Hawk Banks - Founding Texas Read online

  List of Main Characters

  Fictional Characters:

  Hank MacElrae was born in Edinburg, Scotland in 1803. His family moved to North Carolina when Hank was twelve years old. He met and married Julie when he was 21. They moved to Texas in 1833.

  Julie MacElrae, nee Parker, was born in North Carolina in 1806. She married Hank in 1824.

  Auggey MacElrae was born in 1825 in North Carolina to Hank and Julie.

  Hawk Banks was born in Boston in 1790. He was the son of Robert Banks, a prominent Boston businessman and American revolutionary. Hawk showed great promise at an early age, attending Harvard College from the age of 16.

  Francisco de la Garza was born in a village in Zacatecas in 1817. He spent his early life with his family, never traveling more than twenty miles from home.

  Nate Tucker was born in Virginia in 1807, but grew up in Kentucky. He moved to Nacogdoches in the summer of 1835.

  Antonia Perez was born in Monclova in 1799. Her family moved to San Antonio when she was nine.

  Teresa Perez, the daughter of Antonia Perez, was born in San Antonio in 1829.

  Historical Characters:

  Deaf Smith (pronounced “deef”) was born in the newly formed United States of America in 1787. As a boy growing up in New York, he would have been accustomed to the winds of battle. His family moved to Mississippi when Deaf was eleven. In 1821 Deaf moved to Texas in an attempt to restore his hearing impairment, as he was in fact almost completely deaf. Perhaps for this reason he was a man of few words, but he quickly developed a reputation for coolness under fire. Although he maintained good relations with the Tejano locals in Coahuila y Tejas, when war broke out, he was one of the first Texians to join up.

  Susannah Dickinson was born in Tennessee in 1814. At the time of the Texas Revolution she was living in Gonzales with her husband Almaron. She bore a baby girl named Angelina in late 1834.

  Francisca Alavez was born in Mexico. She travelled northward with General Urrea’s army in the winter of 1836 as the companion of Captain Telesforo Alavez.

  Stephen F. Austin was born in Virginia in 1793. He grew up in Missouri, where he received the news that his father had died, willing to him the imperial decree granting to him the land for the colony in Texas.

  James Bowie was born in Kentucky in 1796, but spent most of his life in Louisiana, where he established himself as a bona fide frontiersman. Bowie was a strong personality in a rough-and-tumble place and time. Eventually a feud necessitated a move; thereby affording his immigration to Texas in 1830. He subsequently led an expedition to find the lost San Saba mine, during which he repulsed an Indian raiding party, making him famous on the prairies of Texas.

  William B. Travis was born in South Carolina in 1809. In his youth he was trained at a military academy in the state of his birth. He married and became a lawyer in Alabama in 1829. His marriage failed in 1831, forcing him to relocate to Texas, where he arrived in March of that year.

  Sam Houston was born in Virginia in 1793. He spent his early adult years in Tennessee, during which time he served under Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812 and later became a noted politician and Governor of the state of Tennessee. His first marriage ended in scandal and disgrace, Houston leaving the state for the Cherokee Nation in 1829, where he took a second wife and became a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. In 1832 he immigrated to the territory of Texas, where he was awarded an imperial grant of 4,000 acres near Huntsville.

  James Fannin was born in 1804 and, attending West Point, was dismissed due to low grades. He settled in Georgia in 1832, where he married and had two daughters. In 1834 he moved to Coahuila y Tejas.

  Davy Crockett was born in 1786 and grew up in eastern Tennessee. In the 1820’s he served in both the Tennessee legislature and the U.S. House of Representatives. In late 1835 Crockett decided to join the Texas Revolution. He arrived overland by horse from Arkansas in Nacogdoches in January, 1836, where he took the oath of allegiance to Texas on January 14 of that year.

  James Bonham was born in South Carolina in 1807. He was a second cousin to William Travis, as well as a cousin by marriage to James Bowie. In November of 1835 he came to Texas to fight in the revolution with the Mobile Greys of Alabama.

  Juan Nepomuceno Seguin was born in 1806 in Coahuila y Tejas. Although his English was poor, his allegiance was to Tejas.

  Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna Perez de Lebron was born in Veracruz in 1794. At the time Mexico was a colony of Spain. He showed aptitude for a military career at a very young age, thus leading his family to provide him with military training. He fought on both sides during the turbulent War of Independence between Mexico and Spain, rising rapidly through the ranks. Due to his military exploits he became famous in Mexico, eventually being appointed President of Mexico in 1833. In part due to his mercurial political policies, the northern states of Mexico, including Coahuila y Tejas, eventually revolted in 1835.

