MASTERS NO MORE: ABOLITION AND TEXAS PLANTERS, 1860-1890
Adrien D. Ivan, B. A., M. A.
Dissertation Prepared for the Degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS
December 2010
APPROVED:
Richard G. Lowe, Major Professor
John Todd, Minor Professor
Elizabeth H. Turner, Committee Member
Christopher J. Fuhrmann, Committee Member
Richard B. McCaslin, Committee Member and
Chair of the Department of History
James D. Meernik, Acting Dean of the Robert
B. Toulouse School of Graduate Studies
Ivan, Adrien D. Masters No More: Abolition and Texas Planters, 1860-1890. Doctor of
Philosophy (History), December 2010, 256 pp., 90 tables, 7 maps, bibliography, 213 titles.
This dissertation is a study of the effects of the abolition of slavery on the economic and
political elite of six Texas counties between 1860 and 1890. It focuses on Austin, Brazoria,
Colorado, Fort Bend, Matagorda, and Wharton Counties. These areas contain the overwhelming
majority of Stephen F. Austin’s “Old Three Hundred,” the original American settlers of Texas.
In addition to being the oldest settled region, these counties contained many of the wealthiest
slaveholders within the state. This section of the state, along with the northeast along the
Louisiana border, includes the highest concentration of Texas’ antebellum plantations. This
study asks two central questions. First, what were the effects of abolition on the fortunes of the
planter class within these six counties? Did a new elite emerge as a result of the end of slavery,
or, despite the liquidation of a substantial portion of their estates, did members of the former
planter class sustain their economic dominance over the counties? Second, what were
abolition’s effects on the counties’ prewar political elite, defined as the county judge? Who were
in power before the war and who were in power after it? Did abolition contribute to a new kind
of politician?
Copyright 2010
by
Adrien D. Ivan
ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Writing history is not a task done by individuals. It requires the support of numerous
people. Major advisers, committee members, and family all contribute to the ultimate completion
of major research projects. I am thankful to all of these groups of people for their guidance
towards this dissertation. I am grateful to my adviser, Dr. Richard G. Lowe, for his supervision
and support throughout my years at the University of North Texas. My committee members, Drs.
Richard McCaslin, Elizabeth Turner, John Todd, and Christopher Fuhrmann, also provided me
with valuable advice and support in my development as a student of history.
I would like to take the final space of this page to thank my family. I am grateful to my
parents for their constant love and support throughout this long journey. I would also like to
thank my wife’s family for their encouragement. I am greatly appreciative of my extended
family in New Jersey, who, during my years in Philadelphia, welcomed me into their homes
whenever I needed respite throughout the years of my master’s degree. Last, but not certainly not
least, I owe a debt of gratitude to my wife, Cecilia. She had borne the sacrifices that go along
with this venture with such grace. She was my inspiration to push through the hardest days of my
doctorate. She has allowed me to enjoy a happiness I never could have imagined.
iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................... iii
LIST OF TABLES ...........................................................................................................................v
LIST OF MAPS ...............................................................................................................................x
Chapters
1.
INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................1
2.
TEXAS BETWEEN RECONSTRUCTION AND REDEMPTION .....................15
3.
THE ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL ELITE OF AUSTIN COUNTY, 18601890........................................................................................................................41
4.
THE ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL ELITE OF BRAZORIA COUNTY, 18601890........................................................................................................................78
5.
THE ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL ELITE OF COLORADO COUNTY, 18601890......................................................................................................................114
6.
THE ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL ELITE OF FORT BEND COUNTY, 18601890......................................................................................................................143
7.
THE ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL ELITE OF MATAGORDA COUNTY,
1860-1890 ............................................................................................................171
8.
THE ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL ELITE OF WHARTON COUNTY, 18601890......................................................................................................................200
9.
CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................227
BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................................242
iv
LIST OF TABLES
1. Landowning Members of the Old Three Hundred in Austin County, 1824-1827 .................42
2. Austin County Planters, 1860 ................................................................................................50
3. Percentage of the Value of Slaves within Planters’ Estates, 1860 .........................................52
4. Antebellum and Civil War-era Austin County Judges, 1837-1866 .......................................54
5. Total Estates of 1860 Planters as Listed in the 1870 Tax Rolls.............................................58
6. Gains/Losses in Acres Owned and Land Values of Antebellum Planters .............................60
7. Austin County Presidential Pardons ......................................................................................63
8. Austin County Officials Appointed by Provisional Governor Andrew Jackson Hamilton ...67
9. Owners of $10,000 or More in Total Property in Austin County, 1860 ................................68
10. Owners of $10,000 or More in Total Property in Austin County, 1870 ................................69
11. Owners of $10,000 or More in Total Property in Austin County, 1880 ................................71
12. Owners of $10,000 or More in Total Property in Austin County, 1890 ................................73
13. Percentage of Antebellum Planters within Residents Possessing $10,000 or More in
Taxable Property, 1860-1890.................................................................................................74
14. Austin County Judges, 1866-1890 .........................................................................................76
15. Landowning Members of the Old Three Hundred in Brazoria County, 1824-1827 ..............79
16. Brazoria County Planters, 1860 .............................................................................................89
17. Percentage of the Value of Slaves within Planters’ Estates, 1860 .........................................91
18. Antebellum and Civil War-era Brazoria County Judges, 1837-1866 ....................................93
19. Total Estates of 1860 Planters as Listed in the 1870 Tax Rolls.............................................95
20. Gains/Losses in Acres Owned and Land Values of Antebellum Planters, 1870 ...................98
21. Brazoria County Presidential Pardons ...................................................................................99
22. Brazoria County Officials Appointed by Provisional Governor Andrew Jackson Hamilton 103
v
23. Owners of $10,000 or More in Total Property in Brazoria County, 1860 .............................105
24. Owners of $10,000 or More in Total Property in Brazoria County, 1870 .............................106
25. Owners of $10,000 or More in Total Property in Brazoria County, 1880 .............................107
26. Owners of $10,000 or More in Total Property in Brazoria County, 1890 .............................110
27. Percentage of Antebellum Planters within Residents Possessing $10,000 or More in
Taxable Property, 1860-1890.................................................................................................111
28. Brazoria County Judges, 1866-1890 ......................................................................................112
29. Landowning Members of the Old Three Hundred in Colorado County, 1824-1827.............115
30. Colorado County Planters, 1860 ............................................................................................122
31. Percentage of the Value of Slaves within Planters’ Estates, 1860 .........................................123
32. Antebellum and Civil War-era Colorado County Judges, 1839-1865 ...................................124
33. Total Estates of 1860 Planters as Listed in the 1870 Tax Rolls.............................................126
34. Gains/Losses in Acres Owned and Land Values of Antebellum Planters, 1870 ...................128
35. Colorado County Presidential Pardons ..................................................................................130
36. Colorado County Officials Appointed by Provisional Governor Andrew Jackson
Hamilton ................................................................................................................................132
37. Owners of $10,000 or More in Total Property in Colorado County, 1860 ............................134
38. Owners of $10,000 or More in Total Property in Colorado County, 1870 ............................135
39. Owners of $10,000 or More in Total Property in Colorado County, 1880 ............................137
40. Owners of $10,000 or More in Total Property in Colorado County, 1890 ............................139
41. Percentage of Antebellum Planters within Residents Possessing $10,000 or More in
Taxable Property, 1860-1890.................................................................................................140
42. Colorado County Judges, 1866-1890 .....................................................................................141
43. Landowning Members of the Old Three Hundred in Fort Bend County, 1824-1827 ...........144
vi
44. Fort Bend County Planters, 1860 ...........................................................................................150
45. Percentage of the Value of Slaves within Planters’ Estates, 1860 .........................................152
46. Antebellum and Civil War-era Fort Bend County Judges, 1838-1865 ..................................153
47. Total Estates of 1860 Planters as Listed in the 1870 Tax Rolls.............................................154
48. Gains/Losses in Acres Owned and Land Values of Antebellum Planters .............................156
49. Fort Bend County Presidential Pardons .................................................................................158
50. Fort Bend County Officials Appointed by Provisional Governor Andrew Jackson
Hamilton ................................................................................................................................160
51. Owners of $10,000 or More in Total Property in Fort Bend County, 1860 ..........................162
52. Owners of $10,000 or More in Total Property in Fort Bend County, 1870 ..........................163
53. Owners of $10,000 or More in Total Property in Fort Bend County, 1880 ..........................166
54. Owners of $10,000 or More in Total Property in Fort Bend County, 1890 ..........................167
55. Percentage of Antebellum Planters within Residents Possessing $10,000 or More in
Taxable Property, 1860-1890.................................................................................................168
56. Fort Bend County Judges, 1866-1890 ...................................................................................169
57. Landowning Members of the Old Three Hundred in Matagorda County, 1824-1827 ..........172
58. Matagorda County Planters, 1860..........................................................................................178
59. Percentage of the Value of Slaves within Planters’ Estates, 1860 .........................................180
60. Antebellum and Civil War-era Matagorda County Judges, 1837-1865 ................................181
61. Total Estates of 1860 Planters as Listed in the 1870 Tax Rolls.............................................183
62. Gains/Losses in Acres Owned and Land Values of Antebellum Planters, 1870 ...................185
63. Matagorda County Presidential Pardons ................................................................................186
64. Matagorda County Officials Appointed by Provisional Governor Andrew Jackson
Hamilton ................................................................................................................................189
65. Owners of $10,000 or More in Total Property in Matagorda County, 1860 .........................190
vii
66. Owners of $10,000 or More in Total Property in Matagorda County, 1870 .........................191
67. Owners of $10,000 or More in Total Property in Matagorda County, 1880 .........................193
68. Owners of $10,000 or More in Total Property in Matagorda County, 1890 .........................195
69. Percentage of Antebellum Planters within Residents Possessing $10,000 or More in
Taxable Property, 1860-1890.................................................................................................196
70. Matagorda County Judges, 1865-1896 ..................................................................................198
71. Landowning Members of the Old Three Hundred in Wharton County, 1824-1827 .............201
72. Wharton County Planters, 1860 .............................................................................................207
73. Percentage of the Value of Slaves within Planters’ Estates, 1860 .........................................208
74. Antebellum and Civil War-era Wharton County Judges, 1837-1866 ....................................210
75. Total Estates of 1860 Planters as Listed in the 1870 Tax Rolls.............................................211
76. Gains/Losses in Acres Owned and Land Values of Antebellum Planters .............................213
77. Wharton County Presidential Pardons ...................................................................................215
78. Wharton County Officials Appointed by Provisional Governor Andrew Jackson Hamilton 217
79. Owners of $10,000 or More in Total Property in Wharton County, 1860.............................219
80. Owners of $10,000 or More in Total Property in Wharton County, 1870.............................220
81. Owners of $10,000 or More in Total Property in Wharton County, 1880.............................221
82. Owners of $10,000 or More in Total Property in Wharton County, 1890.............................223
83. Percentage of Antebellum Planters within Residents Possessing $10,000 or More in
Taxable Property, 1860-1890.................................................................................................224
84. Wharton County Judges, 1867-1890......................................................................................225
85. County Judges, 1845-1865.....................................................................................................230
86. Provisional Governor Andrew Jackson Hamilton’s Appointees, 1865 .................................231
87. County Judges, 1865-1890.....................................................................................................234
viii
88. Occupation Breakdown of County Judges, 1865-1890 .........................................................236
89. Number of Planters/Family Members of Planters within Elites, 1860-1890 .........................239
90. Average Values of Estates of Each County’s Economic Elite, 1860-1890 ...........................240
ix
LIST OF MAPS
1. Location of Austin, Brazoria, Colorado, Fort Bend, Matagorda, and Wharton Counties in 1860 ...... 13
2. Location of Austin County, 1860 ......................................................................................................... 43
3. Location of Brazoria County, 1860 ..................................................................................................... 80
4. Location of Colorado County, 1860 .................................................................................................... 116
5. Location of Fort Bend County, 1860 ................................................................................................... 145
6. Location of Matagorda County, 1860 .................................................................................................. 173
7. Location of Wharton County, 1860 ..................................................................................................... 202
x
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
The spring of 1865 witnessed not only the end of a bloody civil war but also the end of an
economic system based on slavery in the United States. Beginning with the capitulation of
General Robert E. Lee’s vaunted Army of Northern Virginia to Lieutenant General Ulysses S.
Grant in April, formal resistance against Federal armies crumbled as other Confederate army
commanders, such as General Joseph E. Johnston and Lieutenant General Richard Taylor,
surrendered to their Union opponents. With the surrender of Trans-Mississippi forces by
General Edmund Kirby Smith on May 26, 1865, all “organized rebel force disappeared from the
territories of the United States. . . .” On June 19, 1865, U. S. Major General Gordon Granger,
upon his arrival in Galveston, declared slavery dead within Texas, thus ending a labor system
that had existed in the state since its colonial years.1
The abolition of slavery eliminated a significant portion of the estates of Texas’s
antebellum elite. In the cotton and sugar counties along the lower Brazos and Colorado Rivers,
for example, fortunes plummeted between 1860 and 1870. According to the 1860 U. S. Census,
eighty-one individuals in Austin, Brazoria, Colorado, Fort Bend, Matagorda, and Wharton
counties owned $100,000 or more in property. By the next census, only one person, William
Joel Bryan of Brazoria, owned property worth more than $100,000. This was emblematic of the
situation statewide, as abolition represented the removal of 250,000 people from Texas
slaveholders’ financial estates.2
1
Report of the Secretary of War, House Executive Documents, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., No. 1, p. 16
[quotation]. Brigadier General Stand Watie was the last Confederate general to surrender his command, on June 23,
1865.
2
Eighth Census of the United States, 1860, Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29,
National Archives, (Microfilm M653, T1134); Ninth Census of the United States, 1870, Records of the Bureau of
the Census, Record Group 29, National Archives, (Microfilm M593); Ralph A. Wooster, "Wealthy Texans, 1870,"
1
The approximately fifteen years between the end of Reconstruction and 1890 witnessed a
general economic upturn within these six counties. Agricultural production and farm prices, for
example, increased as 1890 approached. Furthermore, the average property values of the
wealthiest taxpayers increased during this same period. Despite this improvement, the worth of
these estates did not return to antebellum levels.3
The experiences of these six counties are worth investigating because they advance
historians’ understanding of Reconstruction and the emergence of the New South by focusing
tightly on a limited geographical area. Texas’s varied experiences within its borders during
Reconstruction render any attempt to make a generalized argument that can apply throughout the
state very difficult. Focus on a limited region makes realistic conclusions about the state’s
diverse experiences more likely.
The most important reason for examining nineteenth-century Texas history at the county
level is the political nature of the state during the period. Throughout that century and well into
the twentieth, the state remained overwhelmingly rural. It was not until World War II that a
majority of Texans lived in cities. With a population located primarily outside of organized
towns, county government was the most important level of politics for most Texans. Throughout
Southwestern Historical Quarterly 70 (July 1970): 27; Randolph B. Campbell, An Empire for Slavery: The Peculiar
Institution in Texas, 1821-1865 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989), 251. Hereinafter, the 1860
Free Schedule for the census will be cited as 1860
U. S. Census, Schedule I, followed by the name of the county.
The 1860 Slave Schedule for the census will be cited as 1860 U. S. Census, Schedule II, followed by the name of the
county. Finally, the 1870 census will be cited as 1870 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, followed by the name of
the county.
3
Records of the Comptroller of Public Accounts, Ad Valorem Tax Division, Real and Personal Property
Tax Rolls, 1837-1900 Austin, Brazoria, Colorado, Fort Bend, Matagorda, Wharton Counties Tax Rolls, 1870-1890;
Francis A. Walker, The Statistics of the Wealth and Industry of the United States Compiled from the Original
Returns of the Ninth Census (June 1, 1870), under the Direction of the Secretary of the Interior (Washington, D.C.:
Government Printing Office, 1872), 250, 254, 258 [hereinafter cited as Statistics of Wealth and Industry of the
United States, 1870]; Francis A. Walker, Report on the Productions of Agriculture as Enumerated in the Tenth
Census (June 1, 1880) (Washington, D. C. : Government Printing Office, 1883), 11-31; Robert P. Porter, Report on
the Statistics of Agriculture in the United States at the Eleventh Census: 1890 (Washington, D.C.: Government
Printing Office, 1895), 348; Randolph B. Campbell and Richard G. Lowe, Wealth and Power in Antebellum Texas
(College Station: Texas A&M University Press,1977), 122.
2
this period, particularly during Reconstruction, political developments within the state revolved
around the county unit. Voter registration, the selection of delegates to constitutional
conventions, and the selection of state-level politicians were all handled at the county level.4
Scholars who study this period have focused mostly on the South as a whole. Historians
have examined the political nature of the Old South for nearly a century. Beginning with Ulrich
B. Phillips’s American Negro Slavery in 1918, scholars have debated whether the antebellum
South was aristocratic or democratic. Phillips and later Eugene Genovese argued that the
planters dominated southern politics and “set the tone of social life.” Other historians, most
famously Frank L. Owsley, have contended that although these planters occupied political
offices, they did so only by the permission, the vote, of the plain folk.5
Historians have also long discussed the level of “continuity” or “discontinuity” that
occurred within the South as the result of the Civil War. Harold D. Woodman identifies three
different areas in which historians have argued for continuity within the postwar South: race,
economics, and social relations. Jim Crow laws, racial violence, and sharecropping continued
race’s significance within the South to the point that Phillips described it as the “central theme of
southern history.”6
4
David G. McComb, “Urbanization” in Ronnie Tyler, Douglas E. Barnett, and Roy R. Barkeley, eds., The
New Handbook of Texas, 6 vols. (Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1996), 6:674; Randolph B. Campbell,
Grass-roots Reconstruction in Texas, 1865-1880 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1997), 2.
5
Ulrich B. Phillips, American Negro Slavery: A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro
Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1918); Eugene D.
Genovese, The Political Economy of Slavery: Studies in the Economy and Society of the Slave South (New York:
Pantheon Books, 1965), 28; Frank L. Owsley, Plain Folk of the Old South (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State
University Press, 1949), 139; Campbell and Lowe, Wealth and Power in Antebellum Texas, 108, 122.
6
Harold D. Woodman, “Economic Reconstruction and the Rise of the New South, 1865-1900,” in John B.
Boles and Evelyn Thomas Nolen, eds., Interpreting Southern History: Historiographical Essays in Honor of
Sanford W. Higginbotham (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1987), 259; Ulrich B. Phillips, “The
Central Theme of Southern History,” American Historical Review 34 (October, 1928): 30-43.
3
Economic historians such as Robert Fogel, Stanley Engerman, and Richard Easterlin
have contended that the South persisted in terms of its level of impoverishment. These scholars
argue that even into the twentieth century, southern income levels were low in comparison to the
rest of the nation. These scholars find that the cause of the South’s economic lag was the Civil
War.7
Roger Ransom and Richard Sutch assert in their work, One Kind of Freedom, that
property or any economic foundation did not accompany freedom for former slaves. The vast
majority of freedpersons received little or nothing from their former owners to begin their lives
in freedom. This circumstance, along with local monopolies, enabled merchants to charge black
sharecroppers high interest rates on purchases made on credit. The result was that blacks,
although no longer slaves, were in debt and in a state of dependence as close to slavery as legally
permitted. Furthermore, Ransom and Sutch argue that planters retained control of productive
capital in the southern economy through their wealth and influence.8
Woodman’s final thread of continuity is social relations, in particular, the persistence of
planter dominance in southern society. The most prominent members of this school are Jonathan
Wiener, Dwight Billings, and Randolph B. Campbell. These three scholars analyzed the fate of
the planter class at the state level. Wiener, for example, concludes that in Alabama, the war and
Reconstruction did not alter the antebellum pattern of elite persistence as half of the antebellum
planters within western Alabama remained in the elite by the end of Reconstruction. Billings,
7
Woodman, “Economic Reconstruction and the Rise of the New South,” in Interpreting Southern History,
263; Robert Higgs, The Transformation of the American Economy, 1865-1914: An Essay in Interpretation (New
York: John Wiley & Sons, 1971); Stanley L. Engerman, “Some Economic Factors in Southern Backwardness in the
Nineteenth Century,” in John F. Kain and John R. Meyer, eds., Essays in Regional Economics (Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1974), 279-306; Richard A. Easterlin, “Regional Income Trends, 18401950,” in Seymour E. Harris, ed., American Economic History (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961), 525-547.
8
Woodman, “Economic Reconstruction and the Rise of the New South,” in Interpreting Southern History,
267-269; Roger Ransom and Richard Sutch, One Kind of Freedom: The Economic Consequences of Emancipation
(Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 80, 87, 176.
4
analyzing North Carolina planters, contends that they were able to maintain their hegemony and
even embraced the emerging industry that characterized the New South.9
The most notable practitioner of this method in Texas has been historian Randolph B.
Campbell in his Grass-roots Reconstruction in Texas, 1865-1880. Analyzing six counties
(Colorado, Dallas, Harrison, Jefferson, McLennan, and Nueces Counties) from different sections
of the state, Campbell warns against “generalizing about events and developments from 1865 to
1880 in so large and varied a state.” He finds that in five of the counties, Nueces being the lone
exception, a majority of the planter class remained in the county and retained their affluent status
throughout Reconstruction.10
The majority of historians have treated the fortunes of the former planter class only in a
more general sense. The works of historians such as C. Vann Woodward, Gavin Wright, and
Eric Foner all analyze southern planters as a single group, examining their Reconstruction and
post-war experiences very generally, rarely accounting for individual states in their treatments of
planters after the abolition of slavery. Of these three historians, only Foner mentions the
economic conditions of Texas planters. Like the other two, however, Foner makes only
generalized statements about the planter class of Texas. Quoting an article by historian Ralph A.
Wooster, Foner finds that Texas planters suffered disastrous financial losses by 1870. Even
more recent accounts of Reconstruction in Texas, such as that by Carl Moneyhon, make mostly
broad statements. Moneyhon argues that the Texas of 1874 resembled its 1861 counterpart more
9
Woodman, “Economic Reconstruction and the Rise of the New South,” in Interpreting Southern History,
271; Jonathan Wiener, Social Origins of the New South: Alabama 1860-1885 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State
University Press, 1978), 9-10; Dwight B. Billings, Planters and the Making of a “New South:” Class, Politics, and
Development in North Carolina, 1865-1900 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979), 130.
10
Wiener, Social Origins of the New South, 9-10; Campbell, Grass-roots Reconstruction in Texas, 1865,
228; Randolph B. Campbell, A Southern Community in Crisis: Harrison County, Texas, 1850-1880 (Austin: Texas
State Historical Association, 1983), 384-392; Carl H. Moneyhon, Texas After the Civil War (College Station: Texas
A&M University Press, 2004), 16.
5
than anyone had predicted in 1865. Cotton was still the chief agricultural product, African
Americans, though free, enjoyed limited freedoms, and the party in control of the state in the
antebellum period remained in power at both the state and local level. Discussing the planter
class, he further contends that it survived Reconstruction to maintain its dominance.11
Unlike most of the works listed above, this study will delve deeply into the experiences
of individual planters. It will use both U. S. census data and information in county tax rolls.
Each provides valuable information on the inhabitants of the counties under examination. There
are, however, drawbacks inherent with each source. Every year the county tax collector presided
over the assessment of fellow inhabitants’ estates. Traditionally, citizens were allowed to
appraise their property themselves. Historian Carl Moneyhon asserts that because the citizens
elected the assessor, he often did not challenge his constituents’ valuations since he was reliant
upon them for election. This practice, as Moneyhon points out, allowed a person to
underestimate or even not report some property. Both the census and tax rolls of 1870 estimate
the total value of inhabitants’ estates. Of those individuals listed by both sources as owning
estates worth $10,000 or more, the census estimate was routinely greater than the figures in the
tax rolls by an average of 25 percent. On occasion, the numbers in both the census and the tax
rolls nearly matched and, more rarely, the latter exceeded the former.12
One of the census’s weaknesses as a source for this study was its change in the
information it collected. According to historian Carroll D. Wright, the U. S. government passed
legislation governing the basic format of the census on May 23, 1850. This act required six
11
C. Vann Woodward, Origins of the New South, 1877-1913 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University
Press, 1951), 179; Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution 1863-1877 (New York: Perennial
Library, 1989), 11, 129-130, 399-400; Gavin Wright, Old South, New South: Revolutions in the Southern Economy
Since the Civil War (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1986), 48-50; Moneyhon, Texas After the Civil War, 3, 16.
12
1870 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Brazoria County, Texas (Roll 1576); Austin, Brazoria,
Colorado, Fort Bend, Matagorda, Wharton County Tax Rolls, 1870; Carl H. Moneyhon, Republicanism in
Reconstruction Texas (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980), 8.
6
different schedules that delineated information on the free population, slave population,
mortality, agriculture, industry, and social statistics. By 1870 the antebellum format was no
longer adequate, most notably because of abolition. Nonetheless, no major change was made,
and the 1870 Census was the last one that the 1850 law governed, albeit with some alternations,
such as the elimination of the slave schedule and the delineation of five schedules instead of
six.13
On April 20, 1880, the federal government passed new legislation regarding the census
and changed its format. Although the 1880 Census retained the five schedules of its 1870
predecessor, it dropped the inquiries regarding the real and personal estate of heads of
households. Thus, the census no longer included the economic data provided in the 1860 and
1870 records.14
The U. S. census presented some information the tax rolls did not: the birth place, age,
occupation, and sex of those listed. Such information sheds light on the identity of the Texas
elite. Since Anglo-American settlement began later than in the older slave states, many of the
individuals analyzed by this study were born outside of Texas, mostly in southern states.
Furthermore, unlike other slave states, Texas did not follow English legal precedents regarding
the ownership of land. One of the many legacies of Spain’s administration of Texas was its
liberal laws regarding women’s ownership of land. The Republic of Texas adopted English
common law in all regards with two exceptions: that the common law did not violate “the
Constitution or the Acts of Congress now in force” and that a wife was allowed to retain all
13
Carroll D. Wright, The History and Growth of the United States Census, Prepared for the Senate
Committee on the Census (Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1900), 41, 44-45, 52-54, 61.
14
Ibid., 62, 71. A fire in the Commerce Building in Washington on January 10, 1921, destroyed most of
the microdata of the 1890 federal census. Information for the six counties studied here was among the destroyed
files.
7
lands, slaves, and other movable property she possessed at the time of her marriage. The U. S.
census lists many women in their husbands’ households, but it also listed separately their real
and personal estates. The tax rolls also listed many women individually with their total estates,
independent of their husbands’ property. Several women owned substantial amounts of property
and slaves, enough to be considered planters (owners of twenty or more slaves) and listed among
the postbellum elite. This study will use the U. S. census for its demographic information.15
In order to maintain consistency in the presentation of economic data, this study uses
county tax rolls as its source for data on the wealth of planters and postbellum elites. This choice
was for four reasons. First, the tax rolls are the only source that presents financial information
throughout the period from 1860 to 1890. Second, tax rolls are compiled annually and provide
information for the years between the censuses. Third, although the tax rolls routinely
undervalued estates and slaves owned (particularly the youngest and oldest bondsmen)
throughout the period examined, this consistency gives, as Randolph B. Campbell puts it, an
“acceptable idea of increases [and decreases] . . . over periods of time.” Finally, it is the only
source in which the assessor was a resident in the county throughout the counties’ existence.
According to Wright, federal law did not mandate that the census enumerator be a resident of the
respective districts until 1880. For a much longer period, tax collectors were familiar with the
wealth of those filing their returns.16
15
“To adopt the Common Law of England, - to repeal certain Mexican Laws, and to regulate the Marrital
[sic] Rights of parties,” in H. P. N. Gammel, comp., The Laws of Texas, 1822-1897, 10 vols. (Austin: The Gammel
Book Company, 1898), 2:177-180; William Ranson Hogan, The Texas Republic: A Social & Economic History
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1946; reprint, Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 2006), 246.
16
Campbell, Empire for Slavery, 54 [quotation]; Wright, History and Growth of the United States Census,
61.
8
This study uses other county-level documents as well, particularly deed and probate
records. Deeds records are crucial in establishing when a person entered a county and what
individuals were buying and selling. Probate records, particularly the Case Papers, demonstrate
a deceased person’s estate at the time of death and how it was divided among his or her heirs.
The availability of these records varies from county to county. Each county follows its own
rules. Some counties preserve only the Probate Minutes, which are a timeline of the case and
contain little detail. Others possess the Final Record, which includes the major documents of a
probate case. The Case Papers are the most detailed probate records, but none of the examined
counties kept all documents.17
Finally, this dissertation uses manuscript collections and personal papers, particularly for
state-level public officials such as Governors Andrew Jackson Hamilton and James
Throckmorton. Personal papers for some private citizens have also been examined, although
they are not evenly divided among the six counties. This study combines both traditional and
non-traditional sources to present as intimate and revealing a portrait as possible.
This dissertation analyzes two central questions. First, what were the effects of abolition
on the fortunes of the planter class within these six counties? Did a new elite emerge as a result
of the end of slavery, or, despite the liquidation of a substantial portion of their estates, did
members of the former planter class sustain their economic dominance over the counties?
Like many studies of the antebellum South, this dissertation defines “planter” as an
owner of twenty or more slaves. Furthermore, this examination of the evidence defines a
member of the county “elite” as any individual who owned property (real and personal) worth
$10,000 or more. Because the ownership of $10,000 or more in property was uncommon during
17
Campbell, Empire for Slavery, 268.
9
this period, this study will use that amount as a starting point in determining the elite of each
decade. Randolph B. Campbell and Richard G. Lowe, in Wealth and Power in Antebellum
Texas, estimate that in 1860, for example, those who owned $10,000 or more in real and personal
property were just 14.9 percent of the Texas population. Despite being a small minority, the
same group owned nearly three-fourths (73.2 percent) of the total wealth in the state. Figures on
wealth holding for the period from 1860 to 1890 were not noticeably distorted by inflation or
deflation over time. According to economist Clarence Long, inflation between 1860 and 1890
was not rampant. The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis suggests that between 1860 and
1890, the consumer price index, despite some intervening variability, remained stable to the
point that the buying power of $10,000 in 1860 remained the same thirty years later.
Comparisons of wealth figures over the period 1860-1890 may therefore be considered
dependable and meaningful.18
The second question addressed in this study centers on the correlation between wealth
and political power. A major debate within the historiography of the antebellum South is who
politically controlled the region? In Wealth and Power in Antebellum Texas, Randolph
Campbell and Richard G. Lowe offer a model of typical antebellum Texas politicians: “a [large]
slaveholder . . . and a large farmer or a professional.” Furthermore, antebellum Texas politicians
were between two and four times wealthier than the general population.19
18
Campbell and Lowe, Wealth and Power in Antebellum Texas, 46; Clarence Long, Wages and Earnings in
the United States, 1860-1890 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960), 61; Federal Reserve Bank of
Minneapolis, s.v. “Consumer Price Index (Estimate), 1800-2008,”
http://www.minneapolisfed.org/community_education/teacher/calc/hist1800.cfm (accessed July 6, 2010); Susan B.
Carter et al., Historical Statistics of the United States: Earliest times to the Present, 5 vols. (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2006), 3:158.
19
Election Registers, 1838-1972, Records of the Secretary of State, Archives Division (Texas State
Library, Austin) [hereinafter cited as Election Registers]; Campbell and Lowe, Wealth and Power in Antebellum
Texas, 108, 122 [quotation]; Richard G. Lowe and Randolph B. Campbell, “Wealthholding and Political Power in
Antebellum Texas,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly 79 (July 1975): 28.
10
This study will define the political elite at the county level as those who occupied the
county judgeship. For nineteenth-century Texans the most important and powerful local
government position was the county judgeship. This official presided over the commissioner’s
court, the county’s governing body, and he also had jurisdiction over the probate court, which
heard cases involving the administration of a person’s last will and testament. The judge was
thus the chief expression of political power at the local level. How closely did the antebellum
judges of the six counties under examination follow Campbell and Lowe’s paradigm? Did the
planter class dominate the counties’ politics before the Civil War? And did emancipation
dismantle planter influence on county-level politics?20
Who were the counties’ political elite between the end of the Civil War and 1890?
Campbell offers a working model by examining Reconstruction-era leaders from twenty-five
counties, one of which was Colorado. He argues that throughout Reconstruction, a typical
county politician was white and southern-born. More important to this study, however, was the
percentage of those leaders who were former slaveholders and planters. Campbell concludes that
after Provisional Governor Andrew Jackson Hamilton’s tenure, the vast majority of county
judges, commissioners, and sheriffs were not former slaveholders. During the Hamilton era
(June 1865 – August 1866), 53 percent of those he appointed to these positions had been
slaveholders. After Hamilton, the number fell, to as low as 18 percent of appointees. Of those
chosen in the 1876 election, only 30 percent had previously owned slaves. How well did the
counties examined in this study fit into Campbell’s post-war model? Who was the typical
20
Campbell and Lowe, Wealth and Power in Antebellum Texas, 122; Ramsdell, Reconstruction in Texas,
59-62; Moneyhon, Republicanism in Reconstruction Texas, 23-25; Campbell, Grass-roots Reconstruction in Texas,
9; Stuart A. MacCorkle and Dick Smith, Texas Government (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1956),
337. During Reconstruction the state changed the title of “county judge” to “chief justice.” In order to maintain
consistency, this study will use “county judge” as the title for this office.
11
county official between the end of Reconstruction and 1890? Did he descend from former
planter, minor slaveholding, or non-slaveholding families? This study seeks to answer these
questions.21
The area under examination here contained much of the Texas slave population
throughout the antebellum period. In 1840, Austin, Brazoria, Colorado, Fort Bend, Matagorda,
and Washington counties contained one-third of the state’s slaves within their borders. In 1850
the region was one of two areas (the other being the northeast section of the state along the
Louisiana border) that had counties with slave populations of 1,000 or more. By 1860 nearly
half (twenty-seven) of the approximately sixty planters who owned 100 bondsmen or more lived
in this study’s six counties. Brazoria planter David G. Mills, who, according the 1860 U. S.
Census, owned 344 slaves, was the state’s largest slaveholder. 22
Furthermore, this region of Texas was some of the longest-settled land in the state of
Texas. On October 21, 1821, Stephen F. Austin reported to Spanish Governor Antonio Martínez
the boundaries of the colony that would bear Austin’s name. In his letter he declared his colony
would be between the Brazos and San Jacinto Rivers to the east and west, the Gulf of Mexico to
the south, and the San Antonio Road to the north. The six counties under examination represent
one-third of the land claimed by Austin. Furthermore, they were the residence of more than twothirds of the “Old Three Hundred,” the original families brought in by Austin.23
21
Randolph B. Campbell, “Grass Roots Reconstruction: The Personnel of County Government in Texas,
1865-1876,” The Journal of Southern History 58 (February 1992): 107-108.
22
Austin, Brazoria, Colorado, Fort Bend, Matagorda, Washington County Tax Rolls, 1840; Seventh Census
of the United States, 1850 U. S. Census, Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29, National Archives
(Microfilm T1224); 1860 U. S. Census, Schedule II, Brazoria County, Texas (Roll 1289); Campbell, Empire for
Slavery, 57-58, 194. Hereinafter, the 1850 Free Schedule for the census will be cited as 1850 U. S. Census,
Schedule I, followed by the name of the county. The 1850 Slave Schedule for the census will be cited as 1850 U. S.
Census, Schedule II, followed by the name of the county.
23
“Stephen F. Austin to Antonio Martínez, October 12, 1821,” in Eugene C. Barker, ed., The Austin
Papers, 3 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1924), 1:417-418; Gregg Cantrell, Stephen F.
12
3
1
6
4
5
2
County Legend
1. Austin
2. Brazoria
3. Colorado
4. Fort Bend
5. Matagorda
6. Wharton
Map 1.1. Location of Austin, Brazoria, Colorado, Fort Bend, Matagorda, and Wharton
Counties in 1860. (Source: Campbell, Empire for Slavery, 3; originally created by Terry G.
Jordan, Walter Prescott Webb Chair of History and Ideas, University of Texas).
Austin: Empresario of Texas (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), 98; Lester G. Bugbee, "The Old Three
Hundred: A List of Settlers in Austin’s First Colony," Southwestern Historical Quarterly, 1 (October 1897): 108117; Richard G. Lowe and Randolph B. Campbell, Planters & Plain Folk: Agriculture in Antebellum Texas (Dallas:
Southern Methodist University Press, 1987), 12.
13
The general structure of this study consists of eight chapters. Chapter 2 discusses
Texas’s political and economic situation between Reconstruction and 1890. It provides a wider
context in which the individual counties can fit. Chapters 3 through 8 analyze the individual
counties. In particular, these chapters examine the composition of the political and economic
elite of each county from 1860 to 1890.
Finally, Chapter 9 presents conclusions drawn from
this study.
14
CHAPTER 2
TEXAS DURING RECONSTRUCTION AND REDEMPTION
The three decades when the elite wealth holders of Texas struggled with a civil war,
emancipation, Reconstruction, and significant postwar economic change were colorful and
complex. The Reconstruction experience was marked by serious political instability. Texans
approved two constitutions before the state‟s return to its pre-war relationship to the rest of the
Union. They would approve yet another when the Democrats regained political control of the
state in 1876. The seventeen years between the end of Reconstruction and 1890 witnessed the
return of conservative leadership, yet it became apparent later that the Democratic party was
beginning to change into a reform-minded organization. Although the state‟s economy would
retain its antebellum agricultural character, it would also experience unprecedented growth in
industry.
Texas‟s experience during the Civil War was different from that of most Confederate
states. Its infrastructure was intact, and its farms, plantations, and estates were almost
completely untouched by the physical ravages of the Civil War. Texas cities did not experience
the same destruction as Richmond, Virginia, and some other eastern cities. As Union armies
marched across the Confederacy, many slaveholders, in a desperate attempt to hold onto their
slaves, fled to Texas in a phenomenon known as “refugeeing.” On November 5, 1864,
Department of Arkansas commander Major General John B. Magruder wrote to Confederate
Senator Robert W. Johnson of Arkansas. In his missive, he informed the senator that “150,000
negroes have gone from Missouri and Arkansas into Texas. . . .” Historian Randolph B.
Campbell describes this estimate as an exaggeration, but it does demonstrate that large numbers
of slaves did enter Texas. Historian Dale Baum, writing in The Fate of Texas, argues that 50,000
15
slaves entered Texas during the war. A major historian of Texas during the Civil War, Ralph
Wooster, estimated that thirty to forty thousand slaves entered the state from Louisiana,
Arkansas, and Missouri.1
Texas and the Trans-Mississippi theater were not completely immune from the war‟s
effects, of course. By 1865 much of the area suffered from shortages of foodstuffs. On February
10 Colonel E. D. Osband of the Third U. S. Colored Cavalry Regiment described eastern
Arkansas as unable to furnish enough supplies for even a “squad of men.” Despite sufficient
harvests in both 1864 and 1865, soldiers went hungry and sometimes resorted to violence to
acquire food. In Bell County, Texas, soldiers and cavalrymen raided farms and general stores.
The problem, as historian Robert L. Kerby notes, was the transportation of supplies. The roads
and rivers were insufficient to carry supplies to Confederate soldiers throughout the TransMississippi theater. As Union forces gained control of the territories of the Confederacy, the
Confederates could no longer use some rivers as avenues of transport. The Red River, the last
major waterway still in Rebel hands in the Southwest, could not distribute supplies throughout
1
United States War Department, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the
Union and Confederate Armies, 128 vols. (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1880-1901), Ser. 1, Vol. 41,
Pt. 4, p.1030 [hereafter cited as Official Records; all references to Series I unless otherwise indicated] [quotation];
Richard L. Hume and Jerry B. Gough, Blacks, Carpetbaggers, and Scalawags: The Constitutional Conventions of
Radical Reconstruction (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University, 2008), 201; Campbell, Empire for Slavery, 244;
Dale Baum, “Slaves Taken to Texas for Safekeeping during the Civil War,” in Charles D. Grear, ed., The Fate of
Texas: The Civil War and the Lone Star State (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2008), 84; James Marten,
“Slaves and Rebels: The Peculiar Institution in Texas, 1861-1865,” in Ralph A. Wooster, ed., Lone Star Blue and
Gray: Essays on Texas in the Civil War (Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1995), 245; Drew Gilpin Faust,
Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War (Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 1996), 33, 43; Andrew Ward, The Slaves' War: The Civil War in the Words of Former Slaves
(New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2008), 135; Claude H. Nolen, African American Southerners in Slavery,
Civil War, and Reconstruction (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland , 2005), 94.
16
the Trans-Mississippi, making supply by wagon convoy the chief logistical means for
Confederate armies.2
As the Eastern and Western theaters fell under Union control, the Trans-Mississippi was
the last holdout and Confederate President Jefferson Davis‟s last hope for southern
independence. Those hopes proved unfounded as the Trans-Mississippi ultimately followed the
path of the other theaters. Formal negotiations for the surrender of the Trans-Mississippi began
on April 19, 1865, just ten days after General Robert E. Lee yielded at Appomattox, Virginia.
Major General John Pope offered General Kirby Smith, commander of the Trans-Mississippi
Department, the same terms that Grant had offered Lee, the paroling of officers and the surrender
of all “arms, artillery, and public property. . . .” Pope warned Smith that with Lee‟s surrender,
along with General Joseph E. Johnston‟s impending capitulation, “a large part of the great armies
of the United States are now available for operations in the Trans-Mississippi Department.”
Smith rejected Pope‟s suggestion of surrender, responding that the terms were not such that his
“sense of duty and honor [would] permit [him] to accept.” Smith also wrote the governors of
Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri, describing his army as “strong, fresh, and well
equipped.” He inquired of the governors their opinions on whether or not to continue to fight.
All four governors urged the general to accept the following terms: paroling of officers and men;
prosecutorial immunity of any officer, enlisted soldier, or citizen; the right of all, civilian leaders
included, to leave the United States unmolested; the recognition of the current state governments;
2
Official Records, Vol. 48, Part I, 806 [quotation]; Robert L. Kerby, Kirby Smith’s Confederacy: The
Trans-Mississippi South, 1863-1865 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1972), 384-386; Jay Winik, April
1865: The Month That Saved America (New York: Harper Perennial, 2002), 297.
17
and the retention of a “number of men to act as a guard to preserve good order and . . . protect
the lives and . . . property of the people.”3
Between May13 and May 30, Smith‟s army began to crumble. Major General John G.
Walker‟s Texas Division dissolved near Hempstead as soldiers abandoned their camps for their
homes. By May 24 Walker‟s unit ceased to exist. Three days later, Smith found no army to
command in Houston, where, according to historian Brad Clampitt, he was awaiting Jefferson
Davis‟s arrival. On May 30 Smith stated that his men “dissolved all military organization, seized
. . . public property, and scattered to their homes.” With little to command, Smith declared the
Trans-Mississippi was “open to occupation.”4
Federal forces under Major General Gordon Granger entered Galveston on June 19, 1865,
and initiated the military occupation of Texas. The army, in particular the commander of all
units occupying the state, Major General Philip H. Sheridan, was concerned with the situation in
Texas for two reasons. First was the presence of French forces in Mexico, which, according to
historian Geoffrey Wawro, critics of Napoleon III of France called the “Mexican adventure.” In
July 1861 Mexican President Benito Juárez had suspended all interest payments to foreign
countries, which angered Mexico‟s creditors, France, Spain, and Great Britain. The three
European nations dispatched fleets to force Mexico to settle its debts. Between 1864 and 1867,
France supported the rule of Mexico by Emperor Maximilian I, an Austrian archduke of the
House of Hapsburg. American army leaders were concerned that the French could entice ex-
3
Official Records, Vol. 46, Pt. 3, 665 [first quotation], Vol. 48, Pt. 1, pp. 186, 189 [second and third
quotations].
4
Official Records, Vol. 46, Pt. 1, pp. 189 [first quotation], 190 [second quotation], 191-192 [third
quotation], 193-194 [fourth quotation]; Richard G. Lowe, Walker’s Texas Division C.S.A: Greyhounds of the TransMississippi (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2004), 254-255; Brad R. Clampitt, “The Breakup: The
Collapse of the Confederate Trans-Mississippi Army in Texas, 1865,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly 108
(2005): 500, 503.
18
rebels to flee to Mexico before being paroled. Sheridan thus dispatched Brevet Major General
David S. Stanley and his IV Corps to the Rio Grande to discourage any “plundering and
jayhawking.” By June 24, 1865, 32,000 Union soldiers were stationed throughout Texas. By
September the number had risen to 45,424. By February 1866, however, only about 5,000
Federal soldiers remained in Texas.5
The second, and more troublesome, cause for Federal unease was the Texans‟ defiant
spirit. Thomas North, a northerner who lived in Texas during the war, remarked that “Texas was
never whipped in spirit, only nominally whipped, in being surrendered by the official act of
General . . . Smith.” Historian William Richter describes the state in the earliest days after the
war as in chaos, with former Confederate soldiers ransacking arsenals and stealing arms and
ammunition. On June 11 looters stole $17,000 in gold from the state treasury. Even more
upsetting was Confederate Brigadier General Joseph Shelby‟s violation of the surrender terms
when he led 3,000 cavalrymen into Mexico. Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant telegraphed
Sheridan on June 3 of his desire to see those ex-rebel soldiers and stolen arms recaptured. Grant
wrote Sheridan: “I want [Brevet Major General George A.] Custer and [Brevet Major General
Wesley] Merritt left in Texas for the present. The whole state should be scoured to pick up
5
Special Orders 20, July 13, 1865, Military Division of the Southwest, Records of the Adjutant General‟s
Office, Record Group 94, National Archives [quotation]; William Richter, “‛It is Best to Go in Strong-Handed:‟”
Army Occupation of Texas, 1865-1866,” Arizona and the West, 27 (1985): 119; John L. Waller, Colossal Hamilton
of Texas: A Biography of Andrew Jackson Hamilton Militant Unionist and Reconstruction Governor (El Paso: Texas
Western Press, 1968), 47; Geoffrey Wawro, The Franco-Prussian War: The German Conquest of France in 18701871 (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 39; Moneyhon, Texas after the Civil War, 37;
William L. Richter, The Army in Texas during Reconstruction 1865-1870 (College Station: Texas A&M University
Press, 1987), 12; John Pressley Carrier, “A Political History of Texas during the Reconstruction ,” (Ph.D. diss.,
Vanderbilt University, 1971) 4, 15; Charles W. Ramsdell, Reconstruction in Texas (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1910), 39.
19
Kirby Smith‟s men and the Arms carried home by them.” Sheridan responded, advising that a
“strong force be put into Texas.” The military‟s role in post-Civil War Texas had thus begun.6
While the Federals sought to control Texas militarily, they were also concentrating on the
civilian administration of the state. On November 14, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln had
commissioned Andrew Jackson Hamilton as a Brigadier General of Volunteers and appointed
him Military Governor of Texas. Hamilton, an Alabama native, moved to Texas in 1846 and
practiced law in La Grange. Three years later Governor Peter H. Bell appointed him acting
attorney general. From 1851 to 1853, he served in the Texas House of Representatives and
would later win election to the United States House of Representatives. Throughout Hamilton‟s
antebellum political career, he opposed secession and the reopening of the slave trade. Hamilton
served in the Texas Senate until 1862, when he fled to Mexico due to threats to his life by
Confederate Texans. Hamilton was part of the unsuccessful invasion of south Texas in 1863, and
he remained in New Orleans until the end of the war.7
In May 1865 President Andrew Johnson issued his “Amnesty Proclamation” to most of
those who participated in the rebellion, with fourteen classifications of those exempted from the
blanket pardon, such as Confederate civil and domestic officers, officers above the rank of
colonel in the army and lieutenant in the navy, those who voluntarily aided the rebellion, and
6
Thomas North, Five Years in Texas: or, What You Did Not Hear During the War from January 1861 to
January 1866 (Cincinnati: Elm Street Publishing Company, 1871), 102-104 [first quotation]; “To Maj. Gen. Philip
H. Sheridan,” in John Y. Simon, ed., The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, 31 vols. (Carbondale: Southern Illinois
University Press, 1988), 15:128 [second quotation]; Richter, “It is Best to Go in Strong-Handed,” 114-115;
Clampitt, “The Breakup,” 520.
7
Records of the Adjutant General‟s Office, H 1263, Commission Branch, 1862, National Archives,
Washington, D.C.; Official Records, Ser. 3, Vol. 2, 782-783; Waller, Colossal Hamilton, 54-55; Charles David
Grear, Why Texans Fought in the Civil War (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 31-33); Carrier,
“Political History of Texas during the Reconstruction, 1865-1874,” 5.
