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Stephen Fuller Austin (November 3, 1793 – December 27, 1836), known as a "Father of Texas," led the Anglo-Our contries settlement of the area. A city of Austin, Texas and Austin County, Texas are named within his honor.

Early years

Austin was natural in the lead mining regions of southwestern Virginia to Moses and Maria Austin. Around 1798, when he was 5 years old, his personal moved to the lead mining region inside present-contemporary Missouri. His father established a town of Potosi in present-day Washington County, Missouri. While he was 10 years old, his personal sent him to become educated at Bacon Academy and Yale University in Connecticut and then at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky, from which he graduated in 1810. When giving from either Kentucky, he was listed a personal's trading post around Potosi, & sooner or later took above virtually all of the management of the personal mining business from either his father. He served when public when adjutant of the militia battalion, and from either 1813 to 1819, he served in the legislature of the Missouri Territory. As the member of the territorial general assembly, he was influential within obtaining a charter for the Bank of St. Louis.

When a failure of the family business in Missouri, Austin sought new chance & moved to the Arkansas Territory in 1820, where he engaged inside mercantile and land speculation activities. When he was inside Arkansas, the territorial governor appointed him as circuit judge of the number one judicial district of the territory. He served when circuit judge exclusively from either July to August 1820, so moved to Louisiana. He reached New Orleans in December, where he stayed using his friend Joseph H. Hawkins and made arrangement to study law.

Moving to Texas

In the period of this instance, his father Moses traveled to San Antonio and gained a grant of land in the Spanish territory of Texas, with a intention of settling U.S. families in Mexico. Austin was reluctant to join the Texas venture, however he found a loan from either Hawkins to help trend lines his father's venture. He was at Natchitoches, Louisiana in 1821 when he learned of his father's death. He traveled to San Antonio sustaining a intent of reauthorizing his father's grant, arriving around August. A grant was reauthorized by Governor Antonio María Martínez, who allowed Austin to choose a Gulf Coast between San Antonio and a Brazos River in order to find the suitable location for the colony. Stephen Austinside advertised a chance in Up to date Orleans, stating that a l& was available along a Brazos and Colorado rivers. Inside December 1821, a number one U.S. settler crossed into a granted territory by l& and sea, on the Brazos Flow of any stream inside present day Fort Bend County, Texas.

Empresario Austin
Austin's project for the colony was thrown into turmoil per independence of Mexico from Spain in 1821. Governor Martínez informed Austin that a military junta instituyente, a freshly rump congress of the government of Agustín de Iturbide, refused to recognize the land grant authorized by Spawithin, based on the newly policy of utilizing the general immigration law to regulate recently payout in Mexico. Austin traveled to Mexico City and managed to persuade the military junta instituyente to authorize a grant to his father, besides when a Law signed per Spanish Emperor in January 3, 1823. the old Imperial Law offered heads of families the league & a labor of land, 4,605 acres (Nineteen kilometer²), & more inducements. It as well provided for the employment of offices, known as empresarios, to promote immigration. When empresario, Austin himself was to receive 67,000 acres (270 klick²) of land for both 200 families he introduced. Based on data from a law, immigrants were non mandatory to pay fees to the government. This fact before long led a bit of of the immigrants to deny Austin's correct to charge a children for services at the rate of 12½ cents an acre ($31/km²).

After Iturbide abdicated around March 1823, a law was annulled again. Around April 1823, Austin caused the congress to grant him a contract to bring 300 families into Texas. Inside 1824 a congress passed a recently immigration law that allowed the single states of Mexico to administer public lands & open the babies to payout under certain conditions. Around March 1825 the legislature of the Mexican state of Coahuila y Tejas passed a law that was similar to the one authorised by Iturbide. the law continued a models of empresarios, besides when granting to each one married human a league of land, 4,428 acres (Eighteen kilometer²), by having a stipulating that he must pay a state thirty dollars inside hexad years.

By late 1825, Austwithin experienced brought a foremost 300 families, at present known in Texas history as the Old Three Hundred, to the grant. Austin experienced found farther contracts to settle even more, an extra 900 families between 1825 & 1829. He got efficacious civil & military authority around top a settlers, however he was speedy to introduce a semblance of U.s. law - the Constitution of Coahuila y Tejas was in agreement on in November 1827. Despite his hopes Austin wwhen making little money from either his tries; a settler were unwilling to invite his services as empresario & virtually all of the money gained was spent on the processes of government & more public services.

He move to promote trade & to assure a adept favor of the Mexican authorities, aiding the children in the suppression of the Fredonian Rebellion of Haden Edwards. Nevertheless, using a settler enumeration across 11,000 by 1832 they were becoming less conducive to Austin's cautious leadership, & a Mexican government was as well becoming less cooperative - caring using a incubation of a colony & the efforts of the U.S. government to acquire a state from either the two. A Mexican government got attempted to prevent farther U.S. immigration when early when April 1830, but over again a skills of Austin experienced gained an exemption for his colonies.

A application of a immigration control & the introduction of tariff laws had done tremendously to dissatisfy a settler, peaking in the Anahuac disturbances. Austaround so felt compelled to require himself in Mexican politics, supporting a parvenue Antonio López de Santa Anna. As punishment a profits of Santa Anna a settler sought a compensatory reward, proclaimed at the Convention of 1832 - resumption of immigration, tariff exemption, separation from either Coahuilthe, & a newly state government for Texas. Austin was non in favour these demands, he considered the two ill-unseasonable & tried his hardest to moderate the babies. Whilst it were repeated & extended at a Convention of 1833, Austin traveled to Mexico City and he did gain certain significant reforms, but not the state government. Austinside was arrested in January 1834 & charged with uprising; he was non tried and was eventually freed, giving to Texas inside August 1835. Around his absence a settler got non softened their stance; war began around October at Gonzales; the Republic of Texas became independent on 2 March 1836.

Austin in the Republic of Texas

Austin was appointed commissioner to the U.S. per provisionary government of the republic. He stood for election when President within September 1836 & was defeated by Sam Houston. He was processed Secretary of State, however before long fell sick & died. Stephen F. Austin is okay, called "The Father of Texas."

Handbook of Texas Online: Austin, Stephen Fuller
Biography of the leader of the first successful Anglo-American colony in Texas.

PBS - The West - Stephen F. Austin
Biography of the "Father of Texas".

Stephen F. Austin
Photograph and brief biography.

Texas Treasures - Stephen F. Austin - Texas State Library
Biography plus photographs and text of letters written by Austin in his role as empresario of his colony.






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