Masters No More: Abolition and Texas Planters, …/67531/metadc33171/m...Ivan, Adrien D. Masters No More: Abolition and Texas Planters, 1860-1890.Doctor of Philosophy (History), December

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

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

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?

ii

Copyright 2010

by

Adrien D. Ivan

iii

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.

iv

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, 1860-1890........................................................................................................................41

4. THE ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL ELITE OF BRAZORIA COUNTY, 1860-1890........................................................................................................................78

5. THE ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL ELITE OF COLORADO COUNTY, 1860-1890......................................................................................................................114

6. THE ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL ELITE OF FORT BEND COUNTY, 1860-1890......................................................................................................................143

7. THE ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL ELITE OF MATAGORDA COUNTY, 1860-1890 ............................................................................................................171

8. THE ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL ELITE OF WHARTON COUNTY, 1860-1890......................................................................................................................200

9. CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................227

BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................................242

v

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




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


18. Antebellum and Civil War-era Brazoria County Judges, 1837-1866 ....................................93


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

vi

23. Owners of $10,000 or More in Total Property in Brazoria County, 1860 .............................105





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


32. Antebellum and Civil War-era Colorado County Judges, 1839-1865 ...................................124



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





42. Colorado County Judges, 1866-1890 .....................................................................................141

43. Landowning Members of the Old Three Hundred in Fort Bend County, 1824-1827 ...........144

vii

44. Fort Bend County Planters, 1860 ...........................................................................................150


46. Antebellum and Civil War-era Fort Bend County Judges, 1838-1865 ..................................153



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




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


60. Antebellum and Civil War-era Matagorda County Judges, 1837-1865 ................................181



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

viii




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


74. Antebellum and Civil War-era Wharton County Judges, 1837-1866 ....................................210



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





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

ix

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

x

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

1

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,"

2

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.

3

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.

4

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, 1840-

1950,” in Seymour E. Harris, ed., American Economic History (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961), 525-547.


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.

5

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


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.

6

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.

7

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.

8

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.

9

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.

10

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.

11

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.

12

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 two-

thirds 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.

13

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): 108-

117; Richard G. Lowe and Randolph B. Campbell, Planters & Plain Folk: Agriculture in Antebellum Texas (Dallas:

Southern Methodist University Press, 1987), 12.

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).

1 4

2

3 6

5

County Legend

1. Austin

2. Brazoria

3. Colorado

4. Fort Bend

5. Matagorda

6. Wharton

14

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.

15

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

16

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 Trans-

Mississippi 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.

17

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.

18

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 Trans-

Mississippi (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.

19

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 1870-

1871 (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.

20

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.

21

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, 1861-

1898 (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.

22

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].

23

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.

24

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, 92-

93; 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.

25

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).

26

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.

27

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.

28

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.

29

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.

30

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.

31

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.

32

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.

33

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.

34

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.

35

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

36

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.

37

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, 63-

64, 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


Agriculture in the United States at the Eleventh Census: 1890, 250-261.

38

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


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.

39

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.

40

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.

41

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.

42

Table 3.1. Landowning members of the Old Three Hundred in Austin County, 1824-1827

Name Name

Allen, Martin Kuykendall, Brazilla

Boatwright, Thomas Leakey, Joel

Bright, David Little, John

Cartwright, Thomas McCroskey, John

Castleman, Sylvenus Newman, Joseph

Chriesman, Horatio Orrick, James

Cooper, William Osborn, Nathan

Crownover, John Picket, Pamelia

Cummins, James Prater, William

Davis, Thomas Rabb, John

Flanakin, Isaiah Robbins, Earle

Frazier, James Robbins, William

Gilleland, Daniel Shipman, Moses

Harvey, William Smeathers, William

Hensley, James Tally, David

Ingram, Seth Toy, Samuel

Jones, Oliver Westall, Thomas

Kennedy, Samuel White, William C.

Kuykendall, Abner 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.

43

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).

Bellville – County Seat

44

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.

45

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

46

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.

47

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.

48

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.

49

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, thirty-

two, 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

50

Table 3.2. Austin County planters, 1860

Name Slaves Estate Name Slaves Estate

Ballard, K. 21 $25,540 Keer, Thomas 25 $18,400

Bennet, William 22 $23,530 Kirby, Jared E. 120 $190,717

Bethany, James W. 20 $29,092 Kirby, Sarah S. 26 $38,050

Blake, S. R. 22 $67,000 McDade, James 26 $24,360

Chambers, M. A. &

S. C. 36 $27,650 McGregor, Nate 32 $27,556

Chambers, R. 39 $46,340 Museger, M. 23 $31,900

Chitt, Thomas 95 $60,685 Oliver, A. Thomas 103 $130,985

Clark, P. S. 25 $37,440 Oliver, M. S. 26 $57,000

Crump, William E. 50 $73,440 Patterson, Jason T. 29 $104,500

Cuney, Philip M. 147 $161,344

Peebles, Richard

R. 56 $116,100

Davis, Nathan 43 $52,850 Qualls, Jesse 27 $32,500

Day, R. S. 37 $39,866 Wade, J. O. 43 $123,818

Fordtran, Charles 21 $56,500 Waller, Edwin 25 $52,398

Glover, Edwin A. 118 $226,880 Ward, A. 41 $42,370

Groce, Jared F. 21 $65,810 Weston, Robert A. 33 $52,420

Groce, Leonard 127 $260,000 White, Joseph H. 31 $36,155

Hannay, Margaret 20 $17,140 White, T. B. 37 $47,730

Harvey, James A. 41 $34,450 Whitworth, S. J. 40 $34,300

Hewitt, William 24 $21,200 Wood, T. B. 30 $57,760

Howth, Mary 39 $28,250

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.

51

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.

52

Table 3.3. Percentage of the value of slaves within planters’ estates, 1860 P

erce

nt

92

%

38

%

34

%

53

%

54

%

45

%

58

%

50

%

28

%

29

%

59

%

15

%

38

%

30

%

63

%

64

%

39

%

89

%

44

%

Est

ate

$1

8,4

00

$1

90

,71

7

$3

8,0

50

$2

4,3

60

$2

7,5

56

$3

1,9

00

$1

30

,98

5

$5

7,0

00

$1

04

,50

0

$1

16

,10

0

$3

2,5

00

$1

23

,81

8

$5

2,3

98

$4

2,3

70

$5

2,4

20

$3

6,1

55

$4

7,7

30

$3

4,3

00

$5

7,7

60

Sla

ve

Va

lue

$1

7,0

00

$7

2,0

00

$1

3,0

00

$1

3,0

00

$1

5,0

00

$1

4,3

00

$7

5,7

50

$2

8,5

00

$2

9,0

00

$3

4,0

00

$1

9,2

00

$1

8,3

00

$2

0,0

00

$1

2,6

00

$3

3,0

00

$2

3,2

00

$1

8,5

00

$3

0,5

00

$2

5,4

00

Na

me

Kee

r, T

ho

mas

Kir

by

, Ja

red

E.

Kir

by

, S

arah

S.

McD

ade,

Jam

es

McG

reg

or,

Nat

e

Mu

seg

er,

M.

Oli

ver

, A

. T

ho

mas

Oli

ver

, M

. S

.

Pat

ters

on

, Ja

son

T.

Pee

ble

s, R

ich

ard

R.

Qu

alls

, Je

sse

Wad

e, J

. O

.

Wal

ler,

Ed

win

War

d,

A.

Wes

ton

, R

ob

ert

A.

Wh

ite,

Jo

sep

h H

.

Wh

ite,

T.

B.

Wh

itw

ort

h,

S.

J.

Wo

od

, T

. B

.

Per

cen

t

63

%

55

%

66

%

33

%

78

%

39

%

94

%

37

%

68

%

49

%

73

%

56

%

46

%

42

%

24

%

29

%

61

%

71

%

70

%

42

%

Est

ate

$2

5,5

40

$2

9,0

92

$2

3,5

30

$6

7,0

00

$2

7,6

50

$4

6,3

40

$6

0,6

85

$3

7,4

40

$7

3,4

40

$1

61

,34

4

$5

2,8

50

$3

9,8

66

$3

6,5

00

$2

26

,88

0

$6

5,8

10

$2

60

,00

0

$1

7,1

40

$3

4,4

50

$2

1,2

00

$2

8,2

50

Sla

ve

Va

lue

$1

6,0

00

$1

6,0

00

$1

5,5

00

$2

2,0

00

$2

1,6

00

$1

8,2

00

$5

7,0

00

$1

4,0

00

$5

0,0

00

$7

9,8

00

$3

8,4

00

$2

2,2

00

$1

6,9

00

$9

4,4

00

$1

6,0

00

$7

5,0

00

$1

0,5

00

$2

4,6

00

$1

4,9

00

$1

2,0

00

Na

me

Bal

lard

, K

.

Bet

han

y,

Jam

es W

.

Ben

net

, W

illi

am

Bla

ke,

S.R

.

Ch

amb

ers,

M.

A.

& S

. C

.

Ch

amb

ers,

R.

Ch

itt,

Th

om

as

Cla

rk,

P.

S.

Cru

mp

, W

illi

am E

.

Cu

ney

, P

hil

ip M

.

Dav

is,

Nat

han

Day

, R

. S

.

Fo

rdtr

an,

Ch

arle

s

Glo

ver

, E

dw

in A

.

Gro

ce,

Jare

d F

.

Gro

ce,

Leo

nar

d W

alle

r

Han

nay

, M

arg

aret

J.

Har

vey

, Ja

mes

A.

Hew

itt,

Wil

liam

Ho

wth

, M

ary

Source: Austin County Tax Rolls, 1860.

53

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, 174-

175; 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.

54

Table 3.4. Antebellum and Civil War-era Austin County judges, 1837-1866

O

ccu

pati

on

Far

mer

*

N/A

N/A

Far

mer

*

Far

mer

Far

mer

N/A

Far

mer

N/A

Avg. W

ealt

h

du

rin

g T

erm

$4,8

25

$661

$1,2

44

$845

$6,9

79

$69,4

37

$41,9

14

$23,1

22

$787

Avg. N

um

ber

of

Sla

ves

Ow

ned

du

rin

g T

erm

0

5

0

0

8

49

38

15

0

Ten

ure

1837-1

842

1842-1

844

1844-1

848

1848-1

852

1852-1

856

1856-1

858

1858-1

862

1862-1

864

1864-1

866

Nam

e

Money

, J.

H.

McC

rear

y,

Jam

es

Kle

beg

, R

ober

t

Bra

dbury

, W

illi

am

Wal

ler,

Edw

in

Cru

mp, W

illi

am E

.

Day

, W

illi

am S

.

Cat

lin, J.

H.

Oney

, C

. B

.

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.

55

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.

56

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:358-

379, 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).

57

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.

58

Table 3.5. Total estates of 1860 planters as listed in the 1870 tax rolls

Name 1860

Estate

1870

Estate

Percentage of 1860

Estate Lost

Bennet, William $23,530 $7,436 68%

Bethany, James W. $29,092 $10,460 64%

Chambers, M. A. & S. C. $27,650 $7,420 73%

Clark, P. S. $37,440 $9,055 76%

Crump, William E. $73,440 $23,891 67%

Day, R. S. $39,866 $9,035 77%

Fordtran, Charles $36,500 $11,310 69%

Glover, Edwin A. $226,880 $32,615 86%

Groce, Jared F. $65,810 $12,722 81%

Hannay, Margaret J. $17,140 $4,045 76%

Harvey, James A. $34,450 $1,237 96%

Howth, Mary $28,250 $1,585 94%

Qualls, Jesse $32,500 $2,445 92%

Waller, E. $52,398 $6,120 88%

Weston, Robert A. $52,420 $5,615 89%

Averages $51,824 $9,666 80%

Sources: Austin County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870.

59

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.

60

Table 3.6. Gains/Losses in acres owned and land values of antebellum planters, 1870

C

han

ge

in

Valu

e

$21

-$537

$2,8

20

-$16,0

40

-$139

-$4,0

47

-$9,2

41

-$90,9

50

-$47,4

63

-$1,4

00

-$6,7

58

-$12,5

50

-$9,8

00

-$22,7

23

-$13,8

20

Ch

an

ge

in

Acr

es

1,5

10

90

827

50

1,5

33

245

-1,9

08

267

-2,9

02

137

-302

-370

88

-1,6

36

0

1870 V

alu

e

$5,7

51

$8,1

75

$7,4

20

$6,1

00

$17,2

51

$8,1

03

$6,4

35

$28,3

00

$647

$3,4

00

$952

$1,2

50

$2,2

00

$1,2

00

$4,6

00

1870 A

cres

2,2

33

1,3

50

1,2

87

2,2

64

2,7

81

1,4

60

567

6,2

34

480

617

212

550

788

200

921

1860 V

alu

e

$5,7

30

$8,7

12

$4,6

00

$22,1

40

$17,3

90

$12,1

50

$15,6

76

$119,2

50

$48,1

10

$4,8

00

$7,7

10

$13,8

00

$12,0

00

$23,9

23

$18,4

20

1860 A

cres

723

1,2

60

460

2,2

14

1,2

48

1,2

15

2,4

75

5,9

67

3,3

82

480

514

920

700

1,8

36

921

Nam

e

Ben

net

, W

illi

am

Bet

han

y, Ja

mes

on W

.

Cham

ber

s, M

. A

. &

S. C

.

Cla

rk, P

. S

.

Cru

mp, W

illi

am E

.

Day

, R

. S

.

Ford

tran

, C

har

les

Glo

ver

, E

dw

in A

.

Gro

ce, Ja

red

F.

Han

nay

, M

argar

et J

.

Har

vey

, Ja

mes

A.

How

th, M

ary

Qual

ls, Je

sse

Wal

ler,

E.

Wes

ton,

Rob

ert

Sources: Austin County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870.

61

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.

62

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.