20
those whose taxable property was over $20,000. Anyone in one or more of these exemptions
was required to petition Johnson directly for a pardon. 8
Those who applied were required to swear that they would protect and defend the
Constitution and support all “laws and proclamations which have been made during
the . . . rebellion with reference to the emancipation of slaves.” The president ultimately proved
lenient toward those who petitioned for his mercy. In Texas, for example, 693 applied for a
pardon. Johnson approved 677, or 97.7 percent, of all Texas applications for pardon. In spite of
Johnson‟s hatred for the southern elite, he approved every Texas application in the $20,000
class.9
President Johnson‟s choice as provisional governor of Texas was not popular, even
among non-Texans. Former Tennessee Congressman George W. Bridges advised the president
not to appoint Hamilton due to his heavy drinking. Texas‟s elite opposed him because they
feared he would return to Texas in search of vengeance.10 He attempted to allay these fears,
8
“Amnesty Proclamation,” in Paul H. Bergeron, ed., The Papers of Andrew Johnson, vol. 8, May – August
1865 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1989), 129-130; Roy B. Basler, ed., The Collected Works of
Abraham Lincoln, 8 vols. (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1953) 7:53-56; Jonathan Dorris, Pardon
and Amnesty under Lincoln and Johnson: The Restoration of the Confederates to Their Rights and Privileges, 18611898 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1953), xx; David Herbert Donald, Lincoln (London:
Jonathan Cape, 1995), 471-472; Phillip Shaw Paludan, The Presidency of Abraham Lincoln (Lawrence: University
Press of Kansas, 1994), 251; Eric McKitrick, Andrew Johnson and Reconstruction (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1960), 144; Brad R. Clampitt, “Two Degrees of Rebellion: Amnesty and Texans after the Civil War,” Civil
War History 52 (September 2006): 257-258.
9
“Amnesty Proclamation,” Papers of Andrew Johnson, 8: 129 [quotation]; Clampitt, “Two Degrees of
Rebellion,” 263.
10
“From George W. Bridges,” in Bergeron, ed., Papers of Andrew Johnson, 8:150; James D. Richardson,
comp., A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 11 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Government
Printing Office, 1902), 6:321 [quotation]; Ramsdell, Reconstruction in Texas, 56; Elsye Drennan Andress, “The
Gubernatorial Career of Andrew Jackson Hamilton” (M.A. thesis, Texas Technological College, 1955), 65-66;
Foner, Reconstruction, 187; Moneyhon, Texas after the Civil War, 7.
21
remarking in Galveston on July 22 that he did not seek any revenge against those who had
wronged him.11
In the commission, Johnson instructed Hamilton on his chief duty: “to prescribe such
rules and regulations . . . necessary and proper for convening a convention . . . for the purpose of
altering or amending the constitution . . . to restore [Texas] to its constitutional relations to the
Federal Government. . . .” Hamilton was to arrange for a constitutional convention, and Johnson
suggested that it should ratify the Thirteenth Amendment, nullify Texas‟s Confederate debt,
repudiate secession, and provide for statewide elections. This suggestion, as historian Carl
Moneyhon notes, left Hamilton with a large amount of discretion in how he fulfilled his duties.12
Like the military authorities, Hamilton noted a sense of defiance within the state,
particularly among planters and wealthy merchants and businessmen. Hamilton reported to
Johnson on July 24 on the nature of the populace of Galveston. He described unionists and the
poor as “men [who] can be trusted.” The planters and elite, however, were more “patronizing
than penitent,” unapologetic for the past, and unwilling to accept the abolition of slavery.13
On July 25 Hamilton issued his “Proclamation to the People of Texas.” He announced
that he would appoint civil officers wherever needed and would find “suitable people” to
administer the amnesty oaths. Furthermore, he ordered that all county records were to be handed
11
Dallas Herald, 5 August 1865.
12
Richardson, Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. 6, Pt. 2, 321 [quotation];
Ramsdell, Reconstruction in Texas, 56; Foner, Reconstruction, 187; Moneyhon, Republicanism in Reconstruction
Texas, 20-24; Moneyhon, Texas after the Civil War, 7; Carrier, “Political History of Texas during the
Reconstruction,” 8.
13
“From Andrew J. Hamilton,” Papers of Andrew Johnson, 8:459 [first quotation], 460 [second quotation].
22
over to the “proper authorities,” and that only laws passed before February 1, 1861, were to be
obeyed.14
Texas was the last former Confederate state to hold a constitutional convention. On
August 30 Hamilton informed Johnson that the state‟s immense size, inadequate mail service,
and anti-Union newspapers retarded the progress of Presidential Reconstruction. Despite these
misgivings, the convention met in Austin on February 7, 1866, and pitted former secessionists
against unionists. Isaiah A. Paschal, an antebellum state senator, and Edmund J. Davis, a
Florida-born immigrant to Texas and Union brigadier general, were two leading unionists, while
Oran M. Roberts, president of the secession convention, and former governor Hardin R. Runnels
were prominent secessionists. Among a smaller group of moderates, James W. Throckmorton
became the convention‟s president.15
The convention resolved that the new constitution would be little more than the 1845
constitution with the necessary changes to resume “friendly relations” with the United States.
The convention nullified Texas‟s secession ordinance (although not ab initio as Johnson
demanded), repudiated the state‟s war debt, and gave black Texans greater rights, although they
were barred from voting or holding public office. Following Hamilton‟s advice that the national
ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment made Texas‟s adoption superfluous, the convention
14
Galveston Daily News, 26 July 1865 [quotations]; A. J. Hamilton, Proclamation, July 25, 1865,
Executive Record Book of A. J. Hamilton, Texas State Library and Archives, Austin, Texas, 192-194.
15
“From Andrew J. Hamilton,” Papers of Andrew Johnson, 8:675; A. J. Hamilton to Andrew Johnson,
October 21, 1865, Andrew Johnson Papers, Library of Congress; Executive Records, Register Book 281, Texas
State Library and Archives, Austin, Texas, 28-32; Moneyhon, Republicanism in Reconstruction Texas, 32; Andress,
“Gubernatorial Career of Andrew Jackson Hamilton,” 75; Betty J. Sandlin, “The Texas Reconstruction
Constitutional Convention of 1868-1869” (Ph.D. diss., Texas Tech University, 1970), 3-4; Grear, Why Texans
Fought in the Civil War, 31; Carrier, “Political History of Texas during the Reconstruction,” 14; Claude Elliott,
“Paschal, Isaiah Addison,” New Handbook of Texas, 5: 80.
23
had little debate on the issue. Just before adjourning it adopted the 1845 constitution in order
that, should voters reject the new version, the state would still have a governing document.16
The new constitution fundamentally resembled its 1845 predecessor. It did, however,
establish a new county court system, four commissioners along with a county judge. The 1845
Constitution allowed for district courts instead of county courts. The jurisdiction of these district
courts, however, differed little from that of the county courts.17
On June 25 Texans voted to approve the new constitution, 28,119 to 23,400. This narrow
margin, according to historian Charles Ramsdell, was because of unpopular salary raises for state
officials. In the gubernatorial election the moderate Throckmorton received four times as many
votes as Union party candidate Elisha M. Pease. Because the new constitution failed to satisfy
some of Johnson‟s demands, U. S. Secretary of State William H. Seward did not allow the new
government to convene until July 28, nine days before it was inaugurated.18
Texas‟s experience with Presidential Reconstruction returned much of the antebellum
elite to power. The Eleventh Legislature elected David G. Burnet, a Unionist and former vice
president of the Republic of Texas, and Oran M. Roberts to the U. S. Senate. Roberts was one of
many former outspoken secessionists that the former Confederacy sent to Congress.
Throckmorton would prove to be an impediment to Reconstruction. In his message to the
Texas legislature, he submitted the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments for debate. Both the
16
Journal of the Texas State Constitutional Convention Assembled at Austin, February 7, 1866, 27 [quote],
37, 60, 183, 344.
17
Texas Constitution of 1845, Article IV, Section 10; Texas Constitution of 1866, Article IV, Section 2,
Section 16, Article V, Section 4; Gammel, Laws of Texas, 5: 925-927, 944-945, 961-970; Carrier, “Political History
of Texas during the Reconstruction,” 142.
18
Election Registers; Telegrams from Secretary of State Seward to James H. Bell, Secretary of State of
Texas, in Executive Record Book No. 281, 196-227, 230, Archives Division, Texas State Library and Archives;
Richardson, Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 6:434-438; Waller, Colossal Hamilton, 9293; Moneyhon, Texas after the Civil War, 48, 51; Ramsdell, Reconstruction in Texas, 112; Carrier, “Political
History of Texas during the Reconstruction,” 101. Throckmorton received 49,277 votes versus Pease‟s 12,168.
24
legislature and governor regarded ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment as unnecessary
because it was already a part of the U. S. Constitution. Throckmorton, however, despised the
Fourteenth Amendment, finding it “impolitic, unwise and unjust.” In particular he believed it
would deprive the state “of the services of [Texas‟s] ablest and best men, at a time and amidst
circumstances which render these services more important than at any period of her history.”
Following Throckmorton‟s advice, the Texas legislature rejected it.19
The rejection of these amendments and similar events in the former Confederacy led
northern voters to give the Republican party even greater power over Reconstruction in the
election of 1866. The Republicans overrode Johnson‟s vetoes of the Reconstruction Acts, giving
Congress control of the process. Under Congressional Reconstruction the military had a major
role in the governance of all the former Confederate states, with the exception of Tennessee.
Through the first three Reconstruction Acts, all southern states except Tennessee were placed
under martial law in military districts (Texas and Louisiana were placed in the Fifth Military
District, ruled by Sheridan), and the army gained unlimited authority to appoint and remove state
and local officials within these districts.20
19
House Journal of the Eleventh Legislature (Austin: Office of the State Gazette, 1866), 92-93, 119, 219;
“Message of Governor Throckmorton,” James W. Throckmorton Papers, 1825-1894, Briscoe Center for American
History, The University of Texas at Austin [quotation]; Moneyhon, Texas after the Civil War, 53. Ramsdell,
Reconstruction in Texas, 118; Sandlin, “Texas Reconstruction Constitutional Convention of 1868-1869,” 8; Michael
Perman, Pursuit of Unity: A Political History of the American South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 2009), 119. The third section reads as follows: “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress,
or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any
State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a
member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the
United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the
enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”
20
The senior officer in Texas and the commander of the Fifth Military District continually changed
throughout Radical Reconstruction. Major General Charles Griffin was the senior officer in Texas, but would die
during a yellow fever epidemic in Galveston. Johnson would appoint Major General Winfield S. Hancock in
Sheridan‟s place. Major General Joseph J. Reynolds would succeed Griffin. Hancock‟s term only would last four
months, and Major General Robert C. Buchanan replaced him. Major General Edward R. S. Canby temporarily
replaced Reynolds after Grant‟s election as president, but he would be reappointed to Texas (Moneyhon, Texas after
the Civil War, 77, 100).
25
Under the authority of these laws, the military intervened in Texas‟s civil administration.
On November 7 Throckmorton wrote Major General Joseph B. Kiddoo, Texas Superintendent of
the Freedmen‟s Bureau, the federal agency that aided former slaves in their transition to freedom,
after a local Bureau agent removed a freedman indicted for assault out of the Matagorda County
sheriff‟s custody. In the letter Throckmorton asked if the agent did so by Kiddoo‟s order and the
extent of the superintendant‟s “power and authority” regarding civil affairs. By April 1867
Throckmorton‟s patience with the military was waning. He continually wrote to Griffin asking
how the vacancies the military was creating would be filled. On May 4 Griffin responded that
the military would appoint every official.21
On April 27 Griffin issued Circular Order Number 13, which required that all jurors
swear the “Ironclad Oath” that they had never “voluntarily” borne arms against the United States
or abetted the rebellion. In the previous month, Griffin had decided that Throckmorton had to be
removed, and the governor‟s reluctance to step down was his final act of resistance. On July 30
Sheridan ordered Throckmorton‟s removal as an “impediment to reconstruction.” In the same
order, Sheridan appointed Pease in Throckmorton‟s stead.22
Four days into Pease‟s term, the governor and Griffin continued the mass purging of
officeholders considered impediments to Reconstruction. By September 6 Griffin dismissed the
entire executive branch of Galveston, six district judges, and the Texas Supreme Court. By the
21
John W. Throckmorton to Joseph B. Kiddoo, November 7, 1866, Executive Records, Register Book, no.
84, p. 125; John W. Throckmorton to Major General Charles Griffin, April 3, 1867, John W. Throckmorton Papers,
1825-1894, Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin; Major General Charles Griffin
to John W. Throckmorton, May 4, 1867, Executive Correspondence, Archives, Texas State Library and Archives,
Austin, Texas; Richter, Army in Texas during Reconstruction, 58.
22
40th Congress, 2nd Session, Executive Document 342 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office,
1868), 202-203; P. H. Sheridan to J. W. Throckmorton, “Special Order No. 105,” July 30, 1867, Executive
Correspondence, Archives, Texas State Library and Archives, Austin, Texas; Special Order 105, July 30, 1867, Fifth
Military District Records, Record Group 94, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Richter, Army in Texas during
Reconstruction, 112-113; Moneyhon, Texas after the Civil War, 75.
26
time the 1868 Constitutional Convention convened, only 500 of 2,377 vacant offices could be
filled with men deemed acceptable by the military authorities.23
Following Throckmorton‟s ouster, Griffin organized a new constitutional convention.
Griffin died of yellow fever on September 15, and Johnson replaced Sheridan with Major
General Winfield S. Hancock the next day. Despite this and the subsequent continuous turnover
of commanding generals, voters were registered and a new constitutional convention was
convened to meet in Austin on June 1, 1868.
The convention itself was the longest in Texas history and pitted the radical and moderate
wings of the Republican party against each other.
The most difficult issue was the ab initio
question, and by August 24 the convention still had not agreed on a position regarding the
matter. Furthermore, it had run out of funds. On August 31 the Convention adjourned until
December 7.24
When the Convention reopened, it had lost several members through death and
resignation, and other delegates never returned. During this session it acted as an unofficial, and
unauthorized, state legislature. Reynolds ultimately nullified all legislative ordinances the
delegates passed.25
On February 5, 1869, the delegates still could not agree on the form of the constitution,
particularly on black suffrage. Most of the delegates resigned their seats and returned home.
23
Journal of the Reconstruction Convention, Which Met at Austin, Texas, June 1, A. D. 1868, 2 vols.
(Austin: Tracy, Siemering & Co., Printers, 1870), 1:201 [hereinafter cited as Journal of the Reconstruction
Convention 1868]; Moneyhon, Texas after the Civil War, 77; Moneyhon, Republicanism in Reconstruction Texas,
70.
24
Journal of the Reconstruction Convention 1868, 1:14-15, 25, 28, 858-859 [quotation], 944 ; Moneyhon,
Texas after the Civil War, 87. The United States Supreme Court decision in Texas v. White on April 12, 1869, made
the ab initio question no longer a subject of debate, when it ruled that the Constitution does not allow a state to
secede.
25
Journal of the Reconstruction Convention 1868, 2:110-112; Hume and Gough, Blacks, Carpetbaggers,
and Scalawags, 211; Sandlin, “Texas Reconstruction Constitutional Convention of 1868-1869,” 86.
27
With no document officially approved, the Convention of 1868-1869 officially adjourned. Major
General E. R. S. Canby, who then commanded the Fifth Military District, believed he had the
authority to create a new constitution and ordered all documents of the Convention to be handed
over to the district‟s Adjutant General. The Convention‟s clerks and secretaries and Canby‟s
staff produced the final draft of the Constitution.26
During the spring of 1869 Texans prepared for the upcoming elections. The Republicans
split between the radical Davis and the moderate A. J. Hamilton, and each side tried to garner
support from President Grant. Grant soon favored the former provisional governor‟s faction as
the legitimate Republican party but eventually changed his support to Davis and the radical wing
of the party. On November 30 Texans went to the polls and elected Davis by a margin of 800
votes.27 Hamilton appealed to Congress on the grounds that Reynolds had interfered with the
election by not allowing an election in Milam and Navarro Counties. Hamilton‟s supporters
demanded a new election in each county. Reynolds ended Hamilton‟s bid by issuing Special
Orders Number 6, which appointed Davis as governor. In protest of Reynolds‟s intervention,
Pease resigned as governor. On September 30 he wrote the general, stating that he regarded his
duty to be creating and ratifying a new constitution and securing equal rights for all citizens. The
only way he could do so was to support Hamilton‟s candidacy. The military commander‟s
intervention ensured that that would not happen. Pease concluded: “Under existing
circumstances I am unwilling to become in any way responsible for the course being pursued by
the Military Commander and the administration at Washington. I therefore respectfully resign
26
Moneyhon, Republicanism in Reconstruction Texas, 102-103; Moneyhon, Texas after the Civil War, 100;
Hume and Gough, Blacks, Carpetbaggers, and Scalawags, 212-218.
27
Election Registers. Davis received 39,838 votes, while Hamilton received 39,055 votes. Voters also
approved the new constitution by a wide margin of 72,466 for, 4,928 against.
28
the office of Governor of Texas.” Texas would not have an elected governor until Davis‟s
inauguration in April.28
On February 8, 1870, the Twelfth Legislature convened. It approved the Thirteenth,
Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments and elected Morgan Hamilton and James W. Flanagan as
the state‟s new U. S. senators. On March 30, 1870, Grant officially recognized the return of
Texas to its normal relationship with the Union.29
Throughout Reconstruction, violence was a major problem on the frontier and within the
more settled areas of the state. Indian attacks and the Ku Klux Klan killed hundreds of Texans.
The Convention of 1868 reported that 939 people were murdered between 1865 and 1868, and
379 of those murders were white on black. To combat this bloodshed, Davis established a state
militia and police. Although these organizations made arrests and recovered stolen property,
they created enemies of the Davis administration. Many citizens accused the police of brutality.
Democrats believed that the militia was a measure to silence opposition. In January 1871, for
example, Davis dispatched the militia north of Waco in Hill County to arrest outlaws. On
January 25 the Democratic Austin Tri-Weekly State Gazette denounced the action, reporting:
“We have never known in the history of America such flagrant abuse of power – such an open
and bold violation of the rights of liberty and property of citizens.” In October 1871 Davis
again dispatched the militia, this time to the north-central Texas county of Limestone. The
militia protected black voters from intimidation in the congressional elections. Although order
28
“E. M. Pease to Brevet Major General J. J. Reynolds, Commanding Fifth Military District,” Texas
Governor Elisha Marshall Pease Papers, Archives and Information Services Division, Texas State Library and
Archives Commission.
29
George P. Sanger, Statutes at Large and Proclamations of the United States of America, 18 vols.
(Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1873), 16: 80-81]; Moneyhon, Texas after the Civil War, 118-119;
Moneyhon, Republicanism in Reconstruction Texas, 126.
29
was restored through martial law, Davis‟s use of the militia contributed to Democratic and
popular beliefs that it was meant to keep the Republicans in power.30
Less than a year into Davis‟s term, the Republicans were already losing their hold on the
state. In 1871 four federal Congressional seats remained vacant, and the Democrats won every
special election to fill those seats. In 1872 the Democrats won majorities in both houses of the
Texas legislature and all six seats in the U. S. Congress. The Democratic-controlled Thirteenth
Legislature repealed much of Davis‟s legislative program, such as the state police act, and
decentralized the state‟s public education system.31
In addition, some of Davis‟s appointees politically embarrassed the governor. In the
central Texas county of McClennan in 1872 the county judge sent 33rd District Judge John W.
Oliver to jail after he declared the district judge a lunatic for imprisoning the county‟s
commissioner‟s court for refusing to pay for law enforcement personnel. In Seguin, east of San
Antonio, 22nd District Judge Henry Maney was arrested after refusing a Texas Supreme Court
writ of habeas corpus following the judge‟s jailing of several lawyers for contempt of court.
Finally, state Adjutant General James Davidson fled to Europe with nearly $37,500 of state
money after he lost an 1872 state senate election.32
By 1873 the only office left outside Democratic control was the governorship. For the
gubernatorial election, the Republicans re-nominated Davis, and the Democrats nominated
30
Journal of the Reconstruction Convention 1868, 1: 194; Austin Tri-Weekly State Gazette, 25 January
1871 [quotation]; Moneyhon, Texas after the Civil War, 141-143; W. C. Nunn, Texas Under the Carpetbaggers
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1962), 79-80.
31
Election Registers; Nunn, Texas Under the Carpetbaggers, 76, 79-80, 87-92; Moneyhon, Republicanism
in Reconstruction Texas, 163-164, 181-182; Moneyhon, Texas after the Civil War, 182, 186; Randolph B. Campbell,
Gone to Texas: A History of the Lone Star State (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 283.
32
Randolph B. Campbell, “Scalawag District Judges: The E. J. Davis Appointees, 1870-1873,” Houston
Review, 14 (Fall 1992): 86-87; Texas Legislature, Journal of the Senate of Texas: Being the Session of the
Thirteenth Legislature (Austin: John Cardwell, 1873), 26-27, 30-32, 36, 40-41, 46; Ann Patton Baenziger, “The
Texas State Police During Reconstruction: A Reexamination,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly, 72 (April 1969):
478.
30
Richard Coke, who had served as a captain in the Confederate Fifteenth Infantry Regiment. On
Election Day, December 2, voters overwhelmingly chose Coke over Davis, giving Coke twice as
many votes as Davis, 85,549 to 42,663.33
Davis himself was willing to concede defeat, but others were not. The Republicans
declared Coke‟s election unconstitutional and brought their case to the Texas Supreme Court.
The Republicans argued that the 1873 election law violated the 1869 constitution as the law
called for a one-day election, while the constitution ordered that the polls be open for four. The
Republican-dominated court, which according to historian Lance A. Cooper was a mixture of
unionists and Confederate veterans, ruled on January 5, 1874, that the election was
unconstitutional. Democratic leaders refused to honor the decision and demanded that Davis
resign on January 8. Davis asked President Grant to intercede on January 11, but the president
refused to get involved. On January 15 Coke was inaugurated as governor, with Davis officially
resigning four days later. Reconstruction finally ended in Texas.34
Not content with controlling the Texas government, the Democrats also worked to adopt
yet another constitution. On September 6, 1875, a new constitutional convention opened with an
overwhelming Democratic majority. Just under three months later a new constitution emerged
that reflected Democratic conservative thought by weakening the power of the state government.
The state legislature, for example, would meet biennially instead of annually. Furthermore, the
33
Election Registers; Austin Weekly Democratic Statesman, 11 September 1873; Nunn, Texas Under the
Carpetbaggers, 118-119; Perman, Pursuit of Unity, 137.
34
New York Times, 12 January 1874; Austin Daily Democratic Statesman, 18 January 1874; Moneyhon,
Republicanism in Reconstruction Texas, 193; Moneyhon, Texas after the Civil War, 197-198; Nunn, Texas Under
the Carpetbaggers, 123; Texas Constitution of 1869, Article 3, Section 6 [first quotation]; Gammel, Laws of Texas,
7:399, 475; Texas Constitution of 1869, Article 3, Section 6; Texas Supreme Court Reports, 115 vols. (St. Louis,
Missouri: Gilbert Book Company, 1882), 39:706; Lance A. Cooper, “„A Slobbering Lame Thing?‟ The Semicolon
Case Reconsidered,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly 101 (1998): 321-339. Edward L. Ayers, The Promise of the
New South: Life after Reconstruction (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 8. Coke‟s victory represented the
beginning of an unbroken Democratic dominance of the Texas governorship until 1979.
31
governor now served two-year terms, could not appoint nor remove local and state officials, and
had little power in issuing executive orders. The state judiciary was decentralized, with the
Texas Supreme Court hearing only civil cases while a court of appeals handled criminal affairs.
Finally, locally-elected school boards, not the state, became responsible for the public school
system. On February 15, 1876, most voters approved the new constitution, 136,606 to 56,652,
and re-elected Coke over his Republican challenger, William M. Chambers, 150,581 to 50,030.
As historian Patrick G. Williams puts it, the second act of Redemption (the resumption of
Democratic control in Texas) had ended.35
Following Redemption and well into the twentieth century, Democrats continued to
dominate Texas. Democrats, particularly the party leaders, were former Confederates, mostly
Protestant (although Hispanic Catholics also supported the party), and stood for states‟ rights and
white supremacy. In every election, the Democrats reminded voters of the alleged horrors of
Republican, or black, rule. The Republicans managed to survive in the state due to their
dominance in the national government.36 Their Texas base of support was African Americans
and former Unionists, and they campaigned for expanding civil rights for minorities and
improving education.37
From Coke to Lawrence Sullivan Ross (1874-1891), the conservative wing of the
Democratic Party dominated the Texas governor‟s office. Ross‟s second inaugural address
35
Election Registers; J. E. Ericson, “The Delegates to the Convention of 1875: A Reappraisal,”
Southwestern Historical Quarterly 67 (July 1963): 22-23; Journal of the Constitutional Convention of the State of
Texas, Begun and Held at the City of Austin, September 6th, 1875 (Galveston: News Office, 1875), 12-13, 818
[hereinafter cited as Journal of the Constitution Convention 1875]; Texas Constitution of 1876, Article III, IV, V,
VII; Patrick G. Williams, Beyond Redemption: Texas Democrats after Reconstruction (College Station: Texas A&M
University Press, 2007), 78.
36
From the end of Johnson‟s term in 1869 to 1900, only one Democrat, Grover Cleveland, occupied the
White House.
37
Alwyn Barr, “Late Nineteenth-Century Texas,” New Handbook of Texas, 4:97.
32
typified the philosophy of government of the conservative Democrats. On January 15, 1889,
Ross told the legislature: “a plain, simple government, with severe limitations upon delegated
powers, honestly and frugally administered [is] the noblest and truest outgrowth of the wisdom
taught by [the] founders.” Ross was the last of the Jeffersonian-style conservative Democrats in
the Texas governor‟s mansion. 38
After Reconstruction the Democrats sought to help white landowners. After they gained
control of the Texas Legislature under Davis, the Democrats sought to rewrite landlord-tenant
laws but were thwarted by the governor‟s veto. Once Coke entered office, however, the
Democrats were able to pass legislation that allowed a landlord‟s or merchant‟s lien against a
tenant to include the entirety of the tenant‟s property. State law previously exempted
homesteads from being subject to confiscation in the paying of debts, yet the new legislation
removed the exemption.39
Throughout the 1880s the state had to deal with a $5,500,000 debt, a taxpayers‟ strike,
and pensions paid out to veterans of the Texas Revolution. In order to help pay off the debt,
Governor Oran M. Roberts (1879-1883) slashed the public education system‟s funds.
Furthermore, the legislature passed a bill to sell available public lands at a minimum of fifty
cents an acre. The Republicans opposed the measure, but it ultimately passed and helped pay for
a substantial portion of the debt.40
38
Texas Governors, Governor’s Messages: Coke to Ross (Inclusive) 1874-1891 (Austin: A. C. Baldwin &
Sons, Printers and Binders, 1916), 650; Judith Ann Benner, Sul Ross, Soldier, Statesman, Educator (College Station:
Texas A&M University Press, 1983), 178; Williams, Beyond Redemption, 165; Alwyn Barr, Reconstruction to
Reform: Texas Politics, 1876-1906 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1971), 120.
39
Williams, Beyond Redemption, 89.
40
Barr, Reconstruction to Reform, 77-78, 80; Williams, Beyond Redemption, 152, 159.
33
Another prominent land issue during this period was the transition from open-range
practices for raising livestock to requiring fences. During the drought of 1883, armed bands cut
the barbed wire fences of livestock raisers, particularly those who attempted to enclose public
lands. In what is known as the “fence-cutting wars,” some ranchers‟ pastures were burned and at
least three were killed. On January 8, 1884, Texas enacted laws making fence cutting and
pasture burning both felonies and fencing others‟ property a misdemeanor.41
Prohibition, the legal movement to end the manufacture, transport, import, export, and
sale of alcohol, had been an issue in Texas politics since Reconstruction. The Constitution of
1876, for example, allowed for individual counties to decide for themselves on the topic. The
issue became a statewide matter when reform-minded politicians pushed for a state constitutional
amendment. As evidence of a liberalizing Democratic party, the intra-party debate of the issue
created a split as Democrats divided into “dry” and “wet” factions. In 1887 voters defeated such
an amendment in a referendum by 90,000 votes. Despite the defeat in 1887, the prohibition
movement in Texas did not end. A prohibition amendment appeared on Texas ballots three more
times, in 1908, 1911, and, finally, 1919, when it won approval. 42
The election of James Stephen Hogg in 1890 was the beginning of reform as an emphasis
of governance within Texas politics. Although he had been the state attorney general under
Ross, Hogg represented a reform-minded faction of the Democratic party as he sought to
increase the power of the state government, particularly in terms of regulating Texas railroads.43
41
Gammell, Laws of Texas, 2:353-354, 7:11-12, 493-494, 528-531; 8:203-204, 986-988; Wayne Gard,
"The Fence-Cutters," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 51 (1947): 72-88; Roy D. Holt, "The Introduction of
Barbed Wire into Texas and the Fence Cutting War," West Texas Historical Association Year Book 6 (1930): 1-15;
Williams, Beyond Redemption, 90-91.
42
Texas Almanac and State Industrial Guide, 1912. (Galveston: A. H. Belo, 1912), 45; Walter Buenger,
The Path to a Modern South: Northeast Texas Between Reconstruction and the Great Depression (Austin:
University of Texas Press, 2001), 3. Texas would ratify the federal prohibition amendment in 1918.
34
He ran for the governorship with a platform that urged reform and the creation of a Railroad
Commission through constitutional amendment. Hogg‟s landslide election, along with the easy
passage of the commission amendment, signified the beginning of a less traditional Democratic
party as Hogg championed the burgeoning Progressive reform movement both in and out of
office.44
As the state‟s political scene was changing from its antebellum character, so was the
Texas economy. The liquidation of 250,000 slaves from the property holdings of Texas‟s
wealthiest individuals had a depressing effect on the state‟s economy. Many individual Texans
lost nearly everything because their wealth was reliant on the “peculiar institution” and the
survival of the Confederacy.
Throughout Reconstruction and the subsequent fifteen years, Texas would remain
overwhelmingly agricultural. Following the Civil War, land prices fell tremendously, as much as
90 percent of its 1860 value. Cotton production decreased from 431,645 bales in 1859 to
350,628 ten years later. Cotton prices also fell, from 43.2 cents per pound in 1865 to 17 cents in
1870. Also indicative of the decline was the value of farms. Between 1860 and 1870, the total
value of Texas farms fell nearly a third, from $88,101,320 to $60,149.950. In that same period,
farm acreage also fell, from 25,343,028 to 18,396,523, just over 25 percent. Beginning around
1870, however, the Texas economy began to recover.45
43
Under the Texas Constitution, the Attorney General is popularly elected, not appointed by the governor.
44
Election Registers; Williams, Beyond Redemption, 16; Barr, Reconstruction to Reform, 120.
45
Joseph C. G. Kennedy, Agriculture of the United States in 1860; Compiled from the Original Returns of
the Eighth Census, Under the Direction of the Secretary of the Interior (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing
Office, 1864), 140, 144, 148; Walker, Statistics of the Wealth and Industry of the United States, 250, 254, 258;
Nunn, Texas Under the Carpetbaggers, 135-137; Texas Almanac and Emigrants Guide for 1867 (Galveston: W. and
D. Richardson and Company, 1867), 107; Texas Almanac and Emigrants Guide for 1869 (Galveston: Richardson,
Belo, and Company, 1869), 227; Texas Almanac and Emigrants Guide for 1870 (Galveston: Richardson, Belo, and
35
Although cotton remained the state‟s chief agricultural product, other industries helped
the state‟s economy mend itself. The most notable was the cattle industry. Well before the Civil
War, cattle ranching was a major Texas industry. During the Civil War, Texas provided cattle for
the Confederate armies until the fall of Vicksburg, Mississippi, in July 1863, when the Union
gained full control of the Mississippi River. Following the war, Texans began driving herds
north, first to the gold rushes in Montana and to Indian reservations in New Mexico and later to
railroad depots in Missouri and Kansas. After the Indian wars ended in the 1870s, the industry
spread westward as far as Big Bend, southeast of El Paso. Many of the wealthiest Texans of the
1870s were cattle ranchers. One of the most notable of these was Richard King, one of only
three Texans who held half a million dollars in property in 1870.46 By the 1870s cattle ranchers
were driving massive herds north to Abilene and Newton, Kansas. In the spring of 1871, for
example, 700,000 head of cattle went north. On September 18, 1873, however, the New York
banking firm Jay Cooke and Company closed, precipitating the Panic of 1873, and cattle drives
dwindled to just 151,000 head in 1875. The next year, the national recovery helped spark a
boom that would not end until 1883.47
Between 1865 and the twentieth century, timber, flour, and grist milling were among the
leading industries of the state. In 1867 cottonseed oil production began its meteoric rise from
non-existent to the state‟s second largest industry by 1900. Texas also produced iron, most
Company, 1870), 148; Edward T. Miller, A Financial History of Texas (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1916),
157-158; Carrier, “Political History of Texas during the Reconstruction,” 109.
46
According to the 1870 U. S. Census, King was the wealthiest person in Texas in 1870.
47
Donald E. Chipman, Spanish Texas 1519-1821 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1992), 54, 121; Frank
Vandiver, “Texas and the Confederate Army‟s Meat Problem,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly 47 (January
1944): 227-228; T. C. Richardson and Harwood P. Hinton, “Ranching,” New Handbook of Texas, 5: 429-433;
Wooster, “Wealthy Texans 1870,” 30; J. E. Haley, “A Survey of the Texas Cattle Drives to the North, 1866-1895”
(Master‟s thesis, University of Texas, 1926), 205, 209, 232, 234; Walter Prescott Webb, The Great Plains (Boston:
Ginn & Company, 1931), 230-234.
36
prominently in the northeastern counties of Cherokee and Marion, but these mills eventually
closed due to a lack of coal to produce coke. By the opening of the twentieth century, the state
was poised to experience an industrial explosion as the oil industry took root. By 1928 Texas
was producing 20 percent of the world‟s oil.48
From the end of Reconstruction to 1890, Texas enjoyed an agricultural boom, notably
due to an increase in railroads and continued immigration into the state. Between 1880 and
1890, for example, the state‟s population increased by nearly one million. From 1880 to 1900,
the numbers of farms and ranches within the state doubled, from 174,184 to 352,190. The value
of these farms outpaced the growth in numbers, climbing from $256,084,364 to $962,476,273,
nearly quadrupling in value.49
Some areas in agricultural production in 1890, however, did not experience an increase as
various crops did not equal or exceed antebellum levels. Texas farms and plantations produced
431,463 bales of cotton in 1860. Thirty years later that number was 350,628. (Despite not
equaling antebellum levels, Texas‟s 1890 cotton production led the nation.) Texas produced
nearly 1.5 million bushels of wheat in 1860, yet by 1890, farmers produced just over 415,000
(66,173 spring wheat, 348,939 winter wheat). Swine production statewide came close to pre-war
levels by 1890. In 1860 Texas farms possessed nearly 1.4 million animals. Thirty years later
that number was 1.2 million.50
48
Clara H. Lewis and John R. Stockton, “Manufacturing Industries,” New Handbook of Texas, 4: 494;
Campbell, Gone to Texas, 362; Barr, Reconstruction to Reform, 218; Buenger, Path to a Modern South, 44-47, 6364, 135-136, 149-150.
49
Kennedy, Agriculture of the United States in 1860, 140-149; Porter, Report on the Statistics of
Agriculture in the United States at the Eleventh Census: 1890, 250-261.
50
Kennedy, Agriculture of the United States in 1860, 140-149; Porter, Report on the Statistics of
Agriculture in the United States at the Eleventh Census: 1890, 250-261.
37
Other produce, however, exceeded pre-war levels. Indian corn, for example, increased
by four million bushels, going from 16.5 million bushels in 1860 to 20.5 million in 1890.
Furthermore, the total number of cattle within Texas experienced an increase. The agricultural
census of 1870 recorded a total of just under 3.5 million cattle (“cattle” includes three categories:
milch, working oxen, and other). The 1890 U. S. Census counted 6.2 million total head.51
Despite the increase in the number of farms and their value, however, national economic
downturns created a fluctuation in farm prices. This fluctuation was so large that the Grange,
and later the Farmers‟ Alliance, began to pressure the government to act, particularly against the
railroad industry, which they accused of unfair pricing practices.52
During Reconstruction, Texas Republicans encouraged the growth of the state‟s railroad
lines. In August 1873 the Texas legislature granted the International Railroad Company $10,000
in state bonds for each mile of track it laid. Governor Davis vetoed a subsequent bill granting
subsidies to other railroads, but the legislature overrode it, and the state gave $16 million in
bonds to the Southern Trans-Continental and Southern Pacific lines. Between 1865 and 1873,
railroad mileage in Texas increased from 341 to 1,600.53
After Reconstruction, railroads expanded throughout the state to the point that between
1879 and 1890, track mileage nearly tripled from 2,440 to over 6,000 miles. Like other
industries of the Gilded Age, however, most of the railroads in Texas soon came under the
51
Kennedy, Agriculture of the United States in 1860, 140-149; Porter, Report on the Statistics of
Agriculture in the United States at the Eleventh Census: 1890, 13, 46, 84, 250-261.
52
Francis A. Walker, Report on the Productions of Agriculture as Returned by the Tenth Census, 37, 38,
133-136, 167-170; Le Grand Powers, Census Reports Volume V: Twelfth Census of the United States Taken in the
Year 1900 (Washington, D.C.: United States Census Office, 1902), 124, 126, 128, 130; Alwyn Barr, “Late
Nineteenth Century Texas,” New Handbook of Texas, 4:94; Barr, Reconstruction to Reform, 96.
53
Moneyhon, Republicanism in Reconstruction Texas, 143; Moneyhon, Texas after the Civil War, 151-152;
Buenger, Path to a Modern South, 40; Ayers, Promise of the New South, 9.
38
control of a handful of men. During this period Jay Gould and Collis P. Huntington dominated
Texas railroads. In the 1870s Gould acquired control of the Union Pacific and Missouri Pacific
Railroads, which by 1885 included the International-Great Northern, the Texas and Pacific, the
Galveston, Houston and Henderson, and the Missouri, Kansas and Texas lines. In 1879 he began
an effort to acquire the Texas & Pacific line, a federally chartered railroad established in 1871 to
build a transcontinental line from the northeast Texas city of Marshall to San Diego, California.
Gould, along with a syndicate that included the inventor of the Pullman sleeping car, George M.
Pullman, agreed to extend the line from its terminus in Fort Worth to El Paso. In exchange
Gould and the syndicate received $20,000 and a like amount of stock per mile. Two years later
he bought company president Thomas A. Scott‟s holding, giving Gould control of the line.54
Huntington was one of the four founders of the Central Pacific Railroad, the western half
of the original transcontinental line. In 1865 he and his Central Pacific partners created the
Southern Pacific Railroad, which would connect New Orleans, Louisiana with the California
coast. This line would ultimately compete with Gould‟s, and during the 1880s, rate wars and bad
harvests pushed smaller lines toward receivership as revenue plummeted. In 1885 the two
pooled their holdings and created the Texas Traffic Association (TTA) and agreed to charge
identical prices in towns serviced by two or more competing lines in order to end the rate wars.
The lines‟ revenues would be combined and then distributed by the TTA, effectively ending
competition. The exorbitant charges, along with an increased demand for railroads, helped spark
54
George C. Werner, “Railroads,” New Handbook of Texas, 5:411-412; George C. Werner, "Texas and
Pacific Railway," New Handbook of Texas, 6:384-386; Maury Klein, The Life and Legend of Jay Gould (Baltimore:
The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), 134, 242, 250; Ayers, Promise of the New South, 9; Woodward, Origins
of the New South, 31-35.
39
the push for railroad regulation. Despite fierce opposition by both Gould and Huntington, Texas
voters placed Hogg into the governorship with a mandate to regulate the railroads.55
The fifteen years following Reconstruction demonstrated that the political and economic
character of the state was beginning to change. Although Democrats dominated the state‟s
politics after Reconstruction, the party of the late-nineteenth century was becoming less
conservative, a trend that would continue into the twentieth century. Agriculture still ruled over
the Texas economy, but industry was beginning to thrive.
55
Barr, Reconstruction to Reform, 112.
40
CHAPTER 3
THE ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL ELITE OF AUSTIN COUNTY, 1860-1890
Austin County was one of the most important areas of both the Republic and the State of
Texas. The locale contained many of the original American settlers, some of the first industry
within Texas’s borders, and the capital of the provisional government of the republic. It was also
one of the major slaveholding regions in the state.
The first white settlers of Austin County arrived in November 1821 under Moses
Austin’s charter. Two years later Stephen F. Austin declared the city of San Felipe de Austin as
the unofficial capital of his colony. Once the Old Three Hundred began to arrive, thirty-eight
received land grants in the area (see Table 3.1).
Many of the Old Three Hundred would occupy important posts in colonial governance
and personally participate in the effort for Texan independence. Samuel Williams, for example,
was Austin’s private secretary for thirteen years. He would help to settle families in and around
modern-day Bastrop County, and he raised $100,000 to fund Texas’s bid for self-determination.
Oliver Jones was also an important Texian. Before the Revolution he was the sheriff of Austin’s
Colony and was a representative in the Coahuila and Texas Legislature. He would represent
Austin County in both the House of Representatives and the Senate of the Republic of Texas
between 1837 and 1843, when he retired. As a senator Jones served as chairman of the
committee responsible for the design of the Seal and Flag of Texas and was a delegate to Texas’s
annexation convention.1
1
Stephen L. Hardin, Texian Iliad: A Military History of the Texas Revolution (Austin: University of Texas
Press, 1994), 57; Margaret S. Henson, Samuel May Williams: Early Texas Entrepreneur (College Station: Texas
A&M University Press, 1976), 30-31; Cantrell, Stephen F. Austin, 29; Adèle B. Looscan, “Sketch of the Life of
Oliver Jones, and of His Wife, Rebecca Jones,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly, 10 (October 1906): 174-176;
Carolyn Human, “Jones, Oliver,” New Handbook of Texas, 3:990.
41
Table 3.1. Landowning members of the Old Three Hundred in Austin County, 1824-1827
Name
Allen, Martin
Boatwright, Thomas
Bright, David
Cartwright, Thomas
Castleman, Sylvenus
Chriesman, Horatio
Cooper, William
Crownover, John
Cummins, James
Davis, Thomas
Flanakin, Isaiah
Frazier, James
Gilleland, Daniel
Harvey, William
Hensley, James
Ingram, Seth
Jones, Oliver
Kennedy, Samuel
Kuykendall, Abner
Name
Kuykendall, Brazilla
Leakey, Joel
Little, John
McCroskey, John
Newman, Joseph
Orrick, James
Osborn, Nathan
Picket, Pamelia
Prater, William
Rabb, John
Robbins, Earle
Robbins, William
Shipman, Moses
Smeathers, William
Tally, David
Toy, Samuel
Westall, Thomas
White, William C.
Williams, Samuel M.
Source: Ernest Wallace, David M. Vigness, and George B. Ward, eds., Documents of Texas History, 2nd Edition
(Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 2003), 151-158.
42
Bellville – County Seat
Map 3.1. Location of Austin County, 1860. (Source: Campbell, Empire for Slavery, 3; originally
created by Terry G. Jordan, Walter Prescott Webb Chair of History and Ideas, University of
Texas).
43
In addition to the Old Three Hundred, German immigrants poured into Texas. The
earliest were generally German-speaking Americans who had come in from other states, such as
Pennsylvania. Austin’s letters demonstrate a concerted effort to attract German settlers, although
he enjoyed only moderate success in the early years. By 1850 Germans represented 33 percent
of the white population. By the eve of the Civil War, German-born farmers within Austin
County outnumbered American-born.2
Most of the initial waves of German immigration settled in southeast Texas, arriving in
Austin, Colorado, Dewitt, Fayette, Victoria, and Washington Counties. Friedrich Ernst and
Charles Fordtran, both native Germans who moved to Texas from New York, established the
first permanent German colony at Industry in Austin County in 1831. In 1842 five German
princes and sixteen German nobles formed the society of Adelsverein to promote German
colonization in Texas. As a result, many Germans settled in the Texas Hill Country north of San
Antonio. The political chaos of the failed revolutions within Germany helped accelerate German
immigration to Texas. Adelsverein ultimately settled 20,000 Germans within the state by 1860.3
Those Germans who resided in Austin County enjoyed an easier life than those in the Hill
Country. During the antebellum period the Hill Country was near the western edge of white
settlement in the state. Life, therefore, was more dangerous due to the proximity of hostile
Indians. In relative isolation, Hill Country Germans were more likely to hold fast to their Old
2
Barker, Austin Papers, 2:402, 415, 453, 477, 559, 577, 705; Walter R. Struve, Germans & Texans:
Commerce, Migration, and Culture in the Days of the Lone Star Republic (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996),
44; Seventh Census of the United States, Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29, National Archives
(Microfilm T1224, Roll 908) [hereinafter cited as 1850 U. S. Census, Schedule I, followed by the name of the
county]; Terry G. Jordan, German Seed in Texas Soil: Immigrant Farmers in Nineteenth Century Texas (Austin:
University of Texas Press, 1966; reprint, University of Texas Press,1998) 98; Charles Christopher Jackson, “Austin
County,” New Handbook of Texas, 1:306.
3
Julia Lange Dinkins, “The Early History of Austin County” (M. A. thesis, Southwest Texas State
Teachers College, 1940), 45; Glen E. Lich, The German Texans (San Antonio: University of Texas Institute of
Texan Cultures of San Antonio, 1981), 22; Cat Spring Agricultural Society, The Cat Spring Story (San Antonio:
Lone Star Printing Company, 1956), 18-19; Grear, Why Texans Fought in the Civil War, 141-142.
44
World traditions. In the more established and commercial eastern counties, however, economic
interests helped the German population assimilate to the point that, as historian Glen Lich
demonstrates, it assumed a blend of Old South rural traditions with those of Europe. Despite this
assimilation, however, a strong sense of unionism among many Germans became a source of
suspicion in the minds of other Texans during the secession crisis and Civil War.4
During the antebellum period Austin County was among the largest slave counties in the
state and one of the most agriculturally productive regions of Texas. In 1850 the tax rolls
counted 1,356 slaves, giving it the eighth highest slave population of any Texas county. In 1860
the slave population had more than doubled to 3,199, making it the tenth highest in Texas. The
county’s number of slaves per square mile went from 1.4 in 1850 to 3.26 ten years later.5
Like other regions with large slave populations, Austin County strongly supported
Texas’s secession ordinance. Despite the presence of a sizable German community, voters
overwhelmingly approved secession on February 23, 1861: 825 for, 212 against. Among the six
counties in this study, Austin had the second-highest percentage of votes against secession (20.5
percent of the vote). Only Colorado County, with 36.1 percent, had a higher percentage against
the measure.6
In addition to favoring secession at the ballot box, Austin County residents militarily
supported the Confederacy. They produced numerous units that served in the Confederate army.
4
Dinkins, “Early History of Austin County,” 68.
5
J. D. B. DeBow, Statistical View of the United States, Embracing its Territory, Population – White, Free
Colored, and Slave (Washington: Beverly Tucker, Senate Printer, 1854), 308; Kennedy, Agriculture of the United
States in 1860, 477, 479; Austin County Tax Rolls, 1850, 1860.
6
Ernest William Winkler, ed., Journal of the Secession Convention of Texas 1861 (Austin: Austin Printing
Company, 1912), 88-89; Election Registers; Joe T. Timmons, “The Referendum in Texas on the Ordinance of
Secession, February 23, 1861: The Vote,” East Texas Historical Journal 11 (Fall 1973): 15; Moneyhon,
Republicanism in Reconstruction Texas, 204; Jackson, “Austin County,” New Handbook of Texas, 1:306
45
The Second, Eighth (Terry’s Texas Rangers), Twenty-first, Twenty-fourth, and Twenty-fifth
Texas Cavalry regiments, along with the First and Twentieth Texas Infantry regiments, included
men from the county. These units served in the Western and Trans-Mississippi theaters.7
On the home front, unionism was a major cause of unrest during the war. In 1862 rumors
of large groups of unionists meeting clandestinely spread throughout the county. These
gatherings were allegedly conducted in German to foil eavesdroppers. Unionists began refusing
to accept Confederate currency and register for the draft, which ultimately led to the imposition
of martial law on January 8, 1863. By January 21 Lieutenant Colonel Henry L. Webb informed
Major Edmund P. Turner that the “Germans and others who had been in rebellion [against the
Confederacy] have all . . . submitted to the draft and . . . been enrolled as soldiers.” Despite the
lukewarm support of the Confederacy by some residents, Austin County served as an assembly
point for Confederate soldiers, a location for a prisoner-of-war camp, and a center of production
for munitions.8
Ironically, those areas with large slave populations heavily supported secession in 1860
yet elected Republicans during Reconstruction as newly enfranchised freedmen voted for
Republican candidates. In the gubernatorial election of 1869, Austin County overwhelmingly
supported Republican Edmund J. Davis over Andrew Jackson Hamilton, 998 (67 percent of the
vote) to 482 (33 percent). Following the statewide pattern, however, Austin County began
electing Democrats to state and federal offices as early as 1871, although not by large margins.
