Spirit of the American Frontier

Alcohol was an important element in the settling of the frontier and the American West. Alcohol served to cement alliances between European nations and Native Americans, as well as serving as a conduit for trade. It served to relieve pain, boredom, and thirst on many different American frontiers. It also led to extreme violence and early death for some. Although rum and brandy were the initial beverages available on the earliest frontiers, it did not take long for liquor made from corn to become the "spirit" of the American frontier.

Why corn? Corn was ubiquitous in America. It grew everywhere and was a major component in the diet of Native Americans, colonists, and their African slaves. Native Americans probably fermented some types of beverages from native fruits and plants like all other indigenous peoples throughout the world. Though evidence is scant, a weak type of corn beer may have been part of the diet of many Native American tribes. Some tribes may have had no types of fermented beverages which may explain why they were quickly addicted to West Indian Rum and French Brandy. Even if they did have some types of alcoholic drinks, they were quickly abandoned after the discovery of the stronger, better-tasting European spirits including spirits made with corn.

Another factor in why corn was a favorite had to do with logistics. Corn was not an easy product to haul to market from the frontier. Instead of taking 10 carts of corn to market, the early American settler could convert his product to alcohol and send one cart of whiskey to the market and make considerable profit. And so, early colonists began to experiment with corn to see if they could produce a good tasting alcoholic beverage with it that helped to provide a drinking potable for the colonists who did not have a fresh, clean water supply.



In a 1682 travel narrative Thomas Ashe described an early forerunner to American corn-based distillations when he wrote that the South Carolina settlers “have lately invented a way of making it good sound Beer, but it’s strong and heady: By Maceration, when duly fermented, a strong Spirit like Brandy may be drawn off from it, by help of an Alembick.” An Alembick was an early type of still. This method of distilling the beverage along with the further refinements of adding additional grains such as rye, wheat, and barley would eventually give way to the American Bourbon industry that was to cast its shadow from its origins in Bourbon County, Kentucky to the shores of the Pacific.


It was the Scotch-Irish who also brought their own experience and technologies to America that helped to spark a revolution in American distilling. Many frontiersmen took this spark to the frontier. And in the late 1700’s, American settlers in the “dark and bloody” lands of Kaintuck set about turning their corn into whiskey for sale in distant markets. One of them, Reverend Elijah Craig, was an independent Baptist preacher who had spent some time in a South Carolina jail because he did not have an Episcopal ordination from the Anglican establishment. Craig, moved to Bourbon County to practice his religion freely. He owned a corn mill there. One day a fire broke out and charred the inside of some of his oak barrels which he used to age and ship his corn whiskey. Not wanting to be wasteful he used the barrels to ship his product to New Orleans. After the long trip the whiskey had mellowed to a smoother and richer flavor. People started calling this product Bourbon because it was from Bourbon County, Kentucky. The end result was it became an American frontier favorite.

When I visited Kentucky earlier this year I visited the Woodford Distillery. The history of the distillery began in 1812 and the distillery building (1834) is one of the oldest buildings of nine working distiliries in Kentucky and the site is now a National Historic Landmark. Today a super-premium bourbon named Woodford Reseeve is produced there. It is the official bourbon of the Kentucky Derby.

The smell of "corn beer" before it is distilled is wonderful

Mint Juleps are made from bourbon, sugar and mint leaves. The Mint Julep is thought of as the classic Southern American cocktail and naturally it is made with Bourbon Whiskey. It is also the drink of the ultimate horse race: the Kentucky Derby. The Mint Julep's origins are from the Middle East where “julab” the Arab word for rose water became julep in most western languages. The drink’s ancestors appeared in England during the 1400’s as concoctions of sugar, water, and herbs or plants. These were used in non-alcoholic combinations mainly for medicinal purposes. Later alcohol was added. Rum, whiskey, and brandy were favorites. This drink was brought to the American colonies. Instead of rum and brandy, corn whiskey was used. There was also the adaptation in the colonies of adding mint leaves to the drink. Good bourbon soon followed, replacing the corn whiskey and became its main ingredient. In 1845, a South Carolinian named William Heyward Trapier reintroduced juleps to the students attending Oxford University in England when he found out they were unfamiliar with them. Since then, Oxford University has toasted has name and celebrated “Mint Julep Day” on June 1st every year.