63

Table 3.7. Austin County presidential pardons

Name Exemption

Ahrenbeck, William Thirteenth

Ballinger, John Thirteenth

Blezinger, G. Thirteenth

Campbell, Rufus E. First

Clarke, Edward N. First

Crump, William E.* Thirteenth

Glover, Edwin A.* Thirteenth

Goodloe, J. L. Thirteenth

Groce, Leonard W.* Thirteenth

Wangermann, Ernst First

Hensley, Jasper First

Morton, Charles Thirteenth

Schroeder, William Thirteenth

Sims, S. W. Thirteenth

Waller, Edwin* 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.

64

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.

65

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 non-

35

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.

66

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), non-

slaveholders 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.

67

Table 3.8. Austin County officials appointed by Provisional Governor Andrew Jackson Hamilton

Name Position

Slaves

Owned in

1860

Value of

Estate in

1865

Oney, C. B. 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

Ferrell, John Coroner 0 $400

Montgomery, J. R. 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

Bell, John G. Treasurer 2 $4,317

Sources: Election Registers; Austin County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1865.

68

Table 3.9. Owners of $10,000 or more in total property in Austin County, 1860

N

am

e

Wh

itw

ort

h,

S.

Wo

od

, T

. B

.*

Nam

e

Rea

d,

S.

D.

Ro

ach

, R

. E

.

Sca

les,

R.

H.

Sh

elb

urn

, T

.

Sh

elb

y,

D.

Sig

frie

d,

M.

Sla

ter,

W.

Sn

ell,

Ham

lin

Ste

ph

enso

n,

T.

Ter

ry,

H.

Th

om

pso

n,

W.

Wad

e, J

. O

.*

Wad

e, T

.

Wal

ler,

Ed

win

*

War

d,

A.*

Wat

son

, R

.

Wes

ton

, R

.

Wh

ite,

J.*

Wh

ite,

T.

B.*

Wh

itw

ort

h,

S.

J.*

Nam

e

Man

ley

, J

.

Mar

tin

, W

.

McD

ade,

J.

C

McD

ade,

J.*

McG

reg

or,

N.*

Mil

ler,

F.

E.

Mu

seg

er,

M.*

Nic

ho

ls,

Joh

n

Oli

ver

, A

.*

Oli

ver

, M

. S

.*

Par

ker

, W

.

Pat

ters

on

, J.

*

Pea

rso

n,

W.

Pee

ble

s, R

. R

.*

Pen

ice,

Fra

nk

Pen

n,

R.

Pie

r, J

.

Po

rtis

, R

.

Pu

nsh

ard

, W

.

Qu

alls

, Je

sse*

Nam

e

Han

nay

, M

. J.

*

Har

vey

, J.

A.*

Hen

sley

, Ja

sper

Hew

itt,

Wil

liam

*

Hil

l, D

.

Ho

wth

, M

ary

*

Jack

son

, T

. J.

Joh

nso

n,

L. L

.

Joh

nso

n,

M.

Kan

no

n,

D.

Kee

r, T

ho

mas

*

Ken

ney

, J.

Kir

by

, Ja

red

E.*

Kir

by

, S

arah

S.*

Kn

oll

e, E

.

Kn

oll

e, F

.

Lan

des

, D

.

Lo

gg

ins,

R.

Lo

tt,

J.

Lo

tt,

Joh

n

Nam

e

Dan

iel,

J.

Dau

gh

ty,

E.

J.

Dau

gh

ty,

J.

Dav

is,

Nat

han

*

Day

, R

. S

.*

Do

losc

hal

, Jo

sep

h

Du

nca

n,

Isaa

c

Ed

war

ds,

J.

Ed

war

ds,

R.

En

gli

sh,

H.

B.

Fo

rdtr

an,

Ch

arle

s*

Fo

ster

, B

.

Gle

nn

, A

lex

Glo

ver

, E

dw

in A

.*

Gra

yto

n,

J.

Gri

er,

Jose

ph

Gro

ce,

Jare

d F

.*

Gro

ce,

Leo

nar

d W

.*

Hal

l, J

. B

.

Hal

l, J

oh

n

Nam

e

Cat

tin

, J.

H.

Ch

amb

ers,

M.

& S

.*

Ch

amb

ers,

R.*

Ch

app

ell,

R.

H.

Ch

itt,

Th

om

as*

Cla

rk,

P.

S.*

Cla

ry,

Jess

e

Cle

mm

on

s, J

. A

.

Cle

vel

and

, E

.

Clo

ud

, J.

Co

chra

n,

Tho

mas

Co

chra

n,

W.

W.

Co

llin

s, J

. W

.

Co

op

er,

E.

Co

op

er,

Sas

hel

Co

op

er,

W.

Co

rbin

, G

eorg

e

Cru

mp

, W

illi

am E

.*

Cu

ney

, P

hil

ip M

.*

Dab

ney

, E

. W

.

Nam

e

All

en,

G.

W.

All

en,

J. W

.

All

en,

W.

J.

Am

ber

, C

. C

.

Bal

lard

, K

.*

Bal

lard

, V

icto

r

Bat

eman

, M

ary

Bax

ter,

Reb

ecca

Ben

net

, W

.*

Bet

ts,

S.

S.

Bla

ke,

S.R

.*

Bo

nn

er,

Jord

an

Bo

on

, J.

G.

Bu

ck,

E.

J.

Bu

sh,

N.

W.

Cal

lin

, J.

H

Cam

pb

ell,

Cy

rus

Cam

pb

ell,

Jo

hn

Cam

pb

ell,

R.

E.

Can

no

n,

L.

Source: Austin County Tax Rolls, 1860

Note: Asterisks indicate antebellum planters.

69


Name Occupation Birth

State Age Estate Sex

Bethany, Jameson* Farmer AL 46 $10,460 M

Campbell, Rufus E. Farmer AR 54 $10,068 M

Crump, William E.* Farmer NC 60 $23,891 M

Cummings, Samuel A. Farmer TX 42 $16,056 M

Fordtran, Charles* Farmer Prussia 69 $11,310 M

Glover, Edwin A.* Farmer SC 71 $32,615 M

Groce, Jared F.*

Stock

Raiser TX 33 $12,722 M

Harper, B.37

N/A N/A N/A $13,630 F

McIntyre, William Farmer Scotland 32 $14,616 M

Patterson, James T.* Farmer SC 60 $16,486 M

Peebles, Richard R.* Farmer OH 60 $23,422 M

Wangermann, Adam

and Ernst

Wholesale

Stock

Trader Saxony

42,

44 $18,000 M

Sources: Austin County Tax Rolls, 1870; 1870 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Austin County, Texas (Roll

1574).


37

The tax rolls list her as “Harper, Mrs. B.”

70

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).

71



State Age Estate

Alexander, William Farmer Ireland 68 $14,326

Campbell, J. T. Farmer NC 50 $13,974

Collins, Kinch Farmer MS 44 $11,648

Cummings, Samuel A. Farmer TX 52 $14,075

Fordtran, Charles* Farmer Prussia 79 $11,480

Haak, A. Merchant Germany 49 $11,610

Hill, John Farmer AR 46 $10,241

Hunt, Holland N/A N/A N/A $11,476

Menke, Charlotte Farmer Germany 44 $10,659

Miller, Henry Farmer TX 27 $13,659

Ringner, Christian Farmer Germany 52 $11,717

Vogelsang, Ernst Farmer Germany 42 $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.

72

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.

73


Name Occupation in 1880 Birth

State Age Estate

Allen, John Stock Raiser TX 46 $12,540

Cannon, D. N/A N/A N/A $16,361

Cummings, N. E. Farmer SC 61 $15,945

Gebers, G. N/A N/A N/A $14,515

Haak, A. Merchant Germany 59 $11,220

Hackbarth, John Clerk TX 28 $15,194

Hallsworth, C. N/A N/A N/A $18,775

Holland, N. Lawyer MD 68 $10,224

Knolle, Ernst M. Dry Goods Merchant Germany 77 $10,910

Laughamen, O. N/A N/A N/A $11,980

Miller, Bertha Merchant Hungary 60 $16,160

Nabermachen, P. N/A N/A N/A $12,265

Nill, Jacob N/A N/A N/A $19,025

Nill, John N/A N/A N/A $23,510

Rothanel, A. N/A N/A N/A $10,600

Ward, Pressley* Farmer NC 51 $14,869

Wells, John W. Farmer NC 39 $10,930

Witte, Otto Physician TX 35 $12,690

Sources: 1880 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Austin County, Texas (Roll 1289); 1890 Austin County Tax Rolls.


74

Table 3.13. Percentage of antebellum planters within residents possessing $10,000 or more in

taxable property, 1860-1890

Year

Number of Residents

Owning $10,000 or

More

Number of

Antebellum

Planters

Owning

$10,000 or

More*

Percentage of

Antebellum

Planters within

Owners of $10,000

or More*

1860 122 38 31%

1870 12 7 58%

1880 12 1 8%

1890 18 1 6%

Source: Austin County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1890.

*Includes members of planter families.

75

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.

76

Table 3.14. Austin County judges, 1866-1890

O

ccu

pati

on

Law

yer

Leg

isla

tor

Far

mer

/Ret

ired

Pro

bat

e

Judge

Just

ice

of

the

Pea

ce

Law

yer

Bir

th

Sta

te

IL

NH

ME

TX

GA

Aver

age

Wea

lth

Du

rin

g T

erm

$4,1

49

$988

$500

$3,7

90

$2,0

66

Ten

ure

1866-1

869

1869-1

870

1870-1

876

1876-1

880

1880-1

889

Nam

e

Johnso

n, G

eorg

e W

.

Abbott

, C

har

les

Hay

ford

, D

anie

l

Bel

l, J

ohn P

.

Bla

ke,

S. R

.*

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.

77

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.

78

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.

79

Table 4.1. Landowning members of the Old Three Hundred in Brazoria County, 1824-1827

Name Name Name

Alley, William Cummings, Rebecca Marsh, Shubael

Alsbury, Harvey Cummings, William Martin, Wily

Alsbury, Thomas Dillard, Nicholas Mathis, William

Angier, Samuel T. Fields, John F. Minus, Joseph

Austin, John Fulschear, Charles Mitchell, Asa

Austin, Santiago E. B. Garrett, Charles Nucklos, M. B.

Austin, Stephen F. Gorbet, Chester S. Parker, William

Bailey, James B. Groce, Jared E. Pettus, Freeman

Bell, Josiah H. Hall, John W. Phelps, James A. E.

Bell, Thomas B. Harris, William Phillips, Zeno

Biggam, Fras Harrison, George Prater, William

Borden, Thomas Hensley, James Richardson, Stephen

Bradley, Edward R. Jamison, Thomas Robbins, William

Bradley, John Jones, Oliver Roberts, William

Breen, Charles Keep, Imla Robinson, A.

Calvit, Alexander McCroskey, John Robinson, George.

Carson, William C. McCormick, David Smith, Cornelius

Carter, Samuel McFarlan, Aechilles Tally, David

Chance, Samuel McNeel Daniel Thompson, Jesse

Charles, Isaac N. McNeel, George W. Tong, James F.

Clarke, Antony R. McNeel, John G. Varner, Martin

Coles, John P. McNeel, John Wells, Francis F.

Cummings, James McNeel, Pleasant D. White, Joseph

Cummings, John McNeel, Sterling Williams, Samuel M.

Source: Wallace, Vigness, and Ward, Documents of Texas History, 151-158.

80

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).

Brazoria – County Seat*

81

“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.

82

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).

83

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;


8 Lowe and Campbell, Planters and Plain Folk, 20-21.

84

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.

85

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.

86

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.

87

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.

88

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 re-

election 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, 250-

253; 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.

89

Table 4.2. Brazoria County planters, 1860


Armstrong, George 37 $35,550 Perry, Stephen 24 $71,040

Bass, Hamlin 206 $233,765 Rose, William A. 35 $45,500

Bates, Joseph 32 $49,800 Rowe, Shadrach 35 $52,900

Bryan, William J. 40 $138,096 Smith, George 51 $92,295

Campbell, James 43 $50,500 Spencer, Joel 101 $95,400

Clark, J. H. 20 $32,450 Staton, John M. 20 $15,100

Collins, R. M. 40 $83,150 Strongfellow, B. 24 $22,236

Desel, C. M. 25 $32,700 Sweeney, John W. 24 $61,650

Gaines, W. B. P. 46 $72,900 Sweeney, J. 32 $20,685

Gill, W. F. 36 $44,250 Sweeney, S. C. 36 $39,422

Hamilton, Lynch 106 $132,860 Sweeney, T. 36 $50,774

Harrison, Elsy 26 $43,050 Tankersley, G. 60 $66,535

Hill, William G. 65 $111,564 Terry, Aurelius 20 $69,500

Jackson, Abner 175 $316,360 Tillman, Frank 22 $25,522

Jones, John H. 24 $37,685 Tinsley, Isaac 30 $62,590

Jordan, Levi 128 $143,460 Towns, R. 46 $29,140

Kennedy, W. 120 $151,240 Underwood, A. 37 $57,660

Kyle, William 48 $46,090 Ward, William 62 $85,190

McGreen, John 22 $33,754 Westall, A. 150 $65,217

McNeil, John G. 150 $236,380 Wharton, John A. 133 $167,004

Mills, David G. 305 $450,824 Wilson, Joseph E. 31 $46,560

Mims, Sarah 45 $138,450 Winston, A. 23 $33,500

Morris, A. T. 24 $35,100 Winston, F. 23 $34,800

Muchlin, J. D. 26 $37,075 Winston, L. 26 $36,080

Munson, Girane B. 35 $79,087 Winston, R. E. 31 $52,920

Munson, Mordello 24 $27,050 Young, Overton 27 $42,650

Patton, Charles 23 $14,450

Sources: Brazoria County Tax Rolls, 1860; 1860 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Brazoria County, Texas (Roll 1289).

90

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.

91

Table 4.3. Percentage of the value of slaves within planters‟ estates, 1860

Name 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%

Source: Brazoria County Tax Rolls, 1860.

92

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).