As part of the Third Texas Congressional District, Austin County supported Democrat Dewitt
7
Joseph H. Crute, Units of the Confederate Army (Gaithersburg, Maryland: Olde Soldier Books, Inc.,
1987), 320-347.
8
Official Records, Vol. 15, Pt. 1, 955 [quotation]; Jackson, “Austin County,” New Handbook of Texas,
1:306.
46
Clinton Giddings over incumbent Republican William T. Clark by a margin of only two points,
51 to 49 percent in 1871. This was emblematic of the district as Giddings garnered 51 percent of
its vote, with Clark receiving 48, and Louis W. Stevenson accruing the remaining 1 percent. In
the 1873 gubernatorial election conservative Richard Coke nearly lost Austin County. The
margin between him and Davis, the Republican incumbent, was just eleven votes, 913 for Coke
and 902 for Davis.9
In that same year the Texas legislature created Waller County. Ever since the antebellum
period, those living on the east side of the Brazos River had petitioned the state to create a new
county because of the expense of crossing the waterway to conduct business in Bellville, the
county seat. On April 28, 1873, the Texas Legislature created Waller County by taking land
away from adjacent Austin and Grimes counties. It officially established Hempstead, a
commercial center, as the new county’s seat. (Because some of Austin’s antebellum planter
families would live in the new county, this study will include these families in its analysis of
planter persistence.) This, according to historian Charles Jackson, removed the most productive
land from Austin County, thus slowing its economic recovery. The county eventually was able
to recuperate from the economic blow of losing its most fertile section through increased
immigration of both Americans and Europeans, particularly Germans and Czechs.10
Also fueling an economic recovery was a boom in the railroad industry in the 1870s and
1880s. In the 1870s the Gulf, Colorado, and Santa Fe Railroad (GC & SF) was established. The
company brought its Galveston-Brenham line through the Austin County cities of Wallis, Sealy,
and Bellville. The GC & SF then expanded its operations, connecting Sealy with Eagle Lake.
9
Election Registers; Moneyhon, Republicanism in Reconstruction Texas, 209, 213, 221.
10
Gammel, Laws of Texas, 7:49-50; Jackson, “Austin County,” New Handbook of Texas, 1:307-309; Cat
Spring Agricultural Society, Cat Spring Story, 137.
47
During the 1880s the Houston-Texas Western extended and included Sealy as one of its stops.
In the 1890s the Missouri, Kansas, and
Texas Railroad sent its Houston-La Grange line through the county. An expanded railroad
network meant jobs, particularly for former slaves who did not wish to become tenant farmers.11
Although railroads expanded within the county during Reconstruction and afterward,
agriculture dominated its economy. The two antebellum censuses described an agricultural
boom between 1850 and 1860. In 1850 the census showed a total of 230 farms with 12,381
improved acres. Just ten years later the number of farms had more than tripled to 790, while
improved acreage expanded to 58,869 acres. Complementing this boom in acreage was an
increase in cotton production. In 1850 Austin County ranked fourth in the number of ginned
bales produced at 3,205. Ten years later county farmers grew 19,020 bales, and only Harrison,
San Augustine, and Washington Counties produced more cotton that year.12
The Civil War and emancipation brought major changes to the region. Austin County
immediately experienced the effects of the abolition of slavery. Although the amount of
improved acreage had increased to 76,619 acres in 1870, the total value of farms within the
county had decreased more than half, from $3,797,883 to $1,724,465. Cotton production had
slipped from its high in 1860 (19,020 bales) to 11,967 ginned bales in 1870. Although the
statewide cattle industry boomed, Austin County’s cattle population, both dairy and beef,
decreased more than 10,000 head from 68,271 in 1860 to 54,585 in the next decade. 13
11
Jackson, “Austin County,” New Handbook of Texas, 1:309.
12
DeBow, Statistical View of the United States, 1850, 312; Kennedy, Agriculture of the United States in
1860, 140-149.
13
Kennedy, Agriculture of the United States in 1860, 140-151; Walker, Statistics of the Wealth and
Industry of the United States,1870, 250-261.
48
The county would in most respects not return to its antebellum levels of agricultural
production for the rest of the century. Swine levels would not return to pre-war levels. In 1860
Austin County recorded 21,177 animals. By 1870 the number had dwindled to 15,657. The
decline continued for the next twenty years; by 1890 the count was only 14,492. Only corn was
able to exceed prewar numbers in 1870.14
In 1860 thirty-nine Austin County residents owned twenty or more slaves (the number
normally used to define planters). All but seven of these were found both in the county tax rolls
and the 1860 U. S. Census. Of the thirty-six individuals whose sex could be determined, thirtytwo, or 89 percent, were male. Collectively these men and women owned 1,722 slaves, or 54
percent of the 3,199 slaves listed in Austin County. Three individuals owned the twenty-slave
minimum to be considered a planter, while Philip M. Cuney, with 147 slaves, owned the largest
number. All but one (Jared E. Groce) of the thirty-one whose nativity could be determined were
born outside of Texas. Twenty-eight hailed from other southern states, with nineteen coming
from Lower South states and ten from Upper South states. Of the remaining three, two were from
northern states (New York and Ohio) and one from Europe (Prussia). The average age was 44,
with the youngest, J. O. Wade, at 25, and the oldest, Sarah S. Kirby, at 73. Furthermore, the
average estate worth of these planters was nearly $66,500, with the lowest, Margaret Hannay, at
$17,140, and the wealthiest, Leonard W. Groce, at $260,000. Finally, none of these individuals
were members or direct descendants of the Old Three Hundred.15
14
Porter, Report on the Statistics of Agriculture in the United States at the Eleventh Census, 348; Abigail
Curlee, “A Study of Texas Plantations, 1822-1865” (Ph.D. diss., University of Texas, 1932), 243-250; Campbell,
Empire for Slavery, 135; DeBow, Statistical View of the United States, 1850, 515; Kennedy, Agriculture of the
United States in 1860, 141; Walker, Statistics of the Wealth and Industry of the United States, 251; Randolph B.
Campbell and Richard G. Lowe, “Some Economic Aspects of Antebellum Texas Agriculture,” Southwestern
Historical Quarterly 82 (April 1979): 371.
15
Austin County Tax Rolls, 1860; Campbell, Empire for Slavery, 264. For this study, the Lower South
states were those that seceded immediately after Abraham Lincoln’s election in 1860. Texas natives, however, will
49
Table 3.2. Austin County planters, 1860
Name
Ballard, K.
Bennet, William
Bethany, James W.
Blake, S. R.
Chambers, M. A. &
S. C.
Chambers, R.
Chitt, Thomas
Clark, P. S.
Crump, William E.
Cuney, Philip M.
Davis, Nathan
Day, R. S.
Fordtran, Charles
Glover, Edwin A.
Groce, Jared F.
Groce, Leonard
Hannay, Margaret
Harvey, James A.
Hewitt, William
Howth, Mary
Slaves
21
22
20
22
Estate
$25,540
$23,530
$29,092
$67,000
Name
Keer, Thomas
Kirby, Jared E.
Kirby, Sarah S.
McDade, James
36
39
95
25
50
$27,650
$46,340
$60,685
$37,440
$73,440
147
43
37
21
118
21
127
20
41
24
39
$161,344
$52,850
$39,866
$56,500
$226,880
$65,810
$260,000
$17,140
$34,450
$21,200
$28,250
McGregor, Nate
Museger, M.
Oliver, A. Thomas
Oliver, M. S.
Patterson, Jason T.
Peebles, Richard
R.
Qualls, Jesse
Wade, J. O.
Waller, Edwin
Ward, A.
Weston, Robert A.
White, Joseph H.
White, T. B.
Whitworth, S. J.
Wood, T. B.
Slaves
25
120
26
26
Estate
$18,400
$190,717
$38,050
$24,360
32
23
103
26
29
$27,556
$31,900
$130,985
$57,000
$104,500
56
27
43
25
41
33
31
37
40
30
$116,100
$32,500
$123,818
$52,398
$42,370
$52,420
$36,155
$47,730
$34,300
$57,760
Sources: Austin County Tax Rolls, 1860; 1860 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Austin County, Texas (Roll 1287).
be counted separately. The Upper South states were those that seceded following the firing on Fort Sumter in
Charleston, South Carolina, in April 1861 along with Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, and Delaware.
50
The value of slaves represented a substantial portion of Austin planters’ 1860 estates (see
Table 3.3). The possession of a large number of slaves did not necessarily mean slaves were the
bulk of a planter’s wealth, though. Five men (Philip M. Cuney, Edwin A. Glover, Leonard W.
Groce, Jared E. Kirby, and A. Thomas Oliver) claimed more than one hundred slaves each in
1860. The mean percentage of the value of slaves within these planters’ estates was 52 percent.
Groce’s 127 slaves, for example, represented just 29 percent of his $260,000 estate. Only Oliver,
owning 103 slaves, had a majority of his wealth (60 percent) invested in chattel property. For
planters in general, the value of slaves represented 52 percent of their wealth.
J. O. Wade’s
bondsmen represented the lowest percentage at just 15 percent; Thomas Chitt’s were the highest
at 94. The abolition of slavery liquidated a substantial portion of most of the planters’ estates.16
Historians Randolph B. Campbell and Richard G. Lowe note a correlation between the
possession of slaves, being a large farmer, or pursuing a professional career and the holding of
political office. Individuals from these three groups typically dominated Texas’s antebellum
politics. How closely, then, did antebellum Austin County’s politicians conform to this model?
The numbers in Table 3.4 represent the average number of slaves and reported wealth
that these office holders possessed during their tenure. From the county’s establishment to the
end of the Civil War, judges owned an average of twenty-three slaves. Of the four county judges
who served from 1837 to 1852, only one was a slave owner. Slaveholders, including two
planters, then dominated the judgeship as four of the five judges between 1852 and 1865 owned
bondsmen. The planter class, therefore, had little direct involvement in the highest level of
16
Austin County Tax Rolls, 1860.
51
$94,400
$16,000
$75,000
$10,500
$24,600
$14,900
$12,000
Glover, Edwin A.
Groce, Jared F.
Groce, Leonard Waller
Hannay, Margaret J.
Harvey, James A.
Hewitt, William
Howth, Mary
$50,000
Crump, William E.
$16,900
$14,000
Clark, P. S.
Fordtran, Charles
$57,000
Chitt, Thomas
$22,200
$18,200
Chambers, R.
Day, R. S.
$21,600
Chambers, M. A. & S. C.
$38,400
$22,000
Blake, S.R.
Davis, Nathan
$15,500
Bennet, William
$79,800
$16,000
Bethany, James W.
Cuney, Philip M.
$16,000
Slave Value
Ballard, K.
Name
Source: Austin County Tax Rolls, 1860.
52
$28,250
$21,200
$34,450
$17,140
$260,000
$65,810
$226,880
$36,500
$39,866
$52,850
$161,344
$73,440
$37,440
$60,685
$46,340
$27,650
$67,000
$23,530
$29,092
$25,540
Estate
42%
70%
71%
61%
29%
24%
42%
46%
56%
73%
49%
68%
37%
94%
39%
78%
33%
66%
55%
63%
Percent
$30,500
$25,400
Wood, T. B.
$18,500
$23,200
$33,000
$12,600
$20,000
$18,300
$19,200
$34,000
$29,000
$28,500
$75,750
$14,300
$15,000
$13,000
$13,000
$72,000
$17,000
Slave Value
Whitworth, S. J.
White, T. B.
White, Joseph H.
Weston, Robert A.
Ward, A.
Waller, Edwin
Wade, J. O.
Qualls, Jesse
Peebles, Richard R.
Patterson, Jason T.
Oliver, M. S.
Oliver, A. Thomas
Museger, M.
McGregor, Nate
McDade, James
Kirby, Sarah S.
Kirby, Jared E.
Keer, Thomas
Name
$57,760
$34,300
$47,730
$36,155
$52,420
$42,370
$52,398
$123,818
$32,500
$116,100
$104,500
$57,000
$130,985
$31,900
$27,556
$24,360
$38,050
$190,717
$18,400
Estate
44%
89%
39%
64%
63%
30%
38%
15%
59%
29%
28%
50%
58%
45%
54%
53%
34%
38%
92%
Percent
Table 3.3. Percentage of the value of slaves within planters’ estates, 1860
county politics. This was perhaps because of a higher level of interest in state and federal
offices, or a belief that smaller slaveholders sufficiently protected the planters’ interests.17
The abolition of slavery was a financial and political turning point as the planter class and
its families fell from the ranks of Austin County’s wealthiest individuals, and
men who did not own slaves before the war rose to occupy a majority of the county’s
government positions. Between 1860 and 1870, the number of now-former planters and their
family members remaining in the county gradually declined. Both during the war and following
the Confederacy’s defeat, the wealth of the planter class began to dwindle in size as slavery
disappeared. In addition, some planters died and others moved out of the county. Cuney, for
example, had originally settled in Austin County in the late 1830s along the Iron Creek tributary
of the Brazos River. By 1860 he owned nearly 150 slaves on his plantation “Sunnyside.”
Immediately following the war Cuney’s health declined, and he ultimately died on January 8,
1866, with an indebted estate. Following his death the family moved out of Austin County to
reside in Galveston.18
A. Thomas Oliver also moved out of the county. During the antebellum period he owned
a half league (2,302.5 acres) of land in the productive region on the east bank of the Colorado
River. By 1860 he was one of only five planters in the county who owned more than 100 slaves,
and he possessed an estate worth $130,985. By 1865, however, his personal wealth had
dwindled to $25,000 because of the loss in slaves and declines in land value.19
17
Austin County Tax Rolls, 1837-1866.
18
Last Will and Testament of Philip M. Cuney, Austin County Probate Succession Records, P:12-21, 174175; Douglas Hales, A Southern Family in White & Black: The Cuneys of Texas (College Station: Texas A&M
University Press, 2003), 6, 10-15.
19
Austin County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1865; Charles Christopher Jackson, “Oliver, A. Thomas,” New
Handbook of Texas, 4:1146.
53
1837-1842
1842-1844
1844-1848
1848-1852
1852-1856
1856-1858
1858-1862
1862-1864
1864-1866
McCreary, James
Klebeg, Robert
Bradbury, William
Waller, Edwin
Crump, William E.
Day, William S.
Catlin, J. H.
Oney, C. B.
Tenure
Money, J. H.
Name
54
0
15
38
49
8
0
0
5
0
Avg. Number of Slaves
Owned during Term
$787
$23,122
$41,914
$69,437
$6,979
$845
$1,244
$661
$4,825
Avg. Wealth
during Term
N/A
Farmer
N/A
Farmer
Farmer
Farmer*
N/A
N/A
Farmer*
Occupation
Table 3.4. Antebellum and Civil War-era Austin County judges, 1837-1866
Sources: Election Registers; Austin County Tax Rolls, 1837-1866; 1850 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Austin County,
Texas (Roll 908); 1860 U. S Census, Schedule I, Austin County, Texas (Roll 1287).
Note: Asterisks indicate occupation as listed by the 1850 U. S. Census.
Like thousands of southerners Oliver would move to Brazil and continue to own slaves.
Exile to Brazil was attractive for those not willing to accept abolition. Following the war four to
six thousand ex-Confederates moved to Brazil, even creating a settlement named “Little
America.” In 1865 the newspaper Diaro de São Paulo urged the Brazilian government to pursue
a liberal immigration policy. On September 26 it reported that southerners “cannot submit to the
new order of things and live on a footing of equality with their slaves. . . . If our government
loses this favorable opportunity to draw them to our country, it will not find another.”20
In 1866 Oliver and his three children moved to Brazil, where he purchased slaves and
established another plantation. His wife Beatrice succumbed to tuberculosis in 1868, along with
one of his daughters a year later. Just before Christmas 1869 his
youngest daughter grew ill and died. The Oliver family’s fate was not unique among those who
sought a new life in Brazil. Frank McMullan, the founder of the Brazilian colony, grew ill and
died on September 29, 1867, while traveling up the Juquiá River to establish a new colony.21
Leonard W. Groce was another former planter who planned to move to Brazil. Before
Texas independence he controlled a plantation so large that historian M. L. Crimmons estimates
that if one stretched it out in a single line, it would be a mile wide and more than one hundred
miles long. Following the war he sold his plantation “Liendo” in preparation for his move. He
20
Clement Eaton, The Waning of the Old South Civilization, 1860-1880’s (Athens: University of Georgia
Press, 1968), 116; William Clark Griggs, “Frank McMullan’s Brazilian Company” (Ph.D. diss., Texas Tech
University, 1982), 265 [quotation].
21
Griggs, “Frank McMullan’s Brazilian Company,” v, 265, 280; “Oliver, A. Thomas,” New Handbook of
Texas, 4: 1146; William Clark Griggs, Elusive Eden: Frank McMullan’s Confederate Colony in Brazil (Austin:
University of Texas Press, 1987), 96, 99, 119.
55
never left, however, and regained his plantation when the buyers defaulted on their payments. In
1868 Groce declared bankruptcy, and he died in 1873.22
Between 1860 and 1870, at least four of the planters who remained in Austin County
died. Although never mentioning a date of death, Austin County’s Probate Succession Records
demonstrate that S. C. Chambers was deceased when his case was adjudicated in 1862. Others
who died between 1860 and 1870 included Sarah S. and Jared E. Kirby and James W. McDade.
Census and tax records show that only one of the family members of these deceased planters
remained in the county, Jared E. Kirby’s widow, Ellen. The tax rolls for 1870 do not list her, but
according to that year’s census, she was a teacher at a boarding school, possessing $1,500 in real
estate and $5,000 in her personal estate.23
The decline in the number of planter families could also be the possibility that they
moved out of the county. The evidence of this could conceivably be found in the postbellum
censuses. The problem, however, was that the censuses list numerous individuals who had the
same name, approximate age, and birth place as the members of the planter families. This makes
identification of the children of the antebellum planters difficult or impossible because the source
provides little to differentiate one person from another. Nonetheless, the fact that family
members were no longer in the county following the war demonstrates that the power and wealth
of the planter family within the original county had ended. The exception to this, of course, was
22
Corrie Pattison Haskew, Historical Records of Austin and Waller Counties (Houston: Premier Printing &
Letter Service, Inc., 1969), 53; M. L. Crimmons, “Leonard Waller Groce, the Co-Founder of Texas’ Main Cash
Crop – Cotton,” The West Texas Historical Association Year Book 27 (1951): 101; Julie Beazley and Eldon S.
Branda, “Groce, Leonard Waller,” New Handbook of Texas, 3:349.
23
Austin County Probate Succession Records, M:449-461, 507-514; O: 298-304, 386-415, 536-543 P:358379, 556-569; Q:1-21, 282-297, 488-494, 542-544, 557-559, 596-599, 603-605, 608-614, 634-638; R:6-19, 110-117,
126, 128, 134-143, 282-289, 483-484, 546; Austin County Tax Rolls, 1870; 1860
U. S. Census, Austin County, Schedule I, Austin County, Texas (Roll 1287); 1870 U. S. Census, Austin County,
Inhabitant Schedule, Austin County, Texas (Roll 1574).
56
the creation of Waller County because the families did not consciously move out of Austin.
Rather, their property transferred to the newly-created county.
Slavery’s demise exacted a heavy price on the fortunes of the antebellum planter class.
No matter how much wealth a planter owned before the war, every individual lost a substantial
amount. As shown in Table 3.5, the county’s planters lost an average of four-fifths of their
wealth between 1860 and 1870 and were able to retain an average of only 20 percent of their
previous estates. Table 3.5 also demonstrates that more than half of the former planters were no
longer in the county in 1870. Entire planter families previously listed in the tax rolls in 1860
were absent ten years later.
Despite the planters’ loss of most of their capital, only two filed for bankruptcy after the
war, Groce and Edwin A. Waller. In 1866 Waller did so because of crippling debts. Between
1866 and 1868 he sold much of his property, often to kinsman H. B. Waller, to satisfy his
financial obligations.24
The losses of planters who remained within Austin County were not confined to the
elimination of slaves from their incomes. A sizable portion of the planters’ estates were in their
landholdings in the county. Within the fortunes of the fifteen planters listed in Table 3.6, the
value of acres owned in 1860 averaged 38 percent of their total estates. Jared F. Groce’s 3,382
acres, valued at $48,110, represented 73 percent of his wealth. Comparatively, his twenty-one
slaves, worth $16,000, were only 24 percent of his estate.25
24
Austin County Probate Succession Records, C:225-236; Austin County Deeds Records, N:603-605. H.
B. Waller’s relation to Edwin A. Waller could not be determined. H. B. is not listed under the two Waller
households, Edwin Sr. and Edwin Jr., in either the 1860 or 1870 U. S. censuses.
25
Austin County Tax Rolls, 1860.
57
Table 3.5. Total estates of 1860 planters as listed in the 1870 tax rolls
Bennet, William
Bethany, James W.
Chambers, M. A. & S. C.
Clark, P. S.
Crump, William E.
Day, R. S.
Fordtran, Charles
Glover, Edwin A.
Groce, Jared F.
Hannay, Margaret J.
Harvey, James A.
Howth, Mary
Qualls, Jesse
Waller, E.
Weston, Robert A.
1860
Estate
$23,530
$29,092
$27,650
$37,440
$73,440
$39,866
$36,500
$226,880
$65,810
$17,140
$34,450
$28,250
$32,500
$52,398
$52,420
1870
Estate
$7,436
$10,460
$7,420
$9,055
$23,891
$9,035
$11,310
$32,615
$12,722
$4,045
$1,237
$1,585
$2,445
$6,120
$5,615
Percentage of 1860
Estate Lost
68%
64%
73%
76%
67%
77%
69%
86%
81%
76%
96%
94%
92%
88%
89%
Averages
$51,824
$9,666
80%
Name
Sources: Austin County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870.
58
The majority (60 percent) of Austin County’s planters gained in the number of acres they
individually owned between 1860 and 1870. Some, such as William Bennett and William E.
Crump, actually increased their holdings by more than 1,500 acres. Some gained or lost a
modest amount of land (in the hundreds of acres or less), while others, such as Groce, lost
substantially more.26
No matter the amount of gain or loss in acreage, however, planters suffered from the
devaluation of their lands. Of the fifteen planters who remained in the county in 1870, thirteen
experienced losses in the value of their holdings (see Table 3.6). In 1860 the 24,315 acres owned
by these fifteen were worth a total of $334,411. The average value per acre, therefore, was
$13.75. Ten years later, these fifteen now-former planters owned 21,944 acres, which were
collectively worth only $101,784, and the average value per acre fell to $4.64, a decrease of
approximately 66 percent. William Bennet and the Chambers brothers were the only former
planters to increase the value of their landholdings. As Table 3.6 demonstrates, they were among
those who acquired the most land between 1860 and 1870.27
The deed record in Austin County, however, does not demonstrate a massive selling off,
or for that matter a buying up, of property by the antebellum planters. Rather, these losses in
acreage occurred gradually as the former planters bought and sold some of their lands in a
piecemeal fashion over the course of five years. Between 1865 and 1870, for example, William
E. Crump bought and sold some of his lands, mostly to and from the members of the former
antebellum planter class. The buyers and sellers were planters such as S. R. Blake and Richard
R. Peebles. This practice was not limited to Crump. Others included the executors of the estate
26
Ibid., 1860, 1870.
27
Ibid., 1860, 1870.
59
514
920
700
1,836
921
Harvey, James A.
Howth, Mary
Qualls, Jesse
Waller, E.
Weston, Robert
2,475
Fordtran, Charles
480
1,215
Day, R. S.
Hannay, Margaret J.
1,248
Crump, William E.
3,382
2,214
Clark, P. S.
Groce, Jared F.
460
Chambers, M. A. &
S. C.
5,967
1,260
Bethany, Jameson W.
Glover, Edwin A.
723
1860 Acres
Bennet, William
Name
Sources: Austin County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870.
60
$18,420
$23,923
$12,000
$13,800
$7,710
$4,800
$48,110
$119,250
$15,676
$12,150
$17,390
$22,140
$4,600
$8,712
$5,730
1860 Value
921
200
788
550
212
617
480
6,234
567
1,460
2,781
2,264
1,287
1,350
2,233
$4,600
$1,200
$2,200
$1,250
$952
$3,400
$647
$28,300
$6,435
$8,103
$17,251
$6,100
$7,420
$8,175
$5,751
1870 Acres 1870 Value
0
-1,636
88
-370
-302
137
-2,902
267
-1,908
245
1,533
50
827
90
1,510
-$13,820
-$22,723
-$9,800
-$12,550
-$6,758
-$1,400
-$47,463
-$90,950
-$9,241
-$4,047
-$139
-$16,040
$2,820
-$537
$21
Change in Change in
Acres
Value
Table 3.6. Gains/Losses in acres owned and land values of antebellum planters, 1870
of Philip M. Cuney, Mary Howth, and Edwin A. Waller, who sold his land to family members.
Between 1865 and 1870, former planters were able to buy more land than they sold, primarily
because of land devaluation following the Civil War. Nevertheless, the devaluation of the
planters’ land was a significant portion of the losses they incurred after the war.28
During Reconstruction unpardoned southerners risked the confiscation of all their land by
the federal government. In 1862 Congress passed the Second Confiscation Act, which
authorized the president to seize the property of Confederate military officers and civilian
government officials. On July 28, 1865, the Commissioner of the Freedmen’s Bureau, Major
General Oliver O. Howard, stated, without President Andrew Johnson’s consent, that a
presidential pardon would not prevent any land confiscation intended to benefit former slaves.
Johnson demanded that the general rescind the order, which he did on September 12, declaring
that no land could be confiscated unless it was legally condemned.29
Unlike citizens in other southern states, Texas landowners did not flee before advancing
Federal armies. Rather, people fled to Texas because of its relative security and remoteness.
The Freedmen’s Bureau in the state, therefore, encountered few abandoned acres that might be
seized. As in other former Confederate states, Federal authorities temporarily confiscated the
property of landowners who had not yet received pardons from President Johnson. In June 1866,
for example, the Bureau confiscated the property of Francisco Yturria in Brownsville. Later in
the month, Yturria received his pardon from Johnson, and his property was restored. In Texas
28
Austin County Deeds Records, F:333-335; N:603-605; R:191-192, 236-238, 388-389; S:609, 790.
29
Sanger, Statutes of the United States, 12:590, 13:507-509; Foner, Reconstruction, 159; Papers of Andrew
Johnson, 9:39; Hans L. Trefousse, “Andrew Johnson and the Freedmen’s Bureau,” in Paul Cimbala and Randall M.
Miller, eds., The Freedmen’s Bureau: Reconsiderations (New York: Fordham University Press, 1999), 33.
61
abandoned and confiscated lands were not as profound an issue as they were elsewhere in the
South because the state had smaller quantities of such land.30
Sixteen individuals in Austin County applied for pardons under Johnson’s policy (see
Table 3.7). Four of these applications were from former planters. William E. Crump, E. A.
Glover, Leonard W. Groce, and Edwin Waller submitted applications, which were all approved.
These four applications were based on the planters’ possession of $20,000 or more in taxable
property, an amount that excluded them from normal amnesty. The non-planter petitioners
applied under the First and Thirteenth Exemptions. The First Exemption barred most
Confederate-era civil and diplomatic agents from Abraham Lincoln’s and Johnson’s general
amnesties, while the Thirteenth excluded those owning $20,000 or more in property.31
William E. Crump took the Amnesty Oath on September 1, 1865, and applied for his
pardon on October 10. In the petition Crump, who was at one time the speaker of the Texas
legislature, claimed that he did not participate in the rebellion, nor did any of his children. At the
time he had only one child, William, who was nine at the end of the war. He did, however,
admit that he had voted for secession but “never participated more actively in the rebellion than
many of his neighbors and fellow citizens. . . .” The only service that he performed was to
“contribute some possessions to the poor and destitute families of Confederate soldiers in his
neighborhood.” According to Crump, the war caused a high degree of indebtedness to his
30
William Richter, Overreached on All Sides: The Freedmen’s Bureau Administrators in Texas, 1865-1868
(College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1991), 93, 334 (footnote 36); William T. Alderson, “The Influence
of Military Rule and the Freedmen’s Bureau on Reconstruction in Virginia (Ph.D. diss., Vanderbilt University,
1952), 46-58, 281-282. Texas’s former slaves still expected land from Federal authorities. In 1865 many blacks in
Texas and the South believed they would receive land by Christmas, which led to fears of black revolts in the Lone
Star State (Richter, Overreached on All Sides, 23, 25-26).
31
Amnesty Papers; Presidential Pardons, Records, Texas Governor Andrew Jackson Hamilton, Archives
and Information Services Division, Texas State Library and Archives Commission [hereinafter cited as Governors’
Papers: AJH]. Clampitt, “Two Degrees of Rebellion,” 263.
62
Table 3.7. Austin County presidential pardons
Name
Ahrenbeck, William
Ballinger, John
Blezinger, G.
Campbell, Rufus E.
Clarke, Edward N.
Crump, William E.*
Glover, Edwin A.*
Goodloe, J. L.
Groce, Leonard W.*
Wangermann, Ernst
Hensley, Jasper
Morton, Charles
Schroeder, William
Sims, S. W.
Waller, Edwin*
Exemption
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
First
First
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
First
First
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Source: Case Files of Applications from Former Confederates for Presidential Pardons, 1865-1867, U. S.
Department of War, Records of the Adjutant General’s Office, 1780s-1917, Record Group 94, National Archives,
(Microfilm M-1003, Rolls 52, 53, 54, 55) [hereinafter cited as Amnesty Papers].
Note: Asterisks indicate planters.
63
neighbors in the amount of $120,000, leaving him with less than $100 “in or out of the United
States.” On December 2 Governor Hamilton recommended Crump’s pardon to Johnson.32
By March 1866 Crump grew weary of the slowness of the pardoning process. In a letter
addressed to Hamilton on March 16, he asked for permission to sell “a small tract of land to
assist [Crump] in [his] farming operations.” He was distraught that the delay by the president
would injure his farming interests since the season was “far advanced” and he could not acquire
workers without the money he would receive through the sale. He reminded the governor of his
dire financial straits, again stating he owned no more than $100 “in or out of the United States”
and just thirty-seven bales of cotton “independent of [his] lands.” Hamilton’s response has been
lost, but Johnson approved the application on April 25.33
Edwin A. Glover applied for his special pardon under the Thirteenth Exemption before he
had sworn the Amnesty Oath on October 24, 1865. During the war Glover resided in Marengo
County, Alabama, but returned to Austin County as the war progressed. Like Crump he swore
that he took no part in a civil or military fashion in the recent rebellion. His only contribution
was the perennial requirement to pay a tithe “taken from every resident.” Hamilton
recommended Glover’s pardon to Johnson on January 20, and the president ultimately approved
it on February 5.34
Despite the protection of a presidential pardon against land confiscation, the bleeding of
former planter families from Austin County continued to the point that by 1880, only five of the
32
Amnesty Papers, William E. Crump (Roll 52) [quotation]; William E. Crump to Andrew Jackson
Hamilton, Governors’ Papers: AJH; 1860 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Austin County (Reel 1287); Austin County Tax
Rolls, 1865. In 1865 Crump claimed a personal wealth of $25,419 to the Austin County tax collector.
33
William E. Crump to Governor Andrew Jackson Hamilton, March 16, 1866, Governors’ Papers: AJH.
34
Amnesty Papers, Edwin A. Glover, (Roll 53) [quotation]; Edwin A. Glover to Governor Andrew Jackson
Hamilton, Governors’ Papers: AJH.
64
thirty-nine planters remained within the antebellum borders of Austin County. Before the war,
James A. Harvey and Jesse Qualls had resided in the eastern part of Austin County. In 1873
their lands transferred to Waller. The 1880 U. S. Census listed these families as residents of
Waller County. P. S. Clark, Jared F. Groce’s son E. S. Groce, and T. B. Wood also lived in
Waller in 1880. Clark and Wood each owned more than $10,000 in property, with Clark at
$14,472 and Wood at $13,675. Ten years later, only four members of the antebellum planter
families resided in the antebellum borders of Austin County. In Waller, George Qualls was the
sole remaining member of the old elite. In Austin, at least two of the former planters remained,
Richard R. Peebles and Fordtran. A. Ward’s son, Pressley, would be a member of Austin’s 1890
elite, owning an estate worth $14,869. 35
Immediately following the war, the political dominance of the larger planters was over,
and men who had owned few or no slaves before the war occupied the key positions of local
government during Reconstruction. Upon arriving at Galveston, Governor Hamilton announced
that he would appoint county level officials he deemed appropriate for the position. Following
this declaration, citizens throughout Texas began petitioning the governor, recommending either
themselves or fellow citizens for the numerous local positions that the governor needed to fill.
Hamilton closely followed the petitions of Austin County citizens, appointing a majority of those
recommended to him.
By the end of August, Hamilton had made appointments to all Austin County offices. In
early Reconstruction-era Austin County, former minor slaveholders and non35
Austin County Tax Rolls, 1880; Waller County Tax Rolls, 1880; Waller County Tax Rolls, 1880, 1890;
1860 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Austin County, Texas (Roll 1287); Tenth Census of the United States, 1880, Records
of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29, National Archives (Microfilm T9, Roll 1289) [hereinafter cited as
1880 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, followed by the name of the county or counties]; Austin County Tax Rolls,
1890. New Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. “Crump, William E.,”
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/CC/fcr97.html (accessed January 29, 2010); New Handbook of
Texas, 2:1076, 5:127.
65
slaveholders dominated local politics (see Table 3.8). In addition, Hamilton appointed no
antebellum planters or members of a pre-war planter family to any Austin County position.
Finally, whereas the average wealth of the county judge during the antebellum period was nearly
$16,500, it plummeted in the immediate aftermath of the war to $1,600, a decrease of 90 percent.
More than 80 percent of those appointed by Hamilton were not slave owners in 1860; the rest
were minor and middling holders. This high percentage of non-slaveholders was not
representative of the statewide situation. As historian Carl Moneyhon notes, a majority, or 53
percent, of Hamilton’s appointees throughout the state were former slaveholders. The difference
in Austin was perhaps the result of a relatively large population of unionists within the county.
In Colorado County, which also had a relatively high vote against secession (36 percent), nonslaveholders represented a majority (70 percent) of the Hamilton appointees to local offices.36
The collapse of the former planter class from the ranks of the richest taxpayers in Austin
County was a gradual process. The generally low value of the estates of those in the wealthy
class (those owning $10,000 or more) in 1870 exemplifies the massive losses in personal wealth
that the region experienced following the Civil War. A few members of the antebellum planter
class, despite their losses, were able to remain in their pre-war occupations and in the county’s
elite. Former planters (seven in total) represented a majority of those who owned $10,000 or
more in 1870 but their absolute numbers had declined drastically since 1860 (from thirty-eight to
only seven). This is perhaps a result of the fact that slaves had not constituted a majority of these
planters’ antebellum estates. Of these seven, only two had invested the majority of their wealth
in their bondspeople. Slaves represented between 28 and 46 percent of the estates of the
remaining five former planters. Two other members of the 1870 elite, Rufus E. Campbell and
36
Election Registers; Austin County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870; Colorado County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870;
Moneyhon, Texas after the Civil War, 31.
66
Table 3.8. Austin County officials appointed by Provisional Governor Andrew Jackson Hamilton
Position
Slaves
Owned in
1860
Value of
Estate in
1865
Chief Justice
0
Not listed
Campbell, John
Clerk
0
$4,977
Amsley, Mark
Commissioner
0
$3,125
Doritse, F.
Commissioner
0
$2,234
Eidman, S.
Commissioner
0
$780
Gould, John
Commissioner
0
$240
Miller, F. W.
Constable
0
$680
Eckermann, Louis
Constable
0
$664
Palm, F.
Constable
0
$717
Scheller, Charles
Constable
0
$200
Coroner
0
$400
District Clerk
0
Not listed
Wright, W
Justice of the Peace
0
$661
Cheek, B. L.
Justice of the Peace
0
$2,166
Regenbrecht, A.
Justice of the Peace
0
$1,461
Hartmann, M.
Justice of the Peace
0
$280
Scheller, Charles
Justice of the Peace
0
$200
Klump, Augustus
Justice of the Peace
0
$261
Campbell, Cyrus
Justice of the Peace
14
$854
Dickehat, F.
Justice of the Peace
0
$1,041
Harrison, B.
Justice of the Peace
0
Not listed
Ohlendorf, Charles
Justice of the Peace
0
$2,100
Rothomel, A.
Justice of the Peace
0
Not listed
Seidelmann, T.
Justice of the Peace
0
Not listed
Clark, J.
Notary Public
0
$1,750
Wayford, Samuel
Notary Public
0
Not listed
Miller, F. E.
Notary Public
3
$6,073
Regenbrecht, A.
Notary Public
0
$1,461
Cloyd, N.
Sherriff
6
$1,497
Lee, B. B.
Tax Collector
6
$2,098
Treasurer
2
$4,317
Name
Oney, C. B.
Ferrell, John
Montgomery, J. R.
Bell, John G.
Sources: Election Registers; Austin County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1865.
67
Source: Austin County Tax Rolls, 1860
Note: Asterisks indicate antebellum planters.
68
Cloud, J.
Cochran, Thomas
Cochran, W. W.
Collins, J. W.
Cooper, E.
Cooper, Sashel
Cooper, W.
Betts, S. S.
Blake, S.R.*
Bonner, Jordan
Boon, J. G.
Buck, E. J.
Bush, N. W.
Callin, J. H
Groce, Leonard W.*
Hall, J. B.
Hall, John
Campbell, John Crump, William E.*
Campbell, R. E. Cuney, Philip M.*
Cannon, L.
Dabney, E. W.
Groce, Jared F.*
Campbell, Cyrus Corbin, George
Grier, Joseph
Grayton, J.
Glover, Edwin A.*
Glenn, Alex
Foster, B.
Fordtran, Charles*
English, H. B.
Edwards, R.
Doloschal, Joseph
Cleveland, E.
Clark, P. S.*
Ballard, Victor
Day, R. S.*
Bennet, W.*
Chitt, Thomas*
Ballard, K.*
Davis, Nathan*
Edwards, J.
Chappell, R. H.
Amber, C. C.
Daughty, J.
Baxter, Rebecca Clemmons, J. A.
Chambers, R.*
Allen, W. J.
Daughty, E. J.
Duncan, Isaac
Chambers, M. & S.*
Allen, J. W.
Daniel, J.
Name
Bateman, Mary Clary, Jesse
Cattin, J. H.
Name
Allen, G. W.
Name
Martin, W.
Manley, J.
Name
Roach, R. E.
Read, S. D.
Name
Shelburn, T.
Sigfried, M.
Stephenson, T.
Thompson, W.
Lott, John
Lott, J.
Loggins, R.
Landes, D.
Knolle, F.
Knolle, E.
White, J.*
Weston, R.
Watson, R.
Qualls, Jesse* Whitworth, S. J.*
Punshard, W. White, T. B.*
Portis, R.
Pier, J.
Penn, R.
Penice, Frank Ward, A.*
Kirby, Sarah S.* Peebles, R. R.* Waller, Edwin*
Wade, T.
Patterson, J.* Wade, J. O.*
Parker, W.
Oliver, M. S.* Terry, H.
Oliver, A.*
Nichols, John Snell, Hamlin
Museger, M.* Slater, W.
Miller, F. E.
McGregor, N.* Shelby, D.
Kirby, Jared E.* Pearson, W.
Kenney, J.
Keer, Thomas*
Kannon, D.
Johnson, M.
Johnson, L. L.
Jackson, T. J.
Howth, Mary*
Hill, D.
Hewitt, William* McDade, J.*
Hensley, Jasper McDade, J. C Scales, R. H.
Harvey, J. A.*
Hannay, M. J.*
Name
Wood, T. B.*
Whitworth, S.
Name
Table 3.9. Owners of $10,000 or more in total property in Austin County, 1860
Table 3.10. Owners of $10,000 or more in total property in Austin County, 1870
Name
Occupation
Bethany, Jameson*
Campbell, Rufus E.
Crump, William E.*
Cummings, Samuel A.
Fordtran, Charles*
Glover, Edwin A.*
Farmer
Farmer
Farmer
Farmer
Farmer
Farmer
Stock
Raiser
N/A
Farmer
Farmer
Farmer
Wholesale
Stock
Trader
Groce, Jared F.*
Harper, B.37
McIntyre, William
Patterson, James T.*
Peebles, Richard R.*
Wangermann, Adam
and Ernst
Birth
State
AL
AR
NC
TX
Prussia
SC
Age
Estate
Sex
46
54
60
42
69
71
$10,460
$10,068
$23,891
$16,056
$11,310
$32,615
M
M
M
M
M
M
TX
N/A
Scotland
SC
OH
33
N/A
32
60
60
$12,722
$13,630
$14,616
$16,486
$23,422
M
F
M
M
M
Saxony
42,
44
$18,000
M
Sources: Austin County Tax Rolls, 1870; 1870 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Austin County, Texas (Roll
1574).
Note: Asterisks indicate antebellum planters.
37
The tax rolls list her as “Harper, Mrs. B.”
69
Samuel A. Cummings, were minor slaveholders before the war. The remaining three (Harper,
McIntyre, and Wangermann) did not own slaves. Despite the agricultural decline
immediately after the war, farmers and stock raisers still economically dominated the county.38
The decade between 1880 and 1890 witnessed the near-complete disappearance of the
antebellum planter families within Austin County. Crump mustered an estate of only $1,024.
Fordtran was the only planter who could accrue enough property to be listed among those
owning $10,000 or more. In Waller County, James A. Harvey’s daughter, Allison, and Jesse
Qualls’s eldest son, George, were the only remaining members of the planter families that once
resided in Austin County. Each of them possessed estates that were mere shadows of their
fathers’ antebellum wealth. Allison Harvey’s $1,260 estate was just 3 percent of James’s
$34,450 in 1860. George Qualls’s $782 in total property was barely more than 2 percent of his
father’s $32,500 fortune before the Civil War.39
Table 3.11 demonstrates that a new upper class had arisen by 1880 to replace the
antebellum planters. In 1880 only one former planter (Charles Fordtran) owned enough property
to be among the county’s wealthiest residents. The majority (ten of twelve) were descended
from non-slaveholding families. The table also reflects the heavy European immigration that
Austin County experienced both before and after the Civil War. Just ten years before, only three
Europeans were among the richest individuals in the county. By 1880 European-born
immigrants outnumbered native-born Americans among the county’s elite. At least five of the
Europeans (Hunt’s nativity could never be determined) came from Germanic states.40
38
Austin County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870.
39
Austin County Tax Rolls, 1860; Waller County Tax Rolls, 1880; 1860 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Austin
County, Texas (Roll 1287).
40
Austin County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1880; 1880 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Austin County, Texas
(Roll 1289).
70
Table 3.11. Owners of $10,000 or more in total property in Austin County, 1880
Name
Occupation
Alexander, William
Campbell, J. T.
Collins, Kinch
Cummings, Samuel A.
Fordtran, Charles*
Haak, A.
Hill, John
Hunt, Holland
Menke, Charlotte
Miller, Henry
Ringner, Christian
Vogelsang, Ernst
Farmer
Farmer
Farmer
Farmer
Farmer
Merchant
Farmer
N/A
Farmer
Farmer
Farmer
Farmer
Birth
State
Ireland
NC
MS
TX
Prussia
Germany
AR
N/A
Germany
TX
Germany
Germany
Age
Estate
68
50
44
52
79
49
46
N/A
44
27
52
42
$14,326
$13,974
$11,648
$14,075
$11,480
$11,610
$10,241
$11,476
$10,659
$13,659
$11,717
$10,602
Sources: 1880 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Austin County, Texas (Roll 1289); 1880 Austin County, Texas
Tax Rolls.
Note: Asterisk indicates an antebellum planter.
71
The unfortunate loss of the 1890 Census records in a fire makes the determination of
demographic data difficult, if not impossible. For Table 3.12, the 1880 Census provides valuable
information for residents within the county in 1890. By 1890 only one member of the
antebellum planter families, Pressley Ward, owned $10,000 or more in property. In Waller
County, Allison Harvey and George S. Qualls were the only remaining members of the
antebellum planter families. In that year, they possessed just $550 and $2,040, respectively. By
1890 the antebellum ruling class had almost totally disappeared from the elite of Austin County,
and those who remained did not possess the same level of wealth as their antebellum
predecessors.41
The average wealth of the largest taxpayers in Austin County in 1890, $14,317, was
significantly less than the figure for 1860, $65,488. Of those whose occupations could be
determined in 1890, more individuals were involved in agricultural pursuits than
other professions. Nevertheless, an increase of those claiming non-agricultural professions in
1890 suggests the effects of burgeoning changes within the county during and after the period
under examination. Following Reconstruction and into the late nineteenth century, railroad
companies expanded into the area. With the railroads came a growing urban and merchant
class.42
Although most of the economic elite engaged in agriculture of some type throughout this
period, the men who served as county judges had changed in three
fundamental ways. The first was the rise of urban professions. All three of the Reconstruction
and Redemption-era county judges listed their occupations as lawyers or judges (see Table 3.14).
41
Austin County Tax Rolls, 1870, 1880, 1890; Waller County Tax Rolls, 1890; 1860 U. S. Census,
Schedule I, Austin County, Texas (Roll 1287); Wright, History and Growth of the United States Census, 67, 76.
42
Jackson, “Austin County,” New Handbook of Texas, 1:309.
72
Table 3.12. Owners of $10,000 or more in total property in Austin County, 1890
Name
Occupation in 1880
Allen, John
Cannon, D.
Cummings, N. E.
Gebers, G.
Haak, A.
Hackbarth, John
Hallsworth, C.
Holland, N.
Knolle, Ernst M.
Laughamen, O.
Miller, Bertha
Nabermachen, P.
Nill, Jacob
Nill, John
Rothanel, A.
Ward, Pressley*
Wells, John W.
Witte, Otto
Stock Raiser
N/A
Farmer
N/A
Merchant
Clerk
N/A
Lawyer
Dry Goods Merchant
N/A
Merchant
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
Farmer
Farmer
Physician
Birth
State
TX
N/A
SC
N/A
Germany
TX
N/A
MD
Germany
N/A
Hungary
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
NC
NC
TX
Age
Estate
46
N/A
61
N/A
59
28
N/A
68
77
N/A
60
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
51
39
35
$12,540
$16,361
$15,945
$14,515
$11,220
$15,194
$18,775
$10,224
$10,910
$11,980
$16,160
$12,265
$19,025
$23,510
$10,600
$14,869
$10,930
$12,690
Sources: 1880 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Austin County, Texas (Roll 1289); 1890 Austin County Tax Rolls.
Note: Asterisks indicate antebellum planters.
73
Table 3.13. Percentage of antebellum planters within residents possessing $10,000 or more in
taxable property, 1860-1890
Year
1860
1870
1880
1890
Number of Residents
Owning $10,000 or
More
122
12
12
18
Number of
Antebellum
Planters
Owning
$10,000 or
More*
38
7
1
1
Source: Austin County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1890.
*Includes members of planter families.
74
Percentage of
Antebellum
Planters within
Owners of $10,000
or More*
31%
58%
8%
6%
Contrast this with the prevalence of “farmer” in the occupation column of their antebellum
counterparts. The second was the length of tenure in office. Between the establishment of the
Republic of Texas and the Civil War, only J. H. Money, who served between 1837 and 1842,
occupied the office for more than four years. Following the Civil War, however, a majority of
the judges served twice that long. George Johnson and S. R. Blake both sat on the bench for ten
years. Finally, the wealthiest of the county no longer dominated its politics. In the last decade
before the Civil War, the county judge listed an average wealth of just under $28,500, with
Crump averaging nearly $70,000 throughout his term. Contrast this number with that of the
postbellum county judges. On average, Austin County judges in the quarter century after the war
reported wealth of only $2,299.43
Two of Austin County’s five Reconstruction and postbellum era judges shared one
important bit of history with their antebellum predecessors: slavery. George W. Johnson and S.
