The Republic of Texas

At one time, the Republic of Texas was a sovereign state in North America.  It existed from 2 March 1826 to 19 February 1846.  It shared a border with the Republic of Mexico, the Republic of the Rio Grande (another Mexican breakaway republic), and the United States.  Mexico considered Texas a state in rebellion during its entire existence.

The dispute between Texas and Mexico wasn’t merely about Anglo settlers making trouble inside Mexico.  While that was true, to an extent, the issues extended well beyond the white settlements.  The Mexican state of Coahuila y Tejas (and others) declared its independence from Mexico because the central government adopted centralist policies that abolished the autonomy of several states within the Mexican Federal Republic.

Reacting to several states who declared their independence, Mexican president Antonio de Padua María Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón, also known as simply Antonio López de Santa Anna, ever the political opportunist, mounted an aggressive campaign to bring the rebels “back into the fold.”  Texas was no exception — it was only the last of several stops.  After his capture by the Texians outside of San Jacinto, Texas, Santa Anna admitted defeat and granted Texas its freedom (in exchange for his life, no doubt).  While Texians reacted positively to the acknowledgment, Mexico’s Congress rejected it out of hand.  No agreement obtained under duress, they argued, was valid.

Earlier, however, elected president of Mexico in 1833, Santa Anna was far outside his comfort zone.  He managed to take a failing government and make things worse.  And who could blame him?  When he assumed the mantle of the presidency, Mexico was already bankrupt.  There was no money in the treasury and around eleven million pesos of debt.  Granted, in 1833, eleven million pesos was only equivalent to about $109,430.95, but it was a lot of money for the Mexicans.  Greatly annoyed, bored with politics, and perhaps a bit frightened of failure, El Presidenté Santa Anna packed his bag and went on a hiatus for a time — leaving his country in the hands of his vice presidents.  The first was Valentin Gómez Furias, a liberal who attempted to implement sweeping changes.  All he managed to do, however, was irritate the ruling elite.  They saw Furias as a dangerous radical who had to be stopped.  At this point, though, Santa Anna was himself a liberal.  By giving Furias responsibility for necessary reforms, he could deny culpability and save his reputation among the powerful elite.

In May 1834, Santa Anna ordered the disarmament of the civic militia and urged Congress to abolish the controversial “Law of the Case,” a decree issued in June 1833 that permitted the exile of individuals who opposed political reforms, and which applied to anyone the government chose, that is, lumping every political opponent together as a means of getting rid of them.  It is also known as the Law of Political Ostracism.

On 12 June, Santa Anna dissolved Congress and announced his decision to form a new Catholic, centralist, and conservative government.  He had managed to broker a deal with the Catholic archdiocese whereby, in exchange for preserving the privileges of the church (and army), the Church would make a monthly donation to the government of around 40,000 pesos.  Thus, the supporters of Santa Anna had managed to achieve what radicals had failed to do: force the Church to support the Republic’s fiscal requirements.

After firing Furias in 1835, Santa Anna designated his new vice president, Miguel Barragán, acting president, and returned to his hacienda.  Barragán replaced the 1824 Constitution with a new instrument called The Seven Laws (Siete Leyes).  Meanwhile, Santa Anna was happy to remain in the background, uninvolved in the conservative effort to establish a unitary central government.  Efforts to replace the Constitution of 1824 angered more than the Texians.  Nationally, the centralist movement was a political disaster.

States in rebellion included Alta California, Nuevo Mexico, Tabasco, Sonora, Coahuila y Tejas, San Luis Potosi, Querétaro, Durango, Guanajuato, Michoacán, Yucatán, Jalisco, Nuevo León, Tamaulipas, and Zacatecas.  Several of these states formed their governments: the Republic of the Rio Grande, the Republic of Yucatán, and the Republic of Texas.

Historians note that the fierce resistance of these rebellious states was possibly fueled by Santa Anna’s reprisals, which may have violated every human right imaginable.  Had Santa Anna treated these people differently, it is possible that a revolution in Texas would never have occurred.  As it happened, the Zacatecas militia was the largest and best armed of Mexican states.  It took no time for Santa Anna to roll them up, take 3,000 prisoners, and begin executing them.  It was a different story when El Presidenté Santa Anna arrived in Texas.  After defeating 257 Texians at the Alamo with an army exceeding 2,000 men, the Texas Revolution turned out quite differently.

