 This presentation is a look at Texas during the Republic period from 1836 to 1846. Just to recap, the Texas Revolution ended at the Battle of San Jacinto. As I talked about before Houston retreated and had time while Santa Ana was holed up in San Antonio, Houston had time to train his troops and better prepare them for the upcoming battle at the San Jacinto River. Santa Ana had pursued, and his other Mexican troops, had pursued the Texas government over to San Jacinto. They had already escaped, however, down to Velasco. Santa Ana then stayed at San Jacinto. At the San Jacinto River, Houston's 900 forces attacked and defeated Santa Ana, who had several hundred more forces there with tremendous loss of life and tremendous prisoners. The Texans lost very few. This ended, however, and with the Treaty of Velasco, which ended the war, was a treaty between Santa Ana who agreed to recognize Texas independence and to fight for Texas independence in the capital of Mexico with the Congress. And the boundary of Texas would be the Rio Grande. It appeared that Texas would not get to be annexed to the United States as they had hoped. And so there was an election for president of the new Republic of Texas. It was a contentious election, it was personality driven, and there were four major candidates. Stephen F. Austin, Henry Smith, Thomas Rusk, and of course Sam Houston. Sam Houston won hands down because of his winning the war against Mexico. During his first administration, however, he had some problems. One was the annexation of Texas. Texas, they had hoped would be annexed to the United States. Houston was very good friends with the president of the United States, Andrew Jackson. However, Andrew Jackson was concerned that annexing the United States would cause a war with Mexico, and he wanted to avoid that at all costs. In fact, Mexico had made that known. The other big issue was the issue of slavery. Texas was a slave state if it came into the Union. And this caused a lot of problems because they feared that the South and the slave South would become too big if Texas was annexed. During the administration, the capital of the Republic of Texas was established in a new town at the confluence of Buffalo Bayou and White Bayou, and that was named after Sam Houston, Houston, Texas. The issue that Houston also had to deal with, and the government had to deal with, was the boundary issue. Where was the eastern boundary with the United States? According to the Adams-Ones Treaty, it should have been at the Sabine River, but there were some questions as to exactly where it was located. And also the southern boundary issue. Remember, Mexico didn't recognize independent Texas, and even if they did, they said the border should be at the Nueces River, not at the Rio Grande. So these two boundary issues were of major concern during Houston's first administration. The next president to be elected was Mirabeau B. Lamar. Lamar, like Houston, was a friend and follower of Andrew Jackson, but the two men did not get along very well. Lamar is sometimes called the poet president because he wrote poetry. It was very literate. And he also made some speeches about the importance of Texas education. However, to be clear, he never really implemented any educational policies. And so the father of Texas education as a name for him is really kind of overstated a little bit. Lamar figured that since Texas was going to be an independent republic, it should really be an empire. It was a tremendous amount of land that Texas claimed. They claimed all of the Rio Grande and the water shed there up to the Adams-Ones Treaty Line. So it was a tremendous amount of land. He moved the capital away from Houston for one reason because he didn't want it to be named after Sam Houston. And the second is he wanted it to be further west. And so he moved it to a place called Waterloo, which today we call Austin. And he named it after Stephen F. Austin because Stephen F. Austin had recently passed away. One of the other things that Lamar did was finance a trip to try to bring Santa Fe into Texas proper. And so he sent the so-called Santa Fe expedition. This was a tremendous waste of money. It never amounted to anything. People got lost. They were some issues with lack of water. And it ended miserably. And it was a big waste of time. However, Lamar was successful in getting international recognition for the Republic of Texas. Both England and France intent on seeing the United States stopped from expanding all the way to the Pacific were happy to have a large independent republic blocking the way of the United States from going to the Pacific and also because of their association with Mexico. Finally, the debt issue. The Santa Fe expedition and other wastes of money plagued Lamar's administration. The fact is, is that Texas just didn't have that much money. They had plenty of land, but not much money. And so one of the things that they did was build in a new impresario system. And this was to attract more settlers to Texas to sell off more land. But the land was being sold very cheaply, so it really didn't bring in much money. The other thing that Texas did, and this is an illustration of the problem of debt that many people in Texas faced, there was a homestead exemption passed. Now, what the homestead exemption does, this says is that regardless of how much debt you owe, the land you live on cannot be taken away. The land you homestead on cannot be taken away and sold to pay off your debts. This is a protection for debtors. And this was written into the state's constitution. We still have that here in Texas today, because the amount of land that you live on, your homestead, is considered very important. The second administration of Sam Houston, he was re-elected to be president, was plagued by debt. A lot of this was built up again during the Lamar administration. And Sam Houston, in fact, had to pay some bills for the government out of his own pocket. He also had to