R. Blake were either slaveholders or descended from slaveholding families. The 1860 tax rolls
list Johnson as owning seven slaves. Blake descended from a prominent planter family. His
father, also named S. R., owned twenty-two slaves in 1860.44
From the county’s beginnings to the late nineteenth century, it underwent a fundamental
shift in its economic and political elite. For much of the antebellum period, slaveholders
dominated the local economy and politics. This dominance grew when slavery expanded to the
point that Austin possessed one of the largest slave populations in the state. Between 1837 and
1856 minor slaveholders (those owning nineteen or fewer slaves) dominated the most important
local office, county judge. As the Civil War approached, however, larger slaveholders, including
two planters, came to control the chief magistracy.
43
Austin County Tax Rolls, 1866-1890.
44
Ibid., 1860.
75
Lawyer
$2,066
1880-1889
Blake, S. R.*
GA
Justice of the Peace
$3,790
1876-1880
Bell, John P.
TX
Farmer/Retired Probate
Judge
$500
1870-1876
Hayford, Daniel
ME
Legislator
$988
1869-1870
Abbott, Charles
NH
Lawyer
IL
$4,149
Johnson, George W. 1866-1869
Name
Tenure
Average Wealth
During Term
Birth
State
Occupation
Table 3.14. Austin County judges, 1866-1890
Sources: 1860 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Austin County, Texas (Roll 1287); 1870 U. S. Census, Inhabitant
Schedule, Austin County, Texas (Roll 1574); 1880 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Austin County, Texas (Roll
1289); Austin County Tax Rolls 1866-1890; Election Registers.
Note: Asterisk indicates a member of an antebellum planter family.
76
Between 1865 and 1890 Austin County witnessed the rise of a new economic and
political elite. After abolition the antebellum planter class lost substantial percentages of its
previous wealth by the loss of slaves, the number of acres owned, and the value of land.
Although the majority of those owning $10,000 or more in 1870 were the former planters
themselves, the 1870s marked the rise of a new upper class as former non-slaveholders and small
holders gradually replaced the antebellum planters as the wealthiest individuals within the
county. As early as 1880, the former planter class, along with minor slaveholders, no longer
represented a majority of the wealthiest individuals of the county. By 1890 only one of the
antebellum planters’ descendants owned enough property to be listed among this new elite.
Beginning particularly after Texas’s annexation, slaveholding directly corresponded with the
possession of political power within the county. Two planters and three smaller slave owners
occupied the office of the county judge before 1865. Following the war, however, small holders
and non-slaveholders began to control the county’s key political offices, particularly the county
judgeship. Furthermore, while the antebellum county judge was typically a farmer and smaller
slaveholder, postbellum judges were usually trained in the legal profession. The planters of
Austin County were swept away from their antebellum wealth less than a generation after the
Civil War.
77
CHAPTER 4
THE ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL ELITE OF BRAZORIA COUNTY, 1860-1890
Brazoria County was among the most important regions in nineteenth-century Texas.
Many of the Old Three Hundred settled within it, the Texas Revolution ended there, the early
Republic of Texas chose one of its cities as the capital, some of Texas‟s earliest leaders lived
here, and it continually ranked among the leading agricultural counties in the state. Brazoria did
suffer from the effects of abolition, but the post-Civil War introduction of convict labor allowed
it to recover some of its antebellum production numbers.
If one defines the antebellum South as a society in which slavery determines the
economic and social character of the community, then Brazoria County could be one of the most
“southern” of Texas societies. Historian Ira Berlin describes two different types of slave
communities: a society with slaves and a slave society. In a society with slaves, slaveholdings
were small, the line between free and slave was blurry, and the “peculiar institution” was another
form of labor. In slave societies, slavery gave the economy its agricultural character, and the
master-slave relationship was the model for all social relations. Antebellum Brazoria Country
was the quintessential slave society, particularly following Texas‟s entrance into the Union,
which produced a wave of immigrants, both voluntary and involuntary. Its chief crops, cotton
and sugar, were highly labor-intensive. The presence of sugar plantations meant that Brazoria
County was among the most
populous slave regions in the state and had some of the highest agricultural output within Texas.1
Of the Old Three Hundred, seventy-two gained land grants in Brazoria County. The most
prominent of this group was Stephen F. Austin himself (see Table 4.1). He described the area as
1
Ira Berlin, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America (Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1998), 8.
78
Table 4.1. Landowning members of the Old Three Hundred in Brazoria County, 1824-1827
Name
Alley, William
Alsbury, Harvey
Alsbury, Thomas
Angier, Samuel T.
Austin, John
Austin, Santiago E. B.
Austin, Stephen F.
Bailey, James B.
Bell, Josiah H.
Bell, Thomas B.
Biggam, Fras
Borden, Thomas
Bradley, Edward R.
Bradley, John
Breen, Charles
Calvit, Alexander
Carson, William C.
Carter, Samuel
Chance, Samuel
Charles, Isaac N.
Clarke, Antony R.
Coles, John P.
Cummings, James
Cummings, John
Name
Cummings, Rebecca
Cummings, William
Dillard, Nicholas
Fields, John F.
Fulschear, Charles
Garrett, Charles
Gorbet, Chester S.
Groce, Jared E.
Hall, John W.
Harris, William
Harrison, George
Hensley, James
Jamison, Thomas
Jones, Oliver
Keep, Imla
McCroskey, John
McCormick, David
McFarlan, Aechilles
McNeel Daniel
McNeel, George W.
McNeel, John G.
McNeel, John
McNeel, Pleasant D.
McNeel, Sterling
Name
Marsh, Shubael
Martin, Wily
Mathis, William
Minus, Joseph
Mitchell, Asa
Nucklos, M. B.
Parker, William
Pettus, Freeman
Phelps, James A. E.
Phillips, Zeno
Prater, William
Richardson, Stephen
Robbins, William
Roberts, William
Robinson, A.
Robinson, George.
Smith, Cornelius
Tally, David
Thompson, Jesse
Tong, James F.
Varner, Martin
Wells, Francis F.
White, Joseph
Williams, Samuel M.
Source: Wallace, Vigness, and Ward, Documents of Texas History, 151-158.
79
Brazoria – County Seat*
Figure 4.1. Location of Brazoria County, 1860. (Source: Campbell, Empire for Slavery, 3;
originally created by Terry G. Jordan, Walter Prescott Webb Chair of History and Ideas,
University of Texas).
Note: Brazoria was the county seat until 1896 when Angleton replaced it (Diana J. Kleiner, “Brazoria County,” New
Handbook of Texas, 1:709).
80
“good in every respect [a] man could wish for, land first rate, plenty of timber, fine water.” He
chose it as the location of the majority of his personal landholdings. Approximately 77,600 of
his 101,000 acres were in Brazoria County.2
Following the fall of the Alamo and Colonel James W. Fannin‟s defeat at the Battle of
Coleto Creek in March 1836, the remaining Texian army under Major General Sam Houston
retreated eastward across Texas toward San Jacinto. On April 21 Houston made his stand there
in neighboring Harris County. Following the Texian victory and the capture of Mexican
President Antonio López de Santa Anna the next day, the Mexican leader would sign the two
Treaties of Velasco, located in Brazoria.3
On December 20, 1836, the Republic of Texas formally established the county. In
addition, the Republic of Texas Congress named Columbia, located in Brazoria, as the
Republic‟s capital because many of its, and the future state‟s, prominent men lived in the area.
Anson Jones, the last president of the Republic was a lawyer in the town of Brazoria. In
addition, Elisha M. Pease, who served as governor both before and after the Civil War, also
resided in the county.4
Throughout the antebellum period, Brazoria County underwent a massive growth,
particularly in terms of slavery. The 1860 tax rolls list 4,782 slaves in the county. This made
Brazoria the fourth largest slaveholding county in Texas that year. Only Harrison (8,101),
Washington (6,616), and Grimes (4,850) had more. With a land area of 1,407 square miles, the
2
T. R. Fehrenbach, Lone Star: A History of Texas and Texans (New York: MacMillan Company, 1968),
138 [quotation]; Wallace, Vigness, and Ward, Documents of Texas History, 151-158.
3
Today the town of Velasco does not exist. It was incorporated into the town of Freeport on July 27, 1957
(Diana J. Kleiner, “Freeport, Texas,” New Handbook of Texas, 2:1169).
4
Betsy J. Powers, “From Cotton Fields to Oil Fields: Economic Development in a New South Community”
(Ph.D. diss., University of Houston, 1994), 23; “Pease, Elisha M.,” Biographical Encyclopedia of Texas (New York:
Southern Publishing Company, 1880), 17.
81
county‟s number of slaves per square mile was 3.4, higher than Austin County (3.26) but much
lower than Harrison, which had 9.06. The county also had an unusually high concentration of
bondsmen per owner. According to historian Gavin Wright, the average southern slaveholder
owned ten slaves. In Brazoria that average was twenty-two. The percentage of slaves living on
plantations also exceeded the state average. In 1860 only 1.2 percent of Texas‟s slaves lived on
plantations of twenty or more slaves. In Harrison it was 42 percent. In Brazoria 80 percent of
the county‟s slaves resided on plantations of this size.5
This high concentration of slaves on individual plantations, as historian Betsy Powers
argues, was due to the presence of large sugar plantations. Brazoria‟s location on the coast and
its weather was conducive to sugar cultivation. It easily out-produced all other Texas counties in
terms of cane sugar and gallons of cane molasses produced. In 1860 the U. S. Census reported
that Brazoria‟s sugar plantations produced 3,856 hogsheads (3,856,000 pounds) of cane sugar,
along with 346,640 gallons of cane molasses. Matagorda County ranked second in terms of
molasses with 16,610 gallons, or less than 5 percent of Brazoria‟s total production. In fact, the
county produced 58 percent of all Texas‟s cane molasses in 1860.6
Sugar production was considerably more expensive than cotton culture, and once it
entered the county, the slave population exploded to the point that slaves outnumbered whites
three to one. According to historians Richard G. Lowe and Randolph B. Campbell, only the
5
Brazoria County Tax Rolls, 1860; Grimes County Tax Rolls, 1860; Harrison County Tax Rolls, 1860;
Peter Paris, Slavery: History and Historians (New York: Harper & Row, 1989), 27; Campbell, Southern Community
in Crisis, 121; Gavin Wright, Political Economy of the Cotton South (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.,
1978), 33; John B. Boles, Black Southerners, 1619-1869 (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1984), 75;
Kleiner, “Brazoria County,” New Handbook of Texas, 1:709; Campbell, Empire for Slavery, 264-266; Powers,
“From Cotton Fields to Oil Fields,” 55-56, 69.
6
Kennedy, Agriculture of the United States in 1860, 143, 147, 151; Lowe and Campbell, Planters and
Plain Folk, 20; Powers, “From Cotton Fields to Oil Fields,” 68. Despite these seemingly high numbers, Texas
consistently ranked behind Louisiana, which produced 95 percent of the nation‟s sugar (Kennedy, Agriculture of the
United States in 1860, 69).
82
wealthiest planters were able to produce the crop. Sugar production required a comparatively
large investment in equipment and labor to be profitable. It was so expensive that small-scale
production could not produce a profit. Sugar houses contained boilers and steam kettles and
could range in cost anywhere between $5,000 and $50,000 each. Some of the Brazorian sugar
barons included Hamlin Bass, William Joel Bryan, Levi Jordan, David G. Mills, Mordello S.
Munson, and John Sweeney. These planters owned estates worth $821,080, an average of
$164,216 each. Of these, only Bass and Mills, each of whom owned more than 100 slaves,
concentrated solely on sugar.7
Sugar farming was considerably more laborious than cotton production. Sugar planters
placed several inches of soil on top of the roots to protect them in the winter and weeded every
ten days from January or February to June. Harvesting, generally occurring in October, was the
most labor intensive period as slaves worked around the clock, including Sundays, to process the
stalks before the arrival of colder weather could spoil the crop.8
Like other counties with many bondsmen, Brazoria overwhelmingly supported secession.
On February 23, 1861, the residents of the county voted 527 for, and only 2 against, leaving the
Union. This vote, according to historian Walter Buenger, reflected Brazoria County‟s location in
the state, the nature of its economy, and the character of its inhabitants. Buenger divides 1861
Texas into three distinct areas. He described the area from the Texas/Louisiana border to the
96th degree of latitude as the homogeneous Lower South. From 96 to 98 degrees, incorporating
Montague County in the north and Cameron County in the south, was the humid East. This was
7
Brazoria County Tax Rolls, 1860; Abner J. Strobel. The Old Plantations and Their Owners of Brazoria
County, Texas (Austin: Shelby, 1980), 8, 9, 13, 15; Lowe and Campbell, Planters and Plain Folk, 21; Campbell and
Lowe, Wealth and Power in Antebellum Texas, 16, 139; Powers, “From Cotton Fields to Oil Fields,” 34; Ralph A.
Wooster “Notes on Texas‟ Largest Slaveholders, 1860,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly 65 (July 1961): 75;
Campbell, Empire for Slavery, 274.
8
Lowe and Campbell, Planters and Plain Folk, 20-21.
83
where the greatest number of Texas unionists resided. Between 98 and 100 degrees was the end
of white settlement before the beginning of the Texas frontier.9
Brazoria County was solidly within the homogeneous Lower South section of Texas.
This area, Buenger argues, was the extension of the southeast United States. Southerners from
Lower South states, such as Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia typically moved here,
particularly following Texas‟s statehood in 1845. With a homogeneous white population came a
homogeneous economy, and a plantation society dominated the region.10
Brazoria County‟s zeal for the Confederacy was not limited to overwhelming support of
secession. It also contributed war materiel to the Rebel war effort. Between 1862 and 1864
James Henry Dance along with his brothers owned and operated J. H. Dance and Company,
which produced firearms, mounted cannons, repaired Confederate supply wagons, and ground
cornmeal for Bates‟s Company, a unit raised in the area.11
Brazoria also supplied men to fight in the war. President Abraham Lincoln‟s imposition
of a blockade on southern ports made Brazoria‟s coastline subject to Union naval attack. Work
on the defense of the Texas coast began immediately after secession, and Velasco received a
twenty-four pounder cannon. In addition to coastal defense, Brazorians also fought in units
created in and around the county. John A. Wharton, a Brazoria planter and resident, commanded
Company B of the Eighth Texas Cavalry Regiment, a famous unit also known as Terry‟s Texas
Rangers. Men from Brazoria and Matagorda Counties were a majority within this company.
9
Winkler, Journal of the Secession Convention of Texas, 1861, 88-90; Election Registers; Walter L.
Buenger, Secession and the Union in Texas (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1984), 15; Timmons, “Referendum
in Texas on the Ordinance of Secession,” 15.
10
Buenger, Secession and the Union in Texas, 10-12.
11
Gary Wiggins, “Dance Brothers,” New Handbook of Texas, 2:499; Kleiner, “Brazoria County,” New
Handbook of Texas, 1:709.
84
Joseph Bates also served in the Confederate Army as the colonel of the Thirteenth Texas Infantry
Regiment. Furthermore, most of the company‟s commissioned and non-commissioned officers
lived in Brazoria. In addition to this unit, the county also mustered Gibson‟s Battery and the
infantry companies known as the Columbia Blues and Alamo Guards.12
On January 18, 1862, the U. S. S. Rachel Seaman, Midnight, and Arthur shelled the
Velasco fortifications for thirty minutes but ultimately withdrew. During this engagement the
shore batteries shot so quickly and accurately that the commanding officer of the Midnight,
Lieutenant James Trathern, insisted that the fortification had “heavy guns, one or more of them
rifled.” As historian James Creighton points out, Velasco had a single eighteen-pounder
cannon.13
Throughout the war, Union ships raided the coast, attacking the salt works near the mouth
of the San Bernard River and eventually taking nearby Matagorda Island. In April 1864,
however, the Federals abandoned the island to give Union Major General Nathaniel P. Banks
additional men for his Red River Campaign in Louisiana. This withdrawal marked the end of the
military threat to the county. Brazoria‟s connection to the war would last to the end. At the
Battle of Palmito Ranch near Brownsville on May 13, 1865, Colonel O. G. Jones‟s battery,
which was previously stationed at Cedar Lake, fired the last cannon shot of the Civil War.14
Brazoria County‟s agricultural output severely declined in the aftermath of abolition.
Despite an increase in the number of improved acres between 1860 and 1870, farm values
12
James A. Creighton, A Narrative History of Brazoria County (Angleton: Brazoria County Historical
Commission, 1975), 232, 245; Alwyn Barr, “Texas Coastal Defense, 1861-1865,” Southwest Historical Quarterly
45 (July 1961): 4.
13
United States Navy Department, The War of the Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and
Confederate Navies 31 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1884-1924), Series I, Volume 17, pp.
79-80 [quotation]; Creighton, Narrative History of Brazoria County, 232-233.
14
Creighton, Narrative History of Brazoria County, 235, 239, 243, 245, 255.
85
plummeted 70 percent, from $4,815,608 to $1,435,070. As in Austin County, the number of
hogs fell by more than half, from 15,674 to 7,437. Indian corn suffered a decrease of nearly
100,000 bushels in the same period, from 299,820 in 1860 to 207,881 ten years later. As in other
counties, cotton production also fell. In 1860 Brazoria produced 12,215 bales of ginned cotton.
In 1870 that number was 2,988.15
The greatest decline that Brazoria experienced was in its sugar industry. Emblematic of
the former planters‟ failure to find suitable labor for the cane field, sugar production went from
3,856 hogsheads (1,000 pounds) in 1860 to 1,423 ten years later. Even steeper was the drop in
gallons of molasses, from 346,640 to 92,450.
Following Reconstruction, however, Brazoria‟s agriculture began to recover, particularly
because of the availability of cheap convict labor in the county after the state privatized its
penitentiary system. Although slavery was no longer a legal form of labor, sugar plantation
owners still required workers to labor in their fields. Historian Ralph Shlomowitz argues that
sharecropping was not the ideal form of labor for sugarcane. The nature of sugar production,
which Shlomowitz describes as “backbreaking,” was less practical for sharecroppers than
growing cotton. Wage labor did not provide the autonomy that former slaves desired following
abolition. Furthermore, according to historian Clement Eaton, planters lacked the money for
wage labor.16
With slavery abolished, Brazoria County‟s sugar barons required governmental
intervention to provide work in their fields. On March 22, 1871, the Texas legislature ordered
15
Kennedy, Agriculture of the United States in 1860, 148-149; Walker, Statistics of the Wealth and
Industry of the United States, 1870, 250-261.
16
Ralph Shlomowitz, “‟Bound‟ or „Free‟? Black Labor in Cotton and Sugarcane Farming, 1865-1880,” The
Journal of Southern History 50 (November 1984): 585; Eaton, Waning of the Old South Civilization, 126.
86
the state‟s penitentiary system to be self-sufficient. The law authorized the governor to lease
state prisons for a period between ten to fifteen years. It required that the lessee(s) “furnish
everything that is necessary for the support and maintenance of the penitentiary.” In addition it
allowed the lessee(s) to direct the labor of the convicts within the institutions. Under this
arrangement the prison administrators leased the convicts to work in private industry.17
Low-cost convict labor was attractive to Brazoria‟s sugar producers. During the 1870s
and 1880s, private industry controlled the entire state‟s prison system with little to no
intervention from the state. The sugar industry‟s connection with Texas prisons had grown to
such an extent that E. H. Cunningham and L. A. Ellis, the owners of what would become
Imperial Sugar, managed the state prisons between 1877 and 1883. They sublet the inmates‟
labor to farmers, railroad companies, and salt industries. Three years later the state took partial
control of the prison population and leased convicts to the cotton and sugar plantations in
Brazoria and Fort Bend Counties. By 1890, 50 percent of Texas‟s prisoners worked in the
sugarcane fields of Brazoria and Fort Bend Counties. The convict lease system ended when the
state regained complete control of the prison system in 1914.18
By the end of the nineteenth-century, Texas ranked second after Louisiana in sugar
production in the United States. The Brazoria County area became known as the “sugar bowl of
Texas.” Convict labor allowed Brazoria‟s sugar farmers to produce more in 1890 than they had
in 1870, albeit never again did they produce at antebellum levels. In 1890 Brazoria produced
17
Gammel, Laws of Texas, 1822-1897, 6:14-16 [quotation].
18
Donald R. Walker, Penology for Profit: A History of the Texas Prison System, 1867-1912 (College
Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1988), 46; Williams, Beyond Redemption, 91; Powers, “From Cotton Fields
to Oil Fields,” 35; Diana J. Kleiner, “Imperial Sugar Company,” New Handbook of Texas, 3:820-821; Donald R.
Walker, “Convict Lease System,” New Handbook of Texas, 2:298-299; Paul M. Lucko, “Prison System,” New
Handbook of Texas, 5:342; Woodward, Origins of the New South, 424.
87
nearly 1,900 hogsheads (1,900,000 pounds) of cane sugar and 92,965 gallons of molasses. In
comparison, those numbers in 1860 were 3,856 hogsheads and 346,640 gallons.19
As in Austin County, Brazoria‟s large black population and the disfranchisement of some
conservatives helped lead to Republican victories during Reconstruction. In 1869 Brazoria
supported radical Republican Edmund J. Davis for governor over Andrew Jackson Hamilton.
Two years later residents voted for Republican William T. Clark, who had risen to the rank of
major general in the Union army. The county overwhelmingly supported President Ulysses S.
Grant in his bid for re-election in 1872 with 81 percent of all ballots cast. Further reflecting the
dramatic increase of Republican voters, -- i.e., freedmen -- Brazoria supported Davis‟s reelection in 1873, giving him 76 percent of its vote. Only Webb, Fort Bend, and Medina Counties
had higher percentages for Davis. Brazoria, along with neighboring Fort Bend, voted in the
state‟s Third District, which in total supported Richard Coke 58 to 42 percent. Despite the return
of “home rule” in Texas with Coke‟s election in 1873, Brazoria County elected one of the last
two black members to serve in the Texas House of Representatives until 1966. In 1894 Nathan
H. Haller, a former slave, was elected to the state House of Representatives. Two years later he
won re-election. Following this term he retired to Houston.20
As Table 4.2 shows, fifty-three Brazoria County residents owned twenty or more slaves.
The 1860 U. S. Census provides demographic information for all but ten of these planters. Of
19
Cindy Wilke, “Sugar Production,” New Handbook of Texas, 6:141 [quotation]; Kennedy, Agriculture of
the United States in 1860, 140, 141, 143; Walker, Statistics of the Wealth and Industry of the United States, 250253; Porter, Report on the Statistics of Agriculture in the United States at the Eleventh Census, 405.
20
Election Registers; W. Marvin Dulaney, “African Americans,” New Handbook of Texas, 1:50;
Moneyhon, Republicanism in Reconstruction Texas, 209, 213, 216, 221, 223; Kleiner, “Brazoria County,” New
Handbook of Texas, 1:710; Paul M. Lucko, “Haller, Nathan H,” New Handbook of Texas, 3:419.
R. L. Smith of Colorado County was the only black legislator left in Congress until he retired in 1899. (“Lawrence
D. Rice, “Smith, Robert Lloyd,” New Handbook of Texas, 5:1108.
88
Table 4.2. Brazoria County planters, 1860
Name
Slaves
Estate
Armstrong, George
Bass, Hamlin
Bates, Joseph
Bryan, William J.
Campbell, James
Clark, J. H.
Collins, R. M.
Desel, C. M.
Gaines, W. B. P.
Gill, W. F.
Hamilton, Lynch
Harrison, Elsy
Hill, William G.
Jackson, Abner
Jones, John H.
Jordan, Levi
Kennedy, W.
Kyle, William
McGreen, John
McNeil, John G.
Mills, David G.
Mims, Sarah
Morris, A. T.
Muchlin, J. D.
Munson, Girane B.
Munson, Mordello
Patton, Charles
37
206
32
40
43
20
40
25
46
36
106
26
65
175
24
128
120
48
22
150
305
45
24
26
35
24
23
$35,550
$233,765
$49,800
$138,096
$50,500
$32,450
$83,150
$32,700
$72,900
$44,250
$132,860
$43,050
$111,564
$316,360
$37,685
$143,460
$151,240
$46,090
$33,754
$236,380
$450,824
$138,450
$35,100
$37,075
$79,087
$27,050
$14,450
Name
Perry, Stephen
Rose, William A.
Rowe, Shadrach
Smith, George
Spencer, Joel
Staton, John M.
Strongfellow, B.
Sweeney, John W.
Sweeney, J.
Sweeney, S. C.
Sweeney, T.
Tankersley, G.
Terry, Aurelius
Tillman, Frank
Tinsley, Isaac
Towns, R.
Underwood, A.
Ward, William
Westall, A.
Wharton, John A.
Wilson, Joseph E.
Winston, A.
Winston, F.
Winston, L.
Winston, R. E.
Young, Overton
Slaves
Estate
24
35
35
51
101
20
24
24
32
36
36
60
20
22
30
46
37
62
150
133
31
23
23
26
31
27
$71,040
$45,500
$52,900
$92,295
$95,400
$15,100
$22,236
$61,650
$20,685
$39,422
$50,774
$66,535
$69,500
$25,522
$62,590
$29,140
$57,660
$85,190
$65,217
$167,004
$46,560
$33,500
$34,800
$36,080
$52,920
$42,650
Sources: Brazoria County Tax Rolls, 1860; 1860 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Brazoria County, Texas (Roll 1289).
89
the forty-eight whose sex could be determined, forty-four, or 92 percent, were male. Brazoria‟s
planters owned a combined 3,010 slaves, or 63 percent of the 4,782 slaves in Brazoria County
that year. With 305 bondsmen, David G. Mills was the largest slaveholder in both Brazoria and
the state. The average planter age was 41, with the youngest at 22 and the oldest at 67. Finally,
each planter‟s estate was worth an average of $78,872, or nearly $15,500 more than Austin
County‟s planter estates.21
As in the rest of the state, the majority of the county‟s largest slaveholders were born
outside of Texas. Brazoria‟s planters conformed to Buenger‟s homogeneous Lower
South model. Individuals from Lower South states were a plurality, with twenty of all the top
slaveholders within the county. Upper South natives were the second-largest
group with seventeen. Those whose nativity could not be determined totaled eleven. The
remaining five were northern-born (three) and Texas natives (two).22
The value of slaves averaged 50 percent of the planters‟ total wealth (see Table 4.3). Of
those who owned one hundred or more, slaves constituted an average of 46 percent of total
wealth. Andrew E. Westall‟s 150 slaves constituted only 29 percent of his total estate. At the
other extreme, however, Hamlin Bass‟s 206 bondsmen equaled 62 percent of his wealth.23
Although some of the wealthiest Texans lived within Brazoria County, this wealth did not
necessarily translate into elective political power at the county level. The numbers in Table 4.4
represent the average number of slaves and reported wealth that Brazoria‟s county judges
possessed during their tenure. From the founding of the county in 1837 to 1865, slaveholders
21
Brazoria County Tax Rolls, 1860; Campbell, Empire for Slavery, 264.
22
Ibid.; 1860 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Brazoria County, Texas (Roll 1289); Wooster “Notes on
Texas‟ Largest Slaveholders, 1860,” 75.
23
Brazoria County Tax Rolls, 1860.
90
Table 4.3. Percentage of the value of slaves within planters‟ estates, 1860
Slave
Value
Estate
Percent
Name
Slave
Value
Estate
Percent
Armstrong, G.
$22,800
$35,550
64%
Munson, Girane
$19,200
$79,087
24%
Bass, Hamlin
$144,200
$233,765
62%
Munson, M.
$12,000
$27,050
44%
Bates, Joseph
$19,200
$49,800
39%
Patton, Charles
$13,800
$14,450
96%
Bryan, William
$32,000
$138,096
23%
Perry, Stephen
$14,400
$71,040
20%
Campbell, James
$27,600
$50,500
55%
Rowe, Shadrach
$19,800
$52,900
37%
Clark, J. H.
$11,400
$32,450
35%
Smith, George
$30,600
$92,295
33%
Collins, R. M.
$42,000
$83,150
51%
Spencer, Joel
$60,600
$95,400
64%
Desel, C. M.
$20,000
$32,700
61%
Staton, John M.
$14,000
$15,100
93%
Gaines, W. B. P.
$34,400
$72,900
47%
Strongfellow, B.
$14,400
$22,236
65%
Gill, W. F.
$21,600
$44,250
49%
Sweeney, John
$10,100
$61,650
16%
Hamilton, Lynch
$63,660
$132,860
48%
Sweeney, J.
$19,200
$20,685
93%
Harrison, Elsy
$18,200
$43,050
42%
Sweeney, S. C
$19,200
$39,422
49%
Hill, William G.
$39,600
$111,564
35%
Sweeney, T.
$21,600
$50,774
43%
Jackson, Abner
$105,000
$316,360
33%
Tankersley, G.
$48,000
$66,535
72%
Jones, John H.
$19,200
$143,460
13%
Terry, Aurelius
$15,000
$69,500
22%
Jordan, Levi
$78,000
$151,240
52%
Tillman, Frank
$14,300
$25,522
56%
Kennedy, W.
$78,000
$151,240
52%
Tinsley, Isaac
$21,000
$62,590
34%
Kyle, William
$46,090
$62,400
74%
Towns, R.
$27,600
$29,140
95%
McGreen, John
$13,800
$33,754
41%
Underwood, A.
$22,200
$57,660
39%
McNeil, John G.
$102,000
$236,380
43%
Ward, William
$37,200
$85,190
44%
Mills, David G.
$183,000
$450,824
41%
Westall, A.
$19,200
$65,217
29%
Mims, Sarah
$57,500
$138,450
42%
Wharton, John
$79,800
$167,004
48%
Morris, A. T.
$16,200
$35,100
46%
Wilson, Joseph
$20,000
$46,560
43%
Muchlin, J. D.
$20,800
$37,075
56%
Winston, A.
$16,000
$33,500
48%
Munson, Girane
$19,200
$79,087
24%
Winston, F.
$18,000
$34,800
52%
Munson, M.
$12,000
$27,050
44%
Winston, L.
$18,000
$36,080
50%
Patton, Charles
$13,800
$14,450
96%
Winston, R. E.
$20,000
$52,920
38%
Perry, Stephen
$14,400
$71,040
20%
Young, Overton
$20,000
$42,650
47%
Rose, William
$25,000
$45,500
55%
Name
Source: Brazoria County Tax Rolls, 1860.
91
and non-slaveholders evenly split the chief magistracy with four apiece. On average, the slave
owning judges possessed five slaves during their tenure. Planters, apparently content to let
others handle county politics, never sat behind the county bench.24
Before the war ended, the planter class was already collapsing. The period between 1860
and 1870 witnessed the loss of several members of the antebellum elite. During the war Abner
Jackson, William Kyle, and John A. Wharton died. Colonel George W. Baylor, the brother of
the Confederate Arizona military governor Colonel John Baylor, shot and killed Wharton on
April 6, 1865. Furthermore, twelve of the planters‟ estates would go to probate court between
1860 and 1869. According to the tax rolls, only one family member of these deceased planters,
Terry‟s widow, Minifred, remained in the county by 1870. Her total estate was worth just
$1,000.25
As in Austin County, some of the planters either planned to or did move out of the
country after the war. R. M. Collins, Mordello S. Munson (who never actually moved), and
other Brazorians formed the Tuxpan Land Company, which purchased half a million acres near
Vera Cruz, Mexico. In addition to these planters, George Jackson, the son of Abner Jackson,
moved to Tuxpan, although he stayed for only a few months.26
24
Brazoria County Tax Rolls, 1837-1865; Election Registers.
25
Brazoria County Probate Records, J:62, 167, 215, 392, 602, 624, 625, 720; K:40, 110, 238, 257; Work
Projects Administration, Index to Probate Cases of Texas: No. 20, Brazoria County March 30, 1832 – October 29,
1939 (San Antonio: Statewide Records Indexing and Inventory Program, 1942) 2, 9. 10, 25, 27, 30, 32, 41, 45, 46,
50, 57-60, 62, 63; Brazoria County Tax Rolls, 1870; Marilyn M. Sibley, “Jackson, Abner,” New Handbook of Texas,
3:892; Stephen L. Hardin, “Kyle, William Jefferson,” New Handbook of Texas, 3:1172.
26
Strobel, Old Plantations and Their Owners of Brazoria County, 41-42; Creighton, Narrative History of
Brazoria County, Texas, 267. The Mexican Emperor Maximilian I appointed former Confederate commodore
Matthew F. Maury as commissioner of immigration. His efforts helped establish a colony for disaffected
southerners called Carlotta, seventy miles west of Vera Cruz (Eaton, Waning of the Old South Civilization, 116).
92
7
0
1850-1862
1862-1865
Perkins, Steven W.
Cox, C. R.
McCormick, Andrew P. 1865-1866
5
0
1848-1850
Purcell, Edward
2
1846-1848
0
4
0
Middleton, Samuel W.
1846
1842-1846
Pillsbury, Timothy
Purcell, Edward
1837-1842
Williamson, G. B.
Name
$9,460
$10,175
$10,200
$3,333
$550
$3,480
$7,195
$715
Farmer
Farmer
Farmer
Farmer*
Farmer*
Merchant*
Farmer*
N/A
Average Number
Average Wealth
Tenure of Slaves Owned
Occupation
during Term
during Term
Table 4.4. Antebellum and Civil War-era Brazoria County judges, 1837-1866
Source: Election Registers, Brazoria County Tax Rolls, 1839-1866; 1850 U. S. Census, Brazoria County, Texas
(Roll 908); 1860 U. S. Census, Brazoria County, Texas (Roll 1289).
Note: Asterisks indicate occupation as listed by the 1850 U. S. Census.
93
For those twenty-one former planters who remained in the county in 1870, abolition had
mixed financial consequences. All experienced a decrease in wealth, yet the extent of the loss
varied widely among individual planters (see Table 4.5). George A. Smith lost the greatest
amount as his estate fell in value from $92,295 to $2,000, a 98 percent decrease. In 1860 Smith
listed himself as owning fifty-one slaves, valued at $30,600, and 3,107 acres of land worth
roughly $60,000. Abolition, therefore, directly accounted for one-third of Smith‟s total loss. His
loss in land was more drastic. His holdings dwindled to just 200 acres by 1870, the only taxable
property he listed that year.27
While most planters lost most of their pre-war wealth, two were able to retain a
substantial portion of their estates. William J. Bryan, as mentioned in the introduction, was the
only individual in the counties under examination to own $100,000 or more in property in the
1870 census. The tax rolls list Bryan‟s wealth at the lower figure of $72,390, 52 percent of his
1860 estate. He was able to maintain half of his previous wealth partly because of Republican
efforts to promote railroads in Texas. In 1865 he granted right of way to the Houston and Texas
Central Railway through his Brazos County holdings, which totaled 7,071 acres worth $17,182
five years earlier.28
Stephen S. Perry retained 95 percent of his antebellum estate. Slaves accounted for only
20 percent of his prewar wealth. Furthermore, he was the scion of one of the most prominent
families within Brazoria County and inherited a substantial amount of property during the war.
His father, James Franklin, was the second husband of Emily Austin, the empressario‟s sister.
27
Brazoria County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870.
28
Ibid.; Lillian Childress, “Bryan, William Joel,” New Handbook of Texas, 1:793. Part of the creation of
the railroad in Brazos County was the establishment of a new township. The new city of Bryan was named after
him because of his financial assistance and his help to establish the new town‟s bank
94
Table 4.5. Total estates of 1860 planters as listed in the 1870 tax rolls
Armstrong, George
Bates, Joseph
Bryan, William J.
Desel, C. M.
Gaines, W. B. P.
Jordan, Levi
Kennedy, William
McNeil, John G.
Morris, A. T.
Munson, Girane B.
Munson, Mordello S.
Perry, Stephen S.
Smith, George A.
Sweeney, J. W.
Sweeney, John
Sweeney, S. C.
Sweeney, Thomas J.
Tinsley, Isaac
Underwood, A.
Winston, Anthony
Young, Overton
1860
Estate
$35,550
$49,800
$138,096
$32,700
$72,900
$143,460
$151,240
$236,380
$35,100
$79,087
$27,050
$71,040
$92,295
$20,685
$61,650
$39,422
$50,774
$62,590
$57,660
$33,500
$42,650
1870
Estate
$9,570
$15,185
$72,390
$7,370
$12,335
$17,607
$27,075
$55,767
$7,168
$4,808
$12,527
$67,415
$2,000
$5,145
$11,300
$4,129
$9,500
$13,372
$2,000
$2,650
$5,500
Percentage of
1860 Estate Lost
73%
70%
48%
77%
83%
88%
82%
76%
80%
94%
54%
5%
98%
75%
82%
90%
81%
79%
97%
92%
87%
Averages
$73,030
$17,372
77%
Name
Source: Brazoria County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870.
95
He took over his father‟s Peach Point plantation when James died in 1853 of yellow fever. In
1861 he inherited a portion of his mother‟s estate. Moses Austin Bryan, William Joel Bryan,
Guy M. Bryan, and Perry all agreed to split the inherited property. Of the more than 30,000
acres that Emily Perry owned in and around Brazoria County, Stephen received more than
10,000 acres, along with his sister Eliza‟s entire interest in their father‟s land. Part of this land
deal was half of the Austin League Number Two, which the parties valued at $106,680. Also
benefitting from this arrangement was William Joel Bryan who inherited more than 5,000 acres
of land. 29
In 1861 and 1867 Bryan and Perry twice engaged in land deals that would give the latter
an additional 1,500 acres of land. In 1861 Perry purchased 950 acres from Bryan, some of which
was originally granted to Austin himself, for $2,400. Finally, in 1867, Bryan sold another 650
acres “more or less” for the sum of $6,620.30
By 1870 only twenty of the fifty-three antebellum planters were listed in the tax rolls. As
Table 4.6 demonstrates, more than half (eleven) of the planters lost acreage and land value
between 1860 and 1870. Twelve of them lost acres, five gained, and four owned the same
number in both years. Only one, Perry, was able to increase the value of his holdings. Like
those who were able to increase their property in Austin County, he had to acquire a substantial
number of new acres, over 10,000, to augment the value of his lands. The remaining nineteen
experienced drastic losses in the value of their land holdings. In 1860 these twenty planters
owned a total of 24,315 acres, which were worth a total of $334,411. Ten years later they owned
29
Brazoria County Deeds Records, K:164-179; Abigail Curlee, “The History of a Texas Slave Plantation,
1831-1863,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly 26 (1922): 84; Marie Beth Jones, Peach Point Plantation: The First
150 Years (Waco: Texian Press, 1982), 129-130; Light Townsend Cummins, Emily Austin of Texas, 1795-1851
(Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 2009), 217.
30
Brazoria County Deeds Records, K:164-179, 308; L:84-85 [quotation].
96
21,944 acres worth $101,784. This represents a decrease in the average value of an acre from
$13.75 in 1860 to $4.64 in 1870, identical to that in Austin County.31
As mentioned earlier, the possession of presidential pardons meant that Texas planters
were immune from land confiscation. In Brazoria thirty-six individuals applied for pardons, and
all but six were under the Thirteenth Exception (the $20,000 rule), with the remainder coming
from former Confederate-era civil officers. No matter which exception those seeking pardons
filed under, President Andrew Johnson granted amnesty to all those who applied from Brazoria
County. Of the thirty petitioners under the Thirteenth Exception, seventeen, as noted in Table
4.7, were listed as planters in 1860.
Similar to the story in Austin County, those who applied under the Thirteenth Exception argued
that the war had imposed financial hardships on their estates, which they did not believe were
worth more than $20,000.
Like William E. Crump of Austin County, Hamlin Bass applied for Johnson‟s clemency
because of his “suppose[d]” property being greater than $20,000. In 1860 his estate, which
included 216 slaves, was worth more than $233,000. By 1865 it had plummeted more than twothirds of its value to $67,000. Bass‟s petition to Johnson, which Governor Hamilton endorsed on
October 2, 1865, claimed that while sympathetic to the southern cause he had not participated in
it other than “obedience to [the Confederacy‟s] laws and demands.” Furthermore, he asserted
that he had no influence in “bringing about secession,” and described himself as an “industrious
[and] humane planter.” Bass claimed that he was so indebted in 1865 that he doubted that by
satisfying these financial obligations his property would be worth more than $20,000. He
concluded that he was “one of the largest losers in the state by the late Rebellion.” Johnson
31
Brazoria County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870; Brazoria County Deeds Records, J:370-371.
97
3,426
16,897
Kennedy, William
McNeil, John G.
1,435
35,689
3,107
897
2,214
13,785
2,014
3,718
5,294
800
1,280
Munson, Mordello
Perry, Stephen S.
Smith, George A.
Sweeney, J. W.
Sweeney, John
Sweeney, S. C.
Sweeney, Thomas J.
Tinsley, Isaac
Underwood, A.
Winston, Anthony
Young, Overton
651
2,214
Jordan, Levi
Morris, A. T.
3,877
Gaines, W. B. P.
13,507
Bryan, William J.
600
2,260
Bates, Joseph
Desel, C. M.
1,100
Sources: Brazoria County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870.
98
$20,000
$15,000
$25,720
$34,900
$26,077
$17,772
$30,000
$9,195
$60,000
$41,095
$11,500
$16,000
$79,730
$68,620
$40,000
$30,000
$12,000
$80,695
$17,000
$11,000
1,260
200
0
1,410
1,155
950
1,414
888
200
46,153
6,843
83
12,655
3,426
2,214
3,878
600
15,157
2,260
1,950
$4,000
$2,000
$2,000
$4,642
$8,875
$3,800
$7,070
$3,595
$2,000
$60,230
$9,582
$3,000
$48,717
$22,550
$6,647
$7,755
$5,000
$57,340
$4,786
$1,350
-20
-600
-5,294
-2,308
-859
-12,835
-800
-9
-2,907
10,464
5,408
-568
-4,242
0
0
1
0
1,650
0
850
-$16,000
-$13,000
-$23,720
-$30,258
-$17,202
-$13,972
-$22,930
-$5,600
-$58,000
$19,135
-$1,918
-$13,000
-$31,013
-$46,070
-$33,353
-$22,245
-$7,000
-$23,355
-$12,214
-$9,650
1860 Acres 1860 Value 1870 Acres 1870 Value Change in Acres Change in Value
Armstrong, George
Name
Table 4.6. Gains/Losses in acres owned and land values of antebellum planters, 1870
Table 4.7. Brazoria County presidential pardons
Name
Exception
Adriance, John
Bass, Hamlin*
Bates, Joseph*
Bingham, J P
Brooks, J. N.
Bryan, William J
Coffee, Aaron
Collins, R. M.*
Damon, Samuel
Gaines, W. B. P.*
Garnett, H. J.
Hamilton, Lynch T.*
Herndon, John
Jackson, F. M.*
Jordan, Levi*
Kennedy, William*
Lathrop, A. S.
McIntosh, William
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
First
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
First
Thirteenth
Name
McNeil, John*
Millican, C. C.
Mills, David S.*
Morris, A. J.
Payne, William
Perry, Stephen S.*
Rowe, Shadrach
Sharpe, William
Smith, George A.*
Smith, Morgan
Stratton, A. E.
Swain, William F.
Sweeney, John*
Tankersley, J. H.*
Terry, Aurelius J.*
Underwood, Ammon*
Westall, A. E.*
Wilkes, H.
Source: Amnesty Papers (Rolls 52-55).
Note: Asterisks indicate planters.
99
Exception
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
First
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
First
Thirteenth
First
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
First
would ultimately approve Bass‟s application on November 18. In 1870 neither the U. S. Census
nor the 1870 tax rolls or those for any subsequent year list Bass as living in the county.
Additionally, no member of his family, which included five daughters and four sons, lived in the
county.32
Some of those applying for pardons enjoyed the support of key Texas politicians. Before
James H. Bell became the Texas Secretary of State in 1865, the future cabinet member wrote on
behalf of W. B. P. Gaines and A. T. Morris. In a letter to Governor Hamilton, Bell described
Gaines as a “friend of twenty five years” who had “always borne the reputation of an honorable
gentlemen.” He described Morris as “a worthy gentleman who has always devoted his time to
the practice of his profession.” In both of the endorsements, Bell intimated that each of the
applicants, although living in a heavily pro-secession county, had “nothing to do with politics.”
With Bell‟s support and with Hamilton‟s endorsement to the president, Johnson would ultimately
approve both applications.33
Three of the planters‟ direct descendants would remain in the county, although
possessing only a small portion of their families‟ antebellum wealth. In 1860 Stephen S. Perry‟s
household included his wife, two sons, and his unwed sister. Perry‟s total wealth equaled
$71,040. In 1874 Stephen died, bequeathing his estate to his eldest son, James. Six years later
the estate was worth $14,454. In 1890 James remained in the county, owning his father‟s land,
and had an estate worth $10,850, just 15 percent of his father‟s 1860 estate.34
32
Amnesty Papers, H. Bass (Roll 52) [quotation]; H. Bass to A. J. Hamilton, Governors‟ Papers: AJH;
Brazoria County Tax Rolls, 1860-1890; 1870 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Brazoria County, Texas (Roll
1576).
33
Amnesty Papers, W. B. P. Gaines (Roll 53) [first and third quote], A. T. Morris (Roll 54) [second and
third quotes].
34
1860 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Brazoria County, Texas (Roll 1289); 1880 U. S. Census, Brazoria
County, Texas (Roll 1292); Brazoria County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1880, 1890.
100
For most planter descendants, abolition financially ruined their families‟ estates, and by
1890 members of the antebellum planter families owned mere fractions of what their fathers
owned. In 1860 Isaac Tinsley had thirty slaves as part of his near-$63,000 estate. His family
included his wife and six children. Of his six children, the 1880 U. S. Census lists only his
eldest, Joseph. That year he held just $1,260 in taxable wealth. Ten years later, it had risen to
$2,800, four percent of his father‟s estate.35
The financial situation for Richard Westall, the third son of the planter A. E. Westall, was
worse. Of that family, which included seven children in the last antebellum census, only Richard
remained in the county by 1890. In 1860 Westall‟s father owned thirty-two slaves and property
worth more than $65,000. By 1890 Richard‟s property included a single mule or horse (the 1890
tax rolls couple these animals), worth $100, and $20 in “Miscellaneous Property,” which gave
him a total estate of $120. This number was less than 0.2 percent of his family‟s antebellum
wealth.36
Brazoria‟s early Reconstruction political elite underwent few adjustments. The lack of
large slaveholders on the county bench continued through Reconstruction. Brazoria‟s election
registers show that of those whose slave ownership and estates could be determined, most
appointed to local government positions were either former small slaveholders or nonslaveholders.
As in Austin County, Hamilton appointed local citizens to every position within Brazoria
(see Table 4.8). As noted above, the antebellum county judges were minor slaveholders with
35
1860 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Brazoria County, Texas (Roll 1289); 1880 U. S. Census, Brazoria
County, Texas (Roll 1292); Brazoria County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1880, 1890.
36
1860 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Brazoria County (Roll 1289); Brazoria County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1890.
101
none of the occupants coming within five slaves of being a planter. Hamilton‟s appointments
reveal that the planter class remained largely politically inactive in the county‟s governance after
the war. The governor appointed one planter, James M. Staton, as a Justice of the Peace in
October 1865. The only other large slaveholder to be appointed to public office was J. N. Copes,
who owned thirteen slaves in 1860. Department of Texas commander Major General Joseph J.
Reynolds would remove both of these men from office as impediments to Reconstruction just
two years later.37
The rest of the political class in the earliest period of Reconstruction comprised former
small slave owners, zero holders, or prewar unionists. The average wealth of those listed in the
1865 tax rolls was only $3,900. Furthermore, of the eight found in the 1860 tax rolls, the
average number of slaves owned by Hamilton‟s appointees was fewer than three. Before the
war, county judge appointee Andrew McCormick was among Texas‟s prewar unionists. While
he joined the Confederate army, after hostilities ended he became a moderate Republican. His
antebellum unionism and moderate Republicanism were the main reasons why Hamilton allowed
McCormick to retain his judgeship following the war.38
Similar to the situation in Austin, the financial collapse of the former planter class was
not immediate. According to Brazoria County‟s tax rolls, many of the 1870 elite were former
slaveowners. Of the twenty-five individuals who owned $10,000 or more in 1870, nine were
from the former planter class (down from thirty-six in 1860). Five others were former small
37
Election Registers; Brazoria County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1865.
38
Brazoria County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1865.
102
Table 4.8. Brazoria County officials appointed by Provisional Governor Andrew Jackson
Hamilton
Name
Copes, J. N.
Rhodes, John
Cash, H. J. B.
Wilson, J. F.
Cayer, H. P.
Bell, George F.
McCormick, Andrew P.
Gauter, Charles S.
Ballone, S. S. S.
Ballone, S. S. S.
Valebaum, William
Staton, James M.
Towsey, Saul A.
Seely, Philip
Baird, W. E.
Weir, Robert L.
Scott, William M.
Towsey, Saul A.
Rogers, J. S.
Docknell, James
Scott, William M.
Preswell, John M.
