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;^ "-!^ ^- / '4^ '?', ..^-c ■/ ^ , S ' c / '*b -■ • ^^ •^^^ ■■■1/ dS. 0. .aO' . 5 * * ' ^ ,0' -^^ 0^ Av.^ ^o * A <. v^\ ... ^0 ^ ^O -^ vj* / %■'■-■■■ ':;^9' *c. M , <* A, ^ '^O ,. c- -. - .v^-^:-. \.,.^ ;')^f^^;-. ^..,/ .v^v, %. ^> V -■ '.. C>^ <0^ . « • o, <^ v^ 0^ ^*',;^:/?;%4;^ °- •:^ <. <^> \ 0,^' "-^ C> ^1 ^' ^ THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE LOUISIANA-TEXAS FRONTIER By Isa.\c Joslin Cox As commonly used the word ''frontier", indicating one of the most important geographical factors of his- tory, has two distinct meanings ; first, that of the indefi- nite line which divides the civilized and settled portions of the country from its savage wilderness area ; and, in the second place, the metes and bounds which separate dif- ferent nationalities. Both of these meanings are empha- sized in the frontier which is our immediate subject. The frontier is concerned with certain physiographic factors — rivers and lakes, plains and plateaus, marshes and mountains — that add definiteness to differing na- tional elements. These physical elements in turn are supplemented by human agencies, and of these we may distinguish two important groups: the men who at the forefront bear the brunt of the national struggle for ex- pansion or self-defense; and the rear guard, composed of legislators, executives, or diplomats who strive to make sure of the national prestige won by the former, and who often unjustly obtain credit for the other's work. Most frontiers soon or late seem likewise to pass through three distinct stages of development. The first we may designate as the period of definition, when the various elements that enter into the international play of forces are making themselves felt and are roughly point- ing out lines to be marked out by future wars or diplom- acy. The second is the stage of delimitation, when the above roughly suggested spheres of influence are made more certain by fixed boundaries, following more or less closely defined national or physiographic areas. The third period may be termed the period of demolition, when irresistible influences break through the barriers erected by war or diplomacy, and spreading into regions beyond bring once more into play upon another frontier area the forces of the two earlier periods. It is in Europe that we naturally find the best ex- amples for frontier study. Here for more than a thou- sand years German and Slavic or German and Latin ele- ments have waged unending wars in the effort to mark definite limits for national or racial units. Through the long centuries monarchs planned, diplomats schemed, armies fought, and settlers migrated in the attempt to make natural boundaries and racial elements correspond in the upbuilding of national aspirations. Lothringia gives way before the irrestible advance of Austria-Neus- tria; or a thousand years later, Alsace and Lorraine fall to the German in order to redress the balance of Western Europe. Poland disappears as a separate entity under the pressure of Muscovite, Hapsburg, and Hohenzolleni. The Alps and the Pyrennes separate the Latin nations, despite the ambitious attempts of Charles VIII and Fran- cis I, the boast of Louis XIV, or the decree of Napoleon. These significant examples, to say nothing of a host of minor ones, illustrate the general statements already mentioned; but they have their counterparts in the New World where, upon a territorial and physiographic scale greater than Europe affords, the three stages of develop- ment are compressed within a time limit that permits a rapid survey of their significant features. Of such North American frontiers we might name the Maine-Acadian of our Northeastern border, the old New York frontier, the Oregon frontier, that of the Old Northwest, and that of the far Southwest — all of which illustrate the points men- tioned as vividly as any of their European counterparts. But for the purpose of our present study I have selected one that surpasses all in the charm of its history, in the importance of the problems which it presents, and in its apt illustration of the various features of frontier life - the Louisiana-Texas frontier — to which we will now turn. In considering the setting of the Louisana-Texas frontier, we naturally begin with its extent. In this con- nection we may asume that "frontier" means the entire area upon which the physiographic and human elements already mentioned play their part. In that sense I feel justified in defining the