The Fredonian Rebellion Complicates Relations In Texas (Part 1 - Apr 7, 2024)

by Scott Sosebee

This week, we continue with the series on the causes and coming of the Texas Revolution. This entry looks at how the relationship between the Mexican government and its Anglo residents in Texas began to change with a short, unsuccessful revolt in Nacogdoches.

The empresario system, instituted by the national and state governments within Mexico, promised to solve the problem of populating the far northern frontier of the nation in Texas, but the consequences such a solution offered would eventually lead to even greater tribulations for Mexico and set the stage for the eventual Texas Revolution. The first inkling of such complications came from a likely place—the part of the Texas province that was farthest from the center of Mexico and closest to the United States—the Nacogdoches Municipality.

After the inauguration of the empresario system, Texas developed in a largely bifurcated fashion. San Antonio, a center of population founded in 1718, was not only the largest town in the province and the seat of government in the province, but it was also the only locale in Texas that could rightly be called a “Mexican city.” Certainly, during the 1820s, a number of Anglos took up residence in San Antonio; for instance, James Bowie—a Louisiana slave smuggler and a man who often lived on the very edge of criminality—called San Antonio home. But, the remainder of what Mexico called Texas had evolved to be dominated by the new Anglo residents. Austin’s town center, San Felipe de Austin, grew to be a place with a population that fluctuated between 200 and 500 people and, at least by the end of the 1820s, became Texas’ second-largest town after San Antonio. There was a small settlement growing around the old mission and presidio at La Bahia—often known as Goliad—southeast toward the Gulf of Mexico from San Antonio and another small enclave north of Trinity Bay in the southeastern portion of the province that was first named Libertad (which actually translates to “freedom”) but had evolved to the Anglo moniker of “Liberty.”

The most unique—and complicated—center of population in Texas, however, was Nacogdoches. The first settlement in the area that would become Nacogdoches grew up around Mission Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe de Nacogdoche, established in 1716 (which makes it the oldest town in Texas), by the Ramon Expedition from San Juan Bautista on the Rio Grande. The East Texas missions, of which Guadalupe was a part, were ordered abandoned by the Order of the Presidios in 1769, and while the majority of the Franciscan Friars obeyed the order and moved to San Antonio, a small group remained behind in Mission Guadalupe. Thus, it was there that Gil Y’Barbo, the leader of the Los Adeseños who had originally left East Texas for San Antonio in the 1760s, returned to found what he called the Villa of Nacogdoches in 1779. The descendants of the original Adeseños continued to live in the area through the 1820s, along with a number of the survivors and remnants of previous filibuster attempts who remained in the region and lived in the environs of the Nacogdoches municipality illegally. Such a scenario meant that when Mexico initiated the empresario system, Nacogdoches was the second largest town in Texas at the time and the only other real seat of population other than San Antonio.

When Mexico began the empresario system, San Antonio—because its lands were already accounted for and titled for more than a century—was exempted from potential grants; Austin and the other empresarios were granted their tracts in areas largely unpopulated by residents of European descent, which allowed those tracts to be doled out in a fairly orderly fashion and further allowed grantees to obtain clear and unchallenged land titles. Such was not the case in the region around Nacogdoches. The descendants of the original Adeseños held title to much of the land, but the former filibuster expedition members—most of whom were Anglo—also lived in lands they considered their own.

Mexican authorities should have exempted the land around Nacogdoches just as they did San Antonio, but instead of doing that they granted a large swath of the territory to empresario Haden Edwards. Born in Virginia, Edwards spent most of his early childhood and adult life in Kentucky. After marriage to Susanna Beall in 1820, he moved to Mississippi where he established a plantation and began to speculate in land in that state and over the line in Louisiana. When he heard about Austin’s venture in 1823, his constant search for new lands to exploit for profit led him to travel to Mexico City and—along with Stephen F. Austin—become one of the new empresarios under the new system. Edwards’ relationship with Austin was complicated; the two traveled to Mexico City together in 1823 to continue planning for and request land grants. In fact, Edwards likely financed much of the trip for not only himself but also Austin. His quest was successful, and he became the empresario of the land around Nacogdoches. He resented Austin, however, who he thought had manipulated the system to receive the best lands available. Austin, in turn, came to regard Edwards as a vulgar opportunist, a man who was unscrupulous in his methods and interested only in turning a profit. The growing differences between the two men would become a central part of the later response to the Fredonian Rebellion.

Edwards received his grant in April 1825 and, after returning to the United States to make plans and recruit settlers, he began to make his way to Nacogdoches. His contract granted him the right to settle 800 families in a large area bounded by the Sabine River in the East, the Trinity River in the South, and the Neches River in the West. He arrived in Nacogdoches in September 1825, and what he found likely shocked him. The lands that were supposed to be unoccupied were not even close to that, as the Nacogdoches municipality was populated with those who had lived there for decades. He had no way of knowing who lived in lands that he was the agent for and supposed to grant to others, and because people he had already signed agreements with were preparing to move and take possession of their plots around Nacogdoches, Edwards needed to determine who had title to what, and what he could grant. To accomplish that, he placed notices in Nacogdoches that would require all occupants to “prove” they possessed actual title to the land in which they lived. Maybe he did understand what he was asking, or maybe he did not, but his actions were about to cause chaos to break out in Nacogdoches, a “hell” that would eventually result in the Fredonian Rebellion.

Next week: The Fredonian Rebellion will directly lead to a change in Mexican policy toward Texas

The East Texas Historical Association provides this column as a public service. Scott Sosebee is a Professor of History at Stephen F. Austin State University and the Executive Director of the Association. He can be contacted at sosebeem@sfasu.edu or via www.easttexashistorical.org.