Duncan, Lewis
Slaves
Position
Owned
in 1860
Tax Collector
13
Coroner
1
Commissioner
3
Commissioner
Not listed
Commissioner
4
Commissioner
0
County Judge
7
County Court Clerk Not listed
District Court Clerk
0
Justice of the Peace
0
Justice of the Peace
0
Justice of the Peace
20
Justice of the Peace
2
Justice of the Peace Not listed
Justice of the Peace Not listed
Justice of the Peace
0
Justice of the Peace
0
Notary Public
2
Notary Public
0
Notary Public
0
Notary Public
0
Sheriff
Not listed
Treasurer
0
Sources: Election Registers; Brazoria County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1865.
103
Value of
Estate in
1865
$250
$1,271
$6,230
Not listed
$7,380
$6,350
$18,600
Not listed
$3,600
$3,600
$1,232
$3,205
Not listed
Not listed
Not listed
$2,725
$100
Not listed
$775
Not listed
$100
Not listed
$2,900
owners of bondsmen. One, Acy E. Stratton, had lived in the county without owning slaves. The
remaining ten did not reside in the county, even as late as 1865.39
As in Austin County, many members of the elite of 1870 hailed from outside the state.
As shown in Table 4.10, only three were born in Texas. Contrary to Buenger‟s homogeneous
model, most of the elite whose nativity could be determined came from Upper South states. Of
the seventeen individuals listed in the census, only four came from Lower South states. Of the
remaining thirteen, John Adriance was born in a
northern state (New York), and Catherine Borden was born outside the United States. The final
eleven were from the Upper South.
The occupations of the members of the 1870 elite also show that despite abolition,
agriculture still dominated Brazoria County‟s economy. All but four of the twenty-five were
farmers. Of those whose listed occupation was not “farmer,” three were merchants. As shown
by the example of Adriance, these merchants routinely sold supplies to and marketed the crops of
Brazoria‟s farming community.40
By 1880 only three of the antebellum planters possessed enough property to be among
that year‟s upper class. Joseph Bates, William J. Bryan, and Mordello S. Munson were all
planters just twenty years before. An additional three had been smaller slave owners. James P.
Bingham, William D. Haskins, and Mason L. Weems owned nineteen, two, and three slaves,
respectively, in 1860.41
39
Brazoria County Tax Rolls, 1860-1870; Carrier, “Political History of Texas during the Reconstruction,”
40
Brazoria County Tax Rolls, 1870; 1870 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Brazoria County (Roll 1576).
41
Brazoria County Tax Rolls, 1860.
182-183.
104
Desel, C. M.*
Dockrell, Jarvis
Drayton, Thomas
Bass, Hamlin*
Bates, Joseph*
Bell, M. M.
Source: Brazoria County Tax Rolls
Note: Asterisks indicate an antebellum planter
105
Gaines, W. B. P.*
Gill, W. F.*
Godlett, W.
Gorbt, B.
Hamilton, Lynch * Morris, A. T.*
Harrison, Elsy*
Haskins, Nancy
Hill, William G.*
Holt, Benjamin
Iles, P.
Bingham, James
Bingham, M. H.
Brooks, John
Brown, C. E.
Bryan, M. A.
Bryan, William J.*
Calent, F.
Campbell, James*
Cash, H.
Cecil, B.
Muchlin, J. D.*
Moseley, W.
Morris, L.
Morris, John
Morris, H.
Mims, Sarah*
Mills, David G.*
McNeil, John G.*
McGreen, John*
Durant, J.
Bell, T. B.
McCrea, P.
McCormick, J.
Kyle, William*
Name
Winston, Fountain*
Name
Patton, Charles*
Otes, F.
Nelson, S.
NcNeal, Peter
Strongfellow, B.*
Stephens, E.
Staton, John M.*
Spencer, Joel*
Smith, George A.*
Sharp, William
Scott, William
Rowe Shadrach*
Rose, William A.*
Pruett, John
Phillips, Sydney
Phelps, E.
Perry, Stephen S.*
Winston, Anthony*
Wilson, Joseph E.*
Wharton, John A.*
Westall, Andrew E.*
Weems, W.
Ward, William*
Vogel, F.
Vincent, F.
Underwood, A.*
Towns, R.*
Tinsley, Isaac*
Tillman, Frank*
Thomas, J.
Terry, O.
Terry, Aurelius*
Tankersley, George*
Sweeney, Thomas*
Sweeney, S. C.*
Young, Overton*
Young, Henry
Winston, R. E.*
Munson, Mordello* Sweeney, Jordan W,* Winston, LaFayette*
Munson, Girane B.* Sweeney, John*
Name
Kennedy, William* Perkins, S.
Jordan, Levi*
Jones, John
Collins, R. M.*
Coffee, Aaron
Anthony, M.
Johnson, S.
Arrington, E.
Cofes, J. W.
Alesmith, A.
Jameson, James
Jones, John H.*
Clark, J. H.*
Adriance, John
Jackson, Abner*
Name
Armstrong, George* Coker, J.
Champion, R.
Name
Adams, R.
Name
Table 4.9. Owners of $10,000 or more in total property in Brazoria County, 1860
Table 4.10. Owners of $10,000 or more in total property in Brazoria County, 1870
Name
Adriance, John
Bates, Joseph*
Blackwell, Sterling
Borden, Catherine J.
Brooks, John W.
Bryan, William J.*
Haskins, William D.
Hutchins, N. J.
Jackson, George*
Jenkins, William
Kennedy, William*
McCormick, Andrew
McNeil, John G.*
Mills, David G.*
Munson, Mordello S.*
Perry, Stephen S.*
Sharpe, William
Spofford, P.
Stevens, Hunnell
Stratton, Acy E.
Sweeney, John*
Tankersley, James H.
Tinsley, Joseph T.
Wagley, W. C.
Weems, Mason L.
Occupation
Retired
Merchant
Farmer
Farmer
Farmer
Retired
Merchant
Planter
N/A
N/A
N/A
Steamboat
Captain
N/A
Farmer
Farmer
Farmer
N/A
Farmer
Farmer
N/A
N/A
Farmer
Farmer
Farmer
Farmer
N/A
Retired
Merchant
Birth
State
Age
Estate
Sex
NY
AL
TX
Canada
53
65
28
75
$16,621
$15,185
$44,900
$11,928
M
M
M
F
VA
MO
N/A
N/A
N/A
54
55
N/A
N/A
N/A
$10,573
$72,390
$12,760
$41,810
$10,900
M
M
N/A
N/A
N/A
KY
N/A
TX
KY
KY
TX
MO
LA
N/A
N/A
MS
TN
AL
TX
N/A
48
$17,607
M
N/A $27,075
M
33
$12,670
M
68
$55,767
M
56 $125,430 M
45
$12,527
M
45
$39,600
M
34
$14,084
M
N/A $74,400 N/A
N/A $17,000 N/A
72
$10,935
M
48
$11,300
M
32
$19,475
M
27
$13,372
M
N/A $18,600 N/A
VA
39
$16,554
M
Sources: 1870 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Brazoria County, Texas (Roll 1576); Brazoria County Tax Rolls,
1870.
Note: Asterisks indicate an antebellum planter or member of a planter family.
106
Table 4.11. Owners of $10,000 or more in total property in Brazoria County, 1880
Name
Bates, Joseph*
Bingham, James P.
Brooks, C. E.
Bryan, William J.*
Burney, William K.
Cox, Randolph
Davis, Cornelius
Haskins, William D.
Jenkins, William
Lang, John
McNeil, J. C.
Middleton, D.
Middleton, John R.
Munson, Mordello S.*
Smith, J. G.
Stratton, Jesse D.
Weems, Mason L.
Wilson, Eugene J.
Yale, Thomas B.
Young, Margaret
Occupation
Farmer
Farmer
N/A
Planter
Keeps a Ferry
Stock Raising
Stock Raising
Farmer
Steam Boat
Owner
Farmer
Farmer
N/A
N/A
Lawyer
Laborer
Farmer
Farmer
Lawyer
Planter
N/A
Birth
State
AL
MS
N/A
MS
LA
KY
MO
AL
Age
Estate
75
58
N/A
64
36
52
45
53
$19,125 M
$12,480 M
$17,358 N/A
$38,979 M
$10,315 M
$17,875 M
$19,863 M
$33,976 M
KY
England
LA
N/A
N/A
TX
FL
MS
VA
TX
NY
N/A
50
55
35
N/A
N/A
55
27
23
49
34
53
N/A
$15,115 M
$23,230 M
$24,612 M
$11,975 N/A
$17,180 M
$12,504 M
$12,545 M
$15,500 M
$14,900 M
$13,374 M
$33,160 M
$11,970 F
Sex
Sources: 1880 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Brazoria County, Texas (Roll 1292); Brazoria County Tax Rolls,
1880.
Note: Asterisks indicate an antebellum planter.
107
About half of the wealthiest taxpayers in 1880 (eleven of twenty), whose average estate
was worth just under $19,000 (just 26 percent of the average 1860 planter estate), were heavily
involved in agriculture, due in particular to the prevalence of sugar plantations and their use of
convict labor (see Table 4.11). Some were active in other agricultural pursuits, such as raising
livestock. The increase of wealthy ranchers within the county signified an expansion of the
cattle industry within Brazoria. Despite this dominance of agriculture, non-agricultural
professionals also ranked among the wealthiest within Brazoria County in 1880. Two were
lawyers, two others were businessmen, and several followed unknown occupations.42
Individuals not born in Texas continued to dominate Brazoria County‟s economy. Of
those whose nativity could be determined, eight hailed from Lower South states in
1880, and four had come from the Upper South. Only two, Munson and Wilson, were Texas
natives. Each was a member of a prominent planter family before the war. Munson himself was
a planter in 1860, owning twenty-four slaves, and the son of another planter, Henry W., while
Wilson‟s father owned thirty-one. Wilson acquired his father‟s land on March 12, 1866, which
accounted for much of his postbellum wealth.43
By 1890 a small portion of the antebellum planter families remained among the wealthy
along with some of the original planters themselves (see Table 4.12). Four of the county‟s
wealthiest former slaveholders, William J. Bryan, J. G. McNeil, Mordello S. Munson, and
Ammon Underwood, were still in Brazoria. Two of them, Bryan and Munson, had enough
taxable property to be counted among those owning $10,000 or more in that year. Two of
Brazoria‟s 1890 elite were descendants of former planter families (James W. Perry and Lou
42
1880 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Brazoria County, Texas (Roll 1292); Brazoria County Tax
Rolls, 1860, 1880; Kleiner, “Brazoria County,” New Handbook of Texas, 1:710.
43
Brazoria County Deeds Records, K:602; Brazoria County Tax Rolls, 1865, 1866, 1870.
108
Underwood). Perry‟s great-grandfather, furthermore, was Stephen F. Austin himself. Brazoria
County‟s planters had followed the same pattern of decline as in Austin, although at a slower
pace.44
Unlike those in Austin County, Brazoria‟s postbellum judges, particularly following
Reconstruction, enjoyed a higher level of wealth than their antebellum predecessors. Austin‟s
pre-war judges possessed an average wealth of over $16,000. Following the war that average
dwindled to just over $3,000. Brazoria County‟s eight pre-war judges were worth $5,639, while
the nine magistrates after the war averaged more than $9,500 during their tenures. Table 4.14
demonstrates that of those whose occupation could be determined, professionals, in particular
lawyers, dominated the chief magistracy for most of Reconstruction and the subsequent fifteen
years. Like their antebellum predecessors, former slaveholders did not dominate the county
judgeship after the Civil War. Rather, only two had either owned slaves or been part of a planter
family. Eugene Wilson‟s father, Joseph, owned 31 slaves in 1860.45
Brazoria County did not fully recover from the financial effects of abolition for the rest of
the century. The level of wealth and agricultural production did not return to antebellum levels
in the late 1800s. Even by 1890, nearly thirty years after abolition, Brazoria‟s sugar production
barely exceeded production levels of 1870. This is significant because Brazoria‟s sugar barons
had enjoyed nearly twenty years of cheap convict labor, one of the cheapest forms of labor they
could achieve without violating the Thirteenth Amendment.
44
Brazoria County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1890.
45
Brazoria County Tax Rolls, 1860; 1860 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Brazoria County, Texas (Roll
1289).1870 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Austin and Brazoria Counties, Texas (Roll 1574, 1576); 1880 U. S.
Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Austin and Brazoria Counties (Roll 1292); Election Registers.
109
Note: Asterisks indicate an antebellum planter or family member.
110
TX
TX
MS
TX
TN
N/A
MO
N/A
AL
IN
Ireland
NY
SC
Bingham, James
Bryan, M. A.
Bryan, Octavia
Bryan, William J.*
Cox, Mary
Crafton, William
Dammen, Henry
Davis, Cornelius
Frenau, William
Haskins, William
Huntingdon, M.
Jamison, Thomas
Jarvis, George O.
Kennedy, Walter
N/A
N/A
TX
Martin, A. R.
Masterson, B. J.
Masterson, Harris
Name
$13,200 Perry, C. B.
$33,760 Munson, Mordello S.*
$34,075 Munson, Henry W.
$19,700 Munson, H. A.
$22,800 Melgaard, George
$20,600 McNeil, C. P.
$16,200 Masterson, William
Estate
$57,640 Perry, M. S.
45
63
53
34
63
34
$34,600 Underwood, Lou*
N/A $32,300 Thomas, Ezekiel B.
N/A $10,000 Tankersley, J. H.
$40,500 Stratton, Jesse
$38,400 Smith, J. G.
$13,000 Smith, B. C.
$16,500 Shapard, Steven
$19,100 Seaborn, H.
$119,200 Rowe, Rippia
N/A $13,000 Rowan, W. A.
55
N/A $11,020 Perry, James W.*
42
52
74
45
43
68
58
Age
England 65
MS
Barnes, A. C.
Lang, John
Birth
State
AL
Name
NC
TX
N/A
MS
FL
N/A
TX
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
TX
N/A
TX
TX
TX
Estate
43
$21,900
$11,642
$12,240
$10,850
$49,000
$11,500
$43,816
43
30
$10,100
$14,800
N/A $14,180
33
37
N/A $23,440
29
N/A $26,400
N/A $20,240
N/A $61,540
N/A $10,280
35
N/A $10,276
65
38
26
$15,480
$18,920
N/A $18,000
Age
Denmark 50
LA
Birth
State
N/A
Table 4.12. Owners of $10,000 or more in total property in Brazoria County, 1890
Sources: 1880 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Brazoria County, Texas (Roll 1292); Brazoria County Tax Rolls,
1890.
Table 4.13. Percentage of antebellum planters within residents possessing $10,000 or more in
taxable property, 1860-1890
Year
1860
1870
1880
1890
Number of
Residents Owning
$10,000 or More
105
25
20
38
Number of Antebellum
Planters Owning
$10,000 or More*
36
9
3
3
Source: Brazoria County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1890.
*Includes members of planter families.
111
Percentage of
Antebellum Planters
within Owners of
$10,000 or More*
34%
36%
15%
8%
Table 4.14. Brazoria County judges, 1866-1890
Name
Tenure
Perkins, Steven W.
Stevens, Hemmel
Holmes, Charles
Wilson, Eugene*
Stratton, Asa
Norris, John H.
Masterson, Harris
Hanks, J. W.
Masterson, Harris
1866
1866-1870
1870-1876
1876-1882
1882
1882-1884
1884-1889
1889-1890
1890
Average
Wealth During
Term
$16,095
$8,528
$577
$5,446
$13,500
$2,383
$22,126
$550
$18,000
Birth
State
Occupation
KY
N/A
MA
TX
MS
AL
TX
N/A
TX
Lawyer
N/A
Court Clerk
Lawyer
Lawyer
Lawyer
Lawyer
N/A
Lawyer
Sources: Election Registers; 1860 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Brazoria County, Texas (Roll 1289); 1870
U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Brazoria County, Texas (Roll 1576); 1880 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule,
Brazoria County, Texas (Roll 1292); Brazoria County Tax Rolls, 1866-1890.
Note: Asterisk indicates a member of a pre-war planting family.
112
Although most of the planters suffered severe financial downturns from 1860 to 1890,
they fared marginally better than their Austin County counterparts. More of the planters
themselves and their families remained in the county. Furthermore, a few, such as Stephen S.
Perry and William Joel Bryan, were able to soften abolition‟s effects through inheriting
thousands of acres of land between 1860 and 1870. Nevertheless, a new elite emerged in
Brazoria County as newly-arrived inhabitants and men who had owned few if any slaves became
the wealthiest taxpayers in the county.
113
CHAPTER 5
THE ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL ELITE OF COLORADO COUNTY, 1860-1890
Colorado County was one of the most agriculturally productive areas of antebellum
Texas. It was consistently a statewide leader in cotton production. A large slave population
combined with a relatively small land area meant that it had one of the highest concentrations of
slaves per square mile of any of the other counties under examination. Furthermore, four of the
state’s largest slaveholders resided within its borders.1
Twenty-two of the Old Three Hundred originally settled within Colorado County (see
Table 5.1). As Stephen F. Austin was establishing his colony, Colorado was among the sites he
considered for his colonial headquarters. Ultimately, however, he chose San Felipe de Austin in
neighboring Austin County. Colorado was one of the original counties created following the
establishment of the Republic of Texas. Throughout the antebellum period it had an
agriculturally-based economy. According to the 1850 U. S. Census, Colorado County led the
state in the production of cotton (4,771 ginned bales). In comparison, Brazoria produced only
3,531 bales the same year. 2
Slavery flourished in Colorado. In 1850 723 slaves numbered just under half of the
county’s white population of 1,534. Ten years later the slave population increased to 3,198.
With a land area of 964 square miles, the county’s number of slaves per square
1
Kennedy, Agriculture of the United States in 1860, 141-151; Campbell, Grass-roots Reconstruction in
Texas, 27.
2
Mark Odintz, “Colorado County,” New Handbook of Texas, 2: 225; DeBow, Statistical View of the United
States, 1850, 517.
114
Table 5.1. Landowning members of the Old Three Hundred in Colorado County, 1824-1827
Name
Alley, Rawson
Andrews, John
Beason, Benjamin
Burnam, Jesse
Cartwright, Thomas
Cook, James
Cummins, James
Duty, Joseph
Dyer, Clement C.
Flowers, Elisha
Gilbert, Preston
Name
Gray, Thos.
Haddan, John
McClain, A. W.
McNair James
Moore, John L.
Nelson, James
Pettus, Freeman
Ross, James
Snider, Gabriel S.
Tumlinson, Elizabeth
Tumlinson, James
Source: Wallace, Vigness, and Ward, eds., Documents of Texas History, 151-158.
115
Columbus – County Seat
Map 5.1. Location of Colorado County, 1860. (Source: Campbell, Empire for Slavery, 3;
originally created by Terry G. Jordan, Walter Prescott Webb Chair of History and Ideas,
University of Texas).
116
mile went from 0.75 to 3.3. Although there were 1,500 fewer slaves in Colorado than Brazoria,
Colorado’s smaller land area meant that it had nearly as many slaves per square mile as Brazoria
(3.4 in 1860).3
In both the 1859 Texas gubernatorial and the 1860 presidential elections, the residents of
Colorado County followed statewide patterns. Colorado voters favored Sam Houston 345 to 275
over the conservative Hardin R. Runnels in Houston’s last campaign for governor. The
Columbus Colorado Citizen endorsed Constitutional Union candidate John Bell for president
over the Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge. Despite this endorsement, Bell lost in
Colorado County, garnering just 41 percent of its vote. Following Lincoln’s election the
newspaper supported secession over submission to alleged “Black Republican” rule.4
Like Austin County, Colorado had a large number of German-born residents. The 1860
U. S. Census recorded 7,885 people living in the county, 20 to 25 percent of whom were
German. They began to enter the county in 1831 and centered their settlements along the Brazos
and Colorado rivers where they established small farming villages. By the eve of the Civil War
the majority of them had settled in the northern and northeastern part of the county. The
secession crisis revealed the strong influence of this German population in the county. On
February 23, 1861, Colorado voters cast 914 ballots, and 330 residents (36 percent) chose to stay
in the Union. The heaviest anti-secession votes came from the German-dominated northern and
northeastern portion of Colorado County like Frelsburg, Bernardo, and Mentz, which provided
3
Colorado County Tax Rolls, 1850, 1860; Campbell, Empire for Slavery, 264.
4
Election Registers; Columbus Colorado Citizen, 1 September 1860, 5 January 1861, 12 January 1861, 12
February 1861; Moneyhon, Republicanism in Reconstruction Texas, 200; Campbell, Grass-roots Reconstruction in
Texas, 30.
117
59 percent (195 of 330) of the votes against secession. This anti-secession vote was the largest
percentage against secession within the six counties under examination.5
Despite a relatively high percentage of anti-secession votes, numerous men of Colorado
County served in Confederate units during the Civil War. They mustered one company of the
Fifth Texas Cavalry Regiment, and they contributed to the Fifth, Thirteenth, and Seventeenth
Texas Infantry Regiments. Perhaps the most illustrious of these units was Captain John C.
Upton’s company in the Fifth Texas, part of General John Bell Hood’s Texas Brigade of the
Army of Northern Virginia. On the home front, the city of Alleyton became a major post along a
route to export Texas cotton to the Mexican port of Bagdad.6
Although the war did not come directly into Colorado County, the Confederacy’s defeat
adversely affected its economy. In 1860 its farms were worth a collective $3,310,820, but ten
years later they were worth just $493,890. The number of improved acres also decreased, from
35,168 in 1860 to 30,244 ten years later.7
Agricultural production also suffered between 1860 and 1870, when cotton production
fell from 14,438 ginned bales to a mere 2,796. Pork and corn production also declined rapidly.
5
Election Records, 1854-1866, County Clerk’s Office, Colorado County Courthouse, Columbus, Texas
[hereinafter cited as Colorado County Election Records]; Kennedy, Population of the United States in 1860, 473,
479, 484; Jordan, German Seed in Texas Soil, 40, 94.Winkler, Journal of the Secession Convention of Texas, 1861,
88-90; Election Registers; Campbell, Grass-roots Reconstruction in Texas, 30; Moneyhon, Republicanism in
Reconstruction Texas, 205; Timmons, “Referendum in Texas on the Ordinance of Secession,” 15.
6
Odintz, “Colorado County,” New Handbook of Texas, 2:225; Colorado County Historical Commission,
Colorado County Chronicles: From the Beginning to 1923, 2 vols. (Austin: Nortex Press, 1986), 1:100-122;
Campbell, Grass-roots Reconstruction in Texas, 30-31; Crute, Units of the Confederate States Army, 326.
7
Kennedy, Agriculture of the United States in 1860, 140; Walker, Statistics of the Wealth and Industry of
the United States, 250.
118
Corn fell from 264,805 in 1860 to 130,423 in 1870, while the swine population decreased from
12,197 in 1860 to 6,280 ten years later.8
As in other counties, the disfranchisement of white conservatives and the
enfranchisement of freedmen signified political changes within the county that extended beyond
Reconstruction. Isaac Yates and Cicero Howard, both freedmen, were county commissioners
during Reconstruction. Voters elected Benjamin Franklin Williams, another freedman, to
represent Colorado at the Constitutional Convention of 1868-1869. Williams also represented
Colorado and Lavaca counties in the Twelfth Legislature (1871) and would later serve in the
Sixteenth and Nineteenth Legislatures (1879, 1885).9
Also reflecting Republican dominance was the county’s support of that party’s candidates
in the postbellum gubernatorial and presidential elections. In 1869 radical Republican Edmund
J. Davis carried the county (62 versus 38 percent) over the moderate Andrew Jackson Hamilton.
Colorado voters also supported President Ulysses S. Grant’s re-election bid in 1872 over Horace
Greeley, 51 to 49 percent. Despite a massive statewide victory, Democrat Richard Coke lost to
Davis in the 1873 gubernatorial election in Colorado County, by 57 versus 43 percent. The
Republicans continued to influence politics in Colorado County as late as 1896 when voters
elected Robert Lloyd Smith, born free in Charleston, South Carolina, to the state legislature.
8
Kennedy, Agriculture of the United States in 1860, 141; Walker, Statistics of the Wealth and Industry of
the United States, 252
9
Election Registers; Odnitz, “Colorado County,” New Handbook of Texas, 2:225; Merline Pitre,
“Williams, Benjamin Franklin,” New Handbook of Texas, 6:978; Hume and Gough, Blacks, Carpetbaggers, and
Scalawags, 412.
119
This continued Republican impact was, according to historian Lawrence D. Rice, the result of
the white population’s division between the Democratic and Populist parties.10
Historian Randolph B. Campbell argues that the Buffalo Bayou, Brazos and Colorado
Railway served the county as early as 1860, which encouraged slavery’s growth. After the Civil
War, Republican political domination of the state brought an increase in the investment in
railroads in Texas, and Colorado County continued to experience an expansion of railroads
within its borders. Between the end of the Civil War and 1890, two other rail lines traversed
Colorado County. The Columbus Tap Railway, which began before the war, expanded into the
county in 1867. The San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway entered the area in the late 1880s.
This expansion of the railroads, according to historian Mark Odintz, helped invigorate the local
economy following abolition.11
As demonstrated in Table 5.2, forty Colorado County residents owned twenty or more
slaves in 1860. The 1860 U. S. Census lists all but three of these planters. Of the thirty-seven
whose complete information could be determined, thirty-five, or 95 percent, were male.
Collectively these planters owned 1,807 of the 3,198 slaves listed in Colorado County. Twentysix of the thirty-seven planters (70 percent) were natives of the Upper South. The remaining
eleven were born in the Lower South. No Colorado planter had been born in the Lone Star State.
Their average age was 47, ranging from 25 to 72. Finally, the average planter estate was worth
$61,149. The wealthiest Colorado planter was Claiborne Herbert ($191,915).12
10
Election Registers; Moneyhon, Republicanism in Reconstruction Texas, 210, 217, 222; Lawrence D.
Rice, “Smith, Robert Lloyd,” New Handbook of Texas, 5:1108; Ayers, Promise of the New South, 276, 280-282,
285.
11
Odintz, “Colorado County,” New Handbook of Texas, 2:225.
12
1860 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Austin and Colorado County, Texas (Rolls 1287, 1291); Colorado
County Tax Rolls, 1860; Campbell, Empire for Slavery, 264.
120
As in other counties, the value of the slaves a planter owned could constitute a significant
portion of his or her overall estate. Slave property was a clear majority of the wealth of the
largest planters (one hundred or more slaves). Table 5.3 shows that three of the five who owned
one hundred or more bondsmen had more than half of their wealth invested in their bondsmen.
Slave property, on average, also constituted a majority of the wealth of all planters. In 1860
bondsmen constituted an average of 63 percent of the planters’ estates. This measure ranged
from 86 percent to just 10 percent.13
Slave owners dominated the county judge position from 1848 to the end of the Civil War.
The last four of the antebellum period judges owned an average of twelve bondsmen. Only one
of the four, Andrew M. Campbell, was a planter, indicating that planters themselves did not
dominate antebellum county politics.14
Between 1860 and 1870 fourteen of the forty antebellum planters died, eight during
Reconstruction. At least one died violently. Herbert, a former member of the Confederate
Congress, was murdered on July 5, 1867. The Galveston Daily News reported that a man named
“Mr. Spear” shot the former Rebel congressman as he exited a Columbus saloon.15
More than half of the pre-war planters were no longer on Colorado County’s tax rolls by
1870. Only fourteen appeared that year. Some members of their families remained in the
county. The 1870 U. S. Census, for example, lists John D. Campbell, the eldest son of A. M.
13
1860 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Austin and Colorado County, Texas (Rolls 1287, 1291); Colorado
County Tax Rolls, 1860; Campbell, Empire for Slavery, 264.
14
County Election Records; Campbell, Grass-roots Reconstruction in Texas, 31, 35.
15
Colorado County Probate Records, E:212, 319, 331, 342, 523; Colorado County Index to Grants, Books
T-Z, 173; Colorado County Deeds Records, M:453, 457, 463; O:564, 611; Y: 257; Galveston Daily News, 18 July
1867; 1860 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Colorado County, Texas; Jeff Carroll, "Matthews, John," New Handbook of
Texas, 4:569; Charles Christopher Jackson and Mary M. Standiter, "Montgomery, James Steen," New Handbook of
Texas, 4:802; Colorado County Historical Commission, Colorado County Chronicles, 1:135, 148.
121
Table 5.2. Colorado County planters, 1860
Name
Slaves
Estate
Adkins, William L.
Balfour, C. C.
Burford, Frances
Burford, H. B.
Campbell, A. M.
Carlton, James E.
Crenshaw, O. B.
Crisp, David H.
Crisp, John H.
Dunnovant, Gordon
Eason, C. A.
Foote, R. H.
Fowlkes, E. B.
Garrett, Phineas M.
Harbert, William J.
Herbert, Claiborne
Insall, Thomas N.
76
29
28
21
44
23
20
34
110
44
24
41
38
33
131
50
32
$96,620
$43,500
$38,200
$37,741
$60,190
$42,096
$29,600
$44,500
$103,600
$40,700
$29,810
$75,660
$43,200
$33,110
$153,369
$191,915
$26,639
Matthews, John
Matthews, M. B.
Miller, Lucinda
140
23
33
$116,920
$34,730
$38,775
Name
Montgomery,
James
Nice, Elizabeth
Payne, Z.
Pearsall, J. E.
Perry, George L.
Pinchback, John
Pinchback, William
Rhodes, Henry
Shropshire, J.
Tait, Charles W.
Tanner, John
Taylor, J. L.
Thatcher, George
Tooke, David
Tooke, Isam
Waddell, Phillip
Washington, L.
Williamson,
Thomas
Wright, James F.
Wright, William
Slaves
Estate
28
28
25
39
23
67
115
100
61
63
25
33
36
20
25
24
22
$72,180
$33,500
$42,420
$53,425
$36,571
$88,597
$63,350
$132,305
$61,722
$118,956
$32,800
$35,140
$67,590
$34,200
$47,690
$31,420
$72,424
30
40
29
$39,735
$51,940
$49,100
Sources: Colorado County Tax Rolls, 1860; 1860 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Colorado County, Texas (Roll 1291).
122
$18,200
$18,200
$14,700
$10,500
$16,100
$13,500
$32,000
$54,000 $103,600
Balfour, C. C.
Burford, Frances M.
Burford, H. B.
Campbell, A. M.
Carlton, James E.
Crenshaw, O. B.
Crisp, David H.
Crisp, John H.
Source: Colorado County Tax Rolls, 1860.
123
$19,200
$38,700
$26,400
$84,700
$40,000 $153,369
$20,000 $191,915
$95,000
$16,000 $116,920
$18,000
$18,000
Eason, C. A.
Foote, R. H.
Fowlkes, E. B.
Garrett, Phineas M.
Harbert, William J.
Herbert, Claiborne
Insall, Thomas N.
Matthews, John
Matthews, M. B.
Miller, Lucinda
$38,775
$34,730
$26,639
$33,110
$43,200
$75,660
$29,810
$35,200
Dunnovant, Gordon
$40,700
$44,500
$29,600
$42,096
$60,190
$37,741
$38,200
$43,500
$96,620
$55,355
Adkins, William L.
Thatcher, George
Taylor, J. L.
Tanner, John
Tait, Charles W.
Shropshire, J.
Rhodes, Henry
Pinchback, William
Pinchback, John
Perry, George L.
Pearsall, J. E.
Payne, Z.
Nice, Elizabeth
Montgomery, James
Name
Waddell, Phillip
Tooke, Isam
46%
52%
14%
Wright, William
Wright, James F.
Williamson, Thomas
357% Washington, L.
10%
26%
256% Tooke, David
61%
51%
64%
86%
52%
72%
46%
38%
17%
39%
48%
42%
57%
Estate Percent
Slave
Value
Name
$63,350
$88,597
$36,571
$53,425
$42,420
$33,500
$72,180
Estate
$61,722
$20,300
$28,000
$18,000
$17,600
$19,320
$25,000
$20,000
$25,200
$20,000
$19,600
$49,100
$51,940
$39,735
$72,424
$31,420
$47,690
$34,200
$67,590
$35,140
$32,800
$100,000 $118,956
$42,700
$100,000 $132,305
$31,530
$46,900
$16,100
$37,000
$23,000
$22,000
$19,600
Slave
Value
41%
54%
45%
24%
61%
52%
58%
37%
57%
60%
84%
69%
76%
50%
53%
44%
69%
54%
66%
27%
Percent
Table 5.3. Percentage of slave values within planters’ total estates, 1860
1852-1854
1854-1865
McNeil, Archibald
Campbell, Andrew M.
1845-1846
Hutchins, Merrit
1850-1852
1843-1845
Miller, John F.
Walker, Kidder
1841-1843
Tobin, Robert
1848-1850
1840-1841
Walker, Kidder
Daniels, William
1839-1840
Wadham, Willard
1846-1848
1838-1839
Heard, William J. E.
Toliver, John
1836-1838
Tenure
Menefee, William
Name
124
Note: Asterisks indicate occupation as listed by the 1850 U. S. Census.
32
12
1
3
0
0
13
0
0
N/A
0
0
$56,730
$6,037
$2,254
$4,841
$3,480
$300
$4,319
$640
$4,244
N/A
$14,602
None listed
Chief Justice
N/A
Farmer
Farmer
Hotel Keeper
N/A
Farmer*
Farmer*
Farmer*
N/A
Farmer*
N/A
Average Number
Average
of Slaves Owned Wealth during Occupation
during Tenure
Tenure
Table 5.4. Antebellum and Civil War-era Colorado County judges, 1839-1865
Source: Election Registers, Colorado County Tax Rolls, 1838-1865; 1860 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Colorado
County, Texas (Roll 1291).
Campbell, as living in the county. Others include Thomas N. Insall’s son, also named Thomas,
along with John Tanner’s son, Field. All of them, however, possessed estates that were mere
shadows of their fathers’ wealth. Campbell and Insall each owned just 3 percent of their
families’ antebellum estates. Campbell, whose father was worth $60,190, owned only $2,250 in
1870. Insall’s father possessed $26,639 in taxable property in 1860. Ten years later, the
planter’s son claimed just $965. Finally, Tanner owned just 22 percent ($7,275) of his father’s
$32,800 prewar estate. 16
Emancipation almost completely ruined most planters. The planters lost an average of 82
percent of their antebellum wealth as recorded in 1860 (see Table 5.5). William Pinchback’s
widow and James S. Taylor lost slightly more than half of their antebellum estates. The
remaining twelve lost between 72 and 98 percent of their 1860 wealth.17
The former planters also suffered from losses in the number of acres owned and the value
of those holdings. As Table 5.6 demonstrates, five lost acreage and land value between 1860 and
1870. Seven gained acres, and the two remaining owned the same number in both years. Only
two, O. B. Crenshaw and David Tooke, were able to increase the value of their land holdings.
Similar to those who were able to increase their property in Austin and Brazoria Counties, both
Crenshaw and Tooke had to acquire a substantial number of new acres to enhance the value of
their total holdings. Crenshaw more than tripled his 1860 acres, from 550 to 1,792 ten years
later. Tooke did not list any acres in 1860, just $2,000 in town lots, but in 1870 he listed 57 rural
16
Colorado County Tax Rolls, 1870; 1860 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Colorado County, Texas (Roll 1291);
1870 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Colorado County, Texas (Roll 1580).
17
Colorado County Tax Rolls, 1870.
125
Table 5.5 Total estates of 1860 planters as listed in the 1870 tax rolls
Name
Crenshaw, O. B.
Crisp, David H.
Eason, C. A.
Fowlkes, E. B.
Garrett, Phineas M.
Perry, George L.
Pinchback, John
Pinchback, William, Mrs.
Tait, Charles W.
Taylor, James S.
Thatcher, George
Tooke, David
Tooke, Isam
Wright, James F.
Estate
1860
$29,600
$44,500
$29,810
$43,200
$33,110
$36,571
$88,597
$63,350
$118,956
$35,140
$67,590
$34,200
$47,690
$51,940
Estate
1870
$7,399
$11,405
$6,100
$4,860
$3,870
$1,525
$2,110
$27,705
$32,980
$16,265
$4,740
$545
$12,605
$1,160
Percentage
of 1860
Estate Lost
75%
74%
80%
89%
88%
96%
98%
56%
72%
54%
93%
98%
74%
98%
Averages
$47,975
$7,741
82%
Sources: Colorado County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870.
126
acres. The remaining twelve planters experienced drastic losses in the value of their land
holdings.18
As in Austin and Brazoria, Colorado County’s antebellum planters suffered severe losses
in the value of their lands between 1860 and 1870. In 1860 the planters listed in Table 5.6
owned a total of 30,086 acres worth $223,754. Ten years later, however, the total acreage
dropped to 22,383. With this drop came a decline in value to $99,299, a change of 56 percent.
The average value of an acre owned by Colorado County’s antebellum planter class, therefore,
declined from $7.44 in 1860 to just $4.44 ten years later. As in Austin, the selloff of land was a
gradual process. Thomas Insall’s son, for example, began selling his land soon after the war. On
April 16, 1866, he sold 129 acres to a Joseph Cox. Four years later he began selling additional
acres, decreasing his holdings an additional 2,194 acres between 1870 and 1871.19
Ten wealthy men of Colorado County, including three former planters, applied for
presidential pardons after the war (see Table 5.7). Five applied under the First Exception
because they were civil officers of the county during the war. G. L. Andrews and Samuel
McLeary were both Confederate postmasters, George Breeding and Wesley Smith were tax
collectors, and planter Claiborne C. Herbert was a Texas representative in the Confederate
Congress. Both E. M. Pease and Andrew Jackson Hamilton endorsed Herbert’s application for
amnesty. On July 3, 1865, Pease wrote President Johnson that he had known the former Rebel
congressman for twenty-five years. Although disapproving of Herbert’s use of “his influence in
support of secession and rebellion,” Pease assured the president that the former congressman
actively opposed the use of violence against unionists and treated them with “respect and
18
Ibid., 1860, 1870.
19
Colorado County Deeds Records, M:13, 453, 457, 463, 747; O:377, 417, 564, 606, 611; Y: 257;
Colorado County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870.
127
Table 5.6. Gains/Losses in acres owned and land values of antebellum planters, 1870
Name
1860
Acres
1860
Value
1870
Acres
1870
Value
Change
in
Acres
Change
in Value
Crenshaw, O. B.
Crisp, David H.
Eason, C. A.
Fowlkes, E. B.
Garrett, Phineas
Perry, George L.
Pinchback, John
Pinchback, William, Mrs.
Tait, Charles W.
Taylor, James S.
Thatcher, George
Tooke, David
Tooke, Isam
Wright, James
550
11,155
900
577
500
489
2,475
1,272
5,132
3211
1,947
0
938
940
$1,050
$17,500
$9,000
$11,500
$1,000
$9,780
$16,267
$31,800
$50,552
$12,515
$38,940
$0
$20,500
$3,350
1,792
1,654
900
677
0
640
717
1272
5,992
5860
1,300
57
1105
417
$6,519
$10,000
$5,000
$4,300
$0
$6,000
$2,000
$16,000
$21,425
$10,990
$4,600
$575
$11,230
$660
1,242
-9,501
0
100
-500
151
-1,758
0
860
2,649
-647
57
167
-523
$5,469
-$7,500
-$4,000
-$7,200
-$1,000
-$3,780
-$14,267
-$15,800
-$29,127
-$1,525
-$34,340
$575
-$9,270
-$2,690
Sources: Colorado County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870.
128
personal kindness.” On July 23, 1865, Hamilton informed the president of his support for
Herbert’s application, particularly mentioning the petitioner’s treatment of unionists within his
district. Hamilton wrote that he could not find a single prominent unionist to dispute Herbert’s
reputation as a champion for the rights of those who opposed secession. Despite their opposition
to the Confederacy, Hamilton wrote, every unionist in the district “voted for [Herbert] for the
Confederate Congress because they looked to him for protection.” Following the war Herbert
was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1865 and 1867 but could not take
his seat because he did not meet Congressional requirements.20
Five men applied under the Thirteenth Exception. Claiborne Herbert, John Pinchback,
and Charles W. Tait were listed as planters in 1860. The other two applicants were Jacob Carrell
and George W. Smith. Neither the 1860 U. S. Census nor the 1860 Colorado County tax rolls
listed Carrell. Smith declared he owned eight slaves, worth $5,800 in 1860. The overwhelming
bulk of his nearly $41,000 estate was in lands in and around Columbus. Like some other
applicants, Smith believed he was no longer worth more than $20,000, but he took the amnesty
oath on July 28, 1865, and applied for his pardon on May 1, 1867.21
Hamilton’s appointments for Colorado demonstrated that the “aristocracy” no longer
exercised substantial political control at the county level (see Table 5.8). Hamilton placed a vast
majority of non-slaveholders in political office in Colorado. Of Hamilton’s twenty-five
appointments, nineteen did not own slaves in 1860. This, as in neighboring Austin County,
meant that only a minority (24 percent) of Hamilton’s Colorado appointments were slaveholders,
20
E. M. Pease to President Andrew Johnson, July 3, 1865, Amnesty Papers (Roll 55) [first and second
quotations]; Andrew Jackson Hamilton to Andrew Johnson, July 23, 1865, Amnesty Papers (Roll 55) [third
quotation]; Colorado County Historical Commission, Colorado County Chronicles, 1:198.
21
George W. Smith to President Andrew Johnson, May 1, 1867, Amnesty Papers (Roll 55); Colorado
County Election Records, 1854-1866; Charles Christopher Jackson, “Smith, George W.,” New Handbook of Texas,
5:1097.
129
Table 5.7. Colorado County presidential pardons
Name
Andrews, G. L.
Breeding, George
Carrell, Jacob
Herbert, Claiborne*
McLeary, Samuel
McNeil, H. C.
Pinchback, John*
Smith, George W.
Smith, Wesley
Tait, Charles W.*
Exception
First
First
Thirteenth
First, Thirteenth
First
Eighth22
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
First
Thirteenth
Source: Amnesty Papers (Rolls 52-55).
Note: Asterisks indicate planters.
22
The Eighth Exception covered those who were educated at the United States Military Academy at West
Point and then served in the Confederate military. H. C. McNeil graduated from West Point in 1857 and would end
the war as the colonel of the Fifth Texas Cavalry Regiment. According to historian Brad Clampitt, McNeil was
Texas’s only Eighth Exception applicant to be approved by Johnson (Crute, Units of the Confederate States Army,
325; Clampitt, “Two Degrees of Rebellion,” 263.
130
considerably less than the statewide figure of 53 percent. This was perhaps the result of the
presence of a large population of unionists within the county. Finally, only one of the six slave
owners, Phineas M. Garrett, had been a planter.23
Colorado County appointees were generally long-established unionists. The
overwhelming majority were farmers or non-professionals. William P. Bass, Anton Burtschel,
Herman Frels, F. Leyendecker, Calvin York, and G. T. Whitfield each listed their occupations as
farmers in the 1860 census. John C. Miller and E. Minter, appointed County Clerk and Justice of
the Peace, respectively, were carpenters in 1860. County judge John D. Gillmore claimed he
was a gunsmith, and William Goode and J. N. Binkley declared their respective occupations as
stage line agent and tinner. E. M. Glenn, the District Clerk, was the only appointee to claim a
professional career (attorney).24
The average wealth for the Hamilton appointees was just under $2,400. As noted in
Table 5.8, there was a direct correlation between how much a person’s estate was worth in 1865
and the number of slaves he owned in 1860. The slaveholding appointees were worth an average
of nearly $3,900, while the non-slaveholding were worth just $972.25
23
Election Registers; Colorado County Tax Rolls, 1860; Campbell, Grass-roots Reconstruction in Texas,
32; Moneyhon, Texas after the Civil War, 31.
24
1860 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Colorado County (Roll 1291); Campbell, Grass-roots Reconstruction in
Texas, 32.
25
Colorado County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1865.
131
Table 5.8. Colorado County officials appointed by Provisional Governor Andrew Jackson
Hamilton
Position
Slaves Owned
in 1860
Value of Estate
in 1865
Hancock, Joseph S.
Tax Collector
3
$800
Miller, John C.
County Clerk
0
$900
Binkley, J. N.
Commissioner
0
Not listed
Dewees, William B.
Commissioner
0
Not listed
Garrett, Phineas M.
Commissioner
33
$7,650
York, Calvin
Commissioner
0
$1,240
Gillmore, John D.
County Judge
0
$850
Treasurer
0
Not listed
District Clerk
Not listed
$3,000
Bass, William P.
Justice of the Peace
5
$2,730
Binkley, J. N.
Justice of the Peace
0
Not listed
Burtschel, Anton
Justice of the Peace
10
$3,700
Dewees, William B.
Justice of the Peace
0
Not listed
Estes, William
Justice of the Peace
0
Not listed
Frels, Herman
Justice of the Peace
6
$2,225
Goode, William
Justice of the Peace
Not listed
$2,000
Leyendecker, F.
Justice of the Peace
0
$0
Minter, E.
Justice of the Peace
11
$6,270
Whitfield, G. T.
Justice of the Peace
0
$175
Daniels, James M.
Notary Public
0
$300
Mathis, Charles J.
Notary Public
0
$1,300
Tooke, William
Notary Public
0
$350
Wilson, M. W.
Notary Public
0
$175
Plume, Philip
Notary Public
Not listed
$350
Sheriff
0
$2,000
Name
Dewees, William B.
Glenn, E. M.
Goode, James B.
Sources: Election Registers; Colorado County Tax Rolls, 1860 ,1865.
132
The losses in wealth in both land and slaves resulted in the antebellum planter class’s
collapse. Tables 5.9 and 5.10 demonstrate the fall of the antebellum planter families from the
ranks of the post-war elite. In 1860 ninety-four Colorado residents owned $10,000 or more in
taxable property. Members of the planter class were 43 percent (40 of 94) of this group. Ten
years later, the former planters or their spouses were 38 percent (5 of 13) of those defined as
wealthy, and their absolute number had dropped dramatically (from 40 to 5). These residents
possessed an average $23,173, the wealthiest of the 1870 group. Only two others were
slaveholders. George W. Smith had owned eight slaves and T. L. Townsend, four. The
remaining members of the wealthiest class were either non-slaveholders or not listed in either the
tax rolls or the 1860 U. S. Census.26
Agriculture still economically dominated the county in 1870. Among those in the elite
group whose occupations could be determined, only one, George Smith, was not in a profession
related to the county’s farming community. This dominance continued as the nineteenth century
progressed. As in other counties, most of Colorado’s 1870 upper class were born outside of
Texas. Only one, Mrs. William Pinchback, was born in the Lone Star State. Her relatively
young age, thirty-five in 1870, further reflects Texas’s youth as a state. The remaining elite were
evenly split between the Lower and Upper South at four apiece.27
The decade between 1870 and 1880 witnessed the return of four of the antebellum planter
families to Colorado County’s upper class. Frank M. Burford, James E. Carlton, N. Matthews,
and Louisa M. Tait were all family members of former planters. Burford, Carlton, and Matthews
were all the sons of former planters, whereas Tait was the widow of Charles W. Tait. Only one
26
Ibid., 1838-1865.
27
1860 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Colorado County, Texas (Roll 1291); 1870 U. S. Census, Inhabitant
Schedule, Colorado County, Texas (Roll 1580); 1880 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Colorado County, Texas
(Roll 1297).
133
Davidson, A. H.
Name
Eason, C. A.*
Ehlinger, C.
Fitzgerald, A.
Floyd, P.
Foote, R. H.*
Fowlkes, E. B.*
Balfour, C. C.*
Bonds, A. B.
Bonds, Noah
Bonds, Reuben
Burford, F. M.*
Burford, H. B.*
Source: Colorado County Tax Rolls, 1860.
Note: Asterisks indicate an antebellum planter.
134
McMillen, John
Garrett, Phineas M.*
Givenson, G. H.
Glenn, E. M.
Grace, Reuben
Hancock, D. W.
Hancock, J. S.
Harbert, William J.*
Harn, J. A.
Hartsfield, R. J.
Haynes, Calvin
Carlton, James*
Carson, J.
Clapp, Jacob
Coats, C.
Cone, James
Cooper, Willard
Crenshaw, O. B.*
Crisp, David H.*
Crisp, John H.*
Curry, J. A.
Payne, Z.*
Nuson, J. C.
Nice, Elizabeth*
Montgomery, James
Muckelroy, M.
Morgan, R
Montgomery, W.
Waddell, Phillip E.*
Turner, G. S.
Townsend, A. L.
Tooke, John
Tooke, Isam*
Tooke, David*
Name
Smith, A. J.
Shropshire, J. S.*
Shersherburger, P.
Schneider, P.
Robson, R. H.
Thatcher, George*
Terrell, G. W.
Taylor, J. L.*
Tanner, John O.*
Tait, C. W.*
Straton, W.