93

Table 4.4. Antebellum and Civil War-era Brazoria County judges, 1837-1866

Occ

up

ati

on

N/A

Far

mer

*

Mer

chan

t*

Far

mer

*

Far

mer

*

Far

mer

Far

mer

Far

mer

Aver

age

Wea

lth

du

rin

g T

erm

$715

$7,1

95

$3,4

80

$550

$3,3

33

$10,2

00

$10,1

75

$9,4

60

Aver

age

Nu

mb

er

of

Sla

ves

Ow

ned

du

rin

g T

erm

0

4

0

2

0

5

7

0

Ten

ure

1837-1

842

1842-1

846

1846

1846-1

848

1848-1

850

1850-1

862

1862-1

865

1865-1

866

Nam

e

Wil

liam

son

, G

. B

.

Pil

lsbury

, T

imoth

y

Purc

ell,

Edw

ard

Mid

dle

ton, S

amuel

W.

Purc

ell,

Edw

ard

Per

kin

s, S

teven

W.

Cox, C

. R

.

McC

orm

ick, A

ndre

w P

.

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).


94

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

95


Name 1860

Estate

1870

Estate

Percentage of

1860 Estate Lost

Armstrong, George $35,550 $9,570 73%

Bates, Joseph $49,800 $15,185 70%

Bryan, William J. $138,096 $72,390 48%

Desel, C. M. $32,700 $7,370 77%

Gaines, W. B. P. $72,900 $12,335 83%

Jordan, Levi $143,460 $17,607 88%

Kennedy, William $151,240 $27,075 82%

McNeil, John G. $236,380 $55,767 76%

Morris, A. T. $35,100 $7,168 80%

Munson, Girane B. $79,087 $4,808 94%

Munson, Mordello S. $27,050 $12,527 54%

Perry, Stephen S. $71,040 $67,415 5%

Smith, George A. $92,295 $2,000 98%

Sweeney, J. W. $20,685 $5,145 75%

Sweeney, John $61,650 $11,300 82%

Sweeney, S. C. $39,422 $4,129 90%

Sweeney, Thomas J. $50,774 $9,500 81%

Tinsley, Isaac $62,590 $13,372 79%

Underwood, A. $57,660 $2,000 97%

Winston, Anthony $33,500 $2,650 92%

Young, Overton $42,650 $5,500 87%

Averages $73,030 $17,372 77%

Source: Brazoria County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870.

96

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].

97

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 two-

thirds 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.

98

Table 4.6. Gains/Losses in acres owned and land values of antebellum planters, 1870 C

han

ge

in V

alu

e

-$9

,65

0

-$1

2,2

14

-$2

3,3

55

-$7

,00

0

-$2

2,2

45

-$3

3,3

53

-$4

6,0

70

-$3

1,0

13

-$1

3,0

00

-$1

,91

8

$1

9,1

35

-$5

8,0

00

-$5

,60

0

-$2

2,9

30

-$1

3,9

72

-$1

7,2

02

-$3

0,2

58

-$2

3,7

20

-$1

3,0

00

-$1

6,0

00

Ch

an

ge

in A

cres

85

0

0

1,6

50

0

1

0

0

-4,2

42

-56

8

5,4

08

10,4

64

-2,9

07

-9

-80

0

-12,8

35

-85

9

-2,3

08

-5,2

94

-60

0

-20

1870 V

alu

e

$1,3

50

$4,7

86

$57,3

40

$5,0

00

$7,7

55

$6,6

47

$22,5

50

$48,7

17

$3,0

00

$9,5

82

$60,2

30

$2,0

00

$3,5

95

$7,0

70

$3,8

00

$8,8

75

$4,6

42

$2,0

00

$2,0

00

$4,0

00

1870 A

cres

1,9

50

2,2

60

15

,157

600

3,8

78

2,2

14

3,4

26

12

,655

83

6,8

43

46

,153

200

888

1,4

14

950

1,1

55

1,4

10

0

200

1,2

60

1860 V

alu

e

$11,0

00

$17,0

00

$80,6

95

$12,0

00

$30,0

00

$40,0

00

$68,6

20

$79,7

30

$16,0

00

$11,5

00

$41,0

95

$60,0

00

$9,1

95

$30,0

00

$17,7

72

$26,0

77

$34,9

00

$25,7

20

$15,0

00

$20,0

00

1860 A

cres

1,1

00

2,2

60

13

,507

600

3,8

77

2,2

14

3,4

26

16

,897

651

1,4

35

35,6

89

3,1

07

897

2,2

14

13

,785

2,0

14

3,7

18

5,2

94

800

1,2

80

Nam

e

Arm

stro

ng

, G

eorg

e

Bat

es,

Jose

ph

Bry

an,

Wil

liam

J.

Des

el,

C.

M.

Gai

nes

, W

. B

. P

.

Jord

an,

Lev

i

Ken

ned

y,

Wil

liam

McN

eil,

Jo

hn

G.

Mo

rris

, A

. T

.

Mu

nso

n,

Mord

ello

Per

ry,

Ste

ph

en S

.

Sm

ith

, G

eorg

e A

.

Sw

een

ey,

J. W

.

Sw

een

ey,

Joh

n

Sw

een

ey,

S.

C.

Sw

een

ey,

Th

om

as J

.

Tin

sley

, Is

aac

Un

der

wo

od

, A

.

Win

sto

n,

An

tho

ny

Yo

un

g,

Ov

erto

n

Sources: Brazoria County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870.

99

Table 4.7. Brazoria County presidential pardons

Name Exception Name Exception

Adriance, John Thirteenth McNeil, John* Thirteenth

Bass, Hamlin* Thirteenth Millican, C. C. Thirteenth

Bates, Joseph* Thirteenth Mills, David S.* Thirteenth

Bingham, J P Thirteenth Morris, A. J. Thirteenth

Brooks, J. N. First Payne, William First

Bryan, William J Thirteenth Perry, Stephen S.* Thirteenth

Coffee, Aaron Thirteenth Rowe, Shadrach Thirteenth

Collins, R. M.* Thirteenth Sharpe, William Thirteenth

Damon, Samuel Thirteenth Smith, George A.* Thirteenth

Gaines, W. B. P.* Thirteenth Smith, Morgan First

Garnett, H. J. Thirteenth Stratton, A. E. Thirteenth

Hamilton, Lynch T.* Thirteenth Swain, William F. First

Herndon, John Thirteenth Sweeney, John* Thirteenth

Jackson, F. M.* Thirteenth Tankersley, J. H.* Thirteenth

Jordan, Levi* Thirteenth Terry, Aurelius J.* Thirteenth

Kennedy, William* Thirteenth Underwood, Ammon* Thirteenth

Lathrop, A. S. First Westall, A. E.* Thirteenth

McIntosh, William Thirteenth Wilkes, H. First

Source: Amnesty Papers (Rolls 52-55).


100

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.

101

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 non-

slaveholders.

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.

102

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


103

Table 4.8. Brazoria County officials appointed by Provisional Governor Andrew Jackson

Hamilton

Name Position

Slaves

Owned

in 1860

Value of

Estate in

1865

Copes, J. N. Tax Collector 13 $250

Rhodes, John Coroner 1 $1,271

Cash, H. J. B. Commissioner 3 $6,230

Wilson, J. F. Commissioner Not listed Not listed

Cayer, H. P. Commissioner 4 $7,380

Bell, George F. Commissioner 0 $6,350

McCormick, Andrew P. County Judge 7 $18,600

Gauter, Charles S. County Court Clerk Not listed Not listed

Ballone, S. S. S. District Court Clerk 0 $3,600

Ballone, S. S. S. Justice of the Peace 0 $3,600

Valebaum, William Justice of the Peace 0 $1,232

Staton, James M. Justice of the Peace 20 $3,205

Towsey, Saul A. Justice of the Peace 2 Not listed

Seely, Philip Justice of the Peace Not listed Not listed

Baird, W. E. Justice of the Peace Not listed Not listed

Weir, Robert L. Justice of the Peace 0 $2,725

Scott, William M. Justice of the Peace 0 $100

Towsey, Saul A. Notary Public 2 Not listed

Rogers, J. S. Notary Public 0 $775

Docknell, James Notary Public 0 Not listed

Scott, William M. Notary Public 0 $100

Preswell, John M. Sheriff Not listed Not listed

Duncan, Lewis Treasurer 0 $2,900

Sources: Election Registers; Brazoria County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1865.

104

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,”

182-183.

40

Brazoria County Tax Rolls, 1870; 1870 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Brazoria County (Roll 1576).

41

Brazoria County Tax Rolls, 1860.

105

Table 4.9. Owners of $10,000 or more in total property in Brazoria County, 1860

Nam

e

Win

sto

n,

Fo

un

tain

*

Win

sto

n,

LaF

ayet

te*

Win

sto

n,

R.

E.*

Yo

un

g,

Hen

ry

Yo

un

g,

Ov

erto

n*

Nam

e

Sw

een

ey,

Joh

n*

Sw

een

ey,

Jord

an W

,*

Sw

een

ey,

S.

C.*

Sw

een

ey,

Th

om

as*

Tan

ker

sley

, G

eorg

e*

Ter

ry,

Aure

liu

s*

Ter

ry,

O.

Th

om

as,

J.

Til

lman

, F

ran

k*

Tin

sley

, Is

aac*

To

wn

s, R

.*

Un

der

wo

od

, A

.*

Vin

cen

t, F

.

Vo

gel

, F

.

War

d,

Wil

liam

*

Wee

ms,

W.

Wes

tall

, A

nd

rew

E.*

Wh

arto

n,

Joh

n A

.*

Wil

son

, Jo

sep

h E

.*

Win

sto

n,

An

tho

ny

*

Nam

e

Mu

nso

n,

Gir

ane

B.*

Mu

nso

n,

Mord

ello

*

NcN

eal,

Pet

er

Nel

son

, S

.

Ote

s, F

.

Pat

ton

, C

har

les*

Per

kin

s, S

.

Per

ry,

Ste

ph

en S

.*

Ph

elp

s, E

.

Ph

illi

ps,

Sy

dn

ey

Pru

ett,

Jo

hn

Ro

se,

Wil

liam

A.*

Ro

we

Sh

adra

ch*

Sco

tt,

Wil

liam

Sh

arp

, W

illi

am

Sm

ith

, G

eorg

e A

.*

Sp

ence

r, J

oel

*

Sta

ton

, Jo

hn

M.*

Ste

ph

ens,

E.

Str

on

gfe

llo

w,

B.*

Nam

e

Jack

son

, A

bn

er*

Jam

eso

n,

Jam

es

Joh

nso

n,

S.

Jon

es,

Joh

n

Jon

es,

Joh

n H

.*

Jord

an,

Lev

i*

Ken

ned

y,

Wil

liam

*

Ky

le,

Wil

liam

*

McC

orm

ick

, J.

McC

rea,

P.

McG

reen

, Jo

hn*

McN

eil,

Jo

hn

G.*

Mil

ls,

Dav

id G

.*

Mim

s, S

arah

*

Mo

rris

, A

. T

.*

Mo

rris

, H

.

Mo

rris

, Jo

hn

Mo

rris

, L

.

Mo

sele

y,

W.

Mu

chli

n,

J. D

.*

Nam

e

Ch

amp

ion

, R

.

Cla

rk,

J. H

.*

Co

fes,

J.

W.

Co

ffee

, A

aro

n

Co

ker

, J.

Co

llin

s, R

. M

.*

Des

el,

C.

M.*

Do

ckre

ll,

Jarv

is

Dra

yto

n,

Th

om

as

Du

ran

t, J

.

Gai

nes

, W

. B

. P

.*

Gil

l, W

. F

.*

Go

dle

tt,

W.

Go

rbt,

B.

Ham

ilto

n,

Ly

nch

*

Har

riso

n,

Els

y*

Has

kin

s, N

ancy

Hil

l, W

illi

am G

.*

Ho

lt,

Ben

jam

in

Iles

, P

.

Nam

e

Ad

ams,

R.

Ad

rian

ce,

Joh

n

Ale

smit

h,

A.

An

tho

ny

, M

.

Arm

stro

ng

, G

eorg

e*

Arr

ing

ton

, E

.

Bas

s, H

amli

n*

Bat

es,

Jose

ph

*

Bel

l, M

. M

.

Bel

l, T

. B

.

Bin

gh

am,

Jam

es

Bin

gh

am,

M.

H.

Bro

ok

s, J

oh

n

Bro

wn

, C

. E

.

Bry

an,

M.

A.

Bry

an,

Wil

liam

J.*

Cal

ent,

F.

Cam

pb

ell,

Jam

es*

Cas

h,

H.

Cec

il,

B.

Source: Brazoria County Tax Rolls

Note: Asterisks indicate an antebellum planter

106




Adriance, John

Retired

Merchant NY 53 $16,621 M

Bates, Joseph* Farmer AL 65 $15,185 M

Blackwell, Sterling Farmer TX 28 $44,900 M

Borden, Catherine J. Farmer Canada 75 $11,928 F

Brooks, John W.

Retired

Merchant VA 54 $10,573 M

Bryan, William J.* Planter MO 55 $72,390 M

Haskins, William D. N/A N/A N/A $12,760 N/A

Hutchins, N. J. N/A N/A N/A $41,810 N/A

Jackson, George* N/A N/A N/A $10,900 N/A

Jenkins, William

Steamboat

Captain KY 48 $17,607 M

Kennedy, William* N/A N/A N/A $27,075 M

McCormick, Andrew Farmer TX 33 $12,670 M

McNeil, John G.* Farmer KY 68 $55,767 M

Mills, David G.* Farmer KY 56 $125,430 M

Munson, Mordello S.* N/A TX 45 $12,527 M

Perry, Stephen S.* Farmer MO 45 $39,600 M

Sharpe, William Farmer LA 34 $14,084 M

Spofford, P. N/A N/A N/A $74,400 N/A

Stevens, Hunnell N/A N/A N/A $17,000 N/A

Stratton, Acy E. Farmer MS 72 $10,935 M

Sweeney, John* Farmer TN 48 $11,300 M

Tankersley, James H. Farmer AL 32 $19,475 M

Tinsley, Joseph T. Farmer TX 27 $13,372 M

Wagley, W. C. N/A N/A N/A $18,600 N/A

Weems, Mason L.

Retired

Merchant 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.