The United States annexed Texas on 29 December, 1845 and was admitted to the union as the 28th State on the same day.  Formal state power was transferred to the State of Texas on 19 February 1846.  At one time, the Republic of Texas was a sovereign state in North America — but it wasn’t the only state to have been a sovereign republic.

Pays de la Montagne Vertes

Without written records, we rely on archaeologists to tell us what happened in earlier times.  Today, people refer to this place as the land of the green mountain.  The French, who discovered it, colloquially named it Vert Mont.  At one time, Vermont was covered by a shallow sea, changed over time by the earth’s movement.  Lower areas of western Vermont flooded again as part of the St. Lawrence Valley and Champlain Valley (near Lake Vermont — whose northern boundary followed the melting glacier to the ocean).

American Indians inhabited the area of present-day Vermont for around 7,000 years (between 8,000 to 1,000 B.C.) during the Archaic Period.  From 1,000 B.C. to around 1,600 A.D., during the Woodland Period, Indians established villages and trade networks, ceramics, and the technologies associated with bow and arrow construction.  Western Vermont became home to a small population of Algonquian people (Mohican and Abenaki).  The Sokoki (also Missisquoi[1]) people lived in what is now southern Vermont; the Ko’asek people lived in northwestern Vermont.  Between 1534 and 1609, Iroquois Mohawks drove many of the smaller Abenaki tribes out of the Champlain Valley, converting the area as their primary hunting ground — as well as a battleground to confront the remaining Abenaki.

French Settlements

French explorer Samuel de Champlain claimed the area of what is now Lake Champlain in 1609, naming it Verd Mont.  Historians claim that the name was retained by the earliest English settlers until around 1760, when the name converted to Vermont.

Champlain offered a demonstration of superior French technology to impress the Abenaki people by shooting an enemy (Iroquois) war chief with his arquebus.  The Iroquois were already sworn enemies of the Abenaki — by killing the Iroquois, Monsieur Champlain only guaranteed that the French became their enemy as well.  What made it an expensive murder was that it cost French settlers most of their developed possessions in New France (including Vermont) because, as it turns out, American Indians have very long memories.

France claimed Vermont as part of the territory of New France.  It made that claim by erecting Fort Sainte Anne on Isle La Motte in 1666.  It was part of their fortification of Lake Champlain and the first European settlement in Vermont.

Non-French settlers began to explore Vermont during the last half of the seventeenth century.  In 1690, a group of Dutch-British settlers from Albany (under Captain Jacobus de Warm) established the De Warm stockade at Chimney Point.  The De Warm settlement was located across the lake from Crown Point, New York.  Because French and English settlers frequently fought one another, the Green Mountain region was an unsettled frontier.

The British

Father Rale’s War (1722 – 1725) (also known as Drummer’s War, Lovewell’s War, Greylock’s War, the Three Years War, the Abenaki-New England War, and the Fourth Anglo-Abenaki War) was a series of battles between the New England colonies and the Wabanaki Confederacy (Mi’kmaq, Maliseet, Penobscot, and Abenaki tribes), which was allied with New France.

The eastern theater of the war was primarily located along the border between New England and Acadia (Maine) and Nova Scotia.  The Western Theater was located in northern Massachusetts and Vermont at the border between Canada (New France) and New England.  During this time, Maine and Vermont were part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

The British established their first permanent settlement within the confines of Fort Dummer, in Vermont’s far southeast, under the command of Lieutenant Timothy Dwight of Connecticut.  Fort Dummer offered protection to nearby settlements of Dummerston and Brattleboro, populated by migrants from Massachusetts and Connecticut.  A second British settlement was established at Bennington (southwest corner of Vermont) 37 years later — but only after traumatic hostilities.

In 1725, sixty armed men entered Vermont with crudely drawn maps.  Their goal was to attack the Village of St. Francis, but they turned back at Crown Point.  Six years later, the French arrived at Chimney Point (near Addison) and constructed a small temporary wooden enclosure they named Fort de Pieux until completing their work on a new fort named St. Frédéric (1734).

