-
he became the first European that sailed from a base in Jamaica to become the first to map the Texas gulf coast. Although it would take another nine years before the Spaniards explorers the Texas interior. -
Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca was the first to set foot on land and shipwrecked on what is believed today to be Galveston Island. After trading in the region for some six years, he later explored the Texas interior on his way to Mexico. -
Francisco Vasquez de Coronado led an expedition into the present southwestern United States and across northern Texas. Spanish explorer of the North American Southwest whose expeditions resulted in the discovery of many physical landmarks, including the Grand Canyon, but who failed to find the treasure-laden cities he sought. -
(February 18, 1685) - Robert cavalier and Sieur de LaSalle had established Fort St Louis at Matagorda Bay and formed the basis for France’s claim to Texas. Two years later, Lasalle was murdered by his own men. -
During an expedition planned to reestablish Spanish presence in Texas, Mexican explorer Alonso de Leon reached Fort St. Louis and found it abandoned. The fort was originally was established in 1685 by explorer Robert Cavelier de La Salle during the French colonization of Texas. -
The Gutierrez-Magee Expedition with about 130-men, crossed the Sabine River from Louisiana in a rebel movement against Spanish rule in Texas. -
Jean Laffite occupied Galveston Island and used it as a base for his smuggling and privateering operation to interrupted his illicit adventures to fight heroically for the United States in defense of New Orleans in the War of 1812. -
Stephen F. Austin received a grant from the Mexican government to lead roughly 300 families to the Brazos River to begin colonization in the region. -
The Constitution of 1824 gave Mexico a republican form of government. It failed, however, to define the rights of the states within the republic, including Texas -
Relations between the Texans and Mexico reached a new low when Mexico forbid further emigration into Texas by settlers from the United States. During the Texas Revolution, there was a convention of American Texans meeting at Washington on the Brazos and declaring the Independence of Texas from Mexico. David Burnet was chosen by the delegates to be the provisional president and Sam Houston as commander in chief of all Texan forces. -
The Convention of 1832 was the first political gathering of colonists in Mexican Texas. Delegates sought reforms from the Mexican government and hoped to quell the widespread belief that settlers in Texas wished to secede from Mexico. -
The Battle of Velasco resulted in the first casualties in Texas’ relations with Mexico. After several days of fighting, the Mexicans under Domingo de Ugartechea were forced to surrender for lack of ammunition. -
The convention petitioned anew for repeal of the anti-immigration section of the Law of April 6, 1830, asked for more adequate Indian defense, judicial reform, and improvement in mail service, sought tariff exemption, and passed resolutions prohibiting African slave traffic into Texas. -
Texans drove back troops of the Mexican cavalry at the Battle of Gonzales. The revolution began. The rebel attack foundered at the outset, but the pluck of the Confederate naval commander won the battle. -
The Goliad Campaign of 1835 ended when George Collingsworth, Ben Milam, and forty-nine other Texans stormed the presidio at Goliad and a small troop of Mexican defenders. -
Jim Bowie, James Fannin, and 90 Texans defeated 450 Mexicans at the Battle of Concepcion, near San Antonio. -
The Consultation met to consider options for the more autonomous rule for Texas. A document known as the Organic Law outlined the organization and functions of a new Provisional Government. -
The Texas Declaration of Independence was signed by members of the Convention of 1836. An ad interim government was formed for the newly created Republic of Texas. -
Texans under Col. William B. Travis were overwhelmed by the Mexican army after a two-week siege at the Battle of the Alamo in San Antonio. The Runaway Scrape began. -
In what may be the most important event in Texas history, Texans under Sam Houston routed the Mexican forces of Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto. Thus, independence was won in one of the most decisive battles in history. The victory at San Jacinto gave Texas its independence from Mexico and opened the door for the continued westward expansion of the United States. The United States annexed Texas in 1845, which led directly to the Mexican-American War -
The Texas Congress first met in Austin, the frontier site selected for the capital of the Republic. In 1837, the president of the Republic of Texas, Sam Houston, moved the capital to Houston. Before that, five different cities served as temporary capitals. -
The Battle of Plum Creek, near present-day Lockhart, ended the boldest and most penetrating Comanche challenge to the Texas Republic -
The Texan Santa Fe Expedition set out for New Mexico. Near Sante Fe, they were intercepted by Mexican forces and marched 2000 miles to prison in Mexico City. -
Under orders of Sam Houston, officials arrived in Austin to remove the records of the Republic of Texas to the city of Houston, touching off the bloodless Archives War. -
Seventeen Texans were executed in what became known as the Black Bean Episode, which resulted from the Mier Expedition, one of several raids by the Texans into Mexico -
U. S. President James Polk followed through on a campaign platform promising to annex Texas and signed legislation making Texas the 28th state of the United States. Texas entered the United States as a slave state, broadening the irrepressible differences in the United States over the issue of slavery and setting off the Mexican-American War. -
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that brought an official end to the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), was signed on February 2, 1848, at Guadalupe Hidalgo, a city north of the capital where the Mexican government had fled with the advance of U.S. forces. Mexico gave up all claims to Texas and to have recognition of the Rio Grande as America’s southern boundary -
In a plan to settle boundary disputes and pay her public debt, Texas relinquished about one-third of her territory in the Compromise of 1850, in exchange for $10,000,000 from the United States. The Southern states was panicking that the balance of slave and free slaves would be upset that they would have more number in the Senate. The Abolitionist movement was gaining with the North and no one knows what happened with the new free states upsetting the balance. -
A state convention in 1861 voted 166-8 in favor of secession. A measure that was then ratified by a popular vote, making Texas the seventh state to secede from the Union. After the Civil War, Texas was readmitted to the Union in 1870. -
After several weeks of Federal occupation of Texas’ most important seaport, the Battle of Galveston restored the island to Texas control for the remainder of the Civil War. -
The Mexican-American War ignited as a result of disputes over claims to Texas boundaries. The outcome of the war fixed Texas’ southern boundary at the Rio Grande River. The treaty was defeated in the US Senate since it would upset the slave state and free state balance between the North and South while they had a risk war with Mexico which they broke off relations with the United States. -
The last land engagement of the Civil War was fought at the Battle of Palmito Ranch in far south Texas, more than a month after Gen. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, VA. San Jacinto gave Texas its independence from Mexico and opened the door for the continued westward expansion of the United States. The United States annexed Texas in 1845, which led directly to the Mexican-American War -
a Category 4 hurricane with winds up to 130 miles per hour pummeled Galveston, Texas, killing more than 8,000 people and destroying the once-thriving city. It remains the deadliest natural disaster in United States history.