Louisiana-Texas frontier area in its widest extent as including all that irregular parallelo- gram between the Lower Mississippi and the Rio Grande, and extending from the Gulf of Mexico to the Rocky Mountains. Such an extent would enable one to include within the limits of this sketch the fruitless search of Coronado for Quivira, and the dream of Friar Alonso Benavides of opening communication between that ob- scure land and the equally uncertain bay of Espiritu San- to ; the death scene of La Salle on the Trinity, and of his assassin, L'Archeveque, in the country of the Pawnee In- dians; the joyful cheers of Pike's men on first beholding the Mexican mountains in Colorado, and their still more exultant salute of the American flag flying over Fort CJaibourne at Natchitoches; the unsuccessful attempt of Spain to establish her supremacy east of the Sabine, and the failure of Texas to extend her dominion over Santa Fe; the operations of the '^ Commerce of the Prairies" over the old Santa Fe trail, and the clandestine dealings of French smugglers and traders with the Spanish set- tlers and neophytes of Texas ; the advance of Wilkinson to the Sabine, or of Taylor to the Rio Grande; the en- trada of De Aguayo into eastern Texas and western Louisiana, or the march of Kearney and Doniphan into New Mexico and Chihuahua; the pushing of American squatters into the valley of the Red and Washita, and the difficulty of retaining Canary Island pohladores on the banks of tlie San x\ntonio. All of these factors and many more might properly be included in a study sug- gested by our title, for all have profoundly influenced the history of this frontier area. But definiteness will lead us to restrict the field of our study largely to the ter- ritory between the Red and Sabine rivers, where mission and presidio, trading post and frontier fort, rancheria and maison, dotted over the prairies and marshes, or marking convenient ford and ferry indicated the respect- ive advances of European agent, French or Spanish Cre- ole, American planter or filibuster, Mexican dictator or exiled revolutionist. In speaking of the physiographic elements that char- acterize this frontier area, one naturally first mentions the two rivers so conspicuous in the history of Louisiana and Texas — the Red and the Sabine. Although now merely of local importance, the Red has often been sug- gested as a possible connecting link for a transcontinental highway, while the Sabine has more than once achieved the dignity of an international boundary. In the course of his negotiations with G. W. Irving the Spanish Min- ister of State, Pizarro, gravely insisted upon confusing the Red with the Colorado of Texas, ^ while at a later per- iod our Mexican charge, Butler, tried as solemnly to ''mystify" the Mexican Alaman by suggesting a possible confusion between the Sabine and the Sabinas, a small tributary of the Rio G-rande.^ The possibilities of either as an international limit were at one time passed by in favor of a still more unimportant stream, the Arroyo Hondo, a small bayou flowing into the Red near Natchi- toches. This small stream, first selected by the tacit agree- ment of frontier officials, was destined more than once 1 House Executive Document No. S77, 28th Congress, 1st Session, p. 46; Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Vol. IV, p. 80. * Mexican Dispatches, Butler to Livingston, No. .32, .July 16, 1832, in the Bureau of Indexes and Archives, Department of State. to rise to international prominence during ensuing fron- tier discussions. In the vicinity of these two main streams the country abounded in marshes and swamps, and was cut up by numerous bayous, the whole affording an ad- mirable opportunity for the French to cany on illicit trade with the Texas Indians,^ or, later, for American adventurers to smuggle negroes from Galveston Island into Louisiana.