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Period: Sep 20, 1500 to Dec 25, 1500
1500's
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Nov 5, 1528
Cabeza de Vaca
Cabeza de Vaca crashed the ship on Galveston Island. After trading for some six years, he later explored the Texas interior on his way to Mexico. was a Spanish explorer of the New World, one of four survivors of the Narváez expedition. He is remembered as a proto-anthropologist for his detailed accounts of the many tribes of American Indians, first published in 1542 as La Relación (The Report),was a brave explorer, and later known as Naufragios (Shipwrecks). -
Apr 20, 1540
Coronado
In search of the Seven Cities of Cibola, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado lead an expedition into the southwestern United States and across northern Texas. Francisco Vasquez de Coronado was among the very first of this long line of fortune seekers in Texas. Coronado was born at Salamanca, Spain in 1510. -
Period: to
1600's
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La Salle
Robert Cavelier, Sieur de LaSalle 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. Already well known as an explorer and fur trader in Canada, Rene Robert Cavelier, Sieur de LaSalle wound his way in 1682 down the Mississippi, claiming the entire Mississippi watershed in the name of France. -
Period: to
1700's
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Austin's Grant
Stephen F. Austin received a gift of land from the Mexican government and began colonization in the region of the Brazos River. Stephen F. Austin was a native of Virginia. He was raised in southeastern Missouri, Stephen Fuller Austin is considered the founder of Anglo-American Texas. At the age of eleven years, he attended school in Connecticut and later graduated with distinction from Transylvania University in Kentucky. -
Mexican Independence
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. -
Battle at Gonzales
Texans repulsed a detachment of Mexican cavalry at the Battle of Gonzales. The revolution began.
Leading up to the conflict, the Mexican authorities sent a force of about 100 men to repossess a cannon that had been provided the residents of Gonzales for defense against Indians. In response to the Mexican force, the Texans, under Colonels John H. Moore and J. W. E. Wallace, loaded the cannon with scrap iron, aimed at the Mexicans, and fired the shot that began the revolution. The battle flag use -
Battle of Alamo
After losing San Antonio to the Texans during the Siege of Bexar, Mexican General Santa Anna determined to retake this key location and at the same time impress upon the Texans the futility of further resistance to Mexican rule. -
Runaway Scrape Begins
The Runaway Scrape is the period in early 1836 generally beginning with the Siege and Fall of the Alamo and ending with the Battle of San Jacinto on April 21. It was a period of terror and panic among the settlements of Texas, as Santa Anna and the Mexican armies swept eastward from San Antonio, virtually unopposed. -
Massacre at Goliad
The Massacre at Goliad of 1835 ended when George Collingsworth, Ben Milam, and forty-nine other Texans stormed the presidio at Goliad and a small detachment of Mexican defenders. -
Battle at San Jacinto
The Battle of San Jacinto, fought on April 21, 1836, in present-day Harris County, Texas, was the decisive battle of the Texas Revolution. Led by General Sam Houston, the Texian Army engaged and defeated General Antonio López de Santa Anna's Mexican forces in a fight that lasted just eighteen minutes. About 630 of the Mexican soldiers were killed and 730 captured, while only nine Texans died.[ -
Texas Joins United States
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 Secedes and joins the Confederacy
The U.S. state of Texas declared its secession from the United States on February 1, 1861, and joined the Confederate States of America on March 2, 1861, replacing its governor, Sam Houston, when he refused to take an oath of allegiance to the Confederacy. During the subsequent American Civil War, Texas was mainly a "supply state" for the Confederate forces until mid-1863, when the Union capture of the Mississippi River. -
Battle of Galveston- the Bayou City
After several weeks of Federal occupation of Texas' most important seaport, the Battle of Galveston restored the island to Texas control for remainder of Civil War. Two Confederate cottonlands, CS Bayou City and CS Neptune, sailed from Houston to Galveston Harbor.The Neptune was harshly damaged and eventually sunk. The Union blockade was lifted for four days. Galveston remained under Confederate territory for the remainder of the Civil War. -
Period: to
1800's