107




Bates, Joseph* Farmer AL 75 $19,125 M

Bingham, James P. Farmer MS 58 $12,480 M

Brooks, C. E. N/A N/A N/A $17,358 N/A

Bryan, William J.* Planter MS 64 $38,979 M

Burney, William K. Keeps a Ferry LA 36 $10,315 M

Cox, Randolph Stock Raising KY 52 $17,875 M

Davis, Cornelius Stock Raising MO 45 $19,863 M

Haskins, William D. Farmer AL 53 $33,976 M

Jenkins, William

Steam Boat

Owner KY 50 $15,115 M

Lang, John Farmer England 55 $23,230 M

McNeil, J. C. Farmer LA 35 $24,612 M

Middleton, D. N/A N/A N/A $11,975 N/A

Middleton, John R. N/A N/A N/A $17,180 M

Munson, Mordello S.* Lawyer TX 55 $12,504 M

Smith, J. G. Laborer FL 27 $12,545 M

Stratton, Jesse D. Farmer MS 23 $15,500 M

Weems, Mason L. Farmer VA 49 $14,900 M

Wilson, Eugene J. Lawyer TX 34 $13,374 M

Yale, Thomas B. Planter NY 53 $33,160 M

Young, Margaret N/A N/A N/A $11,970 F


1880.

Note: Asterisks indicate an antebellum planter.

108

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.

109

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


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.

110


Est

ate

$18,0

00

$18,9

20

$15,4

80

$12,2

40

$11,6

42

$21,9

00

$10,2

76

$10,8

50

$10,2

80

$61,5

40

$20,2

40

$26,4

00

$49,0

00

$23,4

40

$43,8

16

$11,5

00

$14,1

80

$14,8

00

$10,1

00

Age

N/A

43

50

26

38

65

N/A

35

N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A

29

N/A

37

33

N/A

30

43

Bir

th

Sta

te

N/A

LA

Den

mar

k

TX

TX

TX

N/A

TX

N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A

TX

N/A

FL

MS

N/A

TX

NC

Nam

e

Mas

ters

on, W

illi

am

McN

eil,

C. P

.

Mel

gaa

rd, G

eorg

e

Munso

n, H

. A

.

Munso

n, H

enry

W.

Munso

n, M

ord

ello

S.*

Per

ry, C

. B

.

Per

ry, Ja

mes

W.*

Per

ry, M

. S

.

Row

an, W

. A

.

Row

e, R

ippia

Sea

born

, H

.

Shap

ard, S

teven

Sm

ith, B

. C

.

Sm

ith, J.

G.

Str

atto

n, Je

sse

Tan

ker

sley

, J.

H.

Thom

as, E

zekie

l B

.

Under

wood, L

ou*

Est

ate

$16,2

00

$20,6

00

$22,8

00

$19,7

00

$34,0

75

$33,7

60

$13,2

00

$11,0

20

$57,6

40

$13,0

00

$119,2

00

$19,1

00

$16,5

00

$13,0

00

$38,4

00

$40,5

00

$10,0

00

$32,3

00

$34,6

00

Age

58

68

43

45

74

52

42

N/A

55

N/A

63

34

53

63

45

65

N/A

N/A

34

Bir

th

Sta

te

AL

MS

TX

TX

MS

TX

TN

N/A

MO

N/A

AL

IN

Irel

and

NY

SC

Engla

nd

N/A

N/A

TX

Na

me

Bar

nes

, A

. C

.

Bin

gham

, Ja

mes

Bry

an, M

. A

.

Bry

an, O

ctav

ia

Bry

an, W

illi

am J

.*

Cox, M

ary

Cra

fton, W

illi

am

Dam

men

, H

enry

Dav

is, C

orn

eliu

s

Fre

nau

, W

illi

am

Has

kin

s, W

illi

am

Hunti

ngd

on, M

.

Jam

ison,

Thom

as

Jarv

is, G

eorg

e O

.

Ken

ned

y, W

alte

r

Lan

g, Jo

hn

Mar

tin, A

. R

.

Mas

ters

on, B

. J.

Mas

ters

on, H

arri

s


1890.

Note: Asterisks indicate an antebellum planter or family member.

111



Year

Number of

Residents Owning

$10,000 or More

Number of Antebellum

Planters Owning

$10,000 or More*

Percentage of

Antebellum Planters

within Owners of

$10,000 or More*

1860 105 36 34%

1870 25 9 36%

1880 20 3 15%

1890 38 3 8%

Source: Brazoria County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1890.


112

Table 4.14. Brazoria County judges, 1866-1890

Name Tenure

Average

Wealth During

Term

Birth

State Occupation

Perkins, Steven W. 1866 $16,095 KY Lawyer

Stevens, Hemmel 1866-1870 $8,528 N/A N/A

Holmes, Charles 1870-1876 $577 MA Court Clerk

Wilson, Eugene* 1876-1882 $5,446 TX Lawyer

Stratton, Asa 1882 $13,500 MS Lawyer

Norris, John H. 1882-1884 $2,383 AL Lawyer

Masterson, Harris 1884-1889 $22,126 TX Lawyer

Hanks, J. W. 1889-1890 $550 N/A N/A

Masterson, Harris 1890 $18,000 TX 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.

113

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.

114

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.

115

Table 5.1. Landowning members of the Old Three Hundred in Colorado County, 1824-1827

Name Name

Alley, Rawson Gray, Thos.

Andrews, John Haddan, John

Beason, Benjamin McClain, A. W.

Burnam, Jesse McNair James

Cartwright, Thomas Moore, John L.

Cook, James Nelson, James

Cummins, James Pettus, Freeman

Duty, Joseph Ross, James

Dyer, Clement C. Snider, Gabriel S.

Flowers, Elisha Tumlinson, Elizabeth

Gilbert, Preston Tumlinson, James

Source: Wallace, Vigness, and Ward, eds., Documents of Texas History, 151-158.

116

Map 5.1. Location of Colorado County, 1860. (Source: Campbell, Empire for Slavery, 3;



Columbus – County Seat

117

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.

118

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.

119

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.


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.

120

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. Twenty-

six 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.

121

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.

122

Table 5.2. Colorado County planters, 1860


Adkins, William L. 76 $96,620

Montgomery,

James 28 $72,180

Balfour, C. C. 29 $43,500 Nice, Elizabeth 28 $33,500

Burford, Frances 28 $38,200 Payne, Z. 25 $42,420

Burford, H. B. 21 $37,741 Pearsall, J. E. 39 $53,425

Campbell, A. M. 44 $60,190 Perry, George L. 23 $36,571

Carlton, James E. 23 $42,096 Pinchback, John 67 $88,597

Crenshaw, O. B. 20 $29,600 Pinchback, William 115 $63,350

Crisp, David H. 34 $44,500 Rhodes, Henry 100 $132,305

Crisp, John H. 110 $103,600 Shropshire, J. 61 $61,722

Dunnovant, Gordon 44 $40,700 Tait, Charles W. 63 $118,956

Eason, C. A. 24 $29,810 Tanner, John 25 $32,800

Foote, R. H. 41 $75,660 Taylor, J. L. 33 $35,140

Fowlkes, E. B. 38 $43,200 Thatcher, George 36 $67,590

Garrett, Phineas M. 33 $33,110 Tooke, David 20 $34,200

Harbert, William J. 131 $153,369 Tooke, Isam 25 $47,690

Herbert, Claiborne 50 $191,915 Waddell, Phillip 24 $31,420

Insall, Thomas N. 32 $26,639 Washington, L. 22 $72,424

Matthews, John 140 $116,920

Williamson,

Thomas 30 $39,735

Matthews, M. B. 23 $34,730 Wright, James F. 40 $51,940

Miller, Lucinda 33 $38,775 Wright, William 29 $49,100

Sources: Colorado County Tax Rolls, 1860; 1860 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Colorado County, Texas (Roll 1291).

123

Table 5.3. Percentage of slave values within planters’ total estates, 1860

P

erce

nt

27

%

66

%

54

%

69

%

44

%

53

%

50

%

76

%

69

%

84

%

60

%

57

%

37

%

58

%

52

%

61

%

24

%

45

%

54

%

41

%

Est

ate

$7

2,1

80

$3

3,5

00

$4

2,4

20

$5

3,4

25

$3

6,5

71

$8

8,5

97

$6

3,3

50

$1

32

,30

5

$6

1,7

22

$1

18

,95

6

$3

2,8

00

$3

5,1

40

$6

7,5

90

$3

4,2

00

$4

7,6

90

$3

1,4

20

$7

2,4

24

$3

9,7

35

$5

1,9

40

$4

9,1

00

Sla

ve

Va

lue

$1

9,6

00

$2

2,0

00

$2

3,0

00

$3

7,0

00

$1

6,1

00

$4

6,9

00

$3

1,5

30

$1

00

,00

0

$4

2,7

00

$1

00

,00

0

$1

9,6

00

$2

0,0

00

$2

5,2

00

$2

0,0

00

$2

5,0

00

$1

9,3

20

$1

7,6

00

$1

8,0

00

$2

8,0

00

$2

0,3

00

Na

me

Mo

ntg

om

ery

, Ja

mes

Nic

e, E

liza

bet

h

Pay

ne,

Z.

Pea

rsal

l, J

. E

.

Per

ry,

Geo

rge

L.

Pin

chb

ack

, Jo

hn

Pin

chb

ack

, W

illi

am

Rh

od

es,

Hen

ry

Sh

rop

shir

e, J

.

Tai

t, C

har

les

W.

Tan

ner

, Jo

hn

Tay

lor,

J.

L.

Th

atch

er,

Geo

rge

To

ok

e, D

avid

To

ok

e, I

sam

Wad

del

l, P

hil

lip

Was

hin

gto

n,

L.

Wil

liam

son

, T

ho

mas

Wri

gh

t, J

ames

F.

Wri

gh

t, W

illi

am

Per

cen

t

57

%

42

%

48

%

39

%

17

%

38

%

46

%

72

%

52

%

86

%

64

%

51

%

61

%

25

6%

26

%

10

%

35

7%

14

%

52

%

46

%

Est

ate

$9

6,6

20

$4

3,5

00

$3

8,2

00

$3

7,7

41

$6

0,1

90

$4

2,0

96

$2

9,6

00

$4

4,5

00

$1

03

,60

0

$4

0,7

00

$2

9,8

10

$7

5,6

60

$4

3,2

00

$3

3,1

10

$1

53

,36

9

$1

91

,91

5

$2

6,6

39

$1

16

,92

0

$3

4,7

30

$3

8,7

75

Sla

ve

Va

lue

$5

5,3

55

$1

8,2

00

$1

8,2

00

$1

4,7

00

$1

0,5

00

$1

6,1

00

$1

3,5

00

$3

2,0

00

$5

4,0

00

$3

5,2

00

$1

9,2

00

$3

8,7

00

$2

6,4

00

$8

4,7

00

$4

0,0

00

$2

0,0

00

$9

5,0

00

$1

6,0

00

$1

8,0

00

$1

8,0

00

Na

me

Ad

kin

s, W

illi

am L

.

Bal

fou

r, C

. C

.

Bu

rfo

rd,

Fra

nce

s M

.

Bu

rfo

rd,

H. B

.

Cam

pb

ell,

A.

M.

Car

lto

n,

Jam

es E

.

Cre

nsh

aw,

O.

B.

Cri

sp,

Dav

id H

.

Cri

sp,

Joh

n H

.

Du

nn

ov

ant,

Go

rdo

n

Eas

on

, C

. A

.

Fo

ote

, R

. H

.

Fo

wlk

es,

E.

B.

Gar

rett

, P

hin

eas

M.

Har

ber

t, W

illi

am J

.

Her

ber

t, C

laib

orn

e

Insa

ll,

Th

om

as N

.

Mat

thew

s, J

oh

n

Mat

thew

s, M

. B

.

Mil

ler,

Lu

cin

da

Source: Colorado County Tax Rolls, 1860.

124

Table 5.4. Antebellum and Civil War-era Colorado County judges, 1839-1865

O

ccu

pati

on

N/A

Far

mer

*

N/A

Far

mer

*

Far

mer

*

Far

mer

*

N/A

Ho

tel

Kee

per

Far

mer

Far

mer

N/A

Ch

ief

Just

ice

Aver

age

Wea

lth

du

rin

g

Ten

ure

No

ne

list

ed

$1

4,6

02

N/A

$4

,24

4

$6

40

$4

,31

9

$3

00

$3

,48

0

$4

,84

1

$2

,25

4

$6

,03

7

$5

6,7

30

Aver

age

Nu

mb

er

of

Sla

ves

Ow

ned

du

rin

g T

enu

re

0

0

N/A

0

0

13

0

0

3

1

12

32

Ten

ure

1836

-1838

1838

-1839

1839

-1840

1840

-1841

1841

-1843

1843

-1845

1845

-1846

1846

-1848

1848

-1850

1850

-1852

1852

-1854

1854

-1865

Nam

e

Men

efee

, W

illi

am

Hea

rd, W

illi

am J

. E

.

Wad

ham

, W

illa

rd

Wal

ker

, K

idder

Tobin

, R

ober

t

Mil

ler,

John F

.

Hutc

hin

s, M

erri

t

Toli

ver

, Jo

hn

Dan

iels

, W

illi

am

Wal

ker

, K

idder

McN

eil,

Arc

hib

ald

Cam

pbel

l, A

ndre

w M

.

Source: Election Registers, Colorado County Tax Rolls, 1838-1865; 1860 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Colorado



125

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.

126

Table 5.5 Total estates of 1860 planters as listed in the 1870 tax rolls

Name

Estate

1860

Estate

1870

Percentage

of 1860

Estate Lost

Crenshaw, O. B. $29,600 $7,399 75%

Crisp, David H. $44,500 $11,405 74%

Eason, C. A. $29,810 $6,100 80%

Fowlkes, E. B. $43,200 $4,860 89%

Garrett, Phineas M. $33,110 $3,870 88%

Perry, George L. $36,571 $1,525 96%

Pinchback, John $88,597 $2,110 98%

Pinchback, William, Mrs. $63,350 $27,705 56%

Tait, Charles W. $118,956 $32,980 72%

Taylor, James S. $35,140 $16,265 54%

Thatcher, George $67,590 $4,740 93%

Tooke, David $34,200 $545 98%

Tooke, Isam $47,690 $12,605 74%

Wright, James F. $51,940 $1,160 98%

Averages $47,975 $7,741 82%

Sources: Colorado County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870.

