Comprehensive Study Notes on Texas History, Historiography, and Slavery

Institutional Context and Historiography of Texas

• UT Austin Departmental History and Political Context:

  • The Department of African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas at Austin was created approximately $15$\,years prior to $2026$. It represented the first Black Studies department in the state of Texas, and either the first or second Black Studies department in the states of the former Confederacy to offer a Ph.D. program.

  • On February 12, 2026 ($02/12/2026$), it was officially announced that the Department of African and African Diaspora Studies would be dissolved and consolidated with other ethnic, women's, and gender studies departments. This consolidation is scheduled to be completed by the fall of $2027$.

  • The institutional history includes the milestone of the first Black faculty member hired in the Department of Anthropology at UT Austin in $1988$. While it required $20\text{--}25$\,years of advocacy to establish the Black Studies department, its structural elimination occurred within $1.5\text{--}2$\,years due to political shifts in state governance.

  • Curriculum changes reflect these political shifts; courses were adapted to align with state-mandated standards for teaching Texas history.

• Historiographical Critique of Traditional Texas Historians:

  • Early $20\text{th}$-century Texas history was heavily defined by academic historians such as Eugene C. Barker, Charles W. Ramsdale, and Charles S. Potts.

  • Barker, Ramsdale, and Potts operated as white, middle-class, heterosexual male academics at the turn of the $20\text{th}$ century. They were regarded as top-tier, historically meticulous scholars within their profession.

  • Their historical accounts produced a heroic narrative of Texas origins. This heroism was rooted in their satisfaction with turn-of-the-century Texas society and their privileged socioeconomic standing within it.

  • The fundamental limitations of the Barker, Ramsdale, and Potts narratives stem from positionality, the passage of time, and the evolution of history as a academic discipline. Turn-of-the-century historical framing explicitly relied on white supremacist premises regarding Native Americans, Black Americans, and Mexican/Mexican Americans.

  • Contemporary historical scholarship rejects white supremacist frameworks. While Barker and his contemporaries utilized documented historical facts, their interpretations regarding why and how events occurred were fundamentally shaped by their ideological positioning in society.

Ideology of Expansion: Manifest Destiny and Cultural Symbols

• Media Mythologies and Cultural Artifacts:

  • $20\text{th}$-century mass media saturated American culture with heroic frontier figures, most notably Davy Crockett (popularized via Walt Disney media, coonskin caps, toy cap guns, and childhood games of "cowboys and Indians").

  • Lyrics from the historical Ballad of Davy Crockett illustrate the ideological framing of Texas expansion:

  • "Born on a mountaintop in Tennessee, biggest state in the land of the free… Davy, Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier."

  • "He heard of Houston and Austin so to the Texas Plains he just had to go where freedom was fighting another foe, and they needed him at the Alamo. Davy, Davy Crockett, man who don't know no fear."

  • "His land is biggest, and his land is best from grassy plains to the mountain crest. He's ahead of us all meeting the test, following his legend into the West…"

• UT Austin Campus Iconography:

  • Iconic campus structures reflect $19\text{th}$-century expansionist ideology:

  • Littlefield Fountain: Located on the South Mall, featuring the figure of Columbia, symbolizing Manifest Destiny.

  • Gearing Hall: Located at the terminus of University Avenue past $26\text{th}$ Street, featuring a Prairie Madonna architectural relief.

  • American Progress ($1872$): John Gast's famous painting encapsulates Manifest Destiny, depicting an allegorical female figure of light, progress, and whiteness moving west, driving away darkness, nature, and indigenous populations.

• Political and Ideological Foundations of Expansion:

  • Comancheria: The sovereign territory ruled by the Comanche nation, encompassing vast portions of the Southern Plains and Texas.

  • Monroe Doctrine: Formulated under President James Monroe, asserting that the Americas (North and South) were reserved for US interests, framing westward expansion as a righteous advance of liberal democracy, individual property rights, and continental dominance.

  • Andrew Jackson: Key political figure embodying Manifest Destiny. Jackson enacted the Indian Removal Act, supported the expansion of slavery into US territories, and maintained a close personal and political friendship with Sam Houston (both were former governors of Tennessee, and Houston fought under Jackson in the Creek War). As President, Jackson officially recognized Texas independence.

