Tag Archives: Texas History

Today in Texas History – October 28

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From the Annals of the Buffalo Soldiers –  In 1880, Apache warriors killed seven soldiers from the famous black Tenth United States Cavalry known as the Buffalo Soldiers.  The soldiers had been defending settler’s in Hudspeth County.  The attack was one of the last episodes in what came to be known as Victorio’s War.  Chief Victorio, who was considered one of the fiercest of the Apaches, had led his followers away from the San Carlos Reservation in 1879 to return to Fort Stanton.  From there he led a campaign of terror across New Mexico, Texas and Mexico.  Most of the fighting ended when his camp was overrun in October. Victorio was killed along with many of his warriors and some women and children.

Today in Texas History – October 27

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From the Annals of the Founders –  In 1806, Juan Seguín was born in San Antonio.  Seguin was an early opponent of Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna and participated in the Battle of Bexar which drove Mexican forces out of San Antonio in 1835.  He was commissioned as a Captain in the regular Texas army and joined William B. Travis at the Alamo.   He escaped death in the final battle only because Travis sent him through the Mexican lines to carry his famous “never surrender or retreat” letter.  JS got the letter through and returned with men to reinforce the crumbling mission only to find that it had already fallen.  He continued to serve and after the revolution became the only Hispanic Texan in the Senate of the Texas Republic and later served as mayor of San Antonio.

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In 1541, Francisco Vazquez de Coronado wrote to Charles I, King of Spain, describing for the first time the Llano Estacado or Staked Plains.  The Llano is a high tableland extending across much of the Texas panhandle and eastern  New Mexico.  In Texas its eastern boundary is marked by the impressive Caprock which runs hundreds of miles across west Texas.  Coronado was overwhelmed by the vastness of the Llano Estacado.  As he wrote, “I reached plains so vast that I did not find their limit anywhere I went, although I travelled over them for 300 leagues.”  He further describes them as having “no more land marks than if we had been swallowed up by the sea.  There was not a stone, nor a bit of rising ground, nor a tree, nor a shrub, nor anything to go by.”  He was also the first to write about the incredible herds of cattle (bison) that he encountered and the first to describe the various plains Indians that he encountered.  Of course, he never found the Cities of Gold that he was looking for.

Today in Texas History – October 19

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From the Annals of the State Fair – In 2012, the iconic Big Tex statue was destroyed by an electrical fire that started in his right boot and worked its way up the structure, first becoming visible from the neck area. After the fire, a new Big Tex was created by SRO Associates and Texas Scenic Co. for the 2013 State Fair.

Photo from NBCDFW.com.

Today in Texas History – October 11

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From the Annals of Suicide –  In 1878, Kiowa chief Satanta committed suicide by jumping from his prison cell in Huntsville.  Satanta was probably close to 60 at the time.  He had been a rising leader since the Medicine Lodge Treaty council in October 1867, where he came to be known as the “Orator of the Plains.”  In 1871 Satanta and his fellow chiefs Satank and Big Tree were arrested for their part in the Warren Wagon Train raid. Satank was killed while trying to escape. Satanta and Big Tree were tried for murder at Jacksboro which was the first time Native American chiefs were tried in a civil court. They were convicted and sentenced to hang, but Texas governor E. J. Davis commuted the sentences to life imprisonment. Satanta was quickly paroled in 1873, but was re-arrested for his role in the attack on Lyman’s Wagon Train in Palo Duro canyon and in the second battle of Adobe Walls.  His second incarceration was too much for the Kiowa Chief who took his life rather than spend his remaining days in prison.