127

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.

128


Name 1860

Acres

1860

Value

1870

Acres

1870

Value

Change

in

Acres

Change

in Value

Crenshaw, O. B. 550 $1,050 1,792 $6,519 1,242 $5,469

Crisp, David H. 11,155 $17,500 1,654 $10,000 -9,501 -$7,500

Eason, C. A. 900 $9,000 900 $5,000 0 -$4,000

Fowlkes, E. B. 577 $11,500 677 $4,300 100 -$7,200

Garrett, Phineas 500 $1,000 0 $0 -500 -$1,000

Perry, George L. 489 $9,780 640 $6,000 151 -$3,780

Pinchback, John 2,475 $16,267 717 $2,000 -1,758 -$14,267

Pinchback, William, Mrs. 1,272 $31,800 1272 $16,000 0 -$15,800

Tait, Charles W. 5,132 $50,552 5,992 $21,425 860 -$29,127

Taylor, James S. 3211 $12,515 5860 $10,990 2,649 -$1,525

Thatcher, George 1,947 $38,940 1,300 $4,600 -647 -$34,340

Tooke, David 0 $0 57 $575 57 $575

Tooke, Isam 938 $20,500 1105 $11,230 167 -$9,270

Wright, James 940 $3,350 417 $660 -523 -$2,690

Sources: Colorado County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870.

129

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.

130

Table 5.7. Colorado County presidential pardons

Name Exception

Andrews, G. L. First

Breeding, George First

Carrell, Jacob Thirteenth

Herbert, Claiborne* First, Thirteenth

McLeary, Samuel First

McNeil, H. C. Eighth22

Pinchback, John* Thirteenth

Smith, George W. Thirteenth

Smith, Wesley First

Tait, Charles W.* Thirteenth

Source: Amnesty Papers (Rolls 52-55).


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.

131

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


132

Table 5.8. Colorado County officials appointed by Provisional Governor Andrew Jackson

Hamilton

Name 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

Dewees, William B. Treasurer 0 Not listed

Glenn, E. M. 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

Goode, James B. Sheriff 0 $2,000

Sources: Election Registers; Colorado County Tax Rolls, 1860 ,1865.

133

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).

134

Table 5.9. Owners of $10,000 or more in total property in Colorado County, 1860

N

am

e

To

ok

e, D

avid

*

To

ok

e, I

sam

*

To

ok

e, J

oh

n

To

wn

sen

d,

A.

L.

Tu

rner

, G

. S

.

Wad

del

l, P

hil

lip

E.*

Wal

lace

, W

arre

n

Was

hin

gto

n,

L*

Wil

liam

son

, T

ho

mas

*

Wil

son

, A

.

Win

der

son

, C

.

Wri

gh

t, J

ames

F.*

Wri

gh

t, W

illi

am J

.*

Yat

es,

W.

Nam

e

Pea

rsal

l, J

. E

.*

Per

ry,

E.

W.

Per

ry,

Geo

rge

L.*

Pin

chb

ack

, Jo

hn

*

Pin

chb

ack

, M

ary

Pin

chb

ack

, W

illi

am*

Rh

od

es,

Hen

ry D

avid

*

Ro

bso

n,

R.

H.

Sch

nei

der

, P

.

Sh

ersh

erb

urg

er,

P.

Sh

rop

shir

e, J

. S

.*

Sm

ith

, A

. J.

Sm

ith

, G

. W

.

Sta

ple

ton

, W

.

Str

ato

n,

W.

Tai

t, C

. W

.*

Tan

ner

, Jo

hn

O.*

Tay

lor,

J.

L.*

Ter

rell

, G

. W

.

Th

atch

er,

Geo

rge*

Nam

e

Her

ber

t, C

. C

.*

Insa

ll,

Th

om

as N

.*

Jon

es,

C.

G.

Kim

bro

ugh

, W

.

Kis

ler,

C.

Lac

, J.

E.

Mar

kin

s, P

.

Mat

thew

s, J

oh

n*

Mat

thew

s, M

. B

.*

Mes

sler

, E

.

McM

ille

n,

Joh

n

Mil

ler,

Lu

cin

da*

Mo

ntg

om

ery

, Ja

mes

*

Mo

ntg

om

ery

, W

.

Mo

rgan

, R

Mu

ckel

roy

, M

.

Mo

ntg

om

ery

, Ja

mes

Nic

e, E

liza

bet

h*

Nu

son

, J.

C.

Pay

ne,

Z.*

Nam

e

Dav

idso

n,

A.

H.

Du

niv

ant,

A.

Du

nn

ov

ant,

Go

rdo

n*

Eas

on

, C

. A

.*

Eh

lin

ger

, C

.

Fit

zger

ald

, A

.

Flo

yd

, P

.

Fo

ote

, R

. H

.*

Fo

wlk

es,

E.

B.*

Gar

ner

, J.

Gar

rett

, P

hin

eas

M.*

Giv

enso

n,

G.

H.

Gle

nn

, E

. M

.

Gra

ce,

Reu

ben

Han

cock

, D

. W

.

Han

cock

, J.

S.

Har

ber

t, W

illi

am J

.*

Har

n,

J. A

.

Har

tsfi

eld

, R

. J.

Hay

nes

, C

alv

in

Nam

e

Ab

el,

J. C

.

Ad

kin

s, W

illi

am L

.

All

ey,

A.

Bal

fou

r, C

. C

.*

Bo

nd

s, A

. B

.

Bo

nd

s, N

oah

Bo

nd

s, R

eub

en

Bu

rfo

rd,

F.

M.*

Bu

rfo

rd,

H. B

.*

Cam

pb

ell,

A.

M.*

Car

lto

n,

Jam

es*

Car

son

, J.

Cla

pp

, Ja

cob

Co

ats,

C.

Co

ne,

Jam

es

Co

op

er,

Wil

lard

Cre

nsh

aw,

O.

B.*

Cri

sp,

Dav

id H

.*

Cri

sp,

Joh

n H

.*

Cu

rry

, J.

A.

Source: Colorado County Tax Rolls, 1860.


135




Brooks, John R.

Dry goods

merchant LA 39 $17,950 M

Little, George N/A N/A N/A $20,300 M

Pinchback, Alex N/A N/A N/A $12,284 M

Pinchback, William, Mrs.* N/A TX 35 $27,705 F

Schnaniott, H. N/A N/A N/A $38,282 N/A

Smith, George W.

Retired

lawyer KY 47 $23,774 M

Tait, Charles W.* Farmer GA 55 $32,980 M

Taylor, James S.* Farmer NC 54 $16,265 M

Tooke, Isam* Farmer GA 53 $12,605 M

Townsend, T. L. Farmer FL 42 $11,955 M

Veal, J. N/A N/A N/A $26,780 N/A

Wright, James F.* Farmer NC 74 $26,310 M

Young, M. W. Merchant VA 44 $12,500 M

Sources: Colorado County Tax Rolls, 1870; 1870 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Colorado County, Texas (Roll

1580).


136

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).

137



State Age Estate

Baiticher, F. N/A N/A N/A $11,560

Bering, S. J. N/A N/A N/A $15,540

Burford, Frank M.* Farmer TX 22 $11,475

Carlton, James E.* Farmer TN 48 $17,420

Converse, J. N/A N/A N/A $21,000

Dunnovant, William* N/A N/A N/A $11,545

Everett, H. C. Farmer VA 50 $12,490

Haseaush, D. W. N/A N/A N/A $14,260

Heston, J. R. N/A N/A N/A $10,100

Hill, Thomas A. Grocer TX 38 $11,300

Jackson, Daniel W. Landlord GA 50 $17,530

Johnson, Henry M. County Sheriff TX 44 $12,060

Johnson, J. W. Farm Laborer AL 27 $11,870

Lyons, Richard W. Restaurant Owner GA 47 $20,530

Matthews, N. N/A N/A N/A $11,660

McCarty, James W. Merchant VA 43 $10,890

Neer, James N/A N/A N/A $11,270

Oakes, Thomas J. Farmer VA 37 $10,000

Pattash, Eugene N/A N/A N/A $13,150

Sandmeyer, E. J. Lawyer TX 25 $10,175

Seymour, F. N/A N/A N/A $11,690

Smith, L. G. N/A N/A N/A $10,170

Smith, L. L. Farmer TX 26 $10,210

Stafford, Robert E. Stock Raiser GA 46 $48,820

Tait, Louisa M.* Housekeeper AL 52 $12,135

Taylor, L. M. N/A N/A N/A $16,280

Taylor, James S. Farmer NC 64 $11,780

Witting, George Merchant Germany 52 $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.

138

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.

139


Name Estate Name Estate

Auerbach, F. $15,880 Kollmann, E. $20,530

Binkley, J. E. $11,580 Levy, Harry $12,000

Boettcher, Fred $14,090 Little, George $19,500

Carlton, M. M. $22,170 Matthews, N. $24,010

Causy, T. A. $16,630 McCarty, James $24,380

Cook, Martha L. $11,100 McCormick, S. $17,750

Dick, Josephine $11,500 Munn, W. $10,520

Dittman, C. A. $33,260 Oakes, Thomas J. $15,410

Dunnovant, M. * $64,870 Pinchback, John J.* $16,700

Dunnovant, W.* $10,000 Sandmeyer, J. F. $22,250

Everett, H. M. $16,760 Schfetenberg, B. $12,000

Foard, Robert L. $15,520 Simpson, Friench $20,000

Frazar, W. K. $28,930 Slutter, J. $15,450

Gay, James Bates $12,700 Smith, L. L. $14,450

Harbert, J. A.* $15,920 Sronce, Elkana $10,760

Harbert, Stephan* $13,530 Stafford, Robert $131,290

Harrison, Robert $15,920 Strunk, Henry J. $10,240

Hester, John $32,500 Tait, Mrs. Lou M.* $20,510

Hillge, B. $10,000 Tanner, Field A.* $10,640

Holloway, J. B. $24,580 Thompson, Wells $14,140

Holman, J. $27,660 Townsend, Jason $15,920

Ilse, Henry $15,840 Townsend, Spencer $15,810

Insall, Thomas N.* $18,520 Vineyard, Benjamin $15,820

Jackson, D. W. $21,380 Wagner, Thomas $26,870

Johnson, Jesse H. $11,960 Walker, Q. F. $42,520

Johnson, Henry $20,600 Wink, Louis $12,590

Johnson, J. W. $11,060 Wooten, J. R. $21,400

Jones, Walter $10,310 Wright, Mrs. E. S.* $11,180

Sources: 1880 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Colorado County, Texas (Roll 1297); Colorado County Tax

Rolls, 1890.


140



Year

Number of

Residents Owning

$10,000 or More

Number of

Antebellum

Planters Owning

$10,000 or More*

Percentage of

Antebellum Planters

within Owners of

$10,000 or More*

1860 94 40 43%

1870 13 5 38%

1880 28 4 14%

1890 56 9 16%

Source: Colorado County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1890.


141

Table 5.14. Colorado County judges, 1866-1890

Name Tenure Average Wealth

During Term

Birth

State Occupation

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

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).

142

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 non-

slaveholders 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.

143

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 post-

Reconstruction. 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.

144

Table 6.1. Landowning members of the Old Three Hundred in Fort Bend County, 1824-1827

Name Name

Allcorn, Elijah Kuykendall, Joseph

Alsbury, Thomas Little, John

Andrews, William Little, William

Baratt, William Long, Jane H.

Barnett, Thomas McCormick, John

Battle, Mills M. Miller, Simon

Beard, James Morton, William

Belknap, Charles Pennington, Isaac

Berry, M. Pettus, William

Bright, David Polley, Joseph H.

Brown, George Rabb, John

Cartwright, Jesse H. Randon, David

Chriesman, Horatio Randon, John

Fitzgerald, David Roark, Elijah

Foster, John Roberts, Andrew

Foster, Randolph Roberts, Noel F.

Frazier, James Robertson, Edward

Gilbert, Sarah San Pierre, Joseph

Hall, W.J. Scott, James

Harris, Abner Shelby, David

Hodge, Alexander Shipman, Moses

Isaacks, Samuel Spencer, Nancy

Jones, Henry Stafford, William

Jones, J. W. Teel, George

Jones, R. Westall, Thomas

Kennedy, Samuel White, Walter C.

Knight, James Wilkins, Jane

Kuykendall, Abner Williams, John


145

Map 6.1. Location of Fort Bend County, 1860. (Source: Campbell, Empire for Slavery, 3;



Richmond – County Seat

146

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.

147

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.

148

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.

149

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): 333-

334, 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.

150

Table 6.2. Fort Bend County planters, 1860

Est

ate

$9

6,8

64

$5

8,4

10

$2

9,7

75

$2

28

,96

0

$1

00

,25

0

$3

8,1

75

$2

45

,64

0

$3

9,5

20

$2

7,4

00

$7

6,3

50

$3

9,8

20

$2

7,4

84

$3

2,7

85

$5

9,9

10

$3

54

,27

5

$3

7,0

00

$4

3,7

50

Sla

ves

43

33

23

70

41

32

10

7

21

21

39

20

23

23

32

18

8

29

25

Nam

e

Mit

chel

l, W

. D

.

Per

ry,

Pat

rick

Pet

tus,

Jo

hn

R.

Ran

do

n,

Dav

id

Ran

do

n,

Joh

n

Sim

on

ton,

J. C

.

Sim

on

ton,

Jam

es

So

nst

, F

. G

.

Str

oble

, L

ewis

M.

Th

atch

er, Jo

hn

To

mli

nso

n,

Joh

n C

.

Vai

l, J

on

ath

an

Var

ney

, E

zekie

l

Wal

ker

, E

d L

.

Wat

ers,

J.

P.

Wat

ts,

Geo

rge

W.