King George’s War erupted in 1740, lasting eight years.  During this time, small groups of belligerents conducted raids of defensive works at Bridgeman’s Fort (near Vernon, Vermont).  During the French and Indian War (1754 – 1761), some Vermont settlers joined colonial militia assisting the British in attacking the French at Fort Carillon.

Rogers’ Rangers staged an attack against the Abenaki village at St. Francis, Quebec, in 1759.  After the assault, the rangers fled from the angry French and Abenaki warriors, who pursued them through northern Vermont into New Hampshire.

Following Britain’s victory over France in the French and Indian War, control of New France passed to the British.  With some understanding of the importance of territory to the American Indians, British officials restricted westward settlement across the Appalachians.  Vermont was divided nearly in half in a jagged line running from Fort William Henry on Lake George diagonally north and east to Lake Memphremagog.  Territory north of this line, including the entire Champlain Valley, was set aside for the Indians.  Some historians claim that during this time, Indian and British forces drove French families away — but not all historians agree.  Others doubt that a French influence was entirely removed from the northern territory.

Toward Republicanism

Despite the efforts of the British to restrict migration into Vermont, the end of the French and Indian War brought new settlers.  Samuel Robinson was the first to receive a New Hampshire Grant; he began clearing land in Bennington in 1761.  Between 1763 and 1791, the non-Indian population of Vermont rose from around 300 people to 85,000 — facilitated in large measure by the Crown Point Military Road.

Three colonies claimed this area: Massachusetts Bay (based on a 1629 Charter), New York (based on a land grant by the Duke of York in 1664), and New Hampshire.  New Hampshire, whose western limits were never officially determined, laid claim to Vermont based on King George II’s decree in 1740.

On 5 March 1740, King George II decreed that Massachusetts’s northern boundary would extend from the Merrimack River.  Richard Hasen surveyed the region in 1741.  He determined that Fort Dummer (Brattleboro) was north of that line.  The following year, officials decided that provisions supporting Fort Dummer would come from New Hampshire.

From 1749 through 1764, New Hampshire Governor Benning Wentworth issued 135 land grants (enough for 15 towns), many located in a large valley on the west (New York side) of the Green Mountains — only about forty miles from Albany.  The town, named Bennington, was laid out in 1749 and settled in 1761.  The town was named in honor of Governor Wentworth.

In July 1764, King George III directed a boundary between New Hampshire and New York along the west bank of the Connecticut River (north of Massachusetts) and south of 45 degrees north latitude.  Under this decree, Albany, New York, as it then existed, implicitly gained the land presently known as Vermont.

New York officials interpreted the King’s decree of 1764 to be retroactive.  They required landowners to purchase new land grants (for the same land) from New York.  New York officials then created counties with courthouses, sheriffs, and jails.  They also began judicial proceedings against those who held land solely by virtue of the New Hampshire Grants.

In 1767, His Majesty’s Privy Council forbade New York from selling land in Vermont, particularly land in conflict with grants from New Hampshire — a reversal of the 1764 boundary decision.  Nevertheless, squabbles continued.  In 1770, Ethan Allen (along with his brothers Ira and Levi) and Seth Warner decided to recruit an unauthorized militia.  Calling themselves the Green Mountain Boys, Allen intended his militia to protect the interests of the original New Hampshire settlers — against the claims of new migrants from New York.  A significant standoff occurred at the Breckenridge farm in Bennington when a New York sheriff from Albany arrived with a posse of 750 men to dispossess Breckenridge Farm.  Residents raised around 300 men to resist.  The Breckenridge men notified the New York Sheriff, “If you attempt it (dispossession), you are a dead man.”  Wisely, the Sheriff returned to Albany.

On 13 March 1775, between 80 – 90 riotous and disorderly persons assembled outside the Westminster Courthouse to protest the arrival of a judge from New York.  The magistrate intended to hold hearings on behalf of New Yorkers who laid claim to land in Vermont that had been granted to New Hampshire men.  All these “riotous” men were pro-independence Whigs (conservatives) intent on preventing a New York judge from deciding in favor of New York claimants.  More people gathered, swelling the number of occupiers of the courthouse to several hundred — most of whom were armed with firearms or clubs.