Stapleton, W.
Yates, W.
Wright, William J.*
Wright, James F.*
Winderson, C.
Wilson, A.
Williamson, Thomas*
Washington, L*
Rhodes, Henry David* Wallace, Warren
Pinchback, William*
Pinchback, Mary
Pinchback, John*
Perry, George L.*
Perry, E. W.
Pearsall, J. E.*
Name
Montgomery, James* Smith, G. W.
Miller, Lucinda*
Messler, E.
Campbell, A. M.* Garner, J.
Matthews, M. B.*
Matthews, John*
Markins, P.
Lac, J. E.
Kisler, C.
Kimbrough, W.
Dunnovant, Gordon* Jones, C. G.
Insall, Thomas N.*
Herbert, C. C.*
Name
Alley, A.
Adkins, William L. Dunivant, A.
Abel, J. C.
Name
Table 5.9. Owners of $10,000 or more in total property in Colorado County, 1860
Table 5.10. Owners of $10,000 or more in total property in Colorado County, 1870
Name
Brooks, John R.
Little, George
Pinchback, Alex
Pinchback, William, Mrs.*
Schnaniott, H.
Smith, George W.
Tait, Charles W.*
Taylor, James S.*
Tooke, Isam*
Townsend, T. L.
Veal, J.
Wright, James F.*
Young, M. W.
Occupation
Dry goods
merchant
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
Retired
lawyer
Farmer
Farmer
Farmer
Farmer
N/A
Farmer
Merchant
Birth
State
Age
Estate
Sex
LA
N/A
N/A
TX
N/A
39
N/A
N/A
35
N/A
$17,950
$20,300
$12,284
$27,705
$38,282
M
M
M
F
N/A
KY
GA
NC
GA
FL
N/A
NC
VA
47
55
54
53
42
N/A
74
44
$23,774
$32,980
$16,265
$12,605
$11,955
$26,780
$26,310
$12,500
M
M
M
M
M
N/A
M
M
Sources: Colorado County Tax Rolls, 1870; 1870 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Colorado County, Texas (Roll
1580).
Note: Asterisks indicate an antebellum planter or member of a planter family.
135
other antebellum slaveholder, Thomas J. Oakes, owned property worth $10,000 in 1880. As in
neighboring Austin County, a new elite had emerged in Colorado County by 1880. Most
(twenty-three of twenty-eight) of the wealthiest residents in 1880 were new entries to the list of
those who owned $10,000 or more. Only four (14 percent) were from antebellum planter
families. Table 5.11 demonstrates the economic diversification taking place statewide during
Reconstruction and the subsequent years. Of the sixteen individuals whose occupations could be
determined, eight were in professions directly related to farming, such as “Farmer,” “Farm
Laborer,” and “Stock Raiser.” Other members of these new elites were in commercial or
professional pursuits. Henry M. Johnson and E. J. Sandmeyer listed themselves as the county
sheriff and a lawyer, respectively. Thomas A. Hill, Richard W. Lyons, James W. McCarty, and
George Witting declared themselves as entrepreneurs.28
Although the number of those owning a minimum of $10,000 had more than doubled
from thirteen in 1870 to twenty-eight in 1880, the average value of the estates decreased
approximately one-third from $21,500 to approximately $14,300. One noticeable increase that
occurred between 1870 and 1880, however, was the number of native-born Texans within the
county’s upper class. In 1870 only one person was born in Texas. Ten years later, five were
native-born Texans. Twelve members of the county’s elite do not appear in any of the federal
censuses. Of the remaining eleven, five came from Lower South states other than Texas, five
from the Upper South, and one from Germany.29
28
Colorado County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1880; 1880 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Colorado County,
Texas (Roll 1297).
29
Colorado County Tax Rolls, 1880; 1880 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Colorado County, Texas
(Roll 1297).
136
Table 5.11. Owners of $10,000 or more in total property in Colorado County, 1880
Name
Occupation
Birth
State
Age
Estate
Baiticher, F.
Bering, S. J.
Burford, Frank M.*
Carlton, James E.*
Converse, J.
Dunnovant, William*
Everett, H. C.
Haseaush, D. W.
Heston, J. R.
Hill, Thomas A.
Jackson, Daniel W.
Johnson, Henry M.
Johnson, J. W.
Lyons, Richard W.
Matthews, N.
McCarty, James W.
Neer, James
Oakes, Thomas J.
Pattash, Eugene
Sandmeyer, E. J.
Seymour, F.
Smith, L. G.
Smith, L. L.
Stafford, Robert E.
Tait, Louisa M.*
Taylor, L. M.
Taylor, James S.
Witting, George
N/A
N/A
Farmer
Farmer
N/A
N/A
Farmer
N/A
N/A
Grocer
Landlord
County Sheriff
Farm Laborer
Restaurant Owner
N/A
Merchant
N/A
Farmer
N/A
Lawyer
N/A
N/A
Farmer
Stock Raiser
Housekeeper
N/A
Farmer
Merchant
N/A
N/A
TX
TN
N/A
N/A
VA
N/A
N/A
TX
GA
TX
AL
GA
N/A
VA
N/A
VA
N/A
TX
N/A
N/A
TX
GA
AL
N/A
NC
Germany
N/A
N/A
22
48
N/A
N/A
50
N/A
N/A
38
50
44
27
47
N/A
43
N/A
37
N/A
25
N/A
N/A
26
46
52
N/A
64
52
$11,560
$15,540
$11,475
$17,420
$21,000
$11,545
$12,490
$14,260
$10,100
$11,300
$17,530
$12,060
$11,870
$20,530
$11,660
$10,890
$11,270
$10,000
$13,150
$10,175
$11,690
$10,170
$10,210
$48,820
$12,135
$16,280
$11,780
$13,370
Sources: Colorado County Tax Rolls, 1880; 1870 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Colorado County, Texas (Roll
1580); 1880 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Colorado County, Texas (Roll 1297).
Note: Asterisks indicate an antebellum planter or family member of a planter.
137
Again in 1890, the majority of Colorado County’s elites were not descended from the
antebellum planter families. Of the fifty-six who claimed a wealth of $10,000 or more, only nine
(16 percent) were members of antebellum planting families (see Table 5.13). Two of these were
widows of former planters: Lou Tait, and E. S. Wright, who was married to James F. Wright. In
addition, Thomas Insall and Field Tanner were both the sons of antebellum planters.30
Whereas the possession of slaves translated to county-level political power late in the
antebellum period, Colorado County’s postbellum judges were considerably different. During
this period a new type of county politician emerged. As Table 5.14 demonstrates, much of the
demographic information of the postbellum county judges is missing. None of the censuses
between 1860 and 1880 list D. Claiborne or J. W. Johnson, making their occupations unknown.
Furthermore, the tax rolls of 1877 and 1878 never listed S. D. Delaney. Despite this missing
information, two conclusions can be made about the identities of the county’s chief magistrates
between 1866 and 1890. As in other counties, the postbellum Colorado judges were
professionals. Both S. D. Delaney and Charles Riley listed their occupations as lawyers.
In addition, the Reconstruction and Redemption-era judges were consistently poorer than their
antebellum predecessors. Between 1866 and 1890 the mean of those estates that could be
determined was approximately $6,280. The comparable figure for county judges before the Civil
War was $9,745.31
Emancipation drastically affected the financial fortunes of Colorado County’s planter
class. Either through death or the movement of entire families out of the area, only fourteen of
the forty antebellum planters, or their family members, remained within the county to be counted
30
1860 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Colorado County, Texas (Roll 1291); Colorado County Tax Rolls, 1890.
31
Election Registers; 1870 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Colorado County (Roll 1580); 1880 U. S.
Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Colorado County (Roll 1297); Colorado County Tax Rolls, 1866-1890.
138
Table 5.12. Owners of $10,000 or more in total property in Colorado County, 1890
Name
Auerbach, F.
Binkley, J. E.
Boettcher, Fred
Carlton, M. M.
Causy, T. A.
Cook, Martha L.
Dick, Josephine
Dittman, C. A.
Dunnovant, M. *
Dunnovant, W.*
Everett, H. M.
Foard, Robert L.
Frazar, W. K.
Gay, James Bates
Harbert, J. A.*
Harbert, Stephan*
Harrison, Robert
Hester, John
Hillge, B.
Holloway, J. B.
Holman, J.
Ilse, Henry
Insall, Thomas N.*
Jackson, D. W.
Johnson, Jesse H.
Johnson, Henry
Johnson, J. W.
Jones, Walter
Estate
$15,880
$11,580
$14,090
$22,170
$16,630
$11,100
$11,500
$33,260
$64,870
$10,000
$16,760
$15,520
$28,930
$12,700
$15,920
$13,530
$15,920
$32,500
$10,000
$24,580
$27,660
$15,840
$18,520
$21,380
$11,960
$20,600
$11,060
$10,310
Name
Kollmann, E.
Levy, Harry
Little, George
Matthews, N.
McCarty, James
McCormick, S.
Munn, W.
Oakes, Thomas J.
Pinchback, John J.*
Sandmeyer, J. F.
Schfetenberg, B.
Simpson, Friench
Slutter, J.
Smith, L. L.
Sronce, Elkana
Stafford, Robert
Strunk, Henry J.
Tait, Mrs. Lou M.*
Tanner, Field A.*
Thompson, Wells
Townsend, Jason
Townsend, Spencer
Vineyard, Benjamin
Wagner, Thomas
Walker, Q. F.
Wink, Louis
Wooten, J. R.
Wright, Mrs. E. S.*
Estate
$20,530
$12,000
$19,500
$24,010
$24,380
$17,750
$10,520
$15,410
$16,700
$22,250
$12,000
$20,000
$15,450
$14,450
$10,760
$131,290
$10,240
$20,510
$10,640
$14,140
$15,920
$15,810
$15,820
$26,870
$42,520
$12,590
$21,400
$11,180
Sources: 1880 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Colorado County, Texas (Roll 1297); Colorado County Tax
Rolls, 1890.
Note: Asterisks indicate an antebellum planter or member of a planter family.
139
Table 5.13. Percentage of antebellum planters within residents possessing $10,000 or more in
taxable property, 1860-1890
Year
1860
1870
1880
1890
Number of
Number of
Antebellum
Residents Owning Planters Owning
$10,000 or More $10,000 or More*
94
40
13
5
28
4
56
9
Source: Colorado County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1890.
*Includes members of planter families.
140
Percentage of
Antebellum Planters
within Owners of
$10,000 or More*
43%
38%
14%
16%
Table 5.14. Colorado County judges, 1866-1890
Tenure
Average Wealth
During Term
Claiborne, D.
1866-1876
$1,322
N/A
N/A
Johnson, J. W.
1876-1877
$15,889
N/A
N/A
Delaney, S. D.
1877-1878
Never found in tax rolls
KY
Lawyer
Riley, Charles
1878-1890
$1,627
KY
Lawyer
Name
Birth
Occupation
State
Sources: Election Registers; Colorado County Tax Rolls, 1866-1890; 1870 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule,
Colorado County, Texas (Roll 1580); 1880 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Colorado County, Texas (Roll 1297).
141
in the 1870 tax rolls. Although nine of them or their family members would be part of the
postbellum upper class by 1890, Colorado’s largest antebellum slaveholders did not constitute a
majority of those owning $10,000 or more as early as 1870. Beginning soon after the war, a new
upper class began to emerge, albeit one considerably less wealthy than its antebellum
predecessor. If the occupations of those owning $10,000 or more in 1880 were any indication of
trends within the county, it remained predominately an agricultural area. On the other hand, an
ever-increasing number of non-agricultural professionals began to emerge as early as 1870, when
lawyers and entrepreneurs occupied the top tax brackets of the county.
Political power at the county level was evenly split between non-slaveholders and
slaveholders during the antebellum period. During the years of the Republic of Texas nonslaveholders dominated the chief magistracy. Small slaveholders held the county judgeships in
the decade before the Civil War. By the end of the antebellum period, only one planter, Andrew
M. Campbell, held this office. During Reconstruction and the postbellum period, men who had
been non-slaveholders and professionals began to dominate the county’s politics. Between 1866
and 1890, for example, half of the county judges listed their occupations as lawyers instead of
farmers or planters. The abolition of slavery proved too strong a blow to the antebellum planter
class as its wealth began collapsing soon after the Civil War.
142
CHAPTER 6
THE ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL ELITE OF FORT BEND COUNTY, 1860-1890
Like Brazoria County, Fort Bend County was one of the foremost agricultural counties in
nineteenth-century Texas. Its location near waterways and its suitable climate made it ideal for
sugar production. Throughout the nineteenth century, Fort Bend was among the leading sugar
counties in the state, and that industry still defines the county today. As noted earlier, sugar
production required massive investments of capital and manpower, and Fort Bend contained
many of the largest plantations in the state.
The Republic of Texas created Fort Bend County on December 29, 1837, forming it from
neighboring Austin, Brazoria, and Harris Counties. President Sam Houston appointed Wyly
Martin, a veteran of the Texas Revolution, as its first judge. In the legislation creating the
county, Martin was required to hold an election in the town of Richmond to select its permanent
seat. On January 13, 1838, Fort Bend residents chose Richmond, which is still the county seat.1
Of the Old Three Hundred, fifty-six received land grants within Fort Bend (see Table
6.1). Of these, Randolph Foster, Henry Jones, Joseph Kuykendall, David Randon, and John
Randon would be among those listed as planters in the 1860 county tax rolls. William Pettus’s
son, John, would become one of the county’s largest slaveholders by 1860. Some of early
Texas’s prominent citizens lived within the county from the Republican period to postReconstruction. Nathaniel F. and Matthew R. Williams helped establish the foundations of the
future Imperial Sugar Company with their Oakland Plantation. Jane Long, nicknamed the
“Mother of Texas,” opened a boarding house in Richmond and owned eighteen slaves on her
1
Gammel, Laws of Texas, 1822-1897, 1: 119; Election Registers; Virginia Laird Ott, “Fort Bend County,”
New Handbook of Texas, 2:1087.
143
Table 6.1. Landowning members of the Old Three Hundred in Fort Bend County, 1824-1827
Name
Allcorn, Elijah
Alsbury, Thomas
Andrews, William
Baratt, William
Barnett, Thomas
Battle, Mills M.
Beard, James
Belknap, Charles
Berry, M.
Bright, David
Brown, George
Cartwright, Jesse H.
Chriesman, Horatio
Fitzgerald, David
Foster, John
Foster, Randolph
Frazier, James
Gilbert, Sarah
Hall, W.J.
Harris, Abner
Hodge, Alexander
Isaacks, Samuel
Jones, Henry
Jones, J. W.
Jones, R.
Kennedy, Samuel
Knight, James
Kuykendall, Abner
Name
Kuykendall, Joseph
Little, John
Little, William
Long, Jane H.
McCormick, John
Miller, Simon
Morton, William
Pennington, Isaac
Pettus, William
Polley, Joseph H.
Rabb, John
Randon, David
Randon, John
Roark, Elijah
Roberts, Andrew
Roberts, Noel F.
Robertson, Edward
San Pierre, Joseph
Scott, James
Shelby, David
Shipman, Moses
Spencer, Nancy
Stafford, William
Teel, George
Westall, Thomas
White, Walter C.
Wilkins, Jane
Williams, John
Source: Wallace, Vigness, and Ward, eds., Documents of Texas History, 151-158.
144
Richmond – County Seat
Map 6.1. Location of Fort Bend County, 1860. (Source: Campbell, Empire for Slavery, 3;
originally created by Terry G. Jordan, Walter Prescott Webb Chair of History and Ideas,
University of Texas).
145
plantation just south of the town. Former Republic of Texas President Mirabeau B. Lamar
moved to Richmond in 1851, where he would live for the remainder of his life.2
Slavery flourished in the county before the Civil War. According to the 1850 county tax
rolls, there were 1,603 slaves in the county. By 1860 the slave population had skyrocketed to
3,532. At 869 square miles, the county’s number of slaves per mile went from 1.8 in 1850 to 4.1
ten years later, the highest of all the counties under examination.3
Fort Bend’s location near major waterways, along with suitable weather conditions, made
the area conducive to sugar production. According to the 1850 U. S. Census, Fort Bend was one
of just twenty-four counties in Texas that produced sugar. At 100 hogsheads of cane sugar and
420 gallons of molasses, Fort Bend ranked seventh of all Texas counties. In 1850 Brazoria,
Liberty, Limestone, Rusk, Victoria, and Wharton Counties produced more cane sugar and
molasses than Fort Bend. Ten years later, however, only Brazoria and Matagorda exceeded Fort
Bend’s production of 450 hogsheads and 4,500 gallons.4
Similar to other counties with a majority slave population, Fort Bend overwhelmingly
supported secession following Abraham Lincoln’s election. The vast majority of the county,
with the exception of its western tip, falls within historian Walter Buenger’s homogeneous
Lower South. With one of the largest slave populations within antebellum Texas, Fort Bend
2
Fort Bend County Tax Rolls, 1860; Ann A. Brindley, “Jane Long,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly 56
(October 1952), 237-238; Ott, “Fort Bend County,” New Handbook of Texas, 2:1087.
3
Fort Bend County Tax Rolls, 1850, 1860; Pauline Yelderman, The Jaybirds of Fort Bend County (Waco:
Texian Press, 1979), 43.
4
DeBow, Statistical View of the United States, 1850, 519-520; Kennedy, Agriculture of the United States
in 1860, 143, 147, 151.
146
residents voted for secession by a margin of 486 to 0, making it one of only six Texas counties
that voted unanimously to leave the union.5
During the Civil War many Fort Bend residents served in Confederate units. The most
famous was the Eighth Texas Cavalry Regiment, also known as Terry’s Texas Rangers. Its
namesake, Colonel Benjamin Franklin Terry, was a sugar grower in Fort Bend. In 1860 he
owned thirteen slaves on his Sugarland plantation. He would be killed at Woodsonville,
Kentucky, on December 17, 1861. The regiment would later fight under General Albert Sidney
Johnston at the Battle of Shiloh. The unit was assigned to Johnston because he and Terry owned
neighboring plantations in Fort Bend. Following Johnston’s death, the regiment moved to
Lieutenant General Nathan Bedford Forrest’s command, under whom it fought for most of the
war. The Eighth ended the war in General Joseph E. Johnston’s Army of Tennessee and
surrendered in North Carolina on April 26, 1865.6
Despite the April 1865 surrender, Fort Bend County residents remained defiant. After
Terry’s Rangers capitulated, a crowd gathered in Richmond and resolved to continue the
struggle. The Augusta (Georgia) Weekly Constitution published these resolutions on June 7,
1865. A portion of them read: “under no circumstances and in no event will we submit to our
dominating and perfidious enemies who have placed an ocean of blood between us which cannot
5
Winkler, Journal of the Secession Convention of Texas, 1861, 88-90; Election Registers; Buenger,
Secession and the Union in Texas, 15; Timmons, “Referendum in Texas on the Ordinance of Secession,” 15. Only
Brown, Fort Bend, Marion, Palo Pinto, Webb, and Zapata Counties had unanimous votes for secession (Timmons,
“Referendum in Texas on the Ordinance of Secession,” 15).
6
Yelderman, Jaybirds of Fort Bend County, 39; Crute, Units of the Confederate States Army, 327-328;
Grear, Why Texans Fought in the Civil War, 81-83.
147
be crossed nor dried.” In addition, some Fort Bend residents proposed to equip 30,000 slaves to
fight west of the Mississippi River under General E. Kirby Smith.7
Abolition had serious negative effects on Fort Bend’s agricultural production. For
example, cane molasses production decreased from 4,500 gallons in 1860 to 2,896 in 1870.
Cane sugar also fell between 1860 and 1870, from 450 hogsheads to 362. Furthermore, cotton
production suffered. In 1860 Fort Bend’s cotton planters produced 13,602 bales of ginned
cotton. Ten years later, however, that number was only 4,017, a 70 percent decline.8
As Fort Bend cotton and sugar barons suffered from decreases in production, the
antebellum political system experienced a similar collapse. Between 1860 and 1880 the
percentage of black residents within the county increased steadily, from 67 percent in 1860 to 80
percent in 1880. With such large majorities, Republicans were able to control the county until
the 1880s. In demonstration of the influence of the black vote within the county, Walter Burton
Moses, a former slave, was elected as Fort Bend’s sheriff in 1871. Moses was one of Fort
Bend’s forty-four freedmen to serve in local government between 1869 and 1889. According to
the U. S. Census, white residents would remain a minority until 1920.9
As in the state in general, white violence against former slaves was a problem in Fort
Bend County. The Freedmen’s Bureau recorded 2,214 acts of violence against or perpetrated by
7
Augusta, Georgia Weekly Constitution, 7 June 1865 [quotation]; Clarence R Wharton, Wharton’s History
of Fort Bend County (San Antonio: Naylor Company, 1939), 173; Yelderman, Jaybirds of Fort Bend County, 39.
8
Kennedy, Agriculture of the United States in 1860, 141, 143; Walker, Statistics of the Wealth and Industry
of the United States, 252-253.
9
Election Registers; William C. Hunt, Fourteenth Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1920,
Population 1920, Number and Distribution of Inhabitants (Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1921),
1364; Peggy Pascoe, What Comes Naturally: Miscegenation Law and the Making of Race in America (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2009), 33; Francis A. Walker, Statistics of the Population of the United States at the Tenth
Census (June 1, 1880) (Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1883), 79, 409; Leslie Anne Lovett, “The
Jaybird-Woodpecker War: Reconstruction and Redemption in Fort Bend County, Texas, 1869-1889” (M. A. thesis,
Rice University, 1994), 3, 5.
148
freedmen in Texas during Reconstruction. The vast majority of the violence, all but forty-two
cases, was white on black. Historian Barry A. Crouch argues that freedmen were three times
more likely to engage in violence against other former slaves than against whites. Historian Carl
H. Moneyhon describes parts of Texas in the summer of 1868 as being in a state of racial war.10
As demonstrated in Table 6.2, thirty-four men and women owned the requisite number of
slaves to be considered planters in 1860. All but seven of these were found in both the 1860
county tax rolls and 1860 U. S. Census. Of those found in the census, three were women. Fort
Bend planters were split almost evenly between those born in the Lower South and those in the
Upper South. Of those whose birth state could be determined, twelve came from Lower South
states other than Texas, and eleven were born in the Upper South. Furthermore, three were born
in northern states, while one was a native of Texas.11
Collectively these planters owned 1,545 slaves, or 44 percent of the 3,532 slaves in the
county in 1860. Two, J. P. Waters and James Simonton, owned more than one hundred slaves
(188 and 107, respectively). The average age of the county planters was 46, ranging from 20 to
73. These men and women owned estates worth an average of $95,180 (from $21,960 to
$354,275). Five were either members or descendants of the Old Three Hundred. Of the eighty-
10
Lovett, “Jaybird-Woodpecker War,” 3; Barry A. Crouch, “A Sprit of Lawlessness: White Violence,
Texas Blacks, 1865-1868,” Journal of Social History 18 (Winter 1984): 219; James Smallwood, “When the Klan
Rode: White Terror in Reconstruction Texas,” Journal of the West 25 (October 1986): 4; Gregg Cantrell, “Racial
Violence and Reconstruction Politics in Texas, 1867-1868,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly 93 (Jan. 1990): 333334, 350; Rebecca A. Kosary, “To Degrade and Control: White Violence and the Maintenance of Racial and Gender
Boundaries in Reconstruction Texas” (Ph.D. diss., Texas A&M University, 2006), 29; Moneyhon, Republicanism in
Reconstruction Texas, 95. For a breakdown of Texas racial violence between 1865 and 1868, consult Kosary’s
Appendix B.
11
1860 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Fort Bend County, Texas (Roll 1294); Fort Bend County Tax Rolls,
1860.
149
43
61
25
35
34
29
94
49
23
24
37
45
61
39
80
70
26
Buckley, C. W.
Cheney, Mary
Conner, Dan A.
Dunleavy, Henry
Foster, Randolph
Freeman, William
Fulschear, Churchill
Hart, Alpha
Howard, Thomas B.
Huggins, J. A.
Jones, Henry
Jovert, Everett
Kuykendall, Joseph
Mason, Samuel
McMahan, W. W.
Miller, J. R.
Name
150
$21,960 Winston, James E.
$205,590 Watts, George W.
$136,560 Waters, J. P.
$122,000 Walker, Ed L.
$188,211 Varney, Ezekiel
$124,383 Vail, Jonathan
$42,758 Tomlinson, John C.
$49,325 Thatcher, John
$26,750 Stroble, Lewis M.
$123,206 Sonst, F. G.
$166,975 Simonton, James
$81,215 Simonton, J. C.
$60,303 Randon, John
$84,463 Randon, David
$31,255 Pettus, John R.
$152,150 Perry, Patrick
$82,647 Mitchell, W. D.
Slaves Estate
Bohannon, R. E.
Name
25
29
188
32
23
23
20
39
21
21
107
32
41
70
23
33
43
$43,750
$37,000
$354,275
$59,910
$32,785
$27,484
$39,820
$76,350
$27,400
$39,520
$245,640
$38,175
$100,250
$228,960
$29,775
$58,410
$96,864
Slaves Estate
Table 6.2. Fort Bend County planters, 1860
Sources: Fort Bend County Tax Rolls, 1860; 1860 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Fort Bend County, Texas (Roll 1294).
five Fort Bend residents who owned $10,000 or more in 1865, thirty-four (40 percent) of them
were planters. 12
As noted in Table 6.3, the value of the planters’ slaves contributed a significant
percentage of their 1860 estates. On average, the value of slaves constituted a slight majority (52
percent) of the value of planter estates. For some, slaves constituted nearly the entirety of their
property. Lewis M. Stroble’s twenty-two slaves, worth just over $25,000, were 92 percent of his
total estate of $27,400.13
Between the county’s founding and the end of the Civil War, small slaveholders were a
majority of the men who served as county judges (see Table 6.4). Of the seven chief magistrates
between 1838 and 1865, only one, John P. Borden, did not own slaves during his tenure. These
men owned an average of four slaves during their tenure. Following statehood the average
wealth of judges skyrocketed. Between 1838 and 1848, the first four occupiers of this office
were worth a mean of $3,639. After 1848, that average increase almost five times to $17,883.
As in other counties, small slaveholders, not planters, occupied the office from 1848 and 1865.
In comparison to other counties, the prevalence of professionals behind the county’s judicial
bench occurred earlier in Fort Bend County. The last two judges pursued legal careers.14
Abolition drastically reduced the fortunes of Fort Bend’s antebellum planter class. As
demonstrated in Table 6.5, the thirteen former planters that the 1870 county tax rolls listed lost
an average of 90 percent of their antebellum wealth. More than half of the antebellum planters
12
Fort Bend County Tax Rolls, 1860; 1860 Free Schedule, Fort Bend County, Texas; Wallace, Vigness,
and Ward, eds., Documents of Texas History, 151-158; Campbell, Empire for Slavery, 265.
13
Fort Bend County Tax Rolls, 1860.
14
Election Registers; Fort Bend County Tax Rolls, 1838-1865; 1860 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Fort Bend
County, Texas (Roll 1294).
151
Table 6.3. Percentage of the value of slaves within planters’ estates, 1860
Name
Slave
Value
Estate
Bohannon, R. E.
Buckley, C. W.
Cheney, Mary
Conner, Dan A.
Dunleavy, Henry
Foster, Randolph
Freeman, William
Fulschear, Churchill
Hart, Alpha
Howard, Thomas B.
Huggins, J. A.
Jones, Henry
Jovert, Everett
Kuykendall, Joseph
Mason, Samuel
McMahan, W. W.
Miller, J. R.
Mitchell, W. D.
Perry, Patrick
Pettus, John R.
Randon, David
Randon, John
Simonton, J. C.
Simonton, James
Sonst, F. G.
Stroble, Lewis M.
Thatcher, John
Tomlinson, John C.
Vail, Jonathan
Varney, Ezekiel
Walker, Ed L.
Waters, J. P.
Watts, George W.
Winston, James E.
$33,000
$61,000
$20,000
$35,000
$34,000
$23,200
$94,000
$49,000
$23,000
$21,600
$25,900
$45,000
$61,000
$39,000
$64,000
$70,000
$18,200
$35,000
$26,400
$18,400
$70,000
$41,000
$22,400
$107,000
$21,000
$25,200
$39,000
$18,000
$17,250
$23,000
$30,000
$169,200
$22,400
$25,000
$82,647
$152,150
$31,255
$84,463
$60,303
$81,215
$166,975
$123,206
$26,750
$49,325
$42,758
$124,383
$188,211
$122,000
$136,560
$205,590
$21,960
$96,864
$58,410
$29,775
$228,960
$100,250
$38,175
$245,640
$39,520
$27,400
$76,350
$39,820
$27,484
$32,785
$59,910
$354,275
$37,000
$43,750
Percentage of
Slave Value
within Estates
40%
40%
64%
41%
56%
29%
56%
40%
86%
44%
61%
36%
32%
32%
47%
34%
83%
36%
45%
62%
31%
41%
59%
44%
53%
92%
51%
45%
63%
70%
50%
48%
61%
57%
Source: Fort Bend County Tax Rolls, 1860.
152
Table 6.4. Antebellum and Civil War-era Fort Bend County judges, 1838-1865
Name
Tenure
Martin, Wyly
Miller, Jason
Dyer, Clement
Borden, John P.
Dyer, Clement
Foster, George
Sullivan, James
1838-1840
1840-1843
1843-1846
1846-1848
1848-1858
1858-1862
1862-1865
Average
Number of
Slaves Owned
During
Tenure
2
1
0
0
12
3
4
Average
Wealth
During
Tenure
Occupation
$8,512
$75
$4,783
$1,186
$14,717
$12,949
$25,982
N/A
N/A
Farmer*
N/A
Farmer*
Chief Justice
Lawyer
Sources: Fort Bend County Tax Rolls, 1838-1865; Election Registers; 1860 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Fort Bend
County, Texas (Roll 1294).
Note: Asterisks indicate occupation as listed by the 1850 U. S. Census.
153
Table 6.5. Total estates of 1860 planters as listed in the 1870 tax rolls
Name
Bohannon, R. E.
Buckley, C. W.
Conner, Dan A.
Dunleavy, Henry
Fulschear, Churchill
Kuykendall, Joseph
Mason, Samuel
Miller, J. R.
Pettus, John R.
Thatcher, John
Vail, Jonathan
Varney, Ezekiel
Walker, Ed L.
Averages
1860
Estate
$82,647
$84,463
$84,463
$60,303
$123,206
$122,000
$135,560
$21,960
$29,775
$76,350
$17,774
$32,785
$59,910
$71,630
1870
Estate
$6,700
$5,913
$7,260
$2,300
$35,191
$23,012
$14,242
$376
$1,950
$13,445
$2,286
$1,550
$1,303
$8,887
Sources: Fort Bend County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870.
154
Percentage
of 1860
Estate Lost
92%
93%
91%
96%
71%
81%
89%
98%
93%
82%
87%
95%
98%
90%
were not even listed in the 1870 tax rolls. During this decade four planters’ estates went into
probate court. Furthermore, the county’s deed record shows that C. W. Buckley died in 1867,
but the tax rolls still listed his estate three years later.15
By 1870 thirteen of the thirty-four antebellum planters were listed in the tax rolls. As
Table 6.6 demonstrates, eleven lost both acreage and the value of that land between 1860 and
1870. Only Churchill Fulschear and John Thatcher gained in acres owned. The remaining
eleven lost a total of 8,315 acres. J. R. Miller lost every acre he owned between 1860 and 1870,
listing just two horses, fifty cattle, and $50 in miscellaneous property as his only taxable property
in 1870.16
Every former planter lost a substantial amount of value in their landholdings. They lost a
total of $338,868, decreasing an average of $26,067 per planter. The land value of the Buckley
estate, for example, fell nearly 98 percent, dropping from $80,950 in 1860 to just $2,000 ten
years later. For Buckley the loss in both acreage owned and the value of his land holdings
represented the overwhelming bulk of his losses. In 1860 his estate was worth $152,150. His
land constituted 53 percent ($80,950) of his total taxable property. Through the loss of 3,000
acres, a 64 percent decline in the value of his holding per acre (from $25 in 1860 to $9.09 ten
years later), and the loss of $61,000 worth of bondsmen, the estate, overall, lost 93 percent of its
value.17
Twelve of the county’s fourteen individuals who applied for a presidential pardon did so
under the Thirteenth Exception (see Table 6.7). Five of these, William Freeman, W. W.
15
Fort Bend County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870; Fort Bend County Probate Records, D:471; G:417, 455; I:279,
605, 635; Fort Bend County Deeds Records H:319; A. J. Sowell, History of Fort Bend County (Houston: W. H.
Coyle & Co., Stationers and Printers, 1904), 57.
16
Fort Bend County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870.
17
Ibid.
155
Table 6.6. Gains/Losses in acres owned and land values of antebellum planters, 1870
1860
Acres
1860
Value
1870
Acres
1870
Value
Change in
Acres
Change
in Value
Bohannon, R. E.
1,100
$11,000
330
$6,000
-770
-$5,000
Buckley, C. W.
3,238
$80,950
220
$2,000
-3,018
-$78,950
Conner, Dan A.
2,936
$46,688
1,000
$1,000
-1,936
-$45,688
816
$24,540
270
$2,700
-546
-$21,840
Fulschear, Churchill
5,989
$61,206
8,745
$25,420
2,756
-$35,786
Kuykendall, Joseph
2,222
$40,000
2,214
$6,642
-8
-$33,358
Mason, Samuel
6,178
$68,020
5,421
$11,972
-757
-$56,048
Miller, J. R.
177
$3,540
0
$0
-177
-$3,540
Pettus, John R.
525
$10,500
200
$1,600
-325
-$8,900
Thatcher, John
1,181
$35,430
1,681
$16,445
500
-$18,985
Vail, Jonathan
1,090
$10,000
1,052
$2,124
-38
-$7,876
550
$5,500
410
$800
-140
-$4,700
1,507
$20,000
907
$1,803
-600
-$18,197
Name
Dunleavy, H.
Varney, Ezekiel
Walker, Ed L.
Sources: Fort Bend County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870.
156
McMahan, David Randon, James Simonton, and John Thatcher, had been planters in 1860. The
other two pardons from Fort Bend were based on the First and Sixth Exceptions. John T. Holt
had been the county’s Confederate-era tax collector, and David Terry was accused of murdering
Union prisoners of war and a freedman. Terry, the younger brother of Benjamin Terry, was the
only Texan to apply under the Sixth Exception, which barred individuals suspected of
mistreating black prisoners of war or their white officers.18
Like so many other ex-planters, Fort Bend’s largest former slaveholders informed
President Andrew Johnson that abolition had driven their personal wealth below $20,000.
William Freeman, for example, wrote to Johnson on October 17, 1865 and declared that because
of “the freedom of [his] slaves and . . . depreciation [in] . . . the county, it is doubtful [his estate]
can be estimated at that value. . . .” He claimed that he had opposed secession but admitted that
he supported the war once it began.19
As in other Texas counties, Fort Bend’s early Reconstruction political elite included less
wealthy individuals. With the fall of slavery came the fall of the slaveholding class’s domination
over county-level political power. As Table 6.8 demonstrates, only three of Provisional
Governor Andrew Hamilton’s appointed officials had owned slaves in 1860. The values of their
estates in 1865 show that although three of the officials possessed estates of $10,000 or more,
most of Hamilton’s appointments possessed much less than these individuals. On average their
taxable property was worth $3,437.20
18
Amnesty Papers (Roll 53, 54, 55); Clampitt, “Two Degrees of Rebellion, 270;” Kenneth W. Hobbs,
“Terry, David S.,” New Handbook of Texas, 6:265-266.
19
William Freeman to President Andrew Johnson, October 17, 1865, Amnesty Papers, (Roll 53).
20
Fort Bend County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1865.
157
Table 6.7. Fort Bend County presidential pardons
Name
Ferguson, David
Freeman, William*
Holt, John T.
McLeod, James
McMahan, W. W.*
Newell, John P.
Randon, David*
Ryan, Mary M.
Ryan, William
Shipman, J. R.
Simonton, James*
Sullivan, J. S.
Terry, David
Thatcher, John*
Exception
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
First
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Sixth
Thirteenth
Source: Amnesty Papers (Roll 53, 54, 55).
Note: Asterisks indicate planters.
158
The elites of Fort Bend County in 1870 demonstrate that the vast majority of the planter class
collapsed following abolition. Of the eighteen who claimed $10,000 or more in total property,
only seven were former planters. In addition to the former planters themselves, the absence of
their family members further illustrates the fall of this class between 1860 and 1870. According
to the 1860 U. S. Census, the planter families totaled nearly one-hundred people. Ten years
later, only ten members of these families remained in the county. Of Dan A. Conner’s elevenperson antebellum household, for example, the 1870 U. S. Census lists only his mother,
Elizabeth. In general only spouses and eldest children remained. The absence of nearly 90
percent of the former planter family members in both the 1870 and 1880 U. S. Censuses
demonstrates once again that abolition quickly felled Fort Bend County’s planter class.21
In addition to being new to the upper class, half of the 1870 elite were relatively new to
the county. According to the county’s deed records, two members of the new elite
either arrived or began amassing their fortunes after 1860. The deed records first mention Seth
L. Walker on March 30, 1863, when he purchased 325 acres from an I. L. Hill. Thomas Gibbs,
furthermore, moved into the county following the war. On March 16, 1870, he obtained a
release from E. B. Nichols of 1,304 acres of lands within Fort Bend County.22
21
Ibid., 1860, 1870; 1860 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Fort Bend County, Texas (Roll 1294); 1870 U. S.
Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Fort Bend County, Texas (Roll 1585); 1880 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Fort
Bend County, Texas (Roll 1304).
22
Fort Bend County Deeds Records, G:509; I:410.
159
Table 6.8. Fort Bend County officials appointed by Provisional Governor Andrew Jackson
Hamilton
Position
Slaves
Owned in
1860
Value of Estate in
1865
Andrus, Walter
County Court Clerk
Not listed
$1,845
Atkins, B. F.
Justice of the Peace
0
$466
Autrey, Alonzo
Sherriff
Not listed
$560
Blakely, J. W.
Justice of the Peace
Not listed
$115
Calder, R. S.
Justice of the Peace
0
Not listed
DeWalt, L. W.
Commissioner
Not listed
Not listed
DeWalt, L. W.
Justice of the Peace
Not listed
Not listed
Dyer, J E
District Court Clerk
3
$2,735
Fergurson, David
Justice of the Peace
Not listed
$1,325
Ford, A. J.
Tax Collector
Not listed
$2,989
Hand, J. H.
Justice of the Peace
Not listed
$415
Treasurer
0
$1,115
Schley, George
County Judge
13
$10,534
Secrest, Felix
Commissioner
Not listed
$12,490
Surveyor
Not listed
Not listed
Justice of the Peace
Not listed
$10,132
Vogel, Phil
Commissioner
Not listed
$2,825
Walker, S. R.
Commissioner
9
$575
Name
Robinson, William B.
Sherwood, William
Sojourner, C. B.
Sources: Fort Bend County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1865; Election Register.
160
As in other Texas counties, significant numbers of Fort Bend’s richest taxpayers in 1870
hailed from states outside of Texas. Of the eighteen individuals who owned $10,000 or more in
property, the census lists thirteen. Of those whose nativity could be determined, six were born in
the Upper South, three in the Lower South (excluding Texas), two in Texas, and two in northern
states.23
Although the percentage of wealthy residents who were planters changed little between
1860 and 1870, the absolute number of wealthy former planters drastically decreased. In 1860
eighty-five residents, thirty-four (40 percent) of whom were planters, owned property worth
$10,000 or more. Ten years later only seven antebellum planters were counted among the
wealthiest group.24
As demonstrated by the occupations of those listed in Table 6.10, Fort Bend’s economy
remained dependent on farming. Of the thirteen individuals who occupations could be
determined, only three did not engage in agriculture. The 1870 U. S. Census lists Walter
Anders’s occupation as attorney. Sarah McMahan and Nancy D. Randon, both widows of
former planters, declared themselves housekeepers. The remaining ten, however, were either
farmers or stock raisers.25
The decade between 1870 and 1880 witnessed a mixed economic recovery. Although the
number of people owning $10,000 or more increased from eighteen in 1870 to twenty-four in
1880, the average estate of a member of the postbellum elite decreased from $21,288 in 1870 to
$20,028 ten years later. Of the twenty-four listed in Table 6.8, sixteen were found in the 1880
23
Fort Bend County Tax Rolls, 1870; 1870 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Fort Bend County, Texas
(Roll 1585).
24
Fort Bend County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870.
25
1870 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Fort Bend County, Texas (Roll 1585).
161
Fulshear, Churchill* Long, Jane
Buckley, Ann
Mason, Louise
Burton, Thomas
Mays, M.
Hodges, Elizabeth
Hodges, Robert
Cheney, Mary*
Colden, M.
Source: Fort Bend County Tax Rolls, 1860.
Note: Asterisks indicate an antebellum planter.
162
Miller, John
Jones, Emmett
Jones, Henry*
Jones, Randall
Jones, William
Jovert, Everett*
Duwalt, Thomas
Dyer, C. C.
Dyer, J.
Fine, George
Foster, A.
Patton, Thomas
Nurell, J. D.
Nibbs, A.
Moon, M.
Mitchell, W. D.*
Miller, J. R.*
Dunleavy, Henry* Johnson, John
Foster, Randolph* Krump, E.
Ryan, William
Rundell, G.
Randon, John*
Randon, David*
Pratt, Thomas
Pleasants, G.
Pettus, John R.*
Petant, E.
Stroble, Lewis M.*
Stemstrong, Joseph
Sonst, F. G.*
Sojourn, C.
Smith, R. A.
Simonton, James*
Simonton, J. C.*
Schely, George
McMahan, W. W.* Sanburg, J. W.
McNeal, J.
Huggins, J. A.*
Dunlap, William Hunter, Thomas
Doughty, H.
Conner, Dan A.* Howard, Thomas B.* McCloy, P.
McClod, J.
Mason, Samuel*
Chambers, C. H. Hodges, Archer
Hart, Alpha*
Lowry, J.
Buckley, C. W.* Gill, John
Leigh, N.
Fuller, Ira
Bryan, J. A.
Perry, Patrick*
Leary, John
Frost, S.
Name
Borner, S. W.
Name
Kuykendall, Joseph* Perry, Daniel
Name
Bohannon, R. E.* Freeman, William*
Name
Winston, James*
Watts, George W.*
Waters, J. P.*
Walker, Ed L.*
Varney, Ezekiel*
Vail, Jonathan*
Tomlinson, John*
Thatcher, John*
Sullivan, J.
Name
Table 6.9. Owners of $10,000 or more in total property in Fort Bend County, 1860
Table 6.10. Owners of $10,000 or more in total property in Fort Bend County, 1870
Name
Anders, Walter
Castleton, John
Dewalt, Thomas
Dyer, James Foster
Fulschear, Churchill*
Gibbs, T.
Holt, R. E.
Kuykendall, Joseph*
Mayburn, Stephen
McMahan, Sarah*
Parker, Joseph S.
Paul, James
Randon, Nancy D.*
Ryan, William
Thatcher, John*
Walker, Seth R.*
Waters, J. D.*
Wright, James A.
Occupation
Attorney
Farmer
Farmer
Stock Raiser
& Farmer
Farmer
N/A
N/A
Stock Raiser
N/A
Keeping
House
Farmer
N/A
Keeping
House
Stock Raiser
Farmer
Farmer
N/A
Stock Raiser
Birth
State
Age
Estate
Sex
TX
NY
SC
41
24
44
$10,690
$10,269
$11,750
M
M
M
TX
TN
N/A
N/A
KY
N/A
42
62
N/A
N/A
76
N/A
$25,920
$35,191
$10,000
$10,725
$23,012
$53,761
M
M
N/A
N/A
M
N/A
NC
PA
N/A
62
32
N/A
$13,188
$14,185
$15,848
F
M
M
KY
KY
MO
MS
N/A
GA
75
61
49
37
N/A
21
$12,140
$12,250
$13,445
$24,325
$71,485
$15,000
F
M
M
M
N/A
M
Sources: 1870 U. S. Census, Fort Bend County (Roll 1585); Fort Bend County Tax Rolls, 1870.
Note: Asterisks indicate an antebellum planter or member of a planter family.
163
U. S Census. Of those, only five listed occupations unrelated to farming. The remaining eleven
were, as in 1870, engaged in agricultural professions, which was a common trend in other Texas
counties.26
The wealthiest residents in 1880 were generally relative newcomers to the ranks of the
richest taxpayers (see Table 6.11). Three (Churchill Fulschear, James E. Winston, and Mary
Ryan) carried over their estates between 1870 and 1880 at $10,000 or more. Only three, or 13
percent, of the twenty-four members of the 1880 elite were descendants of antebellum planter
families. Both James Freeman’s and James Simonton’s fathers were planters twenty years
before. F. Bohannon could have been a descendant of R. E. Bohannon, but R. E.’s absence from
any census precludes making this determination.27
The 1880 elite show a spike in the number of native-born Texans. In 1860 only one
planter was born in the Lone Star State. Ten years later that number was two. Seven of the 1880
group were born in Texas, a trend that would continue throughout the remainder of the
nineteenth century. Of the remaining nine members of the wealthiest group whose place of birth
could be determined, five were born in the Upper South while four came from states of the
Lower South other than Texas. The remaining eight individuals within Table 6.11 were not
listed in any census.28
26
Fort Bend County Tax Rolls, 1870, 1880; 1870 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Fort Bend County,
Texas (Roll 1585); 1880 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Fort Bend County, Texas (Roll 1304).
27
Fort Bend County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870, 1880; 1860 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Fort Bend County, Texas
(Roll 1294); 1870 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Fort Bend County, Texas (Roll 1585); 1880 U. S. Census,
Inhabitant Schedule, Fort Bend County, Texas (Roll 1304).
28
1860 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Fort Bend County, Texas (Roll 1294); 1870 U. S. Census, Inhabitant
Schedule, Fort Bend County, Texas (Roll 1585); 1880 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Fort Bend County, Texas
(Roll 1304).
164
The members of the 1890 elite demonstrated that agriculture was still dominant in Fort
Bend County (see Table 6.12). Of the eleven who were listed in the 1880 U. S. Census, eight
were farmers or stock raisers. J. E. Dyer and A. Meyers were both dry good merchants, and R.
L. Harris was a physician. No matter the occupation, the number of residents owning $10,000 or
more fell from the 1880 high of twenty-four to nineteen. Despite this drop, the average value of
the individual estates rose from $20,082 in 1880 to $28,523 ten years later. Similar to the
situation in 1880, most members of the 1890 elite were not listed as such in previous decades.
Only three (Mason Briscoe, Dyer, and Harris) carried over from any decade under examination.
Finally, no member of the antebellum planter class was among the members of the 1890 elite.
Matthew Dunleavy, the son of planter Henry Dunleavy, was the only family member of Fort
Bend’s largest antebellum slaveholders remaining in 1890. Between 1860 and 1890 the
antebellum planter class steadily fell from the ranks of the wealthiest taxpayers of Fort Bend
County, from 34 in 1860 to just 1 in 1890 (see Table 6.13).29
As the nineteenth century progressed, the number of native-born Texans among the
county’s wealthiest group increased. Of the twelve individuals listed in any census,
eight were born in Texas while just two were from the Upper South and one each came from the
Lower South (other than Texas) and Europe.30
Fort Bend’s county judges during and after Reconstruction reflected the trends of the
economic elite (see Table 6.14). Between 1838 and 1865, Fort Bend’s judges were small or nonslaveholders, not planters, and averaged an estate of $9,743. From 1866 to 1890, the county’s
29
Fort Bend County Tax Rolls, 1890; 1880 U. S Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Fort Bend County, Texas
(Roll 1304).
30
Fort Bend County Tax Rolls, 1890; 1880 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Fort Bend County, Texas
(Roll 1304).
165
Table 6.11. Owners of $10,000 or more in total property in Fort Bend County, 1880
Occupation
Birth
State
Age
Estate
Sex
Beard, T. R.
Farmer
TX
45
$13,475
M
Blakely, J. W.
Sheriff
AL
41
$10,955
M
Bohannon, F.
N/A
N/A
N/A
$10,150
N/A
Briscoe, Mason
N/A
N/A
N/A
$11,560
M
Davidson, W. L.
District Attorney
MS
42
$72,259
M
Davis, K.
Stock Farmer
TX
25
$12,055
M
Dyer, J. F.
Dry Goods Merchant
TX
48
$19,782
M
Farmer
KY
46
$14,105
M
N/A
AL
38
$46,651
M
Farmer
TN
72
$22,521
M
Harris, R. L.
Physician
NC
41
$13,980
M
Herndon, A.