Win

sto

n, Ja

mes

E.

Est

ate

$82,6

47

$152,1

50

$31,2

55

$84,4

63

$60,3

03

$81,2

15

$166,9

75

$123,2

06

$26,7

50

$49,3

25

$42,7

58

$124,3

83

$188,2

11

$122,0

00

$136,5

60

$205,5

90

$21,9

60

Sla

ves

43

61

25

35

34

29

94

49

23

24

37

45

61

39

80

70

26

Nam

e

Bohan

non,

R.

E.

Buck

ley,

C.

W.

Chen

ey, M

ary

Conner

, D

an A

.

Dunle

avy,

Hen

ry

Fost

er,

Ran

dolp

h

Fre

eman

, W

illi

am

Fuls

chea

r, C

hurc

hil

l

Har

t, A

lpha

How

ard,

Thom

as B

.

Huggin

s, J

. A

.

Jones

, H

enry

Jover

t, E

ver

ett

Kuyken

dal

l, J

ose

ph

Mas

on,

Sam

uel

McM

ahan

, W

. W

.

Mil

ler,

J. R

.

Sources: Fort Bend County Tax Rolls, 1860; 1860 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Fort Bend County, Texas (Roll 1294).

151

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


152

Table 6.3. Percentage of the value of slaves within planters’ estates, 1860

Name Slave

Value Estate

Percentage of

Slave Value

within Estates

Bohannon, R. E. $33,000 $82,647 40%

Buckley, C. W. $61,000 $152,150 40%

Cheney, Mary $20,000 $31,255 64%

Conner, Dan A. $35,000 $84,463 41%

Dunleavy, Henry $34,000 $60,303 56%

Foster, Randolph $23,200 $81,215 29%

Freeman, William $94,000 $166,975 56%

Fulschear, Churchill $49,000 $123,206 40%

Hart, Alpha $23,000 $26,750 86%

Howard, Thomas B. $21,600 $49,325 44%

Huggins, J. A. $25,900 $42,758 61%

Jones, Henry $45,000 $124,383 36%

Jovert, Everett $61,000 $188,211 32%

Kuykendall, Joseph $39,000 $122,000 32%

Mason, Samuel $64,000 $136,560 47%

McMahan, W. W. $70,000 $205,590 34%

Miller, J. R. $18,200 $21,960 83%

Mitchell, W. D. $35,000 $96,864 36%

Perry, Patrick $26,400 $58,410 45%

Pettus, John R. $18,400 $29,775 62%

Randon, David $70,000 $228,960 31%

Randon, John $41,000 $100,250 41%

Simonton, J. C. $22,400 $38,175 59%

Simonton, James $107,000 $245,640 44%

Sonst, F. G. $21,000 $39,520 53%

Stroble, Lewis M. $25,200 $27,400 92%

Thatcher, John $39,000 $76,350 51%

Tomlinson, John C. $18,000 $39,820 45%

Vail, Jonathan $17,250 $27,484 63%

Varney, Ezekiel $23,000 $32,785 70%

Walker, Ed L. $30,000 $59,910 50%

Waters, J. P. $169,200 $354,275 48%

Watts, George W. $22,400 $37,000 61%

Winston, James E. $25,000 $43,750 57% Source: Fort Bend County Tax Rolls, 1860.

153

Table 6.4. Antebellum and Civil War-era Fort Bend County judges, 1838-1865

Name Tenure

Average

Number of

Slaves Owned

During

Tenure

Average

Wealth

During

Tenure

Occupation

Martin, Wyly 1838-1840 2 $8,512 N/A

Miller, Jason 1840-1843 1 $75 N/A

Dyer, Clement 1843-1846 0 $4,783 Farmer*

Borden, John P. 1846-1848 0 $1,186 N/A

Dyer, Clement 1848-1858 12 $14,717 Farmer*

Foster, George 1858-1862 3 $12,949 Chief Justice

Sullivan, James 1862-1865 4 $25,982 Lawyer

Sources: Fort Bend County Tax Rolls, 1838-1865; Election Registers; 1860 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Fort Bend



154


Name

1860

Estate

1870

Estate

Percentage

of 1860

Estate Lost

Bohannon, R. E. $82,647 $6,700 92%

Buckley, C. W. $84,463 $5,913 93%

Conner, Dan A. $84,463 $7,260 91%

Dunleavy, Henry $60,303 $2,300 96%

Fulschear, Churchill $123,206 $35,191 71%

Kuykendall, Joseph $122,000 $23,012 81%

Mason, Samuel $135,560 $14,242 89%

Miller, J. R. $21,960 $376 98%

Pettus, John R. $29,775 $1,950 93%

Thatcher, John $76,350 $13,445 82%

Vail, Jonathan $17,774 $2,286 87%

Varney, Ezekiel $32,785 $1,550 95%

Walker, Ed L. $59,910 $1,303 98%

Averages $71,630 $8,887 90%

Sources: Fort Bend County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870.

155

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.

156


Name 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

Dunleavy, H. 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

Varney, Ezekiel 550 $5,500 410 $800 -140 -$4,700

Walker, Ed L. 1,507 $20,000 907 $1,803 -600 -$18,197

Sources: Fort Bend County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870.

157

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


158

Table 6.7. Fort Bend County presidential pardons

Name Exception

Ferguson, David Thirteenth

Freeman, William* Thirteenth

Holt, John T. First

McLeod, James Thirteenth

McMahan, W. W.* Thirteenth

Newell, John P. Thirteenth

Randon, David* Thirteenth

Ryan, Mary M. Thirteenth

Ryan, William Thirteenth

Shipman, J. R. Thirteenth

Simonton, James* Thirteenth

Sullivan, J. S. Thirteenth

Terry, David Sixth

Thatcher, John* Thirteenth

Source: Amnesty Papers (Roll 53, 54, 55).


159

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 eleven-

person 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.

160

Table 6.8. Fort Bend County officials appointed by Provisional Governor Andrew Jackson

Hamilton

Name 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

Robinson, William B. Treasurer 0 $1,115

Schley, George County Judge 13 $10,534

Secrest, Felix Commissioner Not listed $12,490

Sherwood, William Surveyor Not listed Not listed

Sojourner, C. B. Justice of the Peace Not listed $10,132

Vogel, Phil Commissioner Not listed $2,825

Walker, S. R. Commissioner 9 $575

Sources: Fort Bend County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1865; Election Register.

161

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


25

1870 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Fort Bend County, Texas (Roll 1585).

162

Table 6.9. Owners of $10,000 or more in total property in Fort Bend County, 1860

N

am

e

Sull

ivan

, J.

That

cher

, Jo

hn*

Tom

linso

n, Jo

hn

*

Vai

l, J

onat

han

*

Var

ney

, E

zekie

l*

Wal

ker

, E

d L

.*

Wat

ers,

J. P

.*

Wat

ts, G

eorg

e W

.*

Win

ston, Ja

mes

*

Nam

e

Per

ry, D

anie

l

Per

ry, P

atri

ck*

Pet

ant,

E.

Pet

tus,

John R

.*

Ple

asan

ts, G

.

Pra

tt, T

hom

as

Ran

don, D

avid

*

Ran

don, Jo

hn*

Run

del

l, G

.

Ryan

, W

illi

am

San

burg

, J.

W.

Sch

ely, G

eorg

e

Sim

onto

n, J.

C.*

Sim

onto

n, Ja

mes

*

Sm

ith, R

. A

.

Sojo

urn

, C

.

Sonst

, F

. G

.*

Ste

mst

rong, Jo

seph

Str

oble

, L

ewis

M.*

Nam

e

Kuyken

dal

l, J

ose

ph*

Lea

ry, Jo

hn

Lei

gh, N

.

Long, Ja

ne

Low

ry, J.

Mas

on, L

ouis

e

Mas

on, S

amuel

*

May

s, M

.

McC

lod, J.

McC

loy, P

.

McM

ahan

, W

. W

.*

McN

eal,

J.

Mil

ler,

J. R

.*

Mil

ler,

John

Mit

chel

l, W

. D

.*

Moon, M

.

Nib

bs,

A.

Nure

ll, J.

D.

Pat

ton, T

hom

as

Nam

e

Fre

eman

, W

illi

am*

Fro

st, S

.

Full

er, Ir

a

Fuls

hea

r, C

hurc

hil

l*

Gil

l, J

ohn

Har

t, A

lpha*

Hodges

, A

rch

er

Hodges

, E

liza

bet

h

Hodges

, R

ober

t

How

ard, T

hom

as B

.*

Huggin

s, J

. A

.*

Hunte

r, T

hom

as

Johnso

n, Jo

hn

Jones

, E

mm

ett

Jones

, H

enry

*

Jones

, R

andal

l

Jones

, W

illi

am

Jover

t, E

ver

ett*

Kru

mp, E

.

Nam

e

Bohan

non, R

. E

.*

Born

er, S

. W

.

Bry

an, J.

A.

Buck

ley, A

nn

Buck

ley, C

. W

.*

Burt

on, T

hom

as

Cham

ber

s, C

. H

.

Chen

ey, M

ary*

Cold

en, M

.

Conner

, D

an A

.*

Doughty

, H

.

Dunla

p, W

illi

am

Dunle

avy, H

enry

*

Duw

alt,

Thom

as

Dyer

, C

. C

.

Dyer

, J.

Fin

e, G

eorg

e

Fost

er, A

.

Fost

er, R

andolp

h*

Source: Fort Bend County Tax Rolls, 1860.


163




Anders, Walter Attorney TX 41 $10,690 M

Castleton, John Farmer NY 24 $10,269 M

Dewalt, Thomas Farmer SC 44 $11,750 M

Dyer, James Foster

Stock Raiser

& Farmer TX 42 $25,920 M

Fulschear, Churchill* Farmer TN 62 $35,191 M

Gibbs, T. N/A N/A N/A $10,000 N/A

Holt, R. E. N/A N/A N/A $10,725 N/A

Kuykendall, Joseph* Stock Raiser KY 76 $23,012 M

Mayburn, Stephen N/A N/A N/A $53,761 N/A

McMahan, Sarah*

Keeping

House NC 62 $13,188 F

Parker, Joseph S. Farmer PA 32 $14,185 M

Paul, James N/A N/A N/A $15,848 M

Randon, Nancy D.*

Keeping

House KY 75 $12,140 F

Ryan, William Stock Raiser KY 61 $12,250 M

Thatcher, John* Farmer MO 49 $13,445 M

Walker, Seth R.* Farmer MS 37 $24,325 M

Waters, J. D.* N/A N/A N/A $71,485 N/A

Wright, James A. Stock Raiser GA 21 $15,000 M

Sources: 1870 U. S. Census, Fort Bend County (Roll 1585); Fort Bend County Tax Rolls, 1870.


164

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).

165

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 non-

slaveholders, 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).

166




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

Fields, W. D. Farmer KY 46 $14,105 M

Freeman, James* N/A AL 38 $46,651 M

Fulschear, Churchill* 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

Parker, Jason S. Farmer TX 22 $14,525 M

Ragsdah, D. N/A N/A N/A $10,139 N/A

Ryan, Mary M. Keeping House TX 52 $46,004 F

Simonton, James Farmer TX 27 $16,537 M

Winston, James E.* Farmer TX 46 $13,487 M

Sources: 1880 U. S. Census, Fort Bend County, Texas (Roll 1304); Fort Bend County Tax Rolls, 1880.


167


Name 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

Myers, A. Germany 46 $11,515

Suliff, John N/A N/A $14,850

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.

168



Year

Number of

Residents Owning

$10,000 or More

Number of Antebellum

Planters Owning

$10,000 or More*

Percentage of

Antebellum

Planters within

Owners of $10,000

or More*

1860 85 34 40%

1870 18 7 39%

1880 24 3 13%

1890 19 1 5%

Source: Fort Bend County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1890.


169

Table 6.14. Fort Bend County judges, 1866-1890


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

Weston, J. M. 1888-1890 $2,297 SC Lawyer

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).

170

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.

171

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

1Thomas 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.

172

Table 7.1. Landowning members of the Old Three Hundred in Matagorda County, 1824-1827

Name Name

Balis, Daniel E. Morrison, Moses

Battle, Mills M. Nuckols, M. B.

Berry, M. Pentecost, George S.

Betts, Jacob Pettus, Freeman

Bostwick, Caleb R. Peyton, J. C.

Bowman, John T. Pickett, Pamelia

Brotherington, Robert Powell, Peter

Buckner, Aylett C. Pruitt, Pleasant

Burnett, Pumphrey Rabb, William

Cooper, William Ramey, Lawrence

Crier, John Rawls, Amos

Crownover, John Rawls, Benjamin

Curtis, Hinton Rawls, Daniel

Deckrow, Daniel D. Selkirk, William

Demoss, Charles Smith, John

Demoss, Peter Sojourner, Albert L.

Duke, Thomas M. Stout, Owen H.

Fenton, David Tone, Thomas J.

Flowers, Elisha Vandorn, Isaac

Foster, Isaac Wightman, Elias D.

George, Freeman Williams, Henry

Jamison, Thomas Williams, John

Keller, John C. Williams, Robert H.

Kingston, William Williams, Solomon

League, Hosea H. Williams, Thomas

McCoy, Thomas Woods, Zadock

McKinsey, Hugh


173

Map 7.1. Location of Matagorda County, 1860. (Source: Campbell, Empire for Slavery, 3;



Note: Matagorda served as the county seat until 1894, when Bay City replaced it (Kleiner, “Matagorda

County,” New Handbook of Texas, 4:558).

Matagorda – County Seat*

174

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.

175

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.

176

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.


the United States, 255.


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.

177

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.