Today in Texas History – October 7

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From the Annals of the Red River – In 1759, Spanish soldiers under the command of Diego Ortiz Parilla fought a losing battle near a fortified Taovaya village on the Red River.  Ortiz Parilla was leading an expedition to punish the Indians responsible for the embarrassing destruction of Santa Cruz de San Sabá Mission in March 1759.  The Spaniards faced a combined force of  Comanches, Yaceales, and Tawakonis who outsmarted the Spaniard.  Ortiz Parilla did not know exactly how close he was to Indian village.  When his forces were  charged from woods by sixty or seventy warriors who quickly withdrew, he ordered a pursuit not realizing that the purpose of the attack was to lead the Spaniards into a well-laid trap. Pursuing their attackers, the troop found itself sinking in a sandbank at the edge of the Red River, before the Indian fortifications. As darkness fell, Ortiz Parilla led an orderly withdrawal from his difficult position.  However, he was forced to leave a pair of cannons behind  on the river sandbank where the Spaniards had found themselves pinned down.  And more critically lost nineteen men killed, fourteen wounded, and nineteen by desertion.  The humiliating defeat led to his replacement as commandant of San Luis de las Amarillas Presidio by Felipe de Rábago y Terán.  The Spaniards held onto the fort near present-day San Saba for another decade but failed to make any significant inroads into north central Texas for almost 50 years.

Painting of the destruction of the San Saba Mission.

Today in Texas History – October 3

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From the Annals of the Pests –   In 1984, Charles W. DeRyee, a druggist in Corpus Christi, mentioned in a letter that the boll weevil was in Texas. This was the first known reference to the pest being in Texas.  The tiny insect was one of the most devastating pests ever to effect American agriculture.  By the 1920’s, the BW was present in ever cotton producing region of the state.  Eradication programs have been somewhat successful, but the BW remains a problem to this day.

Today in Texas History – September 28

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From the Annals of the Panhandle –    In 1874 Col. Ranald Mackenzie and the Fourth U.S. Cavalry attempted a surprise attack on Comanche, Cheyenne and Kiowa encampments in Palo Duro Canyon.   Although known as the Battle of Palo Duro Canyon, the attack involved little loss of life as it was primarily a raid to seized Indian horses and property.  Assisted by Tonkawa scouts, the cavalry wanted to surprise the Indians who were settling into their winter camps.   However, the Indians were warned by the Comanche leader Red Warbonnet, who discovered the soldiers and fired a warning shot before being killed by the Tonkawas.  Cheyenne chief Iron Shirt, Comanche leader Poor Buffalo, and the Kiowa chief were left in charge.  The camps were located in various parts of the vast canyon which did not allow the Indians to mount a united defense.  As a result most of the Indians retreated leaving behind over 1400 horses and most of their winter stores.  Only three Comanche were killed as was one soldier.  The BOPDC was the last major event in the Red River Wars and resulted in the confinement of southern Plains Indians in reservations in Indian Territory.

Today in Texas History – September 26

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From the Annals of New Spain – In 1736, Carlos Benites Franquis de Lugo arrived in San Antonio to serve as ad interim governor of Spanish Texas.   Franquis was extraordinarily unpopular due to his high-handed approach to administration.  One of his first acts was file criminal charges against Manuel de Sandoval who had been in charge of Texas.  He arbitrarily cut the number of guards at the missions leaving them vulnerable to attack.  He failed at almost every aspect of administration such that the province was near bankruptcy under his rule.  Ultimately he was arrested and accused of “arrogant behavior” a charge that has sadly fallen from favor in the world of criminal jurisprudence.  He stepped down as governor in September 1737,  but was found not guilty of the charges against him.

Ted Cruz – Servile Puppy Dog

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Sen. Ted Cruz (TP-Texas) ended any doubt that he has not a shred of integrity by endorsing Donald Trump for the Presidency today.  Cruz refused to endorse Trump at the GOP Convention and later defended his refusal to do so by stating that he was not a “servile puppy dog.”  Showing some spine, Cruz backed down on his pledge to endorse the GOP nominee when faced with the distasteful prospect of endorsing a reality show con-man like Trump for the most important office on the planet.  So Ted has endorsed a man that claimed his father was involved in JFK’s assassination, called his wife ugly, and who, in his own words, he believes is “utterly amoral”, a “pathological liar” and a “narcissistic bully.”  And those were some of the nicer things Lyin’ Ted had to say about The Donald.  Cruz was clearly running for cover in making the endorsement as it was looking more and more like a failure to endorse Trump would put an end to the one thing that Cruz values most of all – the greater glorification of all things Ted Cruz.