* Remote from these streams ran the mighty flood of the Mississippi, bearing the tide of ex- pansion towards the Southwest, and the long drawn out but uncertain current of the Rio Grande. Upon the west- ern bank of the Red the French, by 1716, had established Natchitoches, a trading post and the center of a small community of French habitants; and some twenty miles distant, across the Arroyo Hondo, stood Adaes, occupied by a small presidial guard of Spanish soldiers who were supposed to protect a group of languishing Fransciscan Missions. Upon the eastern bank of the Mississippi sat New Orleans, the capital of French Louisiana; and still further to the eastward lay Mobile, the earlier capitalof that same province. These two points, forming the rear guard of French influence, were matched by the Spanish San Antonio de Bexar, about one hundred and fifty miles east of the middle course of the Rio Grande, and Chihua- hua, about the same distance west of the upper course of that river. These places in the contested frontier area formed the chief supports of their respective outposts, Natchitoches and Adaes — although at different times Mexico City and Washington, London, Paris, and Madrid, exerted their influence upon the frontier forces, while Queretaro, Zacatecas, and Guadalajara profoundly influ- enced its religious life. 3 Bolton's Tlie SpanisJi Abandonment and Seocoupation of East Texas, 1773-1779, in The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Assooia- tiati, Vol. IX, pp. 67-137. ♦ Barker's The African Slave Trade in Texas in TJie Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Vol. VI, pp. 145-158. In this frontier area many conflicting human elements working through the various physiographic factors men- tioned above played an important part in rounding out our national domain. These elements naturally fall into two classes, the national factors or agents and individual occupation types. Among these national factors we may name for France, La Salle, Tonty, St. Denis, and Bien- ville ; for Spain, De Leon, Mazanet, De Aguayo, and San- doval, or later such adopted subjects as De Mezieres ; and for the United States, Nolan, Davenport, Claiborne, Rob- inson, Long, of the earlier period, and Austin and Hous- ton of the later. Mexico succeeds to the place of Spain ; the United States or Texas to the place of France and Great Britain ; the Colony of Louisiana becomes the Louisiana Purchase and the Internal Provinces are separated from the Mexican Viceroyalty; State replaces province and county succeeds ayuntamiento; but the struggle along the frontier continues despite change in political unit or na- tional allegiance. From the standpoint of individual oc- cupation, explorer and missionary, conquistador and pre- sidial commander are balanced by French voyageur and habitant, fur-trader and Indian agent. The struggles of the earlier period between these typical frontier factors are continued at a later period when American and Mex- ican, pioneer and explorer, filibuster or revolutionist, squatter and settler, insecure official and unready subject continue the struggle for supremacy. With these human elements playing upon the physiographic factors there is presented for our view a bit of border history that suf- fers in comparison with no other area between conflicting civilizations. These agents on the frontier are supplemented, and in many cases apparently overshadowed by the legis- lators and diplomats of the various capitals ; and although the annals of legislation and diplomacy seem unusually full in comparison with those offered by the frontiersmen, yet it is to the latter that we ultimately owe the presei-va- tion of the Louisiana-Texas frontier area and our ulti- mate expansion to the westward. Having mentioned some of the factors which ]3layed a momentous part in the development of the Louisiana- Texas frontier, it may be well to consider for the remain- der of this paper the significant features of its history through the three periods which mark its successive stages of development. The first of these to be consid- ered is that which we choose to call "T/ie Period of Defi- nition ' ', and in the history of our particular frontier this may be regarded as extending to 1760, when we meet with the first definite suggestion of the Sabine as a possible international limit,^ For more than two centuries before this date the Spaniards had been gradually advancing from Mexico City to the north and northeast. In the Val- ley of the Upper Rio Grande, Coronado, Espejo, Onate, and Benavides, marked by their careers successive stages of Spanish advance to the Rio Q-rande and beyond, which Friar Alonzo Posades in 1685 fittingly summarized ; but in that very year the Frenchman, La Salle, made his un- fortunate landing upon the coast of Texas and presented himself as a competitor for the region between the Mis- sissippi and the Rio Grande. His death removed im- mediate peril to the Spanish claims, but Spanish entradas from 1689 to 1693 emphasized the fears which the vice regal court felt towards French aggression. Then, de- spite the efforts of the frontier commander and mission- ary, the Spanish rulers lost