178

Table 7.2. Matagorda County planters, 1860

Name Slaves Estate

Bowie, George 87 $71,996

Brown, J. W. 30 $39,420

Chinn, R. H. 22 $32,294

Dunan, John 90 $192,629

Ewing, Alexander 51 $41,085

Gibson, Henry 30 $38,736

Gibson, John H. 45 $40,200

Gibson, M. M. 36 $27,260

Gordon, Jesse 50 $80,315

Hardeman, D. 50 $43,674

Hawkins, James B. 104 $88,356

Herbert, P. W. 39 $44,995

Jones, John H. 66 $85,650

McCormick, A. P. 27 $43,833

Pearson, E. A. 22 $28,695

Pledger, Eliza 24 $13,975

Rugeley, A. J. 29 $31,185

Rugeley, E. S. 32 $38,170

Rugeley, John 66 $85,176

Rugeley, Roland 21 $9,000

Sheppard, Abram 86 $91,651

Talbot, Matthew 46 $38,635

Thompson, Nancy 30 $34,615

Thorp, John L. 40 $62,705

Warren, W. G. 111 $102,108

Wiggins, William H. 51 $71,630

Williams, Robert H. 80 $90,833

Sources: Matagorda County Tax Rolls, 1860; 1860 U. S. Census, Schedule I, Matagorda County, Texas (Roll

1300).

179

$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 twenty-

seven 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.

180


Name Slave

Value Estate Percent

Brown, J. W. $22,900 $39,420 58%

Bowie, George $52,200 $71,996 73%

Chinn, R. H. $16,000 $32,294 50%

Duncan, John $45,000 $192,629 23%

Ewing, Alexander $28,000 $41,085 68%

Gibson, Henry $18,000 $38,736 46%

Gibson, M. M. $18,000 $27,260 66%

Gibson, John H. $22,500 $40,200 56%

Gordon, Jesse $25,000 $80,315 31%

Herbert, P. W. $25,350 $44,995 56%

Hawkins, James. B. $56,000 $88,356 63%

Hardeman, D. $38,000 $43,674 87%

Jones, John H. $53,000 $85,650 62%

Pearson, E. A. $13,200 $28,695 46%

Pledger, Eliza $9,500 $13,975 68%

Rugeley, John $40,700 $85,176 48%

Rugeley, E. S. $19,200 $38,170 50%

Rugeley, A. J. $14,500 $31,185 46%

Rugeley, Roland $8,600 $9,000 96%

McCormick, A. P. $20,000 $43,833 46%

Sheppard, Abram $51,600 $91,651 56%

Thorp, John L. $26,000 $62,705 41%

Thompson, Nancy $18,000 $34,615 52%

Talbot, Matthew $23,000 $38,635 60%

Williams, Robert H. $40,000 $90,833 44%

Warren, W. G. $55,500 $102,108 54%

Wiggins, William H. $39,900 $71,630 56%

Source: Matagorda County Tax Rolls, 1860.

181

Table 7.4. Antebellum and Civil War-era Matagorda County judges, 1837-1865

Name Tenure

Avg. Number

of Slaves

Owned during

Term

Avg.

Wealth

during

Term

Occupation

Dinsmore, Silas 1837-1838 N/A N/A N/A

Gervais, S. D. 1838-1841 N/A N/A N/A

Talbot, Matthew 1841-1844 N/A N/A Planter*

Wadsworth, A. 1844-1846 N/A N/A N/A

Gann, J. W. 1846-1848 N/A N/A N/A

Talbot, Matthew 1848-1865 44 $20,400 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.

182

(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.

183


Name 1860

Estate

1870

Estate

Percentage of

1860 Estate Lost

Chinn, R. H. $32,294 $5,054 84%

Gibson, John H. $40,200 $5,530 86%

Hawkins, James. B. $88,356 $16,333 82%

Pearson, E. A. $28,695 $1,810 94%

Pledger, Eliza $13,975 $440 97%

Rugeley, A. J. $31,185 $1,318 96%

Sheppard, Abram $91,651 $120 99.9%

Thompson, Nancy $34,615 $470 99%

Thorp, John L. $62,705 $9,611 85%

Warren, W. G. $102,108 $1,450 99%

Averages $52,578 $4,214 92%

Source: Matagorda County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870.

184

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.

185


Name 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

Sources: Matagorda County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870.

186

Table 7.7. Matagorda County presidential pardons

Name Exception

Brown, J. W. Thirteenth

Cutler, James. H. First

Dennis, Isaac Thirteenth

Duncan, John Thirteenth

Fisher, Samuel First

Gibson, John H.* Thirteenth

Grimes, William B. Thirteenth

Harrison, Eleanor Thirteenth

Hawkins, James B.* Thirteenth

Heard, William J. Thirteenth

Hodges, Galen Thirteenth

Jones, John H.* Thirteenth

Milburn, W Thirteenth

Pearson, E. A.* Thirteenth

Swan, Orange Thirteenth

Thorp, John L.* Thirteenth

Warren, W. G.* Thirteenth

Wiggins, William H.* Thirteenth

William, Robert H.* Thirteenth

Williams, George Thirteenth

Source: Amnesty Papers (Rolls 52-55)

Note: Asterisks indicate planters

187

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.

188

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


189

Table 7.8. Matagorda County officials appointed by Provisional Governor Andrew Jackson

Hamilton

Name Position

Slaves

Owned in

1860

Value of

Estate in

1865

Baxter, William Commissioner 0 $400

Fry, Joseph T. Commissioner 0 $1,395

Herndon, William Commissioner Not listed $6,910

Kendrick, Benjamin Commissioner 7 $4,355

Nicholson, J. E. Commissioner 0 $2,880

Sansom, John A. Commissioner Not listed Not listed

Chambers, James Coroner 0 Not listed

McClain, A. D. County Clerk Not listed Not listed

Hillard, William County Court Clerk 6 $2,815

Burkhart, William County Judge 3 Not listed

Wells, E. A. District Clerk Not listed Not listed

Brannon, D. E. E. District Court Clerk 0 $2,276

Barbour, William Justice of the Peace 0 $4,330

Baxter, William Justice of the Peace 0 $400

Kern, A. R. Justice of the Peace Not listed Not listed

McMaster, James Justice of the Peace Not listed Not listed

McNeal, P. S. Justice of the Peace 5 $5,460

Inglehart, Ed Sheriff Not listed Not listed

Cox, John Surveyor Not listed Not listed

Barbour, William Tax Collector 0 $4,330

Thorp, Henry Treasurer 0 $300

Sources: Election Registers; Matagorda County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1865.

190

Table 7.9. Owners of $10,000 or more in total property in Matagorda County, 1860

Name Name

Baxter, William Kincheloe, B.

Boggers, Samuel Matthews, Thomas

Bowie, George* McCormick, A. P.*

Brown, J. W.* McCreeley, J.

Burkand, G. Mitchell, Christian

Chinn, R. H.* Nicholson, B.

Croom, John L. Pearson, E. A.*

Davis, Thomas Pittington, L.

Decrow, Thomas Pledger, Eliza*

Dietrich, Charles Powell, A.

Elliot, George Robbins, T.

Ewing, Alexander* Rugeley, A. J.*

Fowler, Charles S.* Rugeley, E. S.*

Gibson, Henry* Rugeley, J.

Gibson, John H.* Rugeley, John*

Gibson, M. M.* Rugeley, Roland*

Gordon, Jesse* Saxton, M.

Grimes, William Selkirk, J.

Hardeman, D.* Sheppard, Abram*

Hardeman, S. Talbot, Matthew*

Hawkins, James. B.* Thompson, Nancy*

Hawkins, Willis Thorp, John L.*

Herbert, P. W.* Vandorn, Isaac

Hodges, Galen Waldeman, E.

Howele, Julia Warren, W. G.*

Hughes, James Wiggins, William H.*

Jameson, Thomas Williams, Robert H.*

Source: Matagorda County Tax Rolls, 1860.


191




Grimes, William B. Stock Raiser CT 44 $26,649 M

Hawkins, James B.* Planter NC 55 $16,333 M

Hodges, Galen Retail Grocer RI 58 $18,092 M

Layton, Fletcher Stock Raiser NJ 44 $13,585 M

Pierce, Abel H. Stock Raiser RI 37 $64,570 M

Van Dorn, Amanda M. Housekeeper MS 50 $12,093 F

West, Anderson B. Farmer MS 46 $27,936 M

White, James K. Planter SC 39 $13,366 M

Sources: 1870 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Matagorda County, Texas (Roll 1597); Matagorda County Tax

Rolls, 1870.


192

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


193


Name Occupation

Birth

State Age

Total

Estate Sex

Braman, D. E. E. Lawyer MA 65 $22,214 M

Clouder, Jacob Stock Raiser Germany 47 $15,804 M

Duncan, John

Farmer & Stock

Raiser TX 40 $25,236 M

Grimes, William B. Stock Raiser CT 54 $48,777 M

Hawkins, James B.* Planter NC 66 $40,022 M

Hayes, R. Stock Raiser LA 60 $17,930 M

Hodges, Galen Grocer RI 68 $27,718 M

Moore, John Farmer KY 56 $14,036 M

O'Connell, Phillip Stock Raiser Ireland 51 $20,971 M

Pearl, J. P. N/A N/A N/A $12,920 N/A

Pierce, Abel H. Stock Raiser RI 47 $66,103 M

Schmerber, John N/A N/A N/A $23,802 M

Spencer, Edward N/A N/A N/A $11,177 M

Zipprian, John Farmer Germany 72 $22,299 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.

194

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


31

Brazoria County Tax Rolls, 1890; Colorado County Tax Rolls, 1890; Matagorda County Tax Rolls,

1890.

195


Name Birth

State Age Estate

Baer, Gottlieb Germany 56 $44,770

Braman, D. E. E. MA 75 $27,890

Braman, Mary E. PA 60 $16,117

Brown, Meachem N/A N/A $27,896

Clouder, Jacob Germany 57 $45,590

Elliott, John N/A N/A $10,669

Grifford, G. C. N/A N/A $27,500

Hawkins, James B.* NC 76 $105,226

Kuykendall, W. M. TX 50 $29,651

Matthews, John VA 55 $22,352

Pierce, Abel H. RI 57 $110,521

Pierce, J. P. A. TX 21 $37,480

Pierce, N. D. TX 43 $14,460

Robbins, Frederick S. TX 31 $24,950

Sargent, J. England 56 $45,460

Savage, M. A. NC 54 $13,608

Spencer, Calvin A. PA 60 $19,485

Stewart, W. S. N/A N/A $29,090

Sources: 1880 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Matagorda County, Texas (Roll 1319); Matagorda County Tax

Rolls, 1890.


196



Year

Number of Residents

Owning $10,000 or

More

Number of

Antebellum

Planters

Owning

$10,000 or

More*

Percentage of

Antebellum Planters

within Owners of

$10,000 or More*

1860 54 27 50%

1870 8 1 13%

1880 14 1 7%

1890 18 1 6%

Source: Matagorda County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1890.


197

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.

198

Table 7.14. Matagorda County judges, 1865-1896

Name Tenure

Avg.

Wealth

during

Term

Birth

State Occupation

Burkhart, William H. 1865-1869 $838 PA Merchant

Baxter, W. June 1869-1869 $704 England Stock Raiser

Prissick, William 1869-1870 N/A N/A Butcher

Vonweg, William 1870-1870 N/A Nassau Fisherman

Gove, Humphrey 1870-1876 $4,687 VT District Clerk

Fry, Joseph T. 1876-1878 $1,383 TN Planter &

Doctor

Cheesman, R. G. 1878-1880 $1,386 N/A N/A

Rainey, J. G. 1880-1882 $1,473 N/A N/A

Stewart, W. S. 1882-1888 $8,531 N/A N/A

Rugeley, E. S.* 1888-1896 $8,138 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.

199

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.

200

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.

201

Table 8.1. Landowning members of the Old Three Hundred in Wharton County, 1824-1827

Name Name

Allen, Martin Kuykendall, Robert

Austin, Stephen F. McKinsey, Hugh

Biggam, Fras Newman, Joseph

Castleman, Sylvenus Parks, William

Clark, John C. Parker, Joshua

Crownover, John Pettus, William

Edwards, G. E. Phillips, I. B.

Gilbert, Sarah Rabb, Andrew

Hamilton, David Rabb, Thomas J.

Hudson, C. S. Scobey, Robert

Huff, John Sims, Bartlett

Hunter, Eli Singleton, G. W.

Ingram, Seth Smith, John

Jackson, Alexander Tumlinson, James

Jones J. W Westall, Thomas

Source: Wallace, M. Vigness, Ward, eds., Documents of Texas History, 151-158.

202

Map 8.1. Location of Wharton County, 1860. Source: Campbell, Empire for Slavery, 3;



Wharton – County Seat

203

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.

204

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.


the United States 1870, 259; Williams, History of Wharton County, 97.

205

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, 202-

221; 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.

206

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);


12

Wharton County Tax Rolls, 1860.

207

Table 8.2. Wharton County planters, 1860


Alexander, W. F. S. 84 $85,130 Hudgins, W. P. 22 $68,359

Bolton, Charles L. 78 $104,810 Lawson, John 26 $21,891

Bradshaw, L. 24 $44,100 Lee, B. F. 25 $31,825

Carson, E. S. 30 $31,730 Mercer, Eli 24 $48,850

Cayce, S. 28 $17,900 Myers, J. O. 27 $25,100

Crisp, H. 21 $36,750 Quinan, George 25 $70,380

Cryer, Shad 28 $19,990 Sandford, E. M. 57 $68,885

Cureton, M. L. 27 $20,525 Sanford, Thomas 42 $37,755

Day, James W. 37 $46,730 Stanchfield, B. 22 $48,270

Gordon, John W. 65 $74,685 Stevens, David 114 $139,080

Handy, Isaac 23 $37,276 Stith, Maclin 100 $97,150

Harrison, Burr A. 74 $94,790 Thatcher, Thomas 48 $43,400

Heard, William J. 87 $241,677 Thompson, J. T. 48 $31,020

Horton, Albert C. 144 $151,680 Williams, G. 26 $42,980

Hudgins, Joel 21 $26,240

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.