N/A
N/A
N/A
$10,175
N/A
Hughes, Isam
N/A
N/A
N/A
$11,340
M
Johnson, Frank
Farmer
VA
40
$10,650
M
Lawrence, A. W.
Farmer
NC
34
$33,308
M
Linton, M.
Farmer
MS
46
$10,098
F
Mayblum, Sophia
N/A
N/A
N/A
$11,826
F
McFarlane, J.
N/A
N/A
N/A
$23,721
N/A
Mose, Martin
N/A
N/A
N/A
$21,366
N/A
Farmer
TX
22
$14,525
M
N/A
N/A
N/A
$10,139
N/A
Keeping House
TX
52
$46,004
F
Simonton, James
Farmer
TX
27
$16,537
M
Winston, James E.*
Farmer
TX
46
$13,487
M
Name
Fields, W. D.
Freeman, James*
Fulschear, Churchill*
Parker, Jason S.
Ragsdah, D.
Ryan, Mary M.
Sources: 1880 U. S. Census, Fort Bend County, Texas (Roll 1304); Fort Bend County Tax Rolls, 1880.
Note: Asterisks indicate an antebellum planter or member of a planter family.
166
Table 6.12. Owners of $10,000 or more in total property in Fort Bend County, 1890
Birth
State
Age
Estate
Bassett, Clem
TX
48
$28,195
Blakely, James N.
TX
30
$23,675
Blakely, T. M.
TX
19
$12,980
Booth, F. J.
TX
30
$17,720
Briscoe, Mason
N/A
N/A
$32,120
Davis, W. K.
AL
68
$20,190
Dunleavy, Matthew B.*
TX
38
$77,585
Dyer, J. E.
TX
58
$46,763
Field, N.
N/A
N/A
$38,200
Fulcher, G.
N/A
N/A
$15,225
Furgerson, N.
N/A
N/A
$28,609
Harris, R. L.
NC
41
$27,580
Huuken, John
N/A
N/A
$13,010
Jones, Thomas
N/A
N/A
$23,730
Lowry, Susan
TX
55
$10,175
McCrary, Joel
NC
51
$11,710
Moore, John
TX
28
$88,099
Germany
46
$11,515
N/A
N/A
$14,850
Name
Myers, A.
Suliff, John
Sources: 1880 U. S. Census, Fort Bend County, Texas (Roll 1304); Fort Bend County Tax Rolls, 1890.
Note: Asterisk indicates a member of an antebellum planter family.
167
Table 6.13. Percentage of antebellum planters within residents possessing $10,000 or more in
taxable property, 1860-1890
Year
1860
1870
1880
1890
Number of
Residents Owning
$10,000 or More
85
18
24
19
Number of Antebellum
Planters Owning
$10,000 or More*
34
7
3
1
Source: Fort Bend County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1890.
*Includes members of planter families.
168
Percentage of
Antebellum
Planters within
Owners of $10,000
or More*
40%
39%
13%
5%
Table 6.14. Fort Bend County judges, 1866-1890
Tenure
Average Wealth
During Term
Birth
State
Occupation
Calder, Robert
1866-1876
$7,340
MD
Merchant
Williams, J. C.
1876-1879
$1,730
LA
Attorney
Earnest, R. H.
1879-1882
$2,150
KY
Justice of the Peace
Somerville, H. L.
1882-1884
$1,350
VA
County Court Clerk
Parker, J. W.
1884-1886
$1,500
TX
Attorney
Earnest, R. H.
1886-1888
$2,490
KY
Justice of the Peace
1888-1890
$2,297
SC
Lawyer
Name
Weston, J. M.
Sources: Fort Bend County Tax Rolls, 1866-1890; Election Registers; 1860 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Fort Bend
County, Texas (Roll1294); 1870 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Fort Bend County Texas (, Roll 1585); 1880 U.
S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Fort Bend County, Texas (Roll 1304).
169
chief magistrates possessed less taxable wealth than those before and during the Civil War.
During the later period, the average worth of county judges fell to approximately $2,700, a
decrease of nearly 75 percent. Again, no planters served as county judges. Continuing the
earlier pattern, between 1858 and 1890 all but one county judge (Robert Calder), declared
themselves with occupations relating to the law. In both of the occupation columns in Tables 6.4
and 6.14, all of the remaining judges during this period listed themselves as legal professionals,
such as attorney, judge or justice, or lawyer. Fort Bend County thus had a similar experience
with its political elite as other Texas counties following abolition: the dominance of legal
professionals in the area’s highest elected office.31
Abolition negatively affected the antebellum planter class. The losses in slaves alone
were staggering for some of Fort Bend County’s antebellum planters, as much as 98 percent of
the value of their 1860 estates. The loss in both slaves and land value were insurmountable
obstacles for them. As early as 1870, Texans who had been the largest slaveholders before the
war were losing their elite status. In particular, they were far fewer in number. This bleeding
continued to the point that by 1890, only one member of the antebellum planter class was among
the richest taxpayers in Fort Bend. None of the antebellum county judges were planters. Rather,
either non- or minor slaveholders sat behind the county’s highest judicial bench. Reconstruction
and the subsequent fifteen years after Redemption would continue this trend, and the postbellum
political class was even less wealthy than its antebellum counterpart. Abolition pushed aside the
economic power and wealth of the antebellum planter class within five years of the end of the
war.
31
1860 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Fort Bend County, Texas (Roll 1294); 1870 U. S. Census, Inhabitant
Schedule, Fort Bend County, Texas (Roll 1585); 1880 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Fort Bend County, Texas
(Roll 1304); Fort Bend County Tax Rolls, 1858-1890; Election Registers.
170
CHAPTER 7
THE ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL ELITE OF MATAGORDA COUNTY, 1860-1890
The geographic location of Matagorda County made it an important area for antebellum
Texas’s agricultural production. Within its borders were some of the largest sugar plantations in
the state. Anglo settlement of Matagorda County began in 1822 when some of Stephen F.
Austin’s Old Three Hundred landed ashore at the mouth of the Colorado River from the
schooner Only Son. The empressario administered land grants to fifty-three families, some of
whom would serve in the Texas Revolution. Hinton Curtis, for example, would fight at the
Battle of San Jacinto. According to family legend, Thomas Williams’s son, also named Thomas,
was among those who discovered Mexican President Antonio López de Santa Anna when he
disguised himself after the Texian victory.1
Following Texas independence, the Republic created Matagorda County and designated
the city of Matagorda as its seat. From 1840 to the end of the Civil War, the
city emerged as the second largest seaport in Texas. It linked the county with cotton markets in
other ports, such as Mobile and New Orleans.2
With one of the state’s largest harbors, along with weather and soil conducive to
cultivating sugar, cotton, and livestock, Matagorda County soon became an agricultural
powerhouse in antebellum Texas. According to historian Diana Kleiner, the alluvial soils
1
Thomas W. Cutrer, "Curtis, Hinton,” New Handbook of Texas, 2:455; Rachel Jenkins, "Williams,
Thomas,” New Handbook of Texas, 6:989.
2
Diana J. Kleiner, “Matagorda County,” New Handbook of Texas, 4:557.
171
Table 7.1. Landowning members of the Old Three Hundred in Matagorda County, 1824-1827
Name
Balis, Daniel E.
Battle, Mills M.
Berry, M.
Betts, Jacob
Bostwick, Caleb R.
Bowman, John T.
Brotherington, Robert
Buckner, Aylett C.
Burnett, Pumphrey
Cooper, William
Crier, John
Crownover, John
Curtis, Hinton
Deckrow, Daniel D.
Demoss, Charles
Demoss, Peter
Duke, Thomas M.
Fenton, David
Flowers, Elisha
Foster, Isaac
George, Freeman
Jamison, Thomas
Keller, John C.
Kingston, William
League, Hosea H.
McCoy, Thomas
McKinsey, Hugh
Name
Morrison, Moses
Nuckols, M. B.
Pentecost, George S.
Pettus, Freeman
Peyton, J. C.
Pickett, Pamelia
Powell, Peter
Pruitt, Pleasant
Rabb, William
Ramey, Lawrence
Rawls, Amos
Rawls, Benjamin
Rawls, Daniel
Selkirk, William
Smith, John
Sojourner, Albert L.
Stout, Owen H.
Tone, Thomas J.
Vandorn, Isaac
Wightman, Elias D.
Williams, Henry
Williams, John
Williams, Robert H.
Williams, Solomon
Williams, Thomas
Woods, Zadock
Source: Wallace, Vigness, and Ward, eds., Documents of Texas History, 151-158.
172
Matagorda – County Seat*
Map 7.1. Location of Matagorda County, 1860. (Source: Campbell, Empire for Slavery, 3;
originally created by Terry G. Jordan, Walter Prescott Webb Chair of History and Ideas,
University of Texas).
Note: Matagorda served as the county seat until 1894, when Bay City replaced it (Kleiner, “Matagorda
County,” New Handbook of Texas, 4:558).
173
on the eastern side of the Colorado River made this portion of the county ideal for cotton and
sugar plantations. In 1860 it produced the second highest amount of cane molasses in the entire
state, 16,610 gallons. Only Brazoria’s 346,640 gallons exceeded Matagorda’s numbers. In
terms of cotton production, Matagorda’s 8,454 bales of ginned cotton ranked sixteenth in the
state in 1860. Throughout the nineteenth century, stock raising was a major industry within the
county, particularly in areas west of the Colorado River. Although the number of cattle would
decrease as the nineteenth century progressed, stock raisers became a major portion of the
postbellum wealthy class.3
According to the two antebellum federal censuses, the slave population significantly
exceeded the white population. Of the 2,124 inhabitants in Matagorda County in 1850, 3 were
free blacks, 913 were white, and 1,208 were slaves. The 1860 census records 3,454 people
living in Matagorda. The white population (1,347) was less than 40 percent of the county’s total
population. The remainder consisted of 1,877 black and 230 mulatto slaves. The county’s slaves
per square mile went from 1.3 in 1850 to 2.1 ten years later, the lowest of all the examined
counties.4
Like other southern counties with a majority slave population, Matagorda clearly
supported secession. According to historian Walter Buenger, Matagorda was the southern-most
county within the homogeneous Lower South. Of the 251 votes cast on secession in February
1861, 243 (97 percent) voted in favor, while just 8 voted against.5
3
Kleiner, “Matagorda County,” New Handbook of Texas, 4:557; Kennedy, Agriculture of the United States
in 1860, 141-149. San Augustine County produced the most in 1860 at 31,342 bales (Kennedy, Agriculture of the
United States in 1860, 141-149).
4
DeBow, Statistical View of the United States, 504; Kennedy, Population of the United States in 1860,
485.
5
Election Registers; Buenger, Secession and the Union in Texas, 15; Moneyhon, Republicanism in
Reconstruction in Texas, 204; Timmons, “Referendum in Texas on the Ordinance of Secession,” 15.
174
Compared to other counties, Matagorda’s contribution to the Civil War in terms of
military units was small. Matagorda men served principally in the Sixth Texas Infantry
Regiment, particularly Company D, also known as the Matagorda Guards. Among the members
of the unit was planter E. A. Pearson. This regiment served in the Trans-Mississippi and
Western theaters. It participated in the Battle of Arkansas Post on January 10-11, 1863, where
the regiment surrendered. The men later crossed the Mississippi River and fought in the Army
of Tennessee until the end of the war, ultimately surrendering on April 26, 1865. Another local
unit was the Caney Mounted Rifles, among whose members was Private Robert H. Chinn, a local
doctor and planter.6
The Confederacy’s collapse began an economic downturn within Matagorda County that
would continue into the late nineteenth century. During the war the Union blockade adversely
affected the local economy because it ended cotton exports from Matagorda Bay. Abolition
eliminated more than half of the taxable wealth in the county. According to the 1860 tax rolls,
Matagorda residents owned a collective $2,727,256 in taxable property. In 1866 that total fell to
$1,028,815. To put this in a different context, the value of slaves alone in 1860 was $1,095,400,
$66,000 more than the total property in 1866.7
Following the Civil War, most of Matagorda’s agricultural production plummeted.
According to the 1860 U. S. Census, Matagorda had 21,290 improved acres on farms worth a
total of $1,414,800. Ten years later, both improved acres and farm values fell, to 16,007 acres
and $364,817. Cotton and sugar production declined as well. The number of cotton bales
6
Shirley Brown and Carol Sue Gibbs, Historic Matagorda County, 3 vols. (Houston: D. Armstrong
Company Incorporated, 1986), 1:157; Crute, Units of the Confederate States Army, 326-327.
7
Matagorda County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1866; Kleiner, “Matagorda County,” New Handbook of Texas, 4:558.
175
produced fell from 8,454 before the war to 1,590 in 1870. Cane molasses fell by approximately
half, from 16,610 gallons in 1860 to 7,957 ten years later. Corn and swine numbers also dropped
dramatically.8
The cattle population, however, exploded immediately after the war. As the late
nineteenth century progressed, ranchers replaced farmers and planters as the chief agricultural
operators. The 1860 census counted nearly 38,000 head of non-dairy cows or working oxen.
That population more than doubled to almost 93,500 in 1870.9
During Reconstruction and throughout the late nineteenth century, Republicans
dominated local politics. Similar to other counties that had black majorities, Matagorda voters
consistently elected Republican candidates despite intimidation by the Ku Klux Klan. In the
gubernatorial election of 1869, Matagorda residents overwhelmingly supported Republican
Edmund J. Davis over Andrew Jackson Hamilton, 402 (94 percent of the vote) to 27 (6 percent).
As part of the Third Texas Congressional District, the county supported incumbent Republican
William T. Clark by a wide margin over Democrat Dewitt C. Giddings, 66 to 33 percent in 1871.
In the 1873 gubernatorial election, Democrat Richard Coke also lost Matagorda by a large
margin, 68 percent for Davis and 32 for Coke, the eventual governor.10
As in Fort Bend, Matagorda whites grew frustrated over the continual Republican
domination of the county, and that led to violence. In 1887 white vigilantes from Matagorda and
neighboring counties attacked King Vann African Settlement, killing several black residents.
8
Kennedy, Agriculture of the United States in 1860, 144; Walker, Statistics of the Wealth and Industry of
the United States, 255.
9
Kennedy, Agriculture of the United States in 1860, 144; Walker, Statistics of the Wealth and Industry of
the United States, 255; Matagorda County Tax Rolls, 1880, 1890; Kleiner, “Matagorda County,” New Handbook of
Texas, 4:558.
10
Election Registers; Moneyhon, Republicanism in Reconstruction Texas, 209, 213, 221; Kleiner,
“Matagorda County,” New Handbook of Texas, 4:558.
176
Despite racial violence and intimidation, Matagorda continued to vote Republican as late as
1896, when William McKinley carried the county in his election as president. From 1900 to
1948, Matagorda voters supported Democratic candidates with the exception of Herbert Hoover
in 1928.11
In 1860 twenty-seven Matagorda men and women owned twenty or more slaves (see
Table 7.2). Of these twenty-seven, twenty-four were male. Collectively they owned 1,365
slaves, or 73 percent of the 1,875 bondsmen listed in Matagorda in 1860. On average they
individually owned fifty-one slaves, with James B. Hawkins and W. G. Warren owning more
than one hundred and Roland Rugeley possessing twenty-one. Among the twenty-two whose
nativity could be determined, all were born outside of Texas. A majority of the planters were
born in the Lower South, with at least fourteen claiming nativity in Alabama, Georgia, or South
Carolina. Another eight were natives of the Upper South (Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee,
and Virginia). Only five were not found in any census, and none of the planters declared Texas
as their birth state. The average age was 45 and ranged between 25 and 68. The average estate
was worth $58,104. Of the fifty-four Fort Bend residents who owned $10,000 or more in 1865,
twenty-seven (50 percent) were planters 12
Unlike some of the other counties under examination, a clear majority, 63 percent, of the
planters had more of their estate invested in their bondsmen than in lands, livestock, or any
miscellaneous property (see Table 7.3). Slaves were worth 50 percent or more of eighteen of the
planters’ estates. Roland Rugeley’s twenty-one slaves, worth $8,600, were 96 percent of his
11
Kleiner, “Matagorda County,” New Handbook of Texas, 4:558.
12
Matagorda County Tax Rolls, 1860; 1860 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Matagorda County, Texas (Roll
1300); Campbell, Empire for Slavery, 265.
177
Table 7.2. Matagorda County planters, 1860
Name
Bowie, George
Brown, J. W.
Chinn, R. H.
Dunan, John
Ewing, Alexander
Gibson, Henry
Gibson, John H.
Gibson, M. M.
Gordon, Jesse
Hardeman, D.
Hawkins, James B.
Herbert, P. W.
Jones, John H.
McCormick, A. P.
Pearson, E. A.
Pledger, Eliza
Rugeley, A. J.
Rugeley, E. S.
Rugeley, John
Rugeley, Roland
Sheppard, Abram
Talbot, Matthew
Thompson, Nancy
Thorp, John L.
Warren, W. G.
Wiggins, William H.
Williams, Robert H.
Slaves
Estate
87
$71,996
30
$39,420
22
$32,294
90
$192,629
51
$41,085
30
$38,736
45
$40,200
36
$27,260
50
$80,315
50
$43,674
104
$88,356
39
$44,995
66
$85,650
27
$43,833
22
$28,695
24
$13,975
29
$31,185
32
$38,170
66
$85,176
21
$9,000
86
$91,651
46
$38,635
30
$34,615
40
$62,705
111
$102,108
51
$71,630
80
$90,833
Sources: Matagorda County Tax Rolls, 1860; 1860 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Matagorda County, Texas (Roll
1300).
178
$9,000 estate. At the other extreme, Charles S. Fowler’s ninety slaves were valued at just 23
percent of his nearly $200,000 in total property.13
Unlike those in other counties, Matagorda slaves represented a majority of the taxable
estates of those who owned one hundred or more slaves. James B. Hawkins listed himself as
owning 104 slaves in 1860. These slaves were worth a total $56,000, and his entire estate was
valued at $88,356. Hawkins’s slaves accounted for 63 percent of his total taxable property. W.
G. Warren’s 111 slaves, valued at $55,500, accounted for 54 percent of his $102,108 estate.14
Matagorda County’s tax rolls begin in 1848. Thus, economic information for all but one
antebellum county judge has been lost. This one judge, Matthew Talbot, was the longest-serving
and wealthiest magistrate in Matagorda’s history between 1848 and 1890. Talbot had two stints
as judge, serving between 1841 and 1844 and again from 1848 to 1865. Furthermore, both the
1850 and 1860 U. S. Censuses list only Talbot as a county judge. The near-complete lack of
demographic and economic data for other judges makes any definitive conclusion about
Matagorda’s antebellum judges difficult, if not impossible.15
During the 1860s, Matagorda’s antebellum planter class would dwindle from twentyseven to ten. According to the probate records, death would claim eleven of them. Entire planter
families who were listed in the 1860 Census were gone ten years later. In 1860, for example,
planter Henry Gibson had a family of five: himself, his wife Mary, and three teenage children
13
Matagorda County Tax Rolls, 1860.
14
Ibid.
15
Election Registers; Matagorda County Tax Rolls, 1848-1865.
179
Table 7.3. Percentage of the value of slaves within planters’ estates, 1860
Name
Brown, J. W.
Bowie, George
Chinn, R. H.
Duncan, John
Ewing, Alexander
Gibson, Henry
Gibson, M. M.
Gibson, John H.
Gordon, Jesse
Herbert, P. W.
Hawkins, James. B.
Hardeman, D.
Jones, John H.
Pearson, E. A.
Pledger, Eliza
Rugeley, John
Rugeley, E. S.
Rugeley, A. J.
Rugeley, Roland
McCormick, A. P.
Sheppard, Abram
Thorp, John L.
Thompson, Nancy
Talbot, Matthew
Williams, Robert H.
Warren, W. G.
Wiggins, William H.
Slave
Value
$22,900
$52,200
$16,000
$45,000
$28,000
$18,000
$18,000
$22,500
$25,000
$25,350
$56,000
$38,000
$53,000
$13,200
$9,500
$40,700
$19,200
$14,500
$8,600
$20,000
$51,600
$26,000
$18,000
$23,000
$40,000
$55,500
$39,900
Estate
Percent
$39,420
$71,996
$32,294
$192,629
$41,085
$38,736
$27,260
$40,200
$80,315
$44,995
$88,356
$43,674
$85,650
$28,695
$13,975
$85,176
$38,170
$31,185
$9,000
$43,833
$91,651
$62,705
$34,615
$38,635
$90,833
$102,108
$71,630
58%
73%
50%
23%
68%
46%
66%
56%
31%
56%
63%
87%
62%
46%
68%
48%
50%
46%
96%
46%
56%
41%
52%
60%
44%
54%
56%
Source: Matagorda County Tax Rolls, 1860.
180
Table 7.4. Antebellum and Civil War-era Matagorda County judges, 1837-1865
Name
Dinsmore, Silas
Gervais, S. D.
Talbot, Matthew
Wadsworth, A.
Gann, J. W.
Talbot, Matthew
Tenure
1837-1838
1838-1841
1841-1844
1844-1846
1846-1848
1848-1865
Avg. Number
of Slaves
Owned during
Term
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
44
Avg.
Wealth
during
Term
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
$20,400
Occupation
N/A
N/A
Planter*
N/A
N/A
Planter
Sources: 1850 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Matagorda County, Texas (Roll 912); 1860 U. S. Census, Schedule I,
Matagorda County, Texas (Roll 1300); Election Registers; Matagorda County Tax Rolls, 1848-1865.
Note: Asterisk indicates occupation as listed by the 1850 U. S. Census.
181
(two daughters and one son). Ten years later, neither the U. S. Census nor the county’s tax rolls
listed any members of this family.16
The abolition of slavery financially ruined the former planter class. As demonstrated by
Table 7.5, every pre-war planter who could be found in the 1870 county tax rolls had lost most of
his or her antebellum estate. Indeed, they lost an average of 92 percent of their antebellum
property. Hawkins’s estate, for example, plummeted 82 percent, from $88,356 in 1860 to
$16,333 ten years later. Abram Sheppard experienced an even more drastic collapse. In 1860 he
owned eighty-six slaves, worth $51,600, most of his $91,651 in total property. Ten years later
the only taxable property he listed was 346 acres worth $120. This amount represented just 0.13
percent of his 1860 estate.17
The lost wealth from slavery’s demise only partially explains the dramatic decreases in
the estates of the former planter class. Although the losses sustained through abolition explained
much of the decline sustained by the planter class, reductions in the number of acres and in the
value of those acres also account for the general decline. As demonstrated by Table 7.6, seven of
the ten former planters listed in the 1870 tax rolls experienced losses in the number of acres
owned between 1860 and 1870. These seven lost an average of 33 percent of their antebellum
total acreage. Of the remaining three, Eliza Pledger remained unchanged at 300 acres. Only
Hawkins and E. A. Pearson increased their acreage.18
16
Matagorda County Probate Records B:172, 175, 183; C: 299-301, 306, 310; D: 41, 82, 135, 162-164,
173-175, 192, 195-197, 203, 207, 277-279, 332-337; E: 45-49; F: 96, 117-122, 442, 444, 446, 461, 480, 481; 1860
U. S. Census, Schedule I, Matagorda County, Texas (Roll 1300); 1870 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule,
Matagorda County, Texas (Roll 1597).
17
Matagorda County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870.
18
Ibid.
182
Table 7.5. Total estates of 1860 planters as listed in the 1870 tax rolls
Chinn, R. H.
Gibson, John H.
Hawkins, James. B.
Pearson, E. A.
Pledger, Eliza
Rugeley, A. J.
Sheppard, Abram
Thompson, Nancy
Thorp, John L.
Warren, W. G.
1860
Estate
$32,294
$40,200
$88,356
$28,695
$13,975
$31,185
$91,651
$34,615
$62,705
$102,108
1870
Estate
$5,054
$5,530
$16,333
$1,810
$440
$1,318
$120
$470
$9,611
$1,450
Percentage of
1860 Estate Lost
84%
86%
82%
94%
97%
96%
99.9%
99%
85%
99%
Averages
$52,578
$4,214
92%
Name
Source: Matagorda County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870.
183
The former planters also suffered a decrease in the value of their lands. In the case of
Matagorda County, no individual enjoyed an increase in land value. In 1860 the ten planters
listed in Table 7.6 owned a total of 19,535 acres worth $202,307. Ten years later, the number of
acres owned by these individuals grew to 20,882, yet the collective value fell to $26,852. The
antebellum planters’ landholdings, therefore, fell from $10.36 per acre in 1860 to $1.29 in 1870,
a decrease of 88 percent. The acquisition of 11,000 acres did not increase the value of
Hawkins’s landed estate. Unlike Stephen S. Perry of Brazoria County, who acquired
approximately 10,500 acres and increased his land values by nearly $20,000, Hawkins gained
more yet lost just under $18,000 in value.19
The loss in the amount of acreage was, as in other counties, a gradual process. Rather
than selling off thousands of acres at a time, the planters instead bought and sold some of their
lands in a piecemeal fashion over the course of five years. Typical sales involved dozens of
acres, but occasionally a few hundred acres changed hands in one sale.20
In order to maintain their hold on their land, twenty Matagorda residents, including eight
pre-war planters, applied to President Andrew Johnson for pardon. All but two were under the
Thirteenth Exception. On July 12, 1865, John H. Gibson appeared before the Matagorda provost
marshal and took the Amnesty Oath. On November 15 he wrote to Johnson that he “advocated
and voted for secession.” Gibson also stated that he regretted his error. Finally, he swore that at
no time did he serve in the Confederate Army, belong to a vigilance committee, or occupy a
Confederate-era political office. Although the amnesty oath stated as much, Gibson’s petition
reiterated that he would support the United States government. Matagorda County Judge
19
Brazoria County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870; Matagorda County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870.
20
Matagorda County Deeds Records, K:13, 377, 417, 453, 457, 463, 564, 606.
184
Table 7.6. Gains/Losses in acres owned and land values of antebellum planters, 1870
1860
Acres
1860
Value
1870
Acres
1870
Value
Change
in
Acres
Change
in Value
Chinn, R. H.
1082
$12,984
1080
$3,240
-2
-$9,744
Gibson, John H.
1456
$14,815
550
$1,650
-906
-$13,165
Hawkins, James. B.
2688
$30,256
14016
$12,518
11,328
-$17,738
Pearson, E. A.
861
$12,915
1331
$1,863
470
-$11,052
Pledger, Eliza
300
$3,000
300
$450
0
-$2,550
Rugeley, A. J.
795
$13,160
488
$488
-307
-$12,672
Sheppard, Abram
3896
$34,476
346
$120
-3,550
-$34,356
Thompson, Nancy
1120
$13,460
200
$100
-920
-$13,360
Thorp, John L.
3943
$33,553
177
$521
-3,766
-$33,032
Warren, W. G.
3394
$33,688
2394
$5,902
-1,000
-$27,786
Name
Sources: Matagorda County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870.
185
Table 7.7. Matagorda County presidential pardons
Name
Brown, J. W.
Cutler, James. H.
Dennis, Isaac
Duncan, John
Fisher, Samuel
Gibson, John H.*
Grimes, William B.
Harrison, Eleanor
Hawkins, James B.*
Heard, William J.
Hodges, Galen
Jones, John H.*
Milburn, W
Pearson, E. A.*
Swan, Orange
Thorp, John L.*
Warren, W. G.*
Wiggins, William H.*
William, Robert H.*
Williams, George
Exception
Thirteenth
First
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
First
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Source: Amnesty Papers (Rolls 52-55)
Note: Asterisks indicate planters
186
William H. Burkhart and County Clerk W. Hilliard each attested to the veracity of his
statements. On December 12, 1865, Provisional Governor Andrew Jackson Hamilton endorsed
Gibson’s application, whom Johnson ultimately pardoned.21
James B. Hawkins enjoyed the support of prominent Texas politicians. On September
26, 1865, he applied for his pardon. Like other wealthy petitioners, he informed the president
that he doubted that his wealth was above $20,000. Like Gibson, Hawkins admitted that he
supported secession “with a firm conviction at the time that he was justified in so doing. . . .”
Although he hoped that the Confederacy would achieve its independence, Hawkins concluded
his application with a statement that he did nothing to support the rebellion. Instead, he finished,
he focused his entire attention on the business of his plantation throughout the war.22
Hawkins also attached the endorsements of future Texas Secretary of State James H. Bell
and Governor Elisha M. Pease. Bell informed the president that he had spoken with Hawkins
and that he thought the former planter worthy of executive clemency. In a one-sentence
statement, Pease wrote, “James Hawkins is a most estimable man and [a] useful citizen and I
should have full faith in his representations.” On November 18 Hamilton added his own
endorsement before sending the application to Johnson. Like every Texan who applied under the
Thirteenth Exception, Hawkins received his pardon.23
As in other counties, men who had been non-slaveholders rose during the earliest period
of Reconstruction to control the local government. Hamilton appointed twenty-one Matagorda
residents to various county-level offices (see Table 7.8). All but eight of the appointees appeared
21
John H. Gibson Amnesty Oath, December 12, 1865, Amnesty Papers (Roll 53); John H. Gibson to
President Andrew Johnson, Amnesty Papers (Roll 53) [quotation]; Clampitt, “Two Degrees of Rebellion,” 257.
22
James B. Hawkins to President Andrew Jackson, September 26, 1865, Amnesty Papers (Roll 53)
[quotation].
23
Ibid. [quotations]; Clampitt, “Two Degrees of Rebellion,” 263.
187
on the tax rolls in 1860. Only four of the thirteen (Benjamin Kendrick, William Hillard, William
Burkhart, and P. S. McNeal), or 30 percent, were former slaveholders, and none had been
planters. 24
As in the other counties, the demographic information of those who owned $10,000 in
1870 demonstrates that they remained economically agricultural (see Table 7.10). Of the eight
who are defined as wealthy, only two, Galen Hodges and Amanda Van Dorn, listed occupations
that did not necessarily involve working on a farm or ranch. Like other women who listed
themselves as “Housekeeper,” Van Dorn was the widow of Isaac Van Dorn, a member of the
county’s Old Three Hundred. According to the 1860 county tax rolls, he had owned 2,000 cattle,
along with three slaves, all of which contributed to an estate worth $20,771. He died on May 30,
1860. His widow, although declaring herself as keeping house in the 1870 census, continued her
late husband’s ranching enterprise with 2,500 head of cattle.25
Only one antebellum planter, Hawkins, was among those who owned $10,000 or more in
Matagorda in 1870. The remaining seven individuals listed in Table 7.9 included three former
slaveholders. In addition to Van Dorn and Hodges, William B. Grimes had been a slave owner
(fourteen slaves in 1860, valued at $9,200). With an estate worth $45,902 in that year, abolition
alone represented the liquidation of 20 percent of his estate.26
As noted in Table 7.10, half of the men and women who owned $10,000 or more in 1870
were natives of northern states. Most of them, however, were not carpetbaggers, northerners
24
Election Registers; Matagorda County Tax Rolls, 1848-1865.
25
Matagorda County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870; 1870 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Matagorda County,
Texas (Roll 1597); Robert G. Hartje, “Van Dorn, Isaac,” New Handbook of Texas, 6:702.
26
Matagorda County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870.
188
Table 7.8. Matagorda County officials appointed by Provisional Governor Andrew Jackson
Hamilton
Name
Baxter, William
Fry, Joseph T.
Herndon, William
Kendrick, Benjamin
Nicholson, J. E.
Sansom, John A.
Chambers, James
McClain, A. D.
Hillard, William
Burkhart, William
Wells, E. A.
Brannon, D. E. E.
Barbour, William
Baxter, William
Kern, A. R.
McMaster, James
McNeal, P. S.
Inglehart, Ed
Cox, John
Barbour, William
Thorp, Henry
Position
Commissioner
Commissioner
Commissioner
Commissioner
Commissioner
Commissioner
Coroner
County Clerk
County Court Clerk
County Judge
District Clerk
District Court Clerk
Justice of the Peace
Justice of the Peace
Justice of the Peace
Justice of the Peace
Justice of the Peace
Sheriff
Surveyor
Tax Collector
Treasurer
Slaves
Owned in
1860
0
0
Not listed
7
0
Not listed
0
Not listed
6
3
Not listed
0
0
0
Not listed
Not listed
5
Not listed
Not listed
0
0
Sources: Election Registers; Matagorda County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1865.
189
Value of
Estate in
1865
$400
$1,395
$6,910
$4,355
$2,880
Not listed
Not listed
Not listed
$2,815
Not listed
Not listed
$2,276
$4,330
$400
Not listed
Not listed
$5,460
Not listed
Not listed
$4,330
$300
Table 7.9. Owners of $10,000 or more in total property in Matagorda County, 1860
Name
Baxter, William
Boggers, Samuel
Bowie, George*
Brown, J. W.*
Burkand, G.
Chinn, R. H.*
Croom, John L.
Davis, Thomas
Decrow, Thomas
Dietrich, Charles
Elliot, George
Ewing, Alexander*
Fowler, Charles S.*
Gibson, Henry*
Gibson, John H.*
Gibson, M. M.*
Gordon, Jesse*
Grimes, William
Hardeman, D.*
Hardeman, S.
Hawkins, James. B.*
Hawkins, Willis
Herbert, P. W.*
Hodges, Galen
Howele, Julia
Hughes, James
Jameson, Thomas
Name
Kincheloe, B.
Matthews, Thomas
McCormick, A. P.*
McCreeley, J.
Mitchell, Christian
Nicholson, B.
Pearson, E. A.*
Pittington, L.
Pledger, Eliza*
Powell, A.
Robbins, T.
Rugeley, A. J.*
Rugeley, E. S.*
Rugeley, J.
Rugeley, John*
Rugeley, Roland*
Saxton, M.
Selkirk, J.
Sheppard, Abram*
Talbot, Matthew*
Thompson, Nancy*
Thorp, John L.*
Vandorn, Isaac
Waldeman, E.
Warren, W. G.*
Wiggins, William H.*
Williams, Robert H.*
Source: Matagorda County Tax Rolls, 1860.
Note: Asterisks indicate an antebellum planter.
190
Table 7.10. Owners of $10,000 or more in total property in Matagorda County, 1870
Name
Occupation
Grimes, William B.
Stock Raiser
Hawkins, James B.*
Planter
Hodges, Galen
Retail Grocer
Layton, Fletcher
Stock Raiser
Pierce, Abel H.
Stock Raiser
Van Dorn, Amanda M. Housekeeper
West, Anderson B.
Farmer
White, James K.
Planter
Birth
State
CT
NC
RI
NJ
RI
MS
MS
SC
Age
Estate
Sex
44
55
58
44
37
50
46
39
$26,649
$16,333
$18,092
$13,585
$64,570
$12,093
$27,936
$13,366
M
M
M
M
M
F
M
M
Sources: 1870 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Matagorda County, Texas (Roll 1597); Matagorda County Tax
Rolls, 1870.
Note: Asterisk indicates an antebellum planter.
191
who moved into the South during Reconstruction. As noted before, Grimes and Hodges, born in
Connecticut and Rhode Island, respectively, were slaveowners before the war. The 1860 county
tax rolls also list Fletcher Layton, owning no slaves and possessing an estate worth $13,921.
Only Abel H. Pierce, who hailed from Rhode Island, did not appear in any antebellum census or
county tax rolls. Of the four southern-born men and woman in Table 7.9, three were from the
Lower South and one, Hawkins, from an Upper South state.27
In 1880 Hawkins remained the only former Matagorda planter to own $10,000 or more
(see Table 7.11). Antebellum planter John Duncan’s son, also named John, however, emerged as
a member of the 1880 elite. Many of the members of the 1870 elite carried over into the next
decade. As Table 7.11 demonstrates, Grimes, Hawkins, and Hodges were able to increase their
wealth as the postbellum period progressed. As evidence of the growing cattle industry within
Matagorda County, Grimes’s and Hodges’s herds doubled between 1870 and 1880. Hawkins’s
herd also increased, going from 500 to 900 head during this period. His landholdings, however,
accounted for the increase of his wealth, nearly doubling from 13,983 acres in 1870 to 26,437 ten
years later.28
As further evidence that agriculture, particularly cattle ranching, still dominated the
Matagorda economy in 1880, nine of the fourteen individuals whose occupations could be
determined were either farmers or stock raisers. Although he owned 2,000 head of cattle,
Hodges still called himself a grocer. Only one, D. E. E. Braman, claimed a professional career
(lawyer). As in 1870, more than half (seven of eleven) of those individuals whose nativity could
27
Ibid.; 1860 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Matagorda County, Texas (Roll 1300); Chris Emmett, “Pierce,
Abel Head,” New Handbook of Texas, 5: 194.
28
Matagorda County Tax Rolls, 1870, 1880.
192
Table 7.11. Owners of $10,000 or more in total property in Matagorda County, 1880
Name
Braman, D. E. E.
Clouder, Jacob
Duncan, John
Grimes, William B.
Hawkins, James B.*
Hayes, R.
Hodges, Galen
Moore, John
O'Connell, Phillip
Pearl, J. P.
Pierce, Abel H.
Schmerber, John
Spencer, Edward
Zipprian, John
Occupation
Lawyer
Stock Raiser
Farmer & Stock
Raiser
Stock Raiser
Planter
Stock Raiser
Grocer
Farmer
Stock Raiser
N/A
Stock Raiser
N/A
N/A
Farmer
Birth
State
MA
Germany
TX
CT
NC
LA
RI
KY
Ireland
N/A
RI
N/A
N/A
Germany
Age
65
47
Total
Estate
$22,214
$15,804
Sex
M
M
40
54
66
60
68
56
51
N/A
47
N/A
N/A
72
$25,236
$48,777
$40,022
$17,930
$27,718
$14,036
$20,971
$12,920
$66,103
$23,802
$11,177
$22,299
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
N/A
M
M
M
M
Sources: Matagorda County Tax Rolls, 1880; 1870 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Matagorda County, Texas
(Roll 1597); 1880 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Matagorda County, Texas (1319).
Note: Asterisks indicate an antebellum planter or planter family member.
193
be determined were not born in the South. Four were from the North, while another three were
born in Ireland or Germany. Only three were from a state of the former Confederacy.29
By 1880 most of the county’s richest taxpayers were not descendants of slaveholders or
former slaveholders themselves. Of the fourteen individuals in Table 7.10, only five (36 percent)
came from families who had owned any bondsmen at all. In addition to Duncan, Grimes,
Hawkins, Hodges, and John Moore were listed as slave owners. The remaining nine were either
not in the county in 1860, or, as was the case with John Zipprian, never owned bondsmen. 30
In this study’s final year, Hawkins remained the sole antebellum planter to possess
enough taxable property to be among the wealthiest taxpayers within Matagorda County. His
$105,226 estate, furthermore, ranks as the third-highest of all the residents within this study’s six
counties in 1890. Only Brazoria’s William Haskins and Colorado’s Robert Stafford possessed
larger estates that year. Between 1860 and 1890, then, the antebellum planter class steadily fell
from the ranks of the wealthiest taxpayers of Matagorda County, from 27 in 1860 to just 1 in
1890 (see Table 7.13). 31
The economic influence of the antebellum slaveholding class was effectively finished.
As in other counties, the percentage and absolute number of former slaveholders among those
who could be considered wealthy dwindled during the succeeding decades. For Matagorda only
one slaveholder, Hawkins, possessed sufficient property to be among the area’s richest taxpayers
29
1880 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Matagorda County, Texas (Roll 1319).
30
Matagorda County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1880.
31
Brazoria County Tax Rolls, 1890; Colorado County Tax Rolls, 1890; Matagorda County Tax Rolls,
1890.
194
Table 7.12. Owners of $10,000 or more in total property in Matagorda County, 1890
Name
Baer, Gottlieb
Braman, D. E. E.
Braman, Mary E.
Brown, Meachem
Clouder, Jacob
Elliott, John
Grifford, G. C.
Hawkins, James B.*
Kuykendall, W. M.
Matthews, John
Pierce, Abel H.
Pierce, J. P. A.
Pierce, N. D.
Robbins, Frederick S.
Sargent, J.
Savage, M. A.
Spencer, Calvin A.
Stewart, W. S.
Birth
State
Germany
MA
PA
N/A
Germany
N/A
N/A
NC
TX
VA
RI
TX
TX
TX
England
NC
PA
N/A
Age
Estate
56
75
60
N/A
57
N/A
N/A
76
50
55
57
21
43
31
56
54
60
N/A
$44,770
$27,890
$16,117
$27,896
$45,590
$10,669
$27,500
$105,226
$29,651
$22,352
$110,521
$37,480
$14,460
$24,950
$45,460
$13,608
$19,485
$29,090
Sources: 1880 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Matagorda County, Texas (Roll 1319); Matagorda County Tax
Rolls, 1890.
Note: Asterisk indicates an antebellum planter.
195
Table 7.13. Percentage of antebellum planters within residents possessing $10,000 or more in
taxable property, 1860-1890
Year
1860
1870
1880
1890
Number of Residents
Owning $10,000 or
More
54
8
14
18
Number of
Antebellum
Planters
Owning
$10,000 or
More*
27
1
1
1
Source: Matagorda County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1890.
*Includes members of planter families.
196
Percentage of
Antebellum Planters
within Owners of
$10,000 or More*
50%
13%
7%
6%
in 1890. None of the other members of the 1890 wealthy class were members of former
slaveholding families.32
As in other counties under examination, Matagorda’s postbellum judges were
considerably less wealthy than their antebellum counterparts. As mentioned earlier, the only
prewar judge whose tax information was available was Matthew Talbot. During the last
seventeen years of Talbot’s term, the average value of his estate (between 1848 and 1865) was
$20,400, which included forty-four slaves. Following abolition, however, the average estate of
county judges plummeted, particularly in the early years of Reconstruction. Of the ten
postbellum judges, only two were former slaveholders or members of slaveholding families. E.
S. Rugeley (1888-1896) was the scion of the most prominent planter family within the county.
His grandfather, father, uncle, and an unidentified kinsman, John S. Rugeley, were all planters.
Combined, these four men had owned 148 slaves, 8 percent of Matagorda’s entire slave
population in 1860. William H. Burkhart listed himself as owning three slaves in 1860. Finally,
of the six postbellum judges whose occupations could be determined, none were legal
professionals. Only Joseph T. Fry declared a professional career to the census (physician). The
remaining judges, all non-professionals, included a stock raiser, a butcher, and a fisherman.33
Between 1865 and 1890 Matagorda County witnessed the rise of a new economic and
political elite. After abolition the antebellum planter class lost substantial proportions of its
previous wealth by the loss of slaves, the number of acres owned, and the value of land. The
1870s marked the rise of a new upper class as former non-slaveholders and small holders almost
32
Matagorda County Tax Rolls, 1890.
33
Matagorda County Tax Rolls, 1848-1896; 1860 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Matagorda County, Texas
(Roll 1300); 1870 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Matagorda County, Texas (Roll 1597); 1880 U. S. Census,
Matagorda County, Texas (Roll 1319); Election Registers.
197
Table 7.14. Matagorda County judges, 1865-1896
Tenure
Avg.
Wealth
during
Term
Birth
State
Burkhart, William H.
Baxter, W. June
Prissick, William
Vonweg, William
Gove, Humphrey
1865-1869
1869-1869
1869-1870
1870-1870
1870-1876
$838
$704
N/A
N/A
$4,687
PA
England
N/A
Nassau
VT
Fry, Joseph T.
1876-1878
$1,383
TN
Cheesman, R. G.
Rainey, J. G.
Stewart, W. S.
Rugeley, E. S.*
1878-1880
1880-1882
1882-1888
1888-1896
$1,386
$1,473
$8,531
$8,138
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
Name
Occupation
Merchant
Stock Raiser
Butcher
Fisherman
District Clerk
Planter &
Doctor
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
Sources: Matagorda County Tax Rolls, 1865-1896; 1870 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Matagorda County,
Texas (Roll 1597); 1880 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Matagorda County, Texas (1319); Election Registers.
Note: Asterisk indicates a member of a pre-war planting family.
198
completely replaced the antebellum planters as the wealthiest individuals within the county. The
former planter class and minor slaveholders no longer represented a majority of the wealthiest
individuals of the county. In 1870, 1880, and 1890, only one of the antebellum planter families
owned enough property to be listed among this new elite. Between 1848 and 1865, slaveholding
directly corresponded with the possession of political power within the county. One planter
dominated the county judgeship before the war. Following the war, however, small holders and
non-slaveholders began to control the county’s key political offices. Furthermore, while the
antebellum county judge was a planter, postbellum judges were engaged in various occupations,
from fisherman and butcher to doctor. The planters of Matagorda County were swept away from
their antebellum wealth and influence almost immediately after the Civil War.
199
CHAPTER 8
THE ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL ELITE OF WHARTON COUNTY, 1860-1890
The first white settlers of the Wharton County area arrived in 1823 when thirty members
of Stephen F. Austin’s Old Three Hundred settled along the Colorado and San Bernard Rivers
(see Table 8.1). In this early period, slavery entered the county as bondsmen cleared the settlers’
fields for plantations. From the outset of Anglo-American settlement, Wharton County residents
grew cotton and sugar.1
During the Texas Revolution, some Wharton County residents and future planters served
in the Texian Army. William J. E. Heard, who would emerge as a prominent planter during the
antebellum period, commanded Company F, First Regiment of Texas Volunteers, at the Battle of
San Jacinto. In 1842 Wharton residents Albert C. Horton,
Henry P. Cayce, and G. W. Tilley fought against the Mexican General Adrián Woll in San
Antonio during the Mexican invasions of Texas.2
Unlike the other counties under examination, Wharton County was not established until
after Texas’s annexation to the Union. On April 3, 1846, the Texas Legislature approved an act
to create Wharton (named after William H. Wharton, a leader in the Texas Revolution) out of
territory taken from Colorado, Jackson, and Matagorda Counties. On the same day, the
legislature appointed the county’s first commissioners to locate the county seat, which would be
named Wharton. Two of these commissioners, William J. E. Heard and John D. Newell, would
later become part of the county’s planter class.3
1
Merle R. Hudgins, “Wharton County,” New Handbook of Texas, 6:910; Annie Lee Williams, The History
of Wharton County (Austin: Von Breckmann-Jones Company, 1964), 17.
2
Hudgins, “Wharton County,” New Handbook of Texas, 6:910; Williams, History of Wharton County, 17.
3
Gammel, Laws of Texas, 2:38-39; Williams, History of Wharton County, 29.
200
Table 8.1. Landowning members of the Old Three Hundred in Wharton County, 1824-1827
Name
Allen, Martin
Austin, Stephen F.
Biggam, Fras
Castleman, Sylvenus
Clark, John C.
Crownover, John
Edwards, G. E.
Gilbert, Sarah
Hamilton, David
Hudson, C. S.
Huff, John
Hunter, Eli
Ingram, Seth
Jackson, Alexander
Jones J. W
Name
Kuykendall, Robert
McKinsey, Hugh
Newman, Joseph
Parks, William
Parker, Joshua
Pettus, William
Phillips, I. B.
Rabb, Andrew
Rabb, Thomas J.
Scobey, Robert
Sims, Bartlett
Singleton, G. W.
Smith, John
Tumlinson, James
Westall, Thomas
Source: Wallace, M. Vigness, Ward, eds., Documents of Texas History, 151-158.
201
Wharton – County Seat
Map 8.1. Location of Wharton County, 1860. Source: Campbell, Empire for Slavery, 3;
originally created by Terry G. Jordan, Walter Prescott Webb Chair of History and Ideas,
University of Texas).
202
Between Texas’s annexation and the Civil War, slavery flourished in Wharton to the
point that slaves outnumbered whites. In 1850, for example, the white population totaled 510
men and women, less than half the number of slaves (1,242). Ten years later, whites had
increased by only 136, bringing the total to 646 men and women. The slave population,
however, nearly tripled in number to 3,380. With a land area of 1,086 square miles, the county’s
number of slaves per square mile increased from 1.1 in 1850 to 3.1 ten years later, second-lowest
among the counties under examination. 4
Wharton, like Brazoria, Fort Bend, and Matagorda Counties, is in an area known as the
“sugar bowl of Texas.” In 1850 Wharton County’s sugar plantations produced 317 hogsheads of
sugar and 11,490 gallons of molasses, making it the third most productive sugar county within
Texas. Ten years later, however, the sugar barons did not produce cane sugar. Rather, they
processed only 4,000 gallons of cane molasses, which was dwarfed by production in other
counties, such as Brazoria, which produced 346,640 gallons.5
Most of Wharton County falls outside of historian Walter Buneger’s homogeneous
Lower South. Despite this, Wharton overwhelmingly supported secession. On February 23,
1861, residents there approved Texas’s ordinance by a margin of 249 votes to 2.6
Wharton residents also contributed manpower to the Confederate army. Men served in
units such as the Eighth Texas Cavalry Regiment (Terry’s Texas Rangers) and in three Home
Guard posts within the county, which became part of the Texas Twenty-second Brigade. Like
4
DeBow, Statistical View of the United States, 1850, 314; Kennedy, Population of the United States in
1860, 486.