their interest in Texas and abandoned the territory to the aborigines. After twenty years' silence French traders once more arouse the Span- ish court from its lethargy, and after 1716 a new series 5 The detailed references to the sources upon which this sketch of border history, up to 1803, is based will be found in an article by the present writer entitled The Lovisdana- Texas Frontier, in The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Vol. X, pp. 1-75. of Spanish entradas establish the hold of that govern- ment upon eastern Texas. Prom this date the French at Natchitoches and the Spaniards at Adaes face each other as representatives of uncertain territorial claims, on the one side to the Rio Grande and on the other to the Mississippi. Each, however, is led by dynastic or frontier conditions to tolerate the other, with the result that mid- way between their respective fortifications they select a small stream, the Arroyo Hondo, to mark their respective local jurisdictions. As no other important settlements exist to the north or to the south of this point other des- ignated limits are unnecessary, although those officials who look forward to the future perceive the necessity of some such delimitation if hostile collision is to be averted. Occasional controversies arise between frontier subalt- erns or Spanish viceroy and French governor; and as a result of one of these in the late fifties. Governor Martos y Navarrete of Texas makes the first suggestion of the Sabine, in connection with the Red and the Missouri, as one of the possible limits for dividing French and Spanish possessions in America.* His suggestion remains un- heeded for forty years, because the exigencies of the fam- ily compact and of the Seven Years' War throw Louisiana into Spanish keeping ; but the mention of the Sabine has a significance which the future clearly reveals and we may take this suggestion and its probable date, 1760, as the time when the first period of our frontier history, that of Definiiion, properly comes to a close. In entering upon the second period of this frontier history, that of Delimitation, it may reasonably seem that after 1762 there is no reason for marking a definite bound- ary between Louisiana and Texas. Both are now under 6 The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Assooiation, Vol. X, pp. 24-26. The proposed delimitation ia given in Volume XLIII, Secoion de Historia, Archive General, Mexico, in which volimie it comprisea some nineteen paragraphs of Document LXX. Spanish dominion, or at least shortly to be so, and the necessity for keeping them separate would seem a tiling of the past. Such, however, is not the view of the Span- ish government. Louisiana is a Spanish colony, but one enjoying certain commercial privileges that are not to extend to other Spanish colonies, and in order to preserve the wall of Spanish commercial exclusion elsewhere, the frontier line separating Louisiana and Texas is to be emphasized, not obliterated. During this period of de- limitation, so far as definite Spanish policy is concerned, local officials suggest two methods of procedure. In 1767 the Marques de Rubi makes an inspection of Texas forts and missions. He now perceives that the important front- ier problem is that of protecting the interior civilization of Mexico against the flood of native barbarism, and for this purpose he suggests an abandonment of eastern Texas and a concentration of Spanish strength upon the San Antonio and Rio Grande rivers. An opposite policy is suggested by a Frenchman in Spanish service, Athan- acio de Mesieres, who believes in meeting these problems of civilization against barbarism by extending at the same time the line of national defense. He suggests advancing into the Indian territory with a cordon of forts running from the Mississippi through Santa Fe to the Pacific. In this way he would not only control the barbarian Indians on the north, but also check any encroachment of the Eng- lish from the east of the Mississippi. For ten years these two policies ran counter to each other at Chihuahua and at Vera Cruz, at New Orleans and Mexico, at Seville and at Madrid. The Mexican Vice- roy attempts to compel the abandonment of eastern Tex- as; the Texas Governor with the encouragement of his Louisiana colleague thwarts his efforts and permits the continued occupation of that region. As a result of this struggle the Indians continue their depredations upon the Mexican settlements ; clandestine commerce flourishes 10 in the eastern