put up his own personal credit line in order to get loans. He was also plagued by invasions from Mexico. Remember, Mexico did not recognize independence of Texas. And so, in their mind, it was kind of like a rebellion that they needed to put down. And so Adrian Wall, one of Mexico's generals, invaded. This was the second invasion. And it launched the so-called mere expedition. This was a retaliation that Texas soldiers marched out to try to chase Wall out and then go down into Mexico and cause problems on their own. This also ended horribly. And in fact, it led to the so-called black bean affair where 17 Texans were executed. Now, actually, the Mexican government wanted them all killed. However, Mexican military generals pleaded for mercy. And so they just killed 17, which was what we would call a decimation. One in 10 of the soldiers were executed. This is a so-called black bean affair. They pulled out a bag of white beans, and there were 17 black beans in there. Whoever pulled out the black bean was shot. Later on, the survivors brought back the remains of the executed and buried them in today, what is La Grange, Texas, above La Grange, and there's a monument there in their honor. Also, illustrative of the problems that Houston faced was a so-called archive war. During Wall's invasion, Mexican troops were in San Antonio, which isn't very far away from Austin. Houston moved the administration back to Houston, Texas. And he told the state archivist and the archives holds the important papers of the state to come with them. Well, the archivist refused. And so this battle of wills, this contest between Houston and the archivist led to the so-called archive war. And it shows, along with the Army's expedition and the Mir expedition, it shows that there was a lot of people who didn't think that they had to follow the rules of the government and began to argue and to complain. And this was some of the problems that Houston faced. Also, the question of annexation arose again, and Houston was able to bring Mexico and began discussing problems relating to annexation with Mexico and with the United States. And those issues began to be ironed out a little bit. The last administration, the last presidential administration for the Republic of Texas, was Anson Jones's presidential administration. Anson Jones, a medical doctor, oversaw the Republic of Texas during the annexation period. And at this time, although the British and French were opposed, Mexico was able to finally allow the United States to annex Texas without any problems and to agree to the independence of Texas. And so at the end of Jones's administration, he is really the last president and lowers the Texas flag in favor of the United States flag. And there's an illustration in your book that shows this. In 1872, an artist named John Gass painted this picture. It's called American Progress. And it shows, and it illustrates westward movement, settlers coming in, being guided by the spirit of progress. And this goes very well with a flavor of the times from the 1820s and 30s and 40s all the way up to the 1890s, that of manifest destiny. Manifest destiny is this idea that the United States has to constantly move further and further west, the sea to shining sea, and to fulfill that destiny. And in fact, the term is coined by John L. O. Sullivan, a newspaper editor who wrote in an article, and he said, our manifest destiny is to overspread the continent allotted by progress, I'm sorry, allotted by providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions. And this was an article about the annexation of Texas. And so Sullivan O. Sullivan and others believe that Texas annexation was part of this manifest destiny. And if we look at the United States, a map of the United States, we see that the land that became Texas over the Texas claimed was a large, large chunk of land in the American South and Southwest. And that's why it was so important in the yellow, you see the settlement areas there, and the blue areas were still unorganized territory. People were living there, but they just weren't really kind of recognized as being part of the state. And the Oregon country also was an important issue. And if you look at the date, the Oregon territory 1846 and Texas 1845, those are the times that both of those territories came into the United States. And so you see that adding land fulfilling this sea to shining sea mission was very important to the United States. And in fact, it was a political issue. And in 1839, the president, William Henry Harrison, a Whig, was elected and he died soon after the inauguration. And so his vice president, John Tyler, came in and he wanted to annex Texas and wanted to add more land. However, again, slavery was a big issue. And many people who were opposed to slavery were afraid of letting in a large slave territory into the United States. And they were even more concerned because John Calhoun from South Carolina, who had gotten into fights with Andrew Jackson as Andrew Jackson's vice president over the issue of the expansion of slavery, supported the annexation of Texas because he thought it would create a great slave holding empire. And so many people turned against Texas's annexation and didn't like this and the treaty failed. However, the annexation issue was a major election campaign. And so when in 1844, James Polk was elected president. The old president, Tyler, before he left office, said to Congress, look, the people, the American people want annexation. They want expansion. Polk campaigned on an expansionist campaign. And Tyler told Congress, let's go ahead and bring Texas in. And so through a simple joint resolution of Congress, Texas was annexed. The annexation agreement was signed on March the 1st of 1845 and it became official at the end of the year. And so by 1846, Anshon Jones was able to, again, lower the flag of Texas, raise the flag of the United States and state famously the words of the Republic of Texas is no more.