Bourbon is still made today at places like Woodford Reserve in traditional small batches. I encourage you to sometime soon imbibe on the spirit of America’s frontier.

Andy Thomas

Sources used:
The South Carolina quotation is from Narratives of Early Carolina, edited by Alexander S. Salley, 1911

Bourbon Whiskey: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourbon_whiskey


Woodford Distillery: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodford_Reserve


Mint Julep:
http://www.oxfordtimes.co.uk/leisureold/1636158.mint_julep_recipe/?act=login

See the West without leaving the South

I recently took a trip to the Booth Western Art Museum. It is a spectacular little jewel of an art museum in Cartersville, Georgia. It is the second largest art museum in the state of Georgia behind the High Museum in Atlanta. It has works of art and sculpture from some of the most famous artists who have depicted the American West. There are paintings and sculptures from such famous artists as George Catlin, Albert Bierstadt, Charles Russell, Fredrick Remington, and Thomas Moran on display there. There is also a section devoted to Civil War and Presidential paintings and portraits. Another section is devoted to poster art created for Western movies. Modern contemporary Western art, scupture, and Native American art and artifacts are also on display.



This museum is the only one of its kind in the South. It is an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution. If you are traveling to Atlanta some time soon, check it out. It is only about 45 minutes away and it really is a treat be able to see the West in the South.

Andy Thomas

See the Museum website at: http://www.boothmuseum.org/

A Siesta Costs Mexico the Land of Texas

Sorry for the hiatus. I hope to post several new blogs over the next month.

The resent oil spill tragedy in the Gulf reminded me of a trip I took to West Texas in May 2004 with my brother Jim. We visited the Guadalupe Mountains, Big Bend, and White Sands. On the way back home we stopped in Houston, Texas to visit the site of the Battle of San Jacinto. As we approached the site the smell of petroleum assaulted our noses. The battle site sits near massive fuel storage tanks and refineries on the low, flat, grassy Texas lowlands. This region of Texas has always been a major player in our country’s oil industry as well as many other industries since becoming a part of the United States. The Gulf spill is a tragedy and it remains to be seen how this will impact Texas and the other areas of the Gulf. The same could have been said of Texas itself. Before becoming a state, Texas existed as an independent republic. This “Lone Star” republic won its independence from Mexico. That independence was won in 1836 at the Battle of San Jacinto which sits very close to the Gulf shores of Texas. But no one then knew Texas would become a state and a key state at that.

One of the heroes of winning Texas independence was John Coker. John Coker was originally from South Carolina. He had been born in 1789 in Laurens County, South Carolina and he moved to Texas in 1834 with his father to settle on lands in Stephen F. Austin’s colonies. He was a blacksmith and joined the Texas army in 1836.

In April 1836, General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, conqueror of the Alamo, made a tactical mistake as he chased General Sam Houston’s army in hopes of battling it and destroying it. Santa Anna was far ahead of his supply lines and he wandered into the maze of waterways and bayous along the Texas coast. On April 21, 1836 the two armies stood close to each other near the site of San Jacinto. They both stood on a maze of lands cut by rivers and waterways. One of the nearest was Vince’s Bayou over which a bridge existed that both armies would have to use to retreat or reinforce.

General Sam Houston

A comrade of John Coker’s, Young Perry Alsbury reported that Coker mused while on horseback looking out at the bridge over Vince’s Bayou, "Boys, before many hours we will have one of the damndest, bloodiest fights that ever was fought and I believe it would be a good plan to go and burn that bridge so as not only to impede the advance of reinforcements of the enemy, but it will cut off all chance of retreat of either party.” This remark was taken by his commander Deaf Smith to Houston. Houston agreed to send Smith and a 6 man team, including Coker, to destroy the bridge and cut off escape or reinforcements for both armies. Coker and his companions burned the bridge.

Surrender of Santa Anna

Meanwhile, Santa Anna and his men retreated to their afternoon siesta, thinking that the battle that would occur here would take place at dawn during the following day. And Santa Anna failed to post sentries. This intelligence was taken back to Sam Houston. Houston’s generals, however, urged him to wait to attack the Mexicans the following day. But Houston would have none of it. When news of the destroyed bridge reached the Texas army, Houston led his men in a surprise charge forward against the unprepared Mexican troops. In 18 minutes the battle was over. The Mexican army had been routed to the shouts of “Remember Goliad” or “Remember the Alamo.” 700 Mexican soldiers had died and 730 were captured. This battle assured the independence of Texas. Only 9 Texas soldiers were killed. The next day, Santa Anna was captured and made to agree to a peace treaty and Texas became a Republic. A little siesta had cost Mexico the lands of Texas.