part of Texas ; English traders, abetted by French Creoles from Louisiana, at will visit the unsub- dued Indians ; and the close of the century witnesses the arrival of a more dreaded element, the American fron- tiersman. Philip Nolan, the filibuster and horse trader, and Samuel Davenport, ranchman and Indian factor, are typical representatives of this last national element, and they arouse the resentment equally of the Spanish Gov- ernor in Texas and of the French Bishop of Louisiana. These point out the danger of this new migration, in view of the unsettled frontier conditions; but despite their warnings and the counsel of those who had preceded them, the frontier line remains unmarked, while the reactionary authorities rigidly adhere to their policy of separating Louisiana and Texas. With the transfer of Louisiana to France and later to the United States, all previous questions regarding the frontier are revived, together with many new ones sug- gesting difficult problems for the immediate future. Ex- plorers, unauthorized settlers, illegal traders, negro slaves — the last introducing a new problem in this re- gion — all arouse the fears of the Spanish frontier com- manders; while their superiors at Mexico or at Madrid perceive too late the importance of earlier suggestions for fixing a definite boundary at the Sabine, and unavailingly attempt to revive proposals disregarded for more than four decades. It was natural that diplomacy should at first play an emphatic part in the period of uncertainty following the transfer. To this Napoleon had appealed to wrest Louisiana from the unwilling Spanish King, and he sanctioned the efforts of his foreign agents to embroil the United States with its new neighbors. The order of Decres and the interpretation of Talleyrand regarding the limits of Louisiana were both used in an attempt to bar- gain with the United States.^ 7 See entry for March 16, 1805, in Monroe 'a manuscript Journal in n Meanwhile, Jefferson and his advisers revive and emphasize the earlier claims of France, based on La Salle's work, to the country as far westward as the Rio Grande ; but, as in the case of his constitutional scruples, Jefferson was willing to modify these claims to suit the exigencies of the occasion. His agent, Monroe, was ac- cordingly instructed to bend all his efforts to acquire the Floridas, even at the expense of sacrifices on the western frontier.^ The Spanish Ministers of State, deceiving, ca- joling, threatening by turns, at last lost interest in all questions at issue with the United States in the gloomier prospect of absorption in Napoleon's universal empire Finally, Charles IV and Godoy, Jefferson and Madison, alike form a mere group of tools whose wishes Napoleon at will sacrifices to his continental system. Meanwhile, on the border, the questions of jurisdic- tion, of Indian alliance, of border explorations, of escap- ing slaves, and of inter-settlement trade, were all cast into the shade by the rumor of Burr's daring project to invade the Spanish domains of Mexico; and this year, 1806, marked a more significant crisis than had hitherto threatened the Louisiana-Texas frontier. When, how- ever, the unscrupulous Wilkinson betrayed his fellow-con- spiritor and formed with Herrera the Neutral Ground Convention, the immediate peril to Spanish interest was deferred, inasmuch as the American commander, follow- ing the instructions of the Washington Cabinet, agreed to remain to the eastward of the Arroyo Hondo, thus em- phasizing the Franco-Spanish limit of the preceding cent- ury ; while the Spaniard was to retire beyond the Sabine, which other official writers had already marked out as a Spanuh Dispatches, Vol. VIII, Bureau of Indexes and Archives; also the letter of Armstrong to Monroe, dated Paris, March 12, 1805, in the Letters of James Monroe in the Lenox Branch of the New York Public Library. 8 Instructions of Madison to Monroe and Pinckney, American State Papers, Foreign Belations, Vol. II, pp. 628 ff. 12 possible national limit.