough for the country,
runs down to the river. The footwalks are barely marked out. We found
the landing still blocked by enormous trunks of trees. Great southern
pines are left standing in the street. The ascent which leads from the
bayou to the city is very rough, and one stumbles over the logs that
encumber it. By the side of houses of tolerably fine appearance (though
built entirely of wood), one meets here and there with those poor houses
called log cabins. Finally, as a last touch to this picture, there stand
in Main Street and near the capitol two great tents which would do honor
to a chief of the Tartars or Bedouins.
“The environs of Houston are not inhabited. A great number of the people
I saw in the city were going further west, but their passage gave it a
very lively appearance. They were on horseback, and almost all armed
with the terrible weapon called the bowie knife. Most of them carried
before them on the saddle that rifle, excessively long, which they
handle with a wonderful skill, and which Jackson’s men used so well at
the battle of New Orleans.”
The capitol building was unfinished, and Congress was obliged to shorten
its sittings when it rained or a “norther” blew fiercely through the
shutterless windows. The President’s house was a double log cabin with a
puncheon floor. But the naturalist Audubon describes President Houston
(May, 1837) as receiving his guests in this rude cabin, “dressed in a
fancy velvet coat and trousers trimmed with gold lace; and around his
neck was tied a cravat somewhat in the style of 1776.”
The same writer speaks of the members of the cabinet as men bearing the
stamp of “intellectual ability, simple, though bold in their general
appearance.”
All sorts of people from at home and abroad thronged the little capital.
Curious travelers like Audubon and Le Clère, the Frenchman, brushed
against hunters clad in buck-skin, traders with pack-mules, and
eager-eyed young adventurers from “the States.”
[Illustration: A Comanche Chief.]
A great many Indians came into the town to see their Great Father,
Houston. One such deputation was from the hunting-grounds of the
Comanches. They came to make their treaty of peace in person. They rode
mustang ponies, and brought their squaws and papooses with them. After
setting up their buffalo-hide lodges on the prairie near the town, the
warriors marched in single file to President Houston’s own residence.
They were all tall and finely formed, with very red skin, and jet-black
hair which they wore hanging in long locks down their backs. These locks
were ornamented with bands of silver. Many of the warriors wore, just
below the elbow, clumsy rings of copper or gold, from which dangled the
scalp-locks of their dead enemies. Monsieur Le Clère, who saw this
procession, says that one young Indian had two of these rings hung with
ten or fifteen heads of hair of different colors. The women wore tight
leggings of tanned buck-skin, with tunics of wolf or jaguar skins,
trimmed with beads and quills. Many strands of colored beads were strung
around their necks, and their hands were loaded with gold and silver
rings. Some of their costumes were graceful and pretty. The wearers were
nearly all old and ugly; but one young girl, the daughter of the chief,
is described as very beautiful, with liquid black eyes, softly rounded
cheeks, and red laughing lips. She wore on her head a crown made of
eagle feathers, and her girdle was a band of heavy silver discs.
The President welcomed his red brothers gravely and kindly. The calumet,
or pipe of peace, was smoked and the treaty was made. The Indians
received presents of beads, blankets, and red cloth. The old chief when
he rode away carried the Texas flag tied to a stalk of sugar cane. “Me
big chief! Houston big chief!” he cried, striking his breast with his
hand.