Sheriff William Patterson asserted his authority by ordering the “rioters” to leave the courthouse and end their illegal behavior.  Patterson then rode over to Brattleboro, a New York stronghold, and recruited twenty-five men to serve as a posse.  Patterson and his men returned to Westminster only to find that the Whigs were in firm control of both the courthouse and jailhouse.  Again, Patterson ordered dispersal; again, the rioters refused.  Sheriff Patterson then formed his men and ordered them to fire into the courthouse.

Historians contend that Patterson intended to frighten the protestors into compliance with his lawful directive, but the rioters returned fire, wounding the magistrate.  Patterson’s posse, armed with swords and guns, then assaulted the courthouse.  Firing into the crowd, the posse killed William French (shot five times).  Several other protestors were seriously injured during a melee of hand-to-hand combat.  As the rioters attempted to disengage, Patterson’s men continued to fire.  One of the protestors, Daniel Houghton, was shot and beaten so brutally that he died several days later.  Some historians refer to this incident as the Westminster Massacre.

In the summer of 1776, a general convention of freemen of the New Hampshire Grants met in Dorset, Vermont, resolving to take suitable measures to declare the New Hampshire Grants a free and independent district.  This was followed in January 1777 by representatives proclaiming their land an independent republic — The Republic of Vermont.  For the first six months, the state took the name New Connecticut.

On 2 June, 72 delegates met at Westminster and adopted Vermont.  On 4 July 1777, delegates drafted the Vermont Constitution, which was approved on 8 July.  It was the first constitution adopted in the United States that provided for the abolition of the slavery of adults, suffrage for men who did not own land, and for public schools.  Some slavery continued to exist until around 1790.

The American Revolution

The battles of Bennington and Saratoga are recognized as the turning point in the American Revolution.  They were the first significant defeat of the British Army during the war and convinced the French government that the Americans deserved French aid.

During the summer of 1777, the invading British army of General John Burgoyne slashed its way southward through the thick forest from Quebec to the Hudson River, capturing the strategic stronghold of Fort Ticonderoga — driving the Continental Army into a southbound retreat.  Raiding parties of British troops and aligned Indians attacked, pillaged, and burned frontier communities of the Champlain Valley.  In the face of the British invasion, the Vermont frontier collapsed.  The legislature, fearing an attack from the West, mobilized a militia under General John Stark.

Burgoyne, having been made aware that a large store of horses, food, and munitions was kept at Bennington, dispatched nearly 3,000 men (a third of his army) to seize the much-needed materials.  He was unaware that General Stark’s New Hampshire troops were enroute to the Green Mountains to join Colonel Seth Warner’s Vermont Continentals and Massachusetts militia at Bennington.  The combined American force under Stark assaulted the British column at Hoosick, New York.  Historians claim that Stark urged his men to “fight to the death.”

In a desperate, day-long fight in the summer heat, Yankee farmers thoroughly defeated the British, killing or capturing 900 soldiers.  Burgoyne never recovered from the loss and, in October, surrendered his force at Saratoga.

The Republic

The Republic of Vermont governed itself as a sovereign entity for fourteen years.  The Republic’s chief magistrate was Thomas Chittenden, who governed from 1778 to 1789 and 1790 to 1791.  In 1780, Chittenden, the Allen brothers, and other political leaders negotiated with Frederick Haldimand, the United Kingdom’s governor of Quebec, over the possibility of Vermont becoming a British province.  These negotiations ultimately failed due, in part, to the timely surrender of General Cornwallis at Yorktown (1781).

The first General Assembly voted to establish two counties: Bennington in the west and Unity in the east.  The Common Law of England became the state’s legal system.  The legislature voted to seize Tory lands and sell them to finance the militia — the first tax passed by the state.

Our lesson here is that Texas may be a “Whole ‘nuther country,” but it wasn’t the only one and wasn’t the first.  That honor goes to the Republic of Vermont — The land of freedom and unity.

Endnotes:

[1] So-called because they lived along the Missisquoi River, a transboundary river of the east shore of Lake Champlain (through Missisquoi Bay) that stretches eighty miles.

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