John Coker settled in Bexar County in 1841 and ended up founding the Coker community in San Antonio on lands granted him as a veteran. He died on January 4, 1861. Today the site of the battlefield has a monument and a museum worth the stop. The white tower monument rises high above the Texas low lands. The museum has a fascinating collection of documents and artifacts telling the story of Texas independence. It was an independence important to the history of the United States. You just have to get past the smell of oil on your visit.

Andy Thomas

Sources Used to Write This Blog:

Wikipedia articles on John Coker and the Battle of San Jacinto. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Coker

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_San_Jacinto

The Handbook of Texas Online articles on John Coker and the Battle of San Jacinto. See:

http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/CC/fcodz.html

http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/SS/qes4.html

South Carolina's First Frontier River Town

In 1697 the South Carolina frontier was only a couple of miles outside the gates of the English settlement of Charles Town. In that year a group of Massachusetts Puritan settlers and missionaries led by the Reverend Joseph Lord founded the town of Dorchester on the banks of the Ashley River. It was more than 20 miles from Charles Town and helped to push back the Carolina frontier to the north and the west. The new town was laid out like a New England town with small lots that were distributed by a lottery system. A Puritan Congregational church was built and it was called the Old White Meeting House. The Puritans used the name of their old congregation in Massachusetts, Dorchester, to name their new town. Native Americans, who had established an overland trade path from the Middle and Upper Savannah River regions before these newcomers arrived, used the site, at the practical head of navigable waters on the Ashley River, as a jumping off point to make the river-bound trip to Charles Town. They called the site of the Dorchester settlement Boo-shoo-ee whose meaning is now lost to history.

The location of Dorchester on the frontier brought it both prosperity and hardship. Because of the commerce with Native Americans and plantation owners the river easily sustained the town for many decades. It became the hub for the early Indian trade. Native Americans and traders used the town to make transactions, usually by barter, and to move deerskins as well as themselves to and from the frontier and Charles Town. A wharf was built to accommodate canoes, and boats from the coast that brought in such products as rice and trade goods and shipped out such products as cane baskets and deerskins. A boat, known as a common boat and used for the Indian trade was used by the townspeople. This was a large canoe or periauger rowed by 7 or 8 slaves. It could carry as many as 500 to 700 deerskins to Charles Town. Later Fort Moore on the Savannah River, near current day North Augusta, and other towns that sprang up in the backcountry in the years that followed would drain away the deerskin trade, but for a long time Dorchester served as a main trade nexus and gateway to the Carolina frontier.

Rice cultivation also became an important means of enterprise in the 1730’s and 1740’s in Dorchester and surrounding areas. Because of this, indigo production, and the production of naval stores, more and more slaves came to live at Dorchester. In fact Africans outnumbered Europeans at least 3 to 1 by the 1750’s. These large numbers were hard to control and many slaves here ran off as evidenced by newspaper ads found in local colonial newspapers.

By 1752 the New England Puritan settlers had been overrun by other settlers who were mostly Anglican. In addition, these settlers' and the newcomer’s needs for large tracts of land to grow both rice and indigo were limited by the small lot system in the town. Most of the Puritans left the area to establish another town in Georgia. Many others left, but the town continued to flourish for several more decades with traders, planters, artisans, and slaves. An English traveler described Dorchester in 1774 as “a pretty good sized town.”It was during this time of prosperity that a large Anglican church, known as St George Parish Church was built. The solid brick tower of that church remains today.

With the danger of the French and Indian war, the British government built a powder magazine and a tabby wall fort to protect the magazine in Dorchester in 1757. The fort overlooked the river and was meant to stop either a French or Native American invasion force from using the Ashley River to attack Charles Town from behind. The remains of the fort are impressive and can still be seen today.

The Revolutionary War also created havoc for the town. The fort was turned into a military depot for the patriots. Fighters like Francis Marion operated from the fort and town throughout the war. Several skirmishes took place near the town. The British captured the fort for a while and occupied it until they were defeated and run out by Colonel Wade Hampton and General Nathanael Greene. Because of the devastation and turmoil of the war as well as the inexorable shift of the frontier to the north and west the town never recovered after the Revolutionary War. You can visit what remains today at Old Dorchester State Park to see reminders of what was South Carolina's first frontier river town.