* Into the intervening neutral ground, suj^posedly abandoned by both nations for the time being only, but really for fifteen years, there im- mediately flocked every species of outlaw, forming a mot- ley population that speedily acquired an unsavory repu- tation on either side of the line. Thereupon followed a most interesting period in American border history, for in Mexico there broke out a revolution against the Span- ish power with which the majority of American citizens, particularly in the Mississippi Valley, thoroughly sympa- thized. Thus occurred the unhealthful but natural com- bination of the Mexican revolutionist with the American filibuster — a combination which proved the source of un- numbered woes in American diplomatic annals. Political refugees from Mexico, such as Gutierrez and Menchaca " found a ready asylum in this neutral zone where no law flourished. Here sympathizing American filibusters like John H. Robinson'^ and AugTistus McGee ^- readily met and conferred with them and planned forays against the Spanish power in Texas and Mexico. The Spanish creole Toledo, ^'^ and the guerrilla, Mina,'* with their ill-assorted followers used it as a point of vantage from which to or- sMcCaleb's The Jaro}i Burr Conspiracy, p. 150 ff. 10 Among the "Letters to and from Ministers, etc." in the East Florida Manuscripts, Library of Congress, is an interesting communication from the Spanish minister De Onis to Governor Estrada, dated at Phila- delphia, January 21, 1812, in vfhieh he mentions the arrival of these two men at Natchitoches, Louisiana. 11 Letters and other documents relating to Robinson are found in the manuscript volumes of the Bureau of Rolls and Library, Department of State, under the titles "Louisiana and the Southern Boundary," "Papeis in Relation to Burr's Conspiracy'', ''Papers Relating to the R*'- volted Spanish Colonies ' ', and in the Monroe letters mentioned in Note 7. 12 For the expedition in which he was associated with Gutierrez, see Yoakum's History of Texas, Ch. XII, and McCaleb's The First Period of the Gutierrez-Magee Expedition in The Quarterly of the Texas State His- torical Association, Vol. IV, pp. 218-229. I'i For Toledo, sec tiie sources mentioned in Note 11. 1* Miscellaneous Letters, Vol. XLIX, Bureau of Indexes and Ar- chives, Department of State. 13 ganize for war against the Mexican viceroy or to quarrel with their ambitious colleagues or rivals. Their resulting methods involved the neutrality of the American govern- ment/"' compromised Monroe and his subordinates with the Spanish authorities, encouraged a general spirit of lawlessness and adventure in the southwest, and engen- dered on the y)art of both Mexicans and Americans a hearty mutual distrust that colored all their subsequent relations. When to these elements were added exiled officers from Napoleon's armies,^*^ political adventurers from South America, land hungry speculators from the United States, and former pirates from the Louisiana bayous, the confusion which had settled upon this frontier became worse confounded.^ ^ At Washington and Madrid a continually shifting diplomatic policy added to the uncertainty of the frontier situation. But after 1817 this diplomacy was wisely di- rected with unerring aim by John Quincy Adams; and when through the compliance of his associates and of his chief, Monroe, he was finally forced to give up American claims to Texas,^^ he gained more than double compensa- tion in succeeding to all of Spain's claims to the Oregon territory. By the Treaty of 1819 he obtained the line of the forty-second parallel to the Pacific, and in exchange agreed to accept as the western limit of Louisiana and of the United States the Sabine River — a limit which a Texas Grovernor had suggested sixty years before and which was now definitely incorporated in an international 15 This is shown in the correspondence of Monroe, John Graham, and W. C. C. Claiborne as given in the sources mentioned in Note 11 and in the volumes of Miscellaneous Letters. 16 Eosengarten 'a French Colonists and Exiles in America, Ch. XIV; Reeve's The Napoleonic Exiles in America; and Miscellaneous Letters, passim. IT The National Intelligencer^ September 1, 1821. Js Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Vol. IV. }>. 145; Vou Hoist's Con- stitutional Ristory of the United States, Vol. IT, p. 550. 