Anahuac Disturbances

The Anahuac Disturbances, occurring in and around Anahuac, Texas, in 1832 and 1835 helped to precipitate the Texas Revolution that led to the secession of Texas from Mexico and the formation of the Republic of Texas.

Anahuac's location on the East side of the Trinity River near the North shore of Galveston Bay placed it astride the trade route between Mexico and Louisiana and the rest of the United States proper. Therefore, it was a logical place for a Mexican garrison responsible for curtailing smuggling and enforcing customs tariffs from the coastal colonies.

In June 1832, animosity was building between Anglo-Texian settlers and the Mexican military commander, Col. Juan Davis Bradburn, in part because the settlers blamed a number of local crimes on his troops, some of whom were former convicts sent to the Mexican frontier to do heavy construction work in order to earn their freedom. Bradburn had also incorporated two or three runaway slaves from Louisiana into his garrison. Slavery had a somewhat ambiguous legality on the Mexican frontier at that time - being officially prohibited, but widely tolerated under the disguise of indentured servitude. A local lawyer named William B. Travis, who would eventually be considered a hero of the Texas Revolution, argued alongside his partner Patrick Churchill Jack for the release of the slaves, but they were themselves imprisoned by Bradburn.

A militia force of perhaps 200 men attempting to secure the release of Travis and Jack skirmished with Bradburn's forces before retreating to Turtle Bayou, six miles North of Anahuac, to await artillery. While there, they composed and signed the Turtle Bayou Resolutions, which explained their rebellion against the centralist Bradburn as part of the federalist reform movement of Federalist general Antonio López de Santa Anna who had recently won a victory over administration forces at Tampico. The matter was resolved when Bradburn's immediate supervisor Col Jose de las Piedras arrived from Nacogdoches, Texas and bowed to the wishes of the settlers.

A second dispute arose in late June 1835, again over the issue of customs. A local merchant and boat captain, Andrew Briscoe, complained that taxes were not being enforced equally at all ports. He intentionally tested the new government commander, Capt. Antonio Tenorio, by loading his boat in a matter he knew would generate curiosity on the part of the officials. In reality, he was merely loading his boat with ballast. Tenorio was incensed and arrested Briscoe and his partner DeWitt Clinton Harris. The soldiers escorting Harris and Briscoe also shot and wounded another Texian, young William Smith.

Again, Travis played a major role. When news of the arrests were heard in San Felipe de Austin, where radical sentiments were taking hold, the political chief [http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/MM/fmi15.html Peter Miller] encouraged or authorized Travis to organize a militia for the incident. Travis gathered a militia, commandeered a vessel at Harrisburg, Texas, the "Ohio", and set sail for Anahuac with a cannon. His force of 25 men quickly won the surrender of the forty-some Mexican troops, disarmed them, freed the Texian prisoners and expelled the troops. [Looscan, AB., "THE OLD FORT AT ANAHUAC", Volume 002, Number 1, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Online,. [http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/publications/journals/shq/online/v002/n1/article_3.html Page 21 - 28] Accessed Sat Oct 28 7:02:26 CDT 2006] [ [http://www.tamu.edu/ccbn/dewitt/pubbarker.htm Excerpted publications of Texas historian] , Eugene Barker]

However, Travis had acted without broad community support and ended up making an apology in order not to endanger Stephen F. Austin who was in Mexico City at the time. Austin was the most prominent empresario contracted by the Spanish (and later Mexican) governments to encourage and oversee the immigration of people to Mexico to settle the frontier. Later that summer, the Mexican military authorities demanded the surrender of Travis for military trial, which the colonists were not prepared to do.

Travis and Austin would go on to become major historical figures, with Travis dying shortly after at the Battle of the Alamo and Austin serving as secretary of state for the Republic of Texas for a short time before his own death.

References

* [http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/AA/jca1.html Handbook of Texas entry for the Anahuac Disturbances]