Andy Thomas

Sources used to write this blog:

http://www.knowitall.org/sandlapper/Winter-2005/Completed_PDFs/Dorchester.pdf

http://www.myschistory.com/dorchester-state-park.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Lord

Where is Lewis (& Clark) When You Need Them?

It was getting dark and late and Karen and I were arguing on which way to go. We had been searching all that winter afternoon in December 2008 for roads that would take us to an elusive historical marker. We had already travelled our share of lonely two lane roads and winding dirt roads. Both of us had just about had enough. We came to a crossroads and argued on which way to go. In the end, we choose a direction that we later found out took us away from our desired destination.

We were trying to reach a historical marker that stood about a mile from the site of Captain John Marks home. The home’s site sat on a ridge overlooking Millstone Creek, a small rivulet that feeds the Broad River in Georgia. The site is difficult to get to but the marker is within a mile of its location. John Marks was a Revolutionary war veteran and the stepfather to Meriwether Lewis, the famous American explorer. He married Lewis’s mother Lucy in 1780 after her husband died of pneumonia the year before. In 1785-1787, when Lewis was eight or nine years old, he and his mother and siblings came south from Virginia traveling through North and South Carolina to go live with John Marks on the Georgia frontier. They migrated to a spot on the Broad River near today’s Elberton, Georgia in eastern Oglethorpe County. I had read about a marker and seen a picture of the marker (with this guys motorcycle parked in front of it) on an internet site and I had tried to contact the person who had posted it but was unsuccessful. He had given directions to the marker on the website, but they were unclear. That day, Karen and I set out to find it we stopped at a county gas station in the area and asked the guy behind the counter if he could help us find Goose Pond, which was near the place where the marker was erected. He hesitated and then told us that, “the roads are notoriously bad there.” He said he could not help us to find it even though he had lived in the area all his life. Little did I know what he meant by “bad.” Karen and I pressed on for a little while longer, but finally, Karen and I, made our fateful decision at the crossroads and, unsuccessful, we turned back toward Columbia, a two hour plus ride.







Once home, I decided to be "smart" and consult Map Quest on the Internet. On Map Quest the crossroads led in one direction toward Millstone Road which we had travelled and in the other direction, which unbeknown to us at the time, was Goose Pond Road. Today the area is called Goose Pond because there was a pond there where wild goose gathered in colonial times. The area had been ceded by the Creek and Cherokee Indians in 1773. General George Mathews of Augusta County, Virginia had petitioned the Georgia government for land there he had spied after serving in Georgia during the Revolution. He found the soil rich and he also saw many opportunities for making a living. He called for other Virginians to follow him south to Georgia. These Virginians established the prosperous community of Goose Pond for several decades after the Revolution. John Marks heard the call and decided to go south. The young Meriwether Lewis joined him and lived here for several years. Lewis learned to hunt and became an accomplished hunter here. A family friend said of him that, “He acquired in youth hardy habits and a firm construction. He possessed in the highest degree self-possession in danger.”According to Stephen Ambrose in Undaunted Courage, he learned to identify trees, bushes, shrubs, grasses, and various fishes, animals, birds, and insects. It was during this period that he became literate and started to read and write. But this rough, wild region did not have teachers who could give him the education he or his parents desired and so he was sent back to Virginia for that.

I made a second attempt, alone, at finding Goose Pond in January 2009. It was a Saturday that the sky had decided to rain cats and dogs. I hit the road early and battled raindrops all the way to the crossroads. I was happy. I was convinced I was going to see the marker once I turned onto Goose Pond Road. How could I miss it? The paved road faded to muddy dirt. I followed this road for about a mile. The road seemed to get worse as the rain beat down on my Durango. Then, in front of me was the reason that the roads in Goose Pond were “notoriously bad”. In front of me a flood of rushing water had buried the road. It was white, frothy, and angry looking as brown water flowed over the road. Was this a washed out bridge? How deep was it? I considered trying to cross it but kept seeing images of those “brilliant” people who also tried to cross roads with rushing waters in front of them and remembered with a shiver how their vehicles always seemed to be whisked away by the powerful force of the rushing waters. I had to turn around and get back to the main road. Even that seemed tricky. And so, I carefully backed up and turned around the best I could avoiding the rapidly filling ditches on either side of me and once again made my way back to Columbia in a grey, pounding rain.

