1860: Big
Trouble
The
Knights of the Golden Circle shrouded their activites in
secrecy, as in this coded message. Their initiation rites
asserted, "There was never a republic that maintained
its integrity longer than it maintained its slave institutions
and a conquest policy."
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Texas
was a cotton state and wholly Southern in its attitudes about
slavery. Many of the most prominent planters and politicians in
the state were openly secessionist. Also working for secession
was a shadowy group called the Knights of the Golden Circle. The
Knights were for a Southern confederacy that would expand aggressively
into Mexico and the Caribbean, creating a vast agricultural empire
that would supply world markets with cotton, rice, sugar, and
coffee. The Knights actually tried to mount an invasion of Mexico
in the spring of 1860, but it collapsed from ineptitude as soon
as it began.
With
their secret society and grandiose ambitions, the Knights might
have seemed like a joke, but Sam Houston knew better. National
events were conspiring to fuel secession fever. Abraham Lincoln,
the Republican candidate committed to stopping the expansion of
slavery into the territories, appeared likely to win the 1860
presidential election. If that happened, Houston knew that at
least some of the Southern states would leave the Union.
How
could he prevent Texas from being one of them? Houston moved in
several directions. Ever the schemer, he took a page from the
Knights’ book and hatched a plan to establish a protectorate
over Mexico. Houston hoped Texans would rather go adventuring
against their old enemy than fight their fellow Americans. If
worse came to worst, he could lead a charge to reestablish the
Republic of Texas rather than let Texas join the proposed Confederacy.
On a more concrete level, Houston prepared for possible unrest
by secessionists by beefing up the Texas Rangers and stacking
the officer corps with Unionists loyal to himself.
If
Houston’s machinations ever had a chance, they went up in
smoke on July 8, 1860. That day, a series of mysterious fires
broke out in North Texas. A blaze destroyed downtown Dallas. The
same day, fire destroyed half of Denton’s town square, and
a store in Pilot Point burned down. Fires were reported in Kaufman,
Waxahachie, and other towns. In the aftermath, a Dallas newspaper
editor, Charles R. Pryor, leveled the accusation that “certain
negroes” had confessed to a conspiracy to launch a slave
uprising that would make the legendary Nat Turner’s rebellion
look like child’s play. The masterminds behind the plot
were two white abolitionist preachers who had been whipped out
of town the previous year.
Pryor’s
sensational allegations were published in newspapers across the
state. Rumor spread that the slaves and abolitionists had planned
to add mass murder, poisonings, and rapes to the arson. In an
outbreak of mob justice that became known as the “Texas
Troubles,” alarmed Texans formed committees to search for
and punish blacks and whites who might have participated in the
conspiracy. At least 30 people are known to have been hanged by
the vigilantes, though the actual number may have been as high
as 100. One of the preachers, a Methodist minister named Anthony
Bewley, was pursued all the way to Missouri by a posse, brought
back to Texas and hanged, and his bones displayed and given to
children for playthings.
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| In
this document, Travis County Sheriff John T. Price reports
on the capture of a black man named Shipley, appraised at
$1200. |
In
this letter to Sam Houston, James Cox of Coxville near Bastrop
is pleased to note that "The villains, horse thieves,
and abolitionists are yielding up the Ghost rather in a
hurry." |
As
word spread of the Texas Troubles, offers of help began
to pour in from other Southern states. |
By
September, the panic had played itself out. But the damage was
done. Kansas-style violence had come to Texas. Most Texans were
now convinced that abolitionists and their Republican overlords
would stop at nothing to hurt the slave states, even encouraging
blacks to rise up and kill their masters. Many Texans felt that
secession was the only way to keep themselves, their families,
and their property safe.
Neither Pryor nor anyone else ever produced any evidence against
slaves or white abolitionists for the July 8 fires. The cause
of the fires is still unknown. Many historians believe they may
have been accidental, caused by the effects of extreme summer
heat and improper storage of highly unstable phosphorous matches,
which had just been introduced.
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