  Martin Perfecto de Cos was born in Veracruz in 1800. At the outbreak of the Texas Revolution, he was married to Lucinda Lopez de Santa Anna, sister of Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.

  General Jose de Urrea was born in 1797 in northern Mexico, at what is now Tucson. He joined the army at a very young age, where he distinguished himself in several campaigns, rising to the rank of General.

  Buffalo Hump was born in the early nineteenth century in Texas. Little is known about his early years, other than that he was a member of the Penateka band of the Comanche tribe.

  Glossary of Terms and Places

  Bexar – The name used by Hispanics for the city of San Antonio

  Camisa – Spanish for shirt

  Coahuila y Tejas – literally Coahuila and Texas, the northernmost state within Mexico that included Texas

  Jacal – a room-like enclosure made from logs placed vertically within the ground

  La Bahia – the mission at Goliad

  Manga de Clavo – Santa Anna’s villa at Veracruz

  Monclova – the capital of the Mexican state of Coahuila y Texas

  Mujer – Spanish word for woman

  Old Three Hundred – a group of colonists from the United States that were led by Stephen Austin to Texas beginning in 1822

  Rio Bravo – the Mexican designation for the Rio Grande

  Tejano – a person of Hispanic decent living in Tejas

  Tejas – Spanish spelling of Texas

  Texian – A person of Anglo decent living in Texas

  Zacatecas – a state in Mexico

  Prologue

  Texas Beckons

  I have given England a maritime rival who will sooner or later humble her pride.

  -Napoleon Bonaparte, describing the impact of the Louisiana Purchase

  Boston, Massachusetts-July 5, 1803

  Perched upon Nob Hill, the brownstone was ample evidence of the family’s affluence. Inside, a middle-aged man sat within his opulent study, assimilating an article within a locally distributed pamphlet.

  A boy appearing to be about the age of twelve suddenly chased into the room. Bounding to the man’s side, he exclaimed, “Father! What’s news have we today? Surely there’s something exciting on this, the day after Independence Day!”

  Eyeing his son with irritation, the man responded, “Not much, nothing good, at least,” and, accepting the intrusion, he added, “Well, there is one thing here, on page three.”

  “What is it, father? Let me see,” the boy inquired, somehow managing to squirm betwixt his father and the pages of the pamphlet.

  Now fully distracted by his entirely too rambunctious child, the man sighed and suggested, “See this drawing here? See that, son?”

  “Yes, sir. Looks to me like a map of North America.”

  “Precisely,” his father supplied, “Notice anything unusual about it?”

  “Of course – there’s a big grey smoke plume right in the middle.”

  “Smoke plume? What on earth are you talking about, son?”

&n
bsp; Pointing at the map, the boy announced proudly, “There, father! See down there? Looks like the mouth of the Mississippi spouting off a smoke plume, if you ask me!”

  His father peered at the image and, his eyes suddenly lighting up, he exclaimed in recognition, “Why, darned if your aren’t correct, Hiram, it does in fact give the sensation of a smoke plume. But it’s more than that, son.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s called the Louisiana Purchase. It seems that darned fool President Jefferson announced yesterday that he had purchased it from France on behalf of The United States of America for fifteen million dollars.”

  “Dad! Don’t say bad things about Thomas Jefferson – he’s our president!”

  “Precisely, son, he’s the president, not the emperor, and in this country, that means every citizen has the right to question anything, including hair-brained actions by our president.”

  “But, sir, why did you call President Jefferson a fool?”

  “I should think it would be clear to anyone – tis an enormous amount of money to pay for what amounts to a barren and useless wilderness.”

  “What makes you say that,” the boy queried insistently.

  “Well, son, just look at the map - look at where the land is – it must be a thousand miles from here.”

  Studying the map, the child now inquired pugnaciously, “What’s that there?”

  “Where?” his father queried in return and, observing where the boy was pointing, he responded, “Oh, that! That’s a territory that belongs to Mexico. It’s called Texas.”

  “Texas,” the boy repeated wistfully, “What a strange name.”

  “Right, son. Might as well be a million miles away. Frankly, I doubt that anyone from this country will ever lay eyes on it, at least, not in your lifetime.”

  “Oh, yes they will!” the boy exclaimed with self-assurance.

  “Oh, and what makes you think that, son?”

  “Because I’m going to go there someday,” he responded proudly.