14 treaty. A limit has now been set for the Louisiana Pur- cliase and the date of ratifying this Treaty, 1821, fittingly closes our second period of frontier history. The work of definition and delimitation had hardly been accomplished before the unavoidable course of the third period of frontier history begins, and the boundary that had been constructed with so much effort immedi- ately feels the process of demolition. The first step is marked by the land grant of the Spanish government, later accepted by the Mexican, to Moses Austin and his son Stephen, the first and most important of Texas em- presarios. The work of these men was so quickly followed up by other claimants — American. Mexican, English, Irisli and German — that an American diplomat could well say later that the Mexicans certainly could not think much of Texas because they were so willing to give it away,'^ and we may add ''so many times over". Most of these gran- tees introduced American settlers and brought up the question of the relations of these immigrants to the estab- lished authorities of the country. In a short time there occurred the inevitable clash between diverse modes of living. The ' ' Fredonian War" of 1826 was but a prelude to the Texan struggle for independence which occurred ten years later, and led the Mexican government to repent of its liberal attitude towards the Americans and, after 1830, vainly to attempt to put up the barriers which it ha,d once incontinently thrown down.-" The diplomacy of this period centers around the nat- ural and ill-concealed distrust which the Mexican govern- ment felt for the United States, despite the debt of grat- itude which it owed the latter.^^ Our government, under 19 Instructions of Clay to Poinsett, American State Papers, Foreign delations, Vol. VI. 20 Lorenzo de Zavala to J. E. Poinsett, February 2, 18:^0, Poivaett Papers in the Pennsylvania Historical Society, 21 Dictamen — por la Comision de Beladones Exteriores, December 15 bath Adams and Jackson, made offers to purchase Texas, which Mexico positively refused to entertain. Jackson's views even irichided California as far south as San Fran- cisco Bay, in addition to the territory between the Sabine and the Rio Grande, thus emphasizing the inevitable truth that if the Louisiana-Texas frontier were once crossed American expansion must ultimately extend to the Pacific. The efforts of the diplomats to purchase Texas, however, proved unavailing, but the contest between Mexico and the United States was decided by the frontiersmen, when Houston overwhelmed Santa Anna at San Jacinto. This event established Texas as an independent re- public, and its recognition as such by the United States quickly followed. Wliether Texas should remain inde- pendent, a sort of buffer State between the United States and Mexico, and likewise a vantage ground for English and French diplomats, was a question that nine years of independence answered in the negative. Van Buren, over- whelmed by domestic problems, rejected the first offer of Texan annexation. It was thus necessary to survey the Louisiana-Arkansas line where it touched Texas ; and this was the only portion of our frontier ever definitely marked as an international limit. But with the rejection of Texas's first offer of annexation that power began a policy of coquetting with Great Britain that in the long- run forced the issue before the American people." That issue was now no longer one of mere national expansion, but was so combined with the demoralizing element of slavery that the American people were unwilling at first to accept even the renewed offer. The election of 1844 decid- ed this question, and the subsequent annexation of Texas 2, 1821, manuscript copy made for J. E. Poinsett, Mexico, 1829; Mexican Dispatches, Bureau of Indexes and Archives. 22 Garrison's The First Stage of the Movement for the Annexation of Texas, in American Historical Eevictv, Vol. X, pp. 72-9(5; also Garri- son's Westward Extension, pp. 96, 110. 16 removed the danger of a Poland on our southwestern bor- der. Polk, as the new President elected upon the issue of annexation in August, 1845, gave General Taylor the order to advance into Texas. In obedience to this order Taylor first took up a post on the Nueces, and in the fol- lowing spring advanced to the Rio Grande."^ With this move the Louisiana-Texas frontier is demolished and the American government begins the task of erecting a new national boundary far to the southwest. 23Fulmore'8 The Annexation of Texas and the Mexican War, in The Quarierlij of the Tr.ros State Hislvriral Asxoriation, Vol. V, pp. 2S-48 ; Von Hoist's Constitutional History of the United States, Vol. Ill, pp. 94, 227. 3477-250 lot 29 * -v-.-^— .VV: ^^^ «... \r>^ 'a , , * ^ :>.* <^' '^ O. * „ , o ' . •^ a"* o ^ * ^^ -'.s-^ ^- ■^, " ■p c o. o V aV -^ <^^ » o -tS. ^ - ■ .<(•' <- ( c-Kx\\\:-,xt, ^' -^ 0^ . ^ ' * -^ o > • ^^M 0^ ,0 -/- 4 o. /-"tS^^^^c/^ \^'^f:i: -•., ' .^-^ ^*^'V^ v*-r;. A^ ,H ^. .9.^ \- "' .0^ 'i'. ^- 'V. ^' <^- O si .0 "f* ^, ^->' ' . . x^-n <:^. '^. <>. -0' ■4 o ^, ^. •>v- ''^. ^--, ^. -v/^ ,-b' vP 7 -X r<- ^. ^- 'V* <^' .^' V ^' ■ ^■- '^'^^ / 0-. 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