5
DeBow, Statistical View of the United States,1850, 519-520; Kennedy, Agriculture of the United States in
1860, 151; Hudgins, “Wharton County,” New Handbook of Texas, 6:910.
6
Election Registers; Buenger, Secession and the Union in Texas, 15; Timmons, “Referendum in Texas on
the Ordinance of Secession,” 15; Moneyhon, Republicanism in Reconstruction Texas, 204.
203
much of the state, Wharton County was never under threat of Union attack. Unlike Brazoria and
Matagorda, Wharton is landlocked, and thus was not vulnerable to attack by the U. S. Navy.7
Although untouched by the physical ravages of the Civil War, Wharton County suffered
from the effects of abolition. Farm values fell 82 percent, from $1,816,560 in 1860 to $332,345
ten years later. Cotton production experienced a 90 percent decline. The 1860 U. S Census
records that the county’s plantations harvested 11,495 bales in 1860. Ten years later the county
could muster only 1,217. Abolition destroyed the sugar industry in Wharton; the 1870 census
showed no values in the sugar and molasses columns. Sugar would not be grown again until the
1890s. The swine population dropped 84 percent, from 12,363 before the war to just 2,010 in the
first postbellum census. Corn declined 25 percent (from 194,100 bushels to 143,900.)8
Wharton County’s postwar electoral record closely followed those of other counties with
a majority-black population. In the 1869 gubernatorial election, Wharton voters
overwhelmingly chose radical Edmund J. Davis (92 percent) over the moderate Andrew Jackson
Hamilton (8 percent). Two years later, however, nearly two-thirds of the county’s voters
supported Democrat Dewitt C. Giddings over Republican William T. Clark for Texas’s Third
Congressional District. Giddings described himself as a Democrat somewhere between
“rawhead and bloody bones” and “milk and water.” He won the Third District, which
encompassed twenty-four counties (including Austin, Fort Bend, and Matagorda Counties), by a
margin of 135 votes, yet Governor Davis refused to certify the results because of suspicions of
fraud and thus declared Clark the winner. Giddings contested the action and won after a
Congressional investigation. In 1872 President Ulysses S. Grant received 87 percent of
7
Hudgins, “Wharton County,” New Handbook of Texas, 6:910-911.
8
Kennedy, Agriculture of the United States in 1860, 149; Walker, Statistics of the Wealth and Industry of
the United States 1870, 259; Williams, History of Wharton County, 97.
204
Wharton’s vote over Horace Greeley. Wharton’s results for the 1873 gubernatorial election have
been lost.9
Following Reconstruction former slaves continued to win local-government positions.
Freedman Bird B. Davis represented Wharton County in the 1875 constitutional convention.
During the 1880s former slaves were also elected to the commissioner’s court, county and
district clerkships, school board, and positions as justice of the peace. Black office holding,
however, came to an end when local whites established the White Man’s Union Association
(WMUA) in the late 1880s. The WMUA took control of the ballot box in 1889 by making its
approval necessary to file for candidacy. According to historian Merle R. Hudgins, the White
Man’s Union Association would operate until 1950.10
In 1860 twenty-nine individuals owned twenty or more slaves in Wharton County (see
Table 8.2). Of these, twelve could not be found in any census. Of the seventeen individuals
whose gender could be determined, all but one were men. Cumulatively these planters owned
1,494 slaves, or 57 percent of the 2,633 bondsmen listed on the county tax rolls in 1860, with an
average of 47 slaves, ranging from 21 to 144 bondsmen. The vast majority of the county’s
planters whose nativity could be determined were southern born, with seven hailing from the
Lower South and Upper South apiece. One was born in Maine, while two others, George Quinan
and Eli Mercer, came from Ireland and France, respectively. The average age of the county
planters was 43, ranging from 22 to 72. These men and women owned estates worth an average
9
Galveston News, 26 May 1871 [quotation]; Moneyhon, Republicanism in Reconstruction Texas, 153, 202221; Moneyhon, Texas After the Civil War, 183; C. T. Neu, “Giddings – Clark Election Contest, New Handbook of
Texas, 3:155.
10
Hudgins, “Wharton County,” New Handbook of Texas, 6:910-911; Paul M. Lucko, “Davis, Bird B.,”
New Handbook of Texas, 2:525.
205
of $62,378 ($17,900 to $241,677). Of the forty-eight residents who owned $10,000 or more in
taxable property in 1860, twenty-nine (58 percent) were planters.11
For some Wharton County planters, slaves represented a substantial portion of their 1860
estates (see Table 8.3). In terms of the average percentage that the value of slaves represented in
the planters’ estates, Wharton had the second-highest of all the examined counties, as bondsmen
contributed a mean of 60 percent to the planters’ wealth. Only Colorado’s forty planters had a
higher mean (63 percent). Unlike in other counties, slaves were a majority stake in the estate of
those planters who owned 100 or more bondsmen. Albert C. Horton, David Stevens, and M. G.
Stith possessed between 100 and 144 slaves apiece. These bondsmen were between 57 and 66
percent of the planters’ antebellum wealth. For some of the other planters, the “peculiar
institution” contributed a substantial portion of their fortunes. M. L. Cureton, John Lawson, J. O.
Myers, and J. T. Thompson each had more than 90 percent of their estates invested in slavery.12
Slaveholders were a majority of Wharton’s antebellum county judges. Wharton had eight
judges during the antebellum period. All but two of them owned slaves during their tenures.
They held an average of eleven bondsmen. Two of these slaveholders, Maclin Stith and J. W.
Veazey, were planters, owning forty-two and twenty-three slaves, respectively. Furthermore, as
in the other counties under examination, the majority of the antebellum county judges were
farmers. Of the four whose occupations could be determined, only Mason L. Weems (1849-
11
Wharton County Tax Rolls, 1860; 1860 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Wharton County, Texas (Roll 1308);
Campbell, Empire for Slavery, 266.
12
Wharton County Tax Rolls, 1860.
206
Table 8.2. Wharton County planters, 1860
Name
Alexander, W. F. S.
Bolton, Charles L.
Bradshaw, L.
Carson, E. S.
Cayce, S.
Crisp, H.
Cryer, Shad
Cureton, M. L.
Day, James W.
Gordon, John W.
Handy, Isaac
Harrison, Burr A.
Heard, William J.
Horton, Albert C.
Hudgins, Joel
Slaves Estate Name
84
$85,130 Hudgins, W. P.
78
$104,810 Lawson, John
24
$44,100 Lee, B. F.
30
$31,730 Mercer, Eli
28
$17,900 Myers, J. O.
21
$36,750 Quinan, George
28
$19,990 Sandford, E. M.
27
$20,525 Sanford, Thomas
37
$46,730 Stanchfield, B.
65
$74,685 Stevens, David
23
$37,276 Stith, Maclin
74
$94,790 Thatcher, Thomas
87
$241,677 Thompson, J. T.
144 $151,680 Williams, G.
21
$26,240
Slaves Estate
22
$68,359
26
$21,891
25
$31,825
24
$48,850
27
$25,100
25
$70,380
57
$68,885
42
$37,755
22
$48,270
114 $139,080
100
$97,150
48
$43,400
48
$31,020
26
$42,980
Sources: 1850 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Wharton County, Texas (Roll 916); 1860 U. S. Census, Schedule I,
Wharton County, Texas (Roll 1308); Wharton County Tax Rolls, 1860; Williams, History of Wharton County, 311,
318, 320.
207
$58,500
$100,800
$14,700
Heard, William J.
Horton, Albert C.
Hudgins, Joel
$20,000
Cureton, M. L.
$59,200
$14,800
Cryer, Shad
Harrison, Burr A.
$12,600
Crisp, H.
$23,000
$14,800
Cayce, S.
Handy, Isaac
$17,500
Carson, E. S.
$37,300
$21,600
Bradshaw, L.
Gordon, John W.
$46,800
Bolton, Charles L.
$25,900
$58,800
Alexander, W. F. S.
Day, James W.
Slave Value
Name
Source: Wharton County Tax Rolls, 1860.
208
$26,240
$151,680
$241,677
$94,790
$37,276
$74,685
$46,730
$20,525
$19,990
$36,750
$17,900
$31,730
$44,100
$104,810
$85,130
Estate
56%
66%
24%
62%
62%
50%
55%
97%
74%
34%
83%
55%
49%
45%
69%
Percent
Williams, G.
Thompson, J. T.
Thatcher, Thomas
Stith, Maclin
Stevens, David
Stanchfield, B.
Sanford, Thomas
Sandford, E. M.
Quinan, George
Myers, J. O.
Mercer, Eli
Lee, B. F.
Lawson, John
Hudgins, W. P.
Name
$23,400
$28,800
$15,000
$60,000
$79,400
$19,600
$25,200
$37,800
$18,000
$25,700
$21,600
$17,500
$20,800
$49,500
Slave Value
$42,980
$31,020
$43,400
$97,150
$139,080
$48,270
$37,755
$68,885
$70,380
$25,100
$48,850
$31,825
$21,891
$68,350
Estate
54%
93%
35%
62%
57%
41%
67%
55%
26%
102%
44%
55%
95%
72%
Percent
Table 8.3. Percentage of the value of slaves within planters’ estates, 1860
1852) did not declare an agricultural profession. Finally, the average estate of the antebellum
judges was worth $21,625, ranging between $1,280 and $100,887.13
Abolition drastically reduced the estates of those planters who remained in 1870.
Between 1860 and 1870 the antebellum planter class almost completely collapsed. A vast
majority of both the planters and their families were not found in any county tax roll or U. S.
Census after the war. According to the county’s probate records, eleven of the planters died
between 1860 and 1870. Either through death or the removal of entire families from the area,
twenty-two of the twenty-nine planter families were no longer listed as residing in Wharton
County.14
By 1870 the county tax rolls show only seven of the antebellum planters. As
demonstrated in Table 5, their wealth in 1870 was a mere shadow of their antebellum estates. Of
the twenty-nine planters in 1860, only E. S. Carson, B. A. Harrison, William J. Heard, Joel
Hudgins, Eli Mercer, J. O. Myers, and George Quinan remained within the county. On average
they lost 89 percent of their antebellum wealth. Of all of these
individuals, Heard experienced the greatest loss; his 1870 estate was worth just 1 percent its
earlier value.15
Further evidence of the collapse of the planter class was the fact that few members of
planter families were listed in either the 1870 tax rolls or census. In 1860 the census listed a total
13
Wharton County Tax Rolls, 1846-1865; Election Registers; 1850 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Wharton
County, Texas (Roll 916); 1860 U. S. Census, Wharton County, Texas (Roll 1308).
14
Wharton County Probate Records A:134, 282-286, 294, 301, 303, 305, 306, 308, 313, 318, 325-330, 332,
336, 337, 342-345, 350, 383-385, 393, 396-397; B:15, 25, 26, 29, 78, 91, 94, 162, 182, 216, 266, 298, 306, 307, 318,
363-365, 408-411; 1870 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Wharton County, Texas (Roll 1609); 1880 U. S. Census,
Inhabitant Schedule, Wharton County, Texas (Roll 1332); Wharton County Tax Rolls, 1865-1890.
15
Wharton County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870.
209
210
1856-1860
1860-1862
1862-1864
1864-1867
Veazey, W. J. C.
Phillips, W. J.
Veazey, J. W.
1854-1856
Thomas, W. R.
Deadrick, J. H.
8
1852-1854
Thomas, W. M.
Note: Asterisks indicate occupation as listed by the 1850 U. S. Census.
23
2
9
0
3
0
Weems, Mason L. 1849-1852
$20,087
$100,887
$7,925
$2,165
$16,070
$9,376
$1,280
$15,213
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
Farmer*
Farmer*
Doctor*
Farmer*
Average Number
Average Wealth
of Slaves Owned
Occupation
during Tenure
during Tenure
42
Tenure
1846-1849
Stith, Maclin
Name
Table 8.4. Antebellum and Civil War-era Wharton County judges, 1837-1866
Sources: Election Registers; 1850 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Wharton County, Texas (Roll 916); 1860 U. S. Census,
Schedule I, Wharton County, Texas (Roll 1308); Wharton County Tax Rolls, 1846-1867.
Table 8.5. Total estates of 1860 planters as listed in the 1870 tax rolls
Carson, E. S.
Harrison, B. A.
Heard, William J.
Hudgins, Joel
Mercer, Eli
Myers, J. O.
Quinan, George
1860
Estate
$31,730
$94,790
$241,677
$26,240
$48,850
$25,700
$70,380
1870
Estate
$600
$9,629
$2,905
$11,045
$1,240
$2,465
$4,605
Percentage of 1860
Estate Lost
98%
90%
99%
58%
97%
90%
93%
Averages
$77,052
$4,641
89%
Name
Sources: Wharton County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870.
211
of thirty-five family members living in the planter households. Ten years later, however, only
two remained, the wives of J. O. Myers and Thomas Thatcher.16
For these seven former planters, abolition resulted in on average nearly half of the
cumulative loss in their antebellum wealth. Slaves made up 47 percent of their 1860 estates.
Heard, for example, would lose 24 percent, or $58,500, of his 1860 estate as a direct
consequence of abolition. Losses in the number and value of acres owned by these seven men
would account for the bulk of their decreases in personal wealth (see Table 8.6). On average,
landholdings accounted for 54 percent of their 1860 estates. Heard’s 7,112 acres was 45 percent
of his estate, while Quinan’s 4,619 was 80 percent.17
Between 1860 and 1870, all but two of the former planters, Harrison and Hudgins,
suffered declines in the number of acres owned (see Table 8.6). Myers, for example,
declared that he owned 11,018 acres in 1860. Ten years later his landholdings dropped 94
percent to 726 acres. The value of those acres decreased 87 percent, from $19,000 to $2,465.
Heard’s acreage experienced a more drastic decline. While his acreage owned dropped 82
percent, the value of his remaining acres fell 98.5 percent, from $109,052 to $1,702.18
All seven of these planters experienced a drop in the value of their acreage. In 1860 they
owned a total of 26,396 acres, which were valued at $269,351. This made their land worth
$10.20 per acre. Ten years later, however, the total number of acres was just 9,056, a 66 percent
16
1860 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Wharton County, Texas (Roll 1308); 1870 U. S. Census, Inhabitant
Schedule, Wharton County, Texas (Roll 1609).
17
Wharton County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870.
18
Ibid.
212
Table 8.6. Gains/Losses in acres owned and land values of antebellum planters, 1870
Name
Carson, E. S.
Harrison, B. A.
Heard, William J.
Hudgins, Joel
Mercer, Eli
Myers, J. O.
Quinan, George
1860
1860
1870 1870 Change
Acres
Value
Acres Value in Acres
520
$19,708
50
$50
-470
1,114 $33,520 2,800 $5,600
1,686
7,112 $109,052 1,300 $1,720 -5,812
1,013
$6,906
1,150 $3,050
137
1,000 $25,000
112
$560
-888
11,018 $19,000
726 $2,465 -10,292
4,619 $56,165 2,918 $3,620 -1,701
Sources: Wharton County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870.
213
Change
in Values
-$19,658
-$27,920
-$107,332
-$3,856
-$24,440
-$16,535
-$52,545
decrease. The value of those acres declined nearly 95 percent to $17,065. This meant that the
average value per acre fell to just $1.88.19
As in the other examined counties, Wharton’s deeds records do not demonstrate an
immediate and massive sell off of planter lands between 1860 and 1870. Rather, these decreases
grew over time and were parceled out in a piecemeal fashion. As in Austin County, Wharton’s
planters often sold parts of their land to each other. On May 27, 1863, for example, J. O. Myers
sold 427 acres to fellow planter W. F. S. Alexander. George Quinan, however, sold much of his
lands after Reconstruction. Between 1865 and 1870, Quinan only sold 40 acres of his land to an
Alex Jackson on November 4, 1868. Throughout the last thirty years of the nineteenth century,
Quinan would continue to sell a considerable amount of his acreage. On September 13, 1881,
for example, Alfred B. Peticolas and Richard King would buy 1,400 acres from Quinan.20
Of the twelve Wharton residents who applied to President Andrew Johnson for a pardon,
three, W. F. S. Alexander, Burr A. Harrison, and David Stevens, were planters in 1860. In a
frank application letter, Alexander informed the president that he was “educated to believe that
the states had a right to secede from the Federal Union. . . .” During the war Alexander enlisted
in the Confederate army and rose to command a company of infantry until General Kirby
Smith’s surrender in 1865. He declared that he regretted his decision to support secession and
the Confederacy, claiming that he was “much deceived by the exaggerated statements and
complaints of southern politicians.” Johnson approved his application.21
Unlike Alexander, Harrison and Stevens reported to the president that they took no part
in the rebellion. Harrison opposed secession from the beginning, but he confessed that “after the
19
Ibid.
20
Wharton County Deeds Records, B:535, 688; E:84.
21
W. F. S. Alexander to President Andrew Johnson, May 29, 1865, Amnesty Papers [quotations].
214
Table 8.7. Wharton County presidential pardons
Name
Alexander, W. F. S.*
Battle, O. L.
Betts, Charles H.
Galbraith, E. D.
Gillespie, David
Harrison, Burr A.*
Horton, Robert
Lee, A. E.
Milburn, William
Myers, David
Schultz, H. E.
Stevens, David*
Exception
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
First
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
First
First
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Thirteenth
Source: Amnesty Papers (Rolls 52-55)
Note: Asterisks indicate planters.
215
state of Texas had by its action separated itself from the United States [he] acquiesced in
the will of what [he] supposed to be the majority.” During the war he never served as a member
of a vigilance committee nor as a soldier in the Confederate Army. His only contribution to the
war was allowing Rebel officers to acquire corn from him and his neighbors’ lands. Like
Harrison, Stevens informed Johnson that he did not militarily or politically take part in the late
rebellion. The only contribution he made was in obedience to Confederate and Texan tax and
tithe laws.22
In August 1865 Provisional Governor Andrew Jackson Hamilton appointed twenty-one
local citizens to every position within Wharton (see Table 8.8). Of these, eight (38 percent) had
been slaveholders. Hamilton appointed two former planters, S. Cayce and J. W. Veazey, who
owned twenty-eight and twenty-three slaves before the war, respectively. The county tax rolls
do not list eleven of the twenty-one, and two did not claim ownership of slaves. As in the other
counties, members of the early Reconstruction political class were less wealthy than their
antebellum predecessors. Whereas the average estate of a Wharton County antebellum judge
was worth $21,625, Hamilton’s earliest appointees were worth $2,942, a decline of 88 percent.23
Emancipation’s effects can best be demonstrated by identifying Wharton’s wealthiest
taxpayers in 1870. Abolition had drastic effects on the county’s economy. As historians Richard
G. Lowe and Randolph B. Campbell demonstrate, Wharton County was blessed with rich soil, a
climate that encouraged both an extended growing season and sugar cultivation, and access to
ports for sending produce to markets. These factors led to Wharton containing some of the
22
Burr A. Harrison to President Andrew Johnson, August 16, 1865, Amnesty Papers [quotation]; David J.
Stevens to President Andrew Johnson, September 4, 1865.
23
Election Registers; Wharton County Tax Rolls, 1846-1865. Although Table 8.8 shows that Veazey
owned 9 slaves in 1860, he would attain planter status during the war.
216
Table 8.8. Wharton County officials appointed by Provisional Governor Andrew Jackson
Hamilton
Name
Position
Davis, G. P.
Cayce, S.
Bolton, J. T.
Brandon, A. D.
Bolton, J. T.
Betts, C. L.
Chambers, James
McClain, A. D.
Collingsworth, J. B.
Veazey, J. W.
Wells, E. A.
Compton, W. F. S.
Chambers, James
Muster, James
Morgan, E.
Kern, A. R.
McMaster, James
Franks, F. G.
Callaway, M. M.
Harvey, A. S.
Rust, J.
Commissioner
Commissioner
Commissioner
Commissioner
Commissioner
Commissioner
Coroner
County Clerk
County Court Clerk
County Judge
District Clerk
District Court Clerk
Justice of the Peace
Justice of the Peace
Justice of the Peace
Justice of the Peace
Justice of the Peace
Sheriff
Surveyor
Tax Collector
Treasurer
Slaves
Owned in
1860
None listed
28
5
9
5
5
None listed
None listed
None listed
9
None listed
None listed
None listed
None listed
None listed
0
None listed
4
15
0
None listed
Sources: Election Registers; Wharton County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1865.
217
Value of Estate
in 1865
$250
$9,165
$1,916
$830
$1,916
$636
None listed
None listed
None listed
$6,774
$140
$800
None listed
None listed
None listed
$649
None listed
$1,180
$9,240
None listed
$4,745
largest cotton and sugar plantations in antebellum Texas. With no slaves and convict labor still
at least a year away, Wharton’s sugar industry completely collapsed in 1870 as the county
produced no product associated with sugar cultivation.24
By 1870 the planter class had collapsed to the point that few remained in the county and
even fewer maintained an estate remotely resembling their prior wealth. As demonstrated by
Table 8.10, only three individuals in the entire county possessed enough taxable property to be
worth $10,000 or more. The census proved of little use in this instance as N. B. Floyd, D. R.
Kincheloe, and Joel Hudgins did not appear in any census. The average estate of a member of
the 1870 elite was $12,097. Whereas former planters generally made up several of the members
of the 1870 elite in the other counties, only one, Hudgins, owned more than twenty slaves before
the war.25
The decade between 1870 and 1880 remained economically stagnant for Wharton. The
number of residents owning $10,000 or more remained at three, with the 1880 census
listing only B. A. Harrison. He was also the only planter and slaveholder among those
possessing the largest estates in the county. As in other decades, demographic data on these men
were limited. Using the experiences of neighboring counties, one can relatively safely deduce
that the county retained its agricultural character and that its elite was involved in farming
pursuits. Although convict labor would later become available for Wharton plantation owners,
sugar production would remain non-existent for another decade.26
24
Lowe and Campbell, Planters and Plain Folk, 12, 20.
25
Brazoria County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870; Wharton County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870; 1860 U. S. Census,
Wharton County, Texas, (Roll 1308); 1870 U. S. Census, Wharton County, Texas (Roll 1609); 1880 U. S. Census,
Inhabitant Schedule, Wharton County, Texas (Roll 1332).
26
Wharton County Tax Rolls, 1870, 1880; 1880 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Wharton County,
Texas (Roll 1332); Williams, History of Wharton County, 97.
218
Table 8.9. Owners of $10,000 or more in total property in Wharton County, 1860
Name
Alexander, W. F. S.*
Becks, Jane
Bolton, C. S.*
Bradshaw, L.*
Branden, A. W.
Callaway, M.
Carson, E. S.
Cayce, H. P.
Clark, J. C.*
Cleveland, S.
Copeland, Solomon*
Crisp, H.*
Cryer, Shad*
Cureton, M. L.*
Day, James W.*
Faron, C. S.
Gallagher, E.
Gordon, J. W.*
Haden, J. F.
Handy, Isaac*
Hargrove, H. R.
Harrison, B. A.
Heard, W. J.*
Hooper, J. E.
Name
Horton, F. C.*
Hudgins, Joel*
Hudgins, W. P.*
Kincheloe, D. R.
Lawson, John*
Lee, B. F.*
Malone, J. W.
Mercer, B.*
Myers, J. O.*
Newell, J. D.*
Petty, P.
Quinan, George*
Sandford, E. M.*
Sanford, Thomas*
Spence, Jethro
Stanchfield, B.*
Stevens, D.*
Stevens, John
Stith, M. G.*
Thatcher, Thomas*
Thompson, J. T.*
Whilden, J.
Whittington, C. H.
Williams, G.*
Source: Wharton County Tax Rolls, 1860.
Note: Asterisk indicates an antebellum planter.
219
Table 8.10. Owners of $10,000 or more in total property in Wharton County, 1870
Name
Occupation
Birth State
Floyd, N. B.
Kincheloe, D. R.
Hudgins, Joel*
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
Age
Estate
Sex
N/A $12,310 N/A
N/A $12,936 N/A
N/A $11,045 N/A
Source: Wharton County Tax Rolls, 1870.
Note: Asterisk indicates an antebellum planter.
220
Table 8.11. Owners of $10,000 or more in total property in Wharton County, 1880
Name
Occupation
Brooks, E. N.
Harrison, Burr A.*
Stafford, R. E.
N/A
Farmer
N/A
Birth
State
N/A
VA
N/A
Age
Estate
Sex
N/A $14,766 N/A
71 $12,024 M
N/A $21,400 N/A
Source: Wharton County Tax Rolls, 1880; 1880 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Wharton County, Texas (Roll
1332).
Note: Asterisk indicates an antebellum planter.
221
By 1890, however, Wharton was experiencing an economic recovery. Its agriculture had
increased as sugar cultivation returned. The county’s sugar growers produced 1,542 gallons of
molasses (but no sugar). Although this number was lower than 1860 levels, it demonstrated that
Wharton farmers had finally resumed sugar cane cultivation. Cotton production, furthermore,
had quintupled between 1870 and 1890, from 1,217 to 6,174 bales. Of the nineteen residents in
the wealthiest class, only two (or 11 percent) were part of the antebellum planter community. Of
the seven members of the 1890 elite whose nativity could be determined, three hailed from
Texas, while two were born in the Upper South, one in the Lower South other than Texas, and
another in Ireland.27
As in the other counties under examination, the postbellum county judges were
considerably poorer than their antebellum counterparts (see Tables 8.4 and 8.14). As mentioned
earlier, the prewar judges possessed estates worth an average of $21,625. Between 1865 and
1890, that average plummeted 85 percent to $3,331. Furthermore,
although the antebellum judges included two planters, no member of the prewar planter class sat
behind Wharton’s highest bench after the war. 28
The abolition of slavery initiated an economic downturn that would not turn around for
the former planters. In 1860 thirty-one planters resided in the county. By 1870 the number of
antebellum planters dwindled to just seven, and their estates were worth only fractions of their
prewar values. Furthermore, within five years of the end of the war, the planter class was a
minority within the economic elite of 1870. Immediately after emancipation slaveholders had
fallen from the ranks of the wealthiest residents. Abolition also effectively ended the planter and
27
Wharton County Tax Rolls, 1890; Kennedy, Agriculture of the United States in 1860, 151; Walker,
Statistic of Wealth and Industry of the United States 1870, 260; Porter, Report on the Statistics of Agriculture in the
United States at the Eleventh Census: 1890, 67-72, 397.
28
Election Registers; Brazoria, Colorado, Wharton County Tax Rolls, 1865-1890.
222
Table 8.12. Owners of $10,000 or more in total property in Wharton County, 1890
Name
Anldag, F. W.
Anderson, Alfred
Brooks, W.
Cloud, J. R.
Croom, M. J.
Duncan, G. C.
Harrison, Burr A.*
House, E.
Hudgins, R. A.
Johnson, L. L.
Pierce, Sullivan
Pierce, A. H.
Quinan, George*
Rush, G. W.
Rios, John
Sorrel, R. H. D.
Taylor, W.
Vineyard, R. E.
Waterhouse, C.
Birth
State
N/A
TX
N/A
TX
N/A
KY
VA
N/A
N/A
TX
N/A
N/A
Ireland
N/A
N/A
N/A
GA
N/A
N/A
Age
Estate
Sex
N/A
37
N/A
43
N/A
48
81
N/A
N/A
27
N/A
N/A
70
N/A
N/A
N/A
51
N/A
N/A
$19,857
$10,695
$24,417
$12,917
$15,320
$21,883
$24,560
$23,680
$18,872
$11,423
$59,390
$97,387
$15,884
$14,194
$17,520
$24,626
$32,649
$14,760
$21,395
N/A
M
N/A
M
N/A
M
M
N/A
N/A
M
N/A
N/A
M
N/A
N/A
N/A
M
N/A
N/A
Sources: Wharton County Tax Rolls, 1890; 1880 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Wharton County, Texas (Roll
1332).
Note: Asterisk indicates an antebellum planter.
223
Table 8.13. Percentage of antebellum planters within residents possessing $10,000 or more in
taxable property, 1860-1890
Year
1860
1870
1880
1890
Number of
Residents Owning
$10,000 or More
48
3
3
19
Number of
Antebellum
Planters
Owning
$10,000 or
More*
28
1
1
2
Sources: Wharton County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1890.
*Includes members of planter families.
224
Percentage of
Antebellum Planters
within Owners of
$10,000 or More*
58%
33%
33%
11%
Table 8.14. Wharton County judges, 1867-1890
Name
Gayce, Shadrach
Gillespie, David
Hawes, Edwin
Harris, George
Croom, W. J.
Tenure
1867-1870
1870-1876
1876-1882
1882-1886
1886-1890
Average Wealth
During Term
$2,260
$535
$1,437
$1,038
$11,385
Birth
State
N/A
N/A
KY
N/A
N/A
Occupation
N/A
N/A
Lawyer
N/A
N/A
Sources: Election Registers; Wharton County Tax Rolls 1867-1890; 1870 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule,
Wharton County, Texas (Roll 1609); 1880 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Wharton County, Texas (Roll 1332).
225
slaveholding classes’ political involvement. Slave owners (but not planters) dominated the
prewar political leadership. Of the eight antebellum judges, only two did not own slaves during
their tenure. Abolition ended the slaveholding class’s control of the county’s politics: a majority
of the postwar political class had not owned bondsmen before the war. Emancipation proved too
strong a force to allow the slaveholding class to remain among the wealthiest and most powerful
residents of Wharton County.
226
CHAPTER 9
CONCLUSION
For decades some scholars have described the American Civil War and Reconstruction
period as revolutionary. This is not surprising because some of the most prominent figures of the
period wished to make it so. In November 1862, for example, abolitionist and former slave
Frederick Douglass warned that the “work before us is nothing less than a radical revolution in
all the modes of thought which have flourished under the blighting slave system.” In his first
speech as a congressman in 1864, James A. Garfield remarked that the United States must “take
away . . . the great landed estates of the armed rebels and divide it [sic] into homes for the men
who have saved our country.”1 In 1867 Pennsylvania Radical Republican Congressman
Thaddeus Stevens demanded:
The whole fabric of southern society must be changed, and never can it be
done if this opportunity is lost. Without this, this Government can never be, as it
has never been, a true republic. . . . How can republican institutions, free schools,
free churches, free social intercourse exist in a mingled community of nabobs and
serfs? If the South is ever to be made a safe republic let her lands be cultivated by
the toil of the owners or the free labor of intelligent citizens.2
Historian Eric Foner has argued that Radical Reconstruction unleashed a political revolution
through giving former slaves equal political rights. He argues that it “stands as a unique moment
when . . . political authority actually sought to advance the interests of the black laborer.”
Historian James M. McPherson puts forth three reasons why the Civil War was revolutionary:
the frequent southern invocation of a natural right of revolution to justify secession, the abolition
1
Burke A. Hinsdale, ed., The Works of James Abram Garfield, 2 vols. (Boston: J. R. Osgood, 1882), 1:11;
Philip S. Foner, ed., The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass, 3 vols. (New York: International Publishers,
1952), 3:292-293; James M. McPherson, Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1991), 4; Perman, Pursuit of Unity, 119-120.
2
Congressional Globe, 40th Congress, 1st Session, 203; Foner, Reconstruction, 236; Perman, Pursuit of
Unity, 119-120.
227
of slavery, and the destruction of the South’s social structure through emancipation, and the
southern control of the federal government. During the antebellum period the South had a
disproportionate amount of power within the federal government. McPherson asserts that the
slave states gained an average of twenty seats in the House of Representatives by counting threefifths of the slave population for representation. Furthermore, all presidents from George
Washington to James Buchanan were either slave owners or members of a political party
sympathetic to slavery. Despite garnering the support of just five of the sixteen free states, for
example, Buchanan carried all but one of the slave states (Maryland), assuring his election in
1856. Finally, six of the nine members of the United States Supreme Court in 1860 were born
in slave states. Associate Justice John McClean was born in New Jersey in 1785, almost twenty
years before the Garden State abolished slavery. Following the war, however, representatives
from states that had fought the Confederacy controlled the federal government for the next
seventy years.3
The evidence examined in this study suggests that although the planter class was
predominately inactive in antebellum county-level politics, abolition did destroy the slaveholding
class’s dominance in local politics. The slave population of Texas would not explode until its
annexation to the United States in 1845. According to the U. S. Censuses of 1850 and 1860, the
number of bondsmen tripled from 58,161 to 182,566. Texas’s annexation and the subsequent
increase in the number of slaves within the state corresponded to a rise in the number of
antebellum county judges who owned slaves. Between 1845 and 1865 thirty-six judges served in
3
Foner, Reconstruction, 449 [quotation]; Eric Foner, Nothing But Freedom: Emancipation and its Legacy
(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1983), 46, 52; James M. McPherson, This Mighty Scourge:
Perspectives on the Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 8-9; McPherson, Abraham Lincoln and
the Second Revolution, 25, 29, 37-38;
228
this study’s six counties, twenty-one of whom owned slaves (see Table 9.1). Of these twentyone slave owners, only six were planters. Planters were apparently content to let smaller
slaveholders, men with similar interests, dominate county government.4
At the beginning of Reconstruction in Texas, Provisional Governor Andrew Jackson
Hamilton announced he would appoint all of the state’s county-level officials. Receiving letters
of reference from residents on the worthiness of specific candidates, Hamilton filled all the
vacancies for the six counties in August 1865. According to the state’s election register,
Hamilton appointed 127 individuals to the various positions of the examined counties (see Table
9.2). Of these appointees, thirty-seven did not appear in the last peace-time tax assessment. Of
the remaining ninety, 3 (or 3 percent of the 90) were planters, 30 (33 percent of the 90) were
smaller slave owners (i.e., 1 to 19 slaves), and fifty-seven (63 percent of those who did appear on
the 1860 tax rolls) owned no slaves. According to historian Carl H. Moneyhon, 53 percent of
Hamilton’s appointments state-wide owned slaves before the war. The lower proportion of
slaveholding appointees in these six counties can be explained by the fact that these counties had
a higher percentage of Unionists (mostly non-slave owners) than the state as a whole, giving the
governor more options for his appointments.5
4
Election Registers; Austin, Brazoria, Colorado, Fort Bend, Matagorda, Wharton County Tax Rolls, 1838-
1865.
5
Election Registers; Austin, Brazoria, Colorado, Fort Bend, Matagorda, Wharton County Tax Rolls, 1860;
Moneyhon, Texas after the Civil War, 31. Grear, Why Texans Fought in the Civil War, 142; Jordan, German Seed in
Texas Soil; Ella Lonn, Foreigners in the Confederacy (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1940), 35;
Campbell, Empire for Slavery, 215; Robert W. Shook, “German Migration to Texas, 1830-1850: Causes and
Consequences,” Texana 10 (No. 3, 1969): 237; Dale Baum, The Shattering of Texas Unionism: Politics in the Lone
Star State during the Civil War Era (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1998), 53; Walter L. Buenger,
“Secession and the Texas German Community: Editor Lindheimer vs. Editor Flake,” Southwestern Historical
Quarterly 82 (April 1979): 398, 399; Perman, Pursuit of Unity, 127.
229
Table 9.1. County Judges, 1845-1865
County
Austin
Brazoria
Colorado
Fort Bend
Matagorda
Wharton
Totals
Number
of
Judges
7
7
6
5
3
8
36
Smaller
NonPlanters Slaveholders Slaveholders
2
2
3
0
4
3
1
3
2
0
2
3
1
0
2
2
4
2
6
15
15
Sources: Austin, Brazoria, Colorado, Fort Bend, Matagorda, Wharton County Tax Rolls, 1845-1865; Election
Registers.
230
Table 9.2. Provisional Governor Andrew Jackson Hamilton’s appointees, 1865
Smaller
NonNot
Total
Slaveholders Slaveholders Listed
County
Planters
Austin
Brazoria
Colorado
Fort Bend
Matagorda
Wharton
0
1
1
0
0
1
5
6
5
3
4
7
24
8
13
3
7
2
0
5
3
11
8
10
29
20
22
17
19
20
Total
3
30
57
37
127
Sources: Election Registers; Austin, Brazoria, Colorado, Fort Bend, Matagorda, Wharton County Tax Rolls, 1860.
231
Black Texans during the twenty-five years after the Civil War had varying political
success. According to historians Richard L. Hume and Jerry B. Gough, black delegates
represented 11 percent of those at Texas’s Constitutional Convention of 1868. (In 1870 Texas’s
black population was 31 percent of the state total). In counties with a majority-black population,
black voters proved to be a strong bloc. Those counties continued to elect Republicans to
political office even after Reconstruction. Among them were a comparative handful of freedmen
and black Texans who had been born free. In Brazoria, Colorado, and Fort Bend counties, voters
elected black politicians to county and state level offices, such as Fort Bend’s sheriff, Walter
Burton Moses, even during the waning years of the nineteenth century. For Fort Bend County,
the white population could do little about black officeholding until whites achieved near-parity
with the black population.6
Another revolutionary aspect of these counties’ postwar political experience was the
nature of white officeholding at the county level during and after Reconstruction. Although the
numbers vary among counties, the evidence suggests that, in general, abolition quickly dissolved
the political power of the slaveholding class. Slave owners (both planters and smaller holders)
gave way to non-slaveholders and professionals. Following Hamilton’s tenure and the
subsequent fifteen years after Reconstruction, the slaveholding class’s involvement in countylevel politics continued to fade. As Table 9.3 demonstrates, thirty-two of the forty county judges
between 1865 and 1890 either had not owned slaves before the war or were descended from non-
6
Election Registers; Hume and Gough, Blacks, Carpetbaggers, and Scalawags, 13, 229; Campbell Gibson
and Kay Jung, s. v. “Historical Census Statistics on Population Totals By Race, 1790 to 1990, and By Hispanic
Origin, 1970 to 1990, For The United States, Regions, Divisions, and States,”
http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0056/twps0056.html (accessed July 11, 2010).
232
slaveholding families. Only three of the forty judges between Reconstruction and 1890 were
members of antebellum planter families.7
During the postwar years, legal professionals, in general, replaced agricultural
slaveholders in the office of county judge. Between 1865 and 1890 forty county judges served in
the six counties. Twenty-eight could be identified by profession. According to the 1860, 1870,
and 1880 U. S. Censuses, twenty of the remaining twenty-eight were part of the counties’
professional class. These judges were typically lawyers, state legislators, former magistrates in
lower courts (such as probate judges and justices of the peace), or physicians. The next largest
group, (six men) were non-professionals: clerks, stock raisers, butchers, and fisherman. Two
were merchants.8
The abolition of slavery also unleashed an economic revolution that toppled the
antebellum planter class. For the 221 antebellum planters of Austin, Brazoria, Colorado, Fort
Bend, Matagorda, and Wharton Counties, the economic effects of emancipation were
overwhelming, even thirty years after the war. In 1860 the 10,982 slaves these planters owned
were worth $7,710,565, or an average of $702 per slave. Abolition, then, was the financial
destruction of nearly $8 million in chattel property.9
The losses in slaves tell only part of the story of the collapse of the planter class between
1860 and 1890. Accompanying this loss was a decrease in the number of acres and value of the
7
Election Registers; Austin, Brazoria, Colorado, Fort Bend, Matagorda, Wharton County Tax Rolls 1860-
1890.
8
Election Registers; 1860 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Austin, Brazoria, Colorado, Fort Bend, Matagorda,
Wharton County, Texas (Rolls 1287, 1289, 1291, 1294, 1300, 1308); 1870 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule,
Austin, Brazoria, Colorado, Fort Bend, Matagorda, Wharton County, Texas (Rolls 1574, 1576, 1580, 1585, 1597,
1609); 1880 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Austin, Brazoria, Colorado, Fort Bend, Matagorda, Wharton
County, Texas (Rolls 1289, 1292, 1304, 1319, 1332).
9
Austin, Brazoria, Colorado, Fort Bend, Matagorda, Wharton County Tax Rolls, 1860.
233
Table 9.3. County judges, 1865-1890
County
Austin
Brazoria
Colorado
Fort Bend
Matagorda
Wharton
Former
Planter or
Member of
a Former
Planter
Family
1
1
0
0
1
0
Former
Smaller
Slaveholder or
Member of a
Former
Smaller
Slaveholding
Family
1
1
1
1
1
0
Non-Slaveholder
or Member of a
NonSlaveholding
Family
3
7
3
6
8
5
Total
Judges
5
9
4
7
10
5
Totals
3
5
32
40
Sources: Election Registers; Austin, Brazoria, Colorado, Fort Bend, Matagorda, Wharton Counties, 1860-1890.
234
landholdings that the antebellum planters possessed before the war. Some lost acreage and
others lost value, but a majority of the planters who remained in the counties by 1870
experienced losses in both categories. Of the seventy-nine former planters or members of planter
families on the 1870 tax rolls, forty-four suffered declines in both the number of acres owned
and the value of their acres between 1860 and 1870. The end of slavery directly led to the
collective loss of 43,195 acres during these years. The reduction in acreage, along with
decreases in the value of an acre a planter owned, meant that these seventy-nine residents also
lost just over an additional $1.5 million. In 1860 these planters owned a total of 242,606 acres,
which were worth $2,093,501, making each acre worth an average of $8.63. Ten years later, the
number of acres decreased by eighteen percent to 199,411. The value of those acres, however,
dropped by 78 percent to $588,395. This made each acre worth an average of $2.95, 33 percent
of what they worth ten years before.10
Thirty of the planters did not experience decreases in their landholdings. Of these, eight
were able to claim the same number of acres in 1860 and 1870. The remainder had average
gains of approximately 1,500 acres. Matagorda County planter James B. Hawkins gained 11,328
acres between 1860 and 1870. Similar to most of the other planters in this group, however,
Hawkins’s augmentation, which was the largest of all the planters, could not counteract the
effects of the decline in the value of their landholdings.11
Only five of the former planters were able to increase both the number of acres they
owned and their value. To do this required the planter to acquire a substantial number of acres
by 1870 compared to what he or she owned in 1860. Colorado County planter David Tooke was
10
Ibid., 1860, 1870.
11
Matagorda County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870.
235
Table 9.4. Occupational breakdown of county judges, 1865-1890
Austin
Brazoria
Colorado
Fort Bend
Matagorda
Wharton
5
6
2
5
1
1
0
0
0
1
1
0
NonProfessional
0
1
0
1
4
0
Total
20
2
6
County
Professional Entrepreneur
Undetermined
Total
0
2
2
0
4
4
5
9
4
7
10
5
12
40
Sources: Election Registers; Austin, Brazoria, Colorado, Fort Bend, Matagorda, Wharton County Tax Rolls, 18651890.
236
an anomaly within this group. The 1860 tax rolls listed him as possessing zero acres within the
county. Ten years later, however, the tax rolls listed him with fifty-seven acres, which were
worth $575. For Tooke the acquisition of any rural acres would increase the value of his
landholdings.12
At the other end of this spectrum, however, was Brazoria County planter Stephen S.
Perry. He experienced increases in both his acreage and the value of that land. His mother,
Emily Austin Perry, was Stephen F. Austin’s sister. In 1824 she married James Franklin Perry,
Austin’s business confidant, with whom she had three children, one of whom was Stephen.
Although Emily Perry died in 1851, her property was not divided among her children from her
two marriages until 1861, when Stephen inherited more than 10,000 acres. Because of this
massive addition of new land, Perry was able to increase the value of his landholdings by nearly
$20,000 between 1860 and 1870.13
As the decades after the Civil War progressed, each county began losing the antebellum
planters and their families. Either through death or because entire families moved out of the
county, the number of planters and/or their descendants declined to the point that by 1890 only a
few, sometimes none, of the antebellum period’s largest slaveholders remained in the county,
even fewer among the postbellum wealthiest group.14
As early as 1870, the absolute number of planters with $10,000 or more in taxable
property in the six counties decreased from 221 to only 30. Planters or their family members
(generally widows and sons) represented just thirteen, or 15 percent, of the 101 total residents
12
Colorado County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870.
13
Brazoria County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870; Brazoria County Deeds Records, K:164-179; Curlee, “History of
a Texas Slave Plantation,” 84; Jones, Peach Point Plantation, 129-130.
14
Austin, Brazoria, Colorado, Fort Bend, Matagorda, Wharton County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870.
237
who possessed $10,000 or more at the end of the decade. In Matagorda County, Hawkins
remained the only former planter who could be listed among that county’s fourteen members of
the county’s elite. In Wharton County, Burr A. Harrison was the lone planter among the three
residents owning high levels of wealth. By 1890 only eighteen, or 11 percent, of the 168
wealthiest taxpayers in the six counties were members of antebellum planter families (see Table
9.5). All of them were either sons or widows of Colorado’s largest slaveholders of 1860. 15
As early as 1870, then, a new economic elite was already replacing the antebellum
planter class. These men and women were, in general, less wealthy than their antebellum
predecessors. As demonstrated by Table 9.6, this new elite possessed, on average, just 43
percent as much wealth as its 1860 predecessors.16
Economic recovery for these six counties was slow in developing. The decline in the
average estate continued through Reconstruction and the early years of Redemption. In 1860 the
average elite estate was worth $42,057. Ten years later, just five years after abolition, that
average plummeted nearly 50 percent to $20,810. The decline continued even after
Reconstruction had ended, falling an additional $3,000 to $17,945. Only between 1880 and 1890
did the counties experience an increase in the value of the average large estate. This increase
brought the average value of the estate of a member of the 1890 elite to only $25,053, 60 percent
of the 1860 value.17
15
Austin, Brazoria, Colorado, Fort Bend, Matagorda, Wharton County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1890; 1860 U. S.
Census, Schedule I, Colorado County, Texas (Roll 1291).
16
Kleiner, “Matagorda County,” New Handbook of Texas, 4:558; Walker, Statistics of the Wealth and
Industry of the United States, 1870, 255
17
Austin, Brazoria, Colorado, Fort Bend, Matagorda, Wharton County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1890.
238
Table 9.5. Number of planters/family members of planters within elites, 1860-1890
County
Austin
Brazoria
Colorado
Fort Bend
Matagorda
Wharton
Number of Wealthy
Number of Planters
Percent Who Were
Planters
Planters Planters
within
within
1860
1870
Elite
Elite*
39 of 122 7 of 12
53 of 105 9 of 25
40 of 94
5 of 13
34 of 85
7 of 18
27 of 54
1 of 8
28 of 48
1 of 3
508
79
221
30
44
38
Planters
within
1880
Elite*
1 of 12
3 of 20
4 of 28
3 of 24
1 of 14
1 of 3
101
13
Planters
within
1890
Elite*
1 of 18
4 of 38
9 of 56
1 of 19
1 of 18
2 of 19
168
18
13
11
Source: Austin, Brazoria, Colorado, Fort Bend, Matagorda, Wharton County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1890.
Note: Planter refers to antebellum status and includes members of planter amilies
239
Table 9.6. Average value of the estates of each county’s economic elite, 1860-1890
County
Austin
Brazoria
Colorado
Fort Bend
Matagorda
Wharton
1860
Planters
$66,500
$78,872
$61,149
$95,000
$58,104
$68,137
1860
$31,787
$47,708
$36,816
$51,328
$38,921
$45,779
Averages
$71,294
$42,057 $20,810 $17,945 $25,053
1870
$16,940
$28,939
$21,515
$21,288
$24,078
$12,097
1880
$12,122
$18,802
$14,296
$20,028
$26,358
$16,063
1890
$14,317
$25,532
$20,347
$28,523
$36,262
$25,338
Sources: Austin, Brazoria, Colorado, Fort Bend, Matagorda, Wharton County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1890.
240
These counties’ experiences with abolition, therefore, supports historian C. Vann
Woodward’s description of the South following Reconstruction. In Origins of the New South,
Woodward contended that the majority of the Redeemers (politicians who brought about the end
of Reconstruction) were of “middle-class, industrial, capitalistic outlook, with little but a
nominal connection with the . .. planter regime.” Redemption, Woodward further argued, was
not the restoration of the old economic and political system. Rather, it was a new chapter of the
revolution that the abolition of slavery had unleashed. For this study’s six counties, the political
elite had little, but most of the time no, connection to the antebellum planter families.18
The abolition of slavery triggered a collapse that proved too great for planter families to
resist. Due to their economic downfall, death, and the relocation of entire families, the counties’
largest antebellum slaveholders and their descendants dwindled to the point that they were
largely swept away from their antebellum economic and political power. In their place was a
new class – urban men, professionals, and those who had not owned slaves before the war. The
antebellum planters were masters no more.
18
Woodward, Origins of the New South, 20-21 [quotation].
241
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