Geopolitics of Texas, Mexico, and US Annexation

• Post-Independence Instability in Mexico:

  • Following independence from Spain in $1821$, the Mexican Empire (and subsequent Federal Republic) encompassed a vast territory stretching from California south through the Federal Republic of Central America to Costa Rica.

  • Mexican elite rulers struggled to maintain administrative control over this vast, ecologically diverse territory given the communication limits of the era.

  • Severe political factionalism existed between Centralists and Federalists across Mexican provinces, including Tejas, Coahuila, and the Yucatan Peninsula.

  • Yucatan Caste War / Chan Santa Cruz: Initiated in $1849$ as a rebellion by postcolonial elites against Mexico City's central authority. Maya indigenous groups leveraged the political disruption to seize control of the region, maintaining autonomy into the $20\text{th}$ century.

• Anglo-American Colonization:

  • The Mexican government originally invited Anglo-American settlers (empresarios such as Stephen F. Austin) into Coahuila y Tejas to cultivate land, boost economic activity, and serve as a defensive buffer against Comanche dominance in Comancheria.

• US Annexation and the Mexican-American War:

  • Annexation ($1845$): Anglo-Texans strongly favored annexation by the United States. Annexation was highly controversial in the US Congress due to its direct association with the expansion of slave states. Northern abolitionists opposed it, while Southern leaders championed it to expand slaveholding territory.

  • Mexican-American War ($1846\text{--}1848$): A conflict driven by boundary disputes following Texas annexation. US forces invaded Mexico through Mexico City, compelling Mexico to cede its northern territories.

  • Precursor to the Civil War: The Mexican-American War served as a military proving ground for future Civil War commanders. Key West Point graduates who fought in the conflict included Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and Albert Sidney Johnston (whose statues formerly stood on the UT Austin South Mall).

Expansion of the Cotton-Slave Complex in Texas

• Demographics and European Immigration:

  • By $1850$, the total population of Texas reached $212,000$\,people, primarily composed of US migrants from the Lower South.

  • European migration included significant numbers of Germans, Czechs, and Swedes who established settlements such as New Braunfels (New Brunswick) and Fredericksburg (named after German royalty).

  • European immigrants were largely middle-class, small-scale farmers, many of whom actively opposed chattel slavery.

  • Republic of Texas Racial Policy: Under President Mirabeau B. Lamar and the Republic of Texas Constitution, free Black people were legally prohibited from residing in Texas without explicit authorization from the state legislature. This policy operated as a mechanism of racial exclusion, restricting the Black presence in Texas strictly to enslaved human chattel.

• Technological Drivers and the Domestic Slave Trade:

  • The Cotton Gin: Invented by Eli Whitney in $1794$, the cotton gin mechanized the removal of seeds from short-staple cotton, making its cultivation extraordinarily profitable across the Lower South.

  • Abolition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade: Great Britain abolished the transatlantic slave trade in $1807$, followed by the United States in $1808$.

  • Domestic Slave Trade ("Sold Down the River"): Soil exhaustion and declining profitability of tobacco in the Upper South (Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland, Delaware) turned the region into a human breeding and export zone. Enslaved Black people were forcibly moved south via overland caravans or shipped down the Mississippi River through major hubs like New Orleans and Galveston.

  • Illegal Transatlantic Trade: Illegal smuggling of enslaved Africans continued on a smaller scale through Galveston, routed primarily through Cuba and the Spanish Caribbean.

• Enslaved Population Growth in Texas ($1836\text{--}1860$):

  • $1836$: $5,000$\,enslaved people out of a total population of $38,000$\,($\approx 13\%$).

  • $1845$ (US Annexation): $30,000$\,enslaved people.

  • $1850$: $56,000$\,enslaved people ($27\%$ of the state's total population).

  • $1860$: $182,000$\,enslaved people ($30\%$ of the state's total population).

  • For comparison, by $1860$, South Carolina's enslaved population exceeded $50\%$ (approaching $\frac{2}{3}$ of its total population), while states like Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana also maintained absolute or near-majorities.