208


P

ercen

t

72%

95%

55%

44%

102%

26%

55%

67%

41%

57%

62%

35%

93%

54%

Est

ate

$68,3

50

$21,8

91

$31,8

25

$48,8

50

$25,1

00

$70,3

80

$68,8

85

$37,7

55

$48,2

70

$139,0

80

$97,1

50

$43,4

00

$31,0

20

$42,9

80

Sla

ve

Valu

e

$49,5

00

$20,8

00

$17,5

00

$21,6

00

$25,7

00

$18,0

00

$37,8

00

$25,2

00

$19,6

00

$79,4

00

$60,0

00

$15,0

00

$28,8

00

$23,4

00

Nam

e

Hudgin

s, W

. P

.

Law

son, Jo

hn

Lee

, B

. F

.

Mer

cer,

Eli

Myer

s, J

. O

.

Quin

an, G

eorg

e

San

dfo

rd, E

. M

.

San

ford

, T

hom

as

Sta

nch

fiel

d, B

.

Ste

ven

s, D

avid

Sti

th, M

acli

n

That

cher

, T

hom

as

Thom

pso

n, J.

T.

Wil

liam

s, G

.

Per

cen

t

69%

45%

49%

55%

83%

34%

74%

97%

55%

50%

62%

62%

24%

66%

56%

Est

ate

$85,1

30

$104,8

10

$44,1

00

$31,7

30

$17,9

00

$36,7

50

$19,9

90

$20,5

25

$46,7

30

$74,6

85

$37,2

76

$94,7

90

$241,6

77

$151,6

80

$26,2

40

Sla

ve

Valu

e

$58,8

00

$46,8

00

$21,6

00

$17,5

00

$14,8

00

$12,6

00

$14,8

00

$20,0

00

$25,9

00

$37,3

00

$23,0

00

$59,2

00

$58,5

00

$100,8

00

$14,7

00

Nam

e

Ale

xan

der

, W

. F

. S

.

Bolt

on, C

har

les

L.

Bra

dsh

aw,

L.

Car

son, E

. S

.

Cay

ce, S

.

Cri

sp, H

.

Cry

er, S

had

Cure

ton, M

. L

.

Day

, Ja

mes

W.

Gord

on, Jo

hn W

.

Han

dy, Is

aac

Har

riso

n,

Burr

A.

Hea

rd,

Wil

liam

J.

Hort

on, A

lber

t C

.

Hudgin

s, J

oel

Source: Wharton County Tax Rolls, 1860.

209

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.

210

Table 8.4. Antebellum and Civil War-era Wharton County judges, 1837-1866

Occ

up

ati

on

Far

mer

*

Doct

or*

Far

mer

*

Far

mer

*

N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A

Aver

age

Wea

lth

du

rin

g T

enu

re

$15,2

13

$1,2

80

$9,3

76

$16,0

70

$2,1

65

$7,9

25

$100,8

87

$20,0

87

Aver

age

Nu

mb

er

of

Sla

ves

Ow

ned

du

rin

g T

enu

re

42

0

8

3

0

9

2

23

Ten

ure

1846

-1849

1849

-1852

1852

-1854

1854

-1856

1856

-1860

1860

-1862

1862

-1864

1864

-1867

Nam

e

Sti

th, M

acli

n

Wee

ms,

Mas

on L

.

Thom

as, W

. M

.

Thom

as, W

. R

.

Dea

dri

ck, J.

H.

Vea

zey, W

. J.

C.

Phil

lips,

W. J.

Vea

zey, J.

W.

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.


211


Name 1860

Estate

1870

Estate

Percentage of 1860

Estate Lost

Carson, E. S. $31,730 $600 98%

Harrison, B. A. $94,790 $9,629 90%

Heard, William J. $241,677 $2,905 99%

Hudgins, Joel $26,240 $11,045 58%

Mercer, Eli $48,850 $1,240 97%

Myers, J. O. $25,700 $2,465 90%

Quinan, George $70,380 $4,605 93%

Averages $77,052 $4,641 89%

Sources: Wharton County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870.

212

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.

213


Name 1860

Acres

1860

Value

1870

Acres

1870

Value

Change

in Acres

Change

in Values

Carson, E. S. 520 $19,708 50 $50 -470 -$19,658

Harrison, B. A. 1,114 $33,520 2,800 $5,600 1,686 -$27,920

Heard, William J. 7,112 $109,052 1,300 $1,720 -5,812 -$107,332

Hudgins, Joel 1,013 $6,906 1,150 $3,050 137 -$3,856

Mercer, Eli 1,000 $25,000 112 $560 -888 -$24,440

Myers, J. O. 11,018 $19,000 726 $2,465 -10,292 -$16,535

Quinan, George 4,619 $56,165 2,918 $3,620 -1,701 -$52,545

Sources: Wharton County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870.

214

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].

215

Table 8.7. Wharton County presidential pardons

Name Exception

Alexander, W. F. S.* Thirteenth

Battle, O. L. Thirteenth

Betts, Charles H. First

Galbraith, E. D. Thirteenth

Gillespie, David Thirteenth

Harrison, Burr A.* Thirteenth

Horton, Robert Thirteenth

Lee, A. E. First

Milburn, William First

Myers, David Thirteenth

Schultz, H. E. Thirteenth

Stevens, David* Thirteenth

Source: Amnesty Papers (Rolls 52-55)


216

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.

217

Table 8.8. Wharton County officials appointed by Provisional Governor Andrew Jackson

Hamilton

Name Position

Slaves

Owned in

1860

Value of Estate

in 1865

Davis, G. P. Commissioner None listed $250

Cayce, S. Commissioner 28 $9,165

Bolton, J. T. Commissioner 5 $1,916

Brandon, A. D. Commissioner 9 $830

Bolton, J. T. Commissioner 5 $1,916

Betts, C. L. Commissioner 5 $636

Chambers, James Coroner None listed None listed

McClain, A. D. County Clerk None listed None listed

Collingsworth, J. B. County Court Clerk None listed None listed

Veazey, J. W. County Judge 9 $6,774

Wells, E. A. District Clerk None listed $140

Compton, W. F. S. District Court Clerk None listed $800

Chambers, James Justice of the Peace None listed None listed

Muster, James Justice of the Peace None listed None listed

Morgan, E. Justice of the Peace None listed None listed

Kern, A. R. Justice of the Peace 0 $649

McMaster, James Justice of the Peace None listed None listed

Franks, F. G. Sheriff 4 $1,180

Callaway, M. M. Surveyor 15 $9,240

Harvey, A. S. Tax Collector 0 None listed

Rust, J. Treasurer None listed $4,745

Sources: Election Registers; Wharton County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1865.

218

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.

219

Table 8.9. Owners of $10,000 or more in total property in Wharton County, 1860

Name Name

Alexander, W. F. S.* Horton, F. C.*

Becks, Jane Hudgins, Joel*

Bolton, C. S.* Hudgins, W. P.*

Bradshaw, L.* Kincheloe, D. R.

Branden, A. W. Lawson, John*

Callaway, M. Lee, B. F.*

Carson, E. S. Malone, J. W.

Cayce, H. P. Mercer, B.*

Clark, J. C.* Myers, J. O.*

Cleveland, S. Newell, J. D.*

Copeland, Solomon* Petty, P.

Crisp, H.* Quinan, George*

Cryer, Shad* Sandford, E. M.*

Cureton, M. L.* Sanford, Thomas*

Day, James W.* Spence, Jethro

Faron, C. S. Stanchfield, B.*

Gallagher, E. Stevens, D.*

Gordon, J. W.* Stevens, John

Haden, J. F. Stith, M. G.*

Handy, Isaac* Thatcher, Thomas*

Hargrove, H. R. Thompson, J. T.*

Harrison, B. A. Whilden, J.

Heard, W. J.* Whittington, C. H.

Hooper, J. E. Williams, G.*



220


Name Occupation Birth State Age Estate Sex

Floyd, N. B. N/A N/A N/A $12,310 N/A

Kincheloe, D. R. N/A N/A N/A $12,936 N/A

Hudgins, Joel* N/A N/A N/A $11,045 N/A



221




Brooks, E. N. N/A N/A N/A $14,766 N/A

Harrison, Burr A.* Farmer VA 71 $12,024 M

Stafford, R. E. N/A N/A N/A $21,400 N/A

Source: Wharton County Tax Rolls, 1880; 1880 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Wharton County, Texas (Roll

1332).


222

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.

223


Name Birth


Anldag, F. W. N/A N/A $19,857 N/A

Anderson, Alfred TX 37 $10,695 M

Brooks, W. N/A N/A $24,417 N/A

Cloud, J. R. TX 43 $12,917 M

Croom, M. J. N/A N/A $15,320 N/A

Duncan, G. C. KY 48 $21,883 M

Harrison, Burr A.* VA 81 $24,560 M

House, E. N/A N/A $23,680 N/A

Hudgins, R. A. N/A N/A $18,872 N/A

Johnson, L. L. TX 27 $11,423 M

Pierce, Sullivan N/A N/A $59,390 N/A

Pierce, A. H. N/A N/A $97,387 N/A

Quinan, George* Ireland 70 $15,884 M

Rush, G. W. N/A N/A $14,194 N/A

Rios, John N/A N/A $17,520 N/A

Sorrel, R. H. D. N/A N/A $24,626 N/A

Taylor, W. GA 51 $32,649 M

Vineyard, R. E. N/A N/A $14,760 N/A

Waterhouse, C. N/A N/A $21,395 N/A

Sources: Wharton County Tax Rolls, 1890; 1880 U. S. Census, Inhabitant Schedule, Wharton County, Texas (Roll

1332).


224



Year

Number of

Residents Owning

$10,000 or More

Number of

Antebellum

Planters

Owning

$10,000 or

More*

Percentage of

Antebellum Planters

within Owners of

$10,000 or More*

1860 48 28 58%

1870 3 1 33%

1880 3 1 33%

1890 19 2 11%

Sources: Wharton County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1890.


225

Table 8.14. Wharton County judges, 1867-1890


During Term

Birth

State Occupation

Gayce, Shadrach 1867-1870 $2,260 N/A N/A

Gillespie, David 1870-1876 $535 N/A N/A

Hawes, Edwin 1876-1882 $1,437 KY Lawyer

Harris, George 1882-1886 $1,038 N/A N/A

Croom, W. J. 1886-1890 $11,385 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).

226

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.

227

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.

228

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 three-

fifths 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;

229

this study’s six counties, twenty-one of whom owned slaves (see Table 9.1). Of these twenty-

one 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.

230

Table 9.1. County Judges, 1845-1865

County

Number

of

Judges Planters

Smaller

Slaveholders

Non-

Slaveholders

Austin 7 2 2 3

Brazoria 7 0 4 3

Colorado 6 1 3 2

Fort Bend 5 0 2 3

Matagorda 3 1 0 2

Wharton 8 2 4 2

Totals 36 6 15 15

Sources: Austin, Brazoria, Colorado, Fort Bend, Matagorda, Wharton County Tax Rolls, 1845-1865; Election

Registers.

231

Table 9.2. Provisional Governor Andrew Jackson Hamilton’s appointees, 1865

County Planters Smaller

Slaveholders

Non-

Slaveholders

Not

Listed Total

Austin 0 5 24 0 29

Brazoria 1 6 8 5 20

Colorado 1 5 13 3 22

Fort Bend 0 3 3 11 17

Matagorda 0 4 7 8 19

Wharton 1 7 2 10 20

Total 3 30 57 37 127

Sources: Election Registers; Austin, Brazoria, Colorado, Fort Bend, Matagorda, Wharton County Tax Rolls, 1860.

232

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 county-

level 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).

233

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.

234

Table 9.3. County judges, 1865-1890

County

Former

Planter or

Member of

a Former

Planter

Family

Former

Smaller

Slaveholder or

Member of a

Former

Smaller

Slaveholding

Family

Non-Slaveholder

or Member of a

Non-

Slaveholding

Family

Total

Judges

Austin 1 1 3 5

Brazoria 1 1 7 9

Colorado 0 1 3 4

Fort Bend 0 1 6 7

Matagorda 1 1 8 10

Wharton 0 0 5 5

Totals 3 5 32 40

Sources: Election Registers; Austin, Brazoria, Colorado, Fort Bend, Matagorda, Wharton Counties, 1860-1890.

235

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


236

Table 9.4. Occupational breakdown of county judges, 1865-1890

County Professional Entrepreneur Non-

Professional Undetermined Total

Austin 5 0 0 0 5

Brazoria 6 0 1 2 9

Colorado 2 0 0 2 4

Fort Bend 5 1 1 0 7

Matagorda 1 1 4 4 10

Wharton 1 0 0 4 5

Total 20 2 6 12 40

Sources: Election Registers; Austin, Brazoria, Colorado, Fort Bend, Matagorda, Wharton County Tax Rolls, 1865-

1890.

237

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


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.

238

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.

239

Table 9.5. Number of planters/family members of planters within elites, 1860-1890

County

Planters

within

1860

Elite

Planters

within

1870

Elite*

Planters

within

1880

Elite*

Planters

within

1890

Elite*

Austin 39 of 122 7 of 12 1 of 12 1 of 18

Brazoria 53 of 105 9 of 25 3 of 20 4 of 38

Colorado 40 of 94 5 of 13 4 of 28 9 of 56

Fort Bend 34 of 85 7 of 18 3 of 24 1 of 19

Matagorda 27 of 54 1 of 8 1 of 14 1 of 18

Wharton 28 of 48 1 of 3 1 of 3 2 of 19

Number of Wealthy 508 79 101 168

Number of Planters 221 30 13 18

Percent Who Were

Planters 44 38 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

240

Table 9.6. Average value of the estates of each county’s economic elite, 1860-1890

County

1860

Planters 1860 1870 1880 1890

Austin $66,500 $31,787 $16,940 $12,122 $14,317

Brazoria $78,872 $47,708 $28,939 $18,802 $25,532

Colorado $61,149 $36,816 $21,515 $14,296 $20,347

Fort Bend $95,000 $51,328 $21,288 $20,028 $28,523

Matagorda $58,104 $38,921 $24,078 $26,358 $36,262

Wharton $68,137 $45,779 $12,097 $16,063 $25,338

Averages $71,294 $42,057 $20,810 $17,945 $25,053

Sources: Austin, Brazoria, Colorado, Fort Bend, Matagorda, Wharton County Tax Rolls, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1890.

241

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].

242

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