• Geographic Distribution in Texas:

  • Slavery was heavily concentrated in the fertile river bottom floodplains essential for short-staple cotton and sugar cultivation:

  • Brazos River: The primary hub of plantation agriculture (site of Stephen F. Austin's original colony).

  • Colorado River: Major concentration between the Brazos and Colorado basins.

  • Trinity River and Sabine River.

Economic Capital, Urban Slavery, and Local History in Austin

• Capital Value of Enslaved Human Beings:

  • While cotton was the primary agricultural output, enslaved Black people constituted the main capital asset and concentrated wealth of Texas plantation owners.

  • Average Price of an Enslaved Person: \\$400 in $1850$; rising to \\$800 by $1860$.

  • Prime Field Hand (Male, ages $18\text{--}30$): Valued at \\$1,200 in the late $1850$s. A single individual was equivalent in value to $200\,\text{acres}$ of prime agricultural land (with land priced at $6\,\text{cents/acre}$).

  • Skilled Enslaved Person (Carpenters, Blacksmiths, Barrelwrights, Shipbuilders): Valued at up to \\$2,000 (equivalent to $333\,\text{acres}$ of land).

  • Enslaved labor drove a $600\%$ increase in Texas cotton production during the $1850$s.

• Urban Slavery in Austin, Texas:

  • Approximately $6\%$ of enslaved people in Texas lived in urban centers, a population that grew consistently through the $1850$s.

  • Enslaved Demographics in Austin: $27\%$ of Austin's population was enslaved in $1850$; $28\%$ in $1860$; and nearly $40\%$ by the conclusion of the Civil War.

  • Slaveholding Density: In $1850$, $48\%$ of free heads of families (white households) in Austin were slave owners. This was notably higher than other regional cities: Galveston, TX ($22\%$); Little Rock, AR ($36\%$); and Freeport, LA ($39\%$).

  • Antebellum Austin was demographically binary (Black and white). It lacked a substantial Mexican American population (limited to a small settlement near the dump at the mouth of Shoal Creek and the Colorado River) and had few European immigrants compared to port cities like Galveston, forcing complete institutional reliance on urban enslaved labor for artisan work, construction, domestic service, and carting.

• Specific Local Austin Landmarks and Figures:

  • Stringer's Hotel: Located in Downtown Austin near present-day $6\text{th}$ Street; served as a public site for slave auctions. A historical record from the Texas Almanac (published December 27, 1862) documents an auction held on January 1, 1863, offering three Black girls and two Black boys (ages $15\text{--}16$) to the highest bidder in Confederate or State Treasury notes.

  • Horst's Pasture: A historical estate/plantation owned by Horst, a German butcher who settled in Austin before the Civil War. The site covered current UT Austin campus landmarks, including Gregory Gymnasium and the Chesley/San Jacinto residence halls.

  • George Washington Littlefield (G. W. Littlefield): UT benefactor and namesake of Littlefield Fountain and the campus mansion; held $90+$ enslaved people in Gonzales, Texas.

  • Helen Kirby: UT's first Dean of Women (serving approximately $30$\,years); held $150$ enslaved people prior to emancipation.

• Legal Status, Social Structure, and Ideology:

  • Distribution of Ownership: $1$ in $4$ white families ($25\%$) in Antebellum Texas owned enslaved people; $75\%$ of white families did not.

  • Planters owning $20$ or more enslaved people formed the political and economic ruling class.

  • Legal Rights: Enslaved people had no legal rights to marriage or property. Texas law mandated that slaves be treated "with humanity" and forbade punishments extending to "taking of life and limb" (e.g., cutting off hands was prohibited). Enslaved people were granted court-appointed counsel and jury trials for crimes above petty larceny, but Black people were legally forbidden from testifying against white people or serving on juries.

  • Labor Regimen: Field hands worked from sun-to-sun $5.5\,\text{days/week}$ (Monday through Friday, plus a half-day Saturday). House servants and urban artisans worked longer, irregular hours and experienced increased vulnerability to gratuitous personal violence due to immediate proximity to slaveholders.

  • Racial justifications for slavery transitioned from religious arguments to $19\text{th}$-century scientific racism and Social Darwinism, deeply influencing turn-of-the-century historians like Barker, Ramsdale, and Potts.