Meriwether Lewis went on to receive his education in Virginia. He returned to Georgia several times afterward but sometime near 1792, Captain Marks passed away and Lewis moved his mother and all of her children, slaves, animals, and possessions back to Virginia never to return again.

I made one last attempt at finding the elusive marker. It was December 2009. Once again, I was on the dirt road. Karen was with me. It was sunny and dry. Where the waters had run the year before was a crude bridge crossing a rushing creek or steam. Was this Millstone Creek? Once again, we wandered for miles up this dirt road, known as Goose Pond Road, searching for the marker. Once again, like Brigadoon, the maker eluded us. Three strikes and you are out! Where is Lewis (& Clark) when you need them?






So, any lessons learned? Better planning? GPS? Better directions? All of those are true and need be applied but even more, what I really, learned on my trips to Goose Pond was how wild and untamed this country still is. Yes, there are roads. But in this small area of the South you can still see how it could challenge those who settled here. It was even wilder in Lewis’s day. He had a good laboratory to find out about what a frontier was all about. He learned to hunt. He learned to identify plants and animals. There is no doubt this formative time helped him in the challenges that the Lewis and Clark expedition posed. It sure gave me some real insight into his past. I really look forward to visiting, seeing, and blogging about more Lewis and Clark sites. I just hope they are not as hard to find as the elusive marker for John Marks site.






Andy Thomas

Sources used in writing this blog:

Undaunted Courage by Stephen E. Ambrose

Article on Goose Pond in The New Georgia Encyclopedia: http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?path=/HistoryArchaeology/RevolutionaryEra/Places-4&id=h-2877

Article on the John Marks site in Athens Banner-Herald: http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/070603/fea_20030706072.shtml

The Battle of Horseshoe Bend: Hidden Gem in the Story of Saga of the American West

Today the approach to the site does not seem significant. It is tucked away in a typical rural, agricultural Southern landscape. There are scattered houses and trailers among the pines on a two lane black top Alabama road. A local fire station I passed was conducting a fund raiser barbeque when I visited the site back in the late 1990’s. The National Park was quite. It was a hot, sleepy summer afternoon. I think Karen and I were the only visitors at the time. The field of battle is just that - a field. It is not very impressive, and yet, this place was one of those places which continued the saga of the American West . The events here moved populations and changed fortunes. The events set Americans even more in motion and even more on a westward march.

The Red Sticks were a part of the Upper Creek nation in Alabama who had been inspired by the teachings of Tecumseh. This Shawnee prophet had travelled around to various native groups seeking Native American unity in order to stand up to the destructive forces of European culture and settlement. He preached the doctrine of maintaining traditional Native American ways and holding onto Native American lands. Both ideas resonated with many Native Americans but lacking any ally to achieve such goals against the technological and demographically superior numbers of European-Americans seemed impossible. That is, until the War of 1812 broke out. The British made overtures to Native Americans and offered hope in achieving Tecumseh’s program. The British talked about preserving Native American lands and holding off the tide of American expansion. Tecumseh was a staunch British ally and called for others to support his position against the Americans. A large part of the Upper Creek nation joined him and became known as the Red Sticks because of their red painted war clubs.

The Red Stick faction sought supplies and arms from the Spanish in Florida to fight for their own as well as British aims. Raids by American militia men to stop this alliance touched off the short lived Creek War of 1813-1814. In retaliation for a deadly raid against warriors returning with supplies and arms from Pensacola, Florida, the Creeks sweep down on Fort Mims near Mobile, Alabama. They killed many men as well as women and children who had sought safety in this American frontier fort. Over a hundred more were taken as hostages. These events shook the old Southwestern frontier. In response militia men from Tennessee, Georgia, and the Mississippi Territory launched an attack on the Red Sticks. The governor of Tennessee appointed South Carolina’s own backswoods man Andrew Jackson, who had moved to Tennessee as a young man, as commander of the West Tennessee militia and he was sent to deal with the threat. In the following months Jackson fought a hard winter campaign against the Red Sticks in the trackless woods of frontier Alabama.


Meanwhile, the Creeks gathered and readied their forces at a bend of the Tallapoosa River in east central Alabama. This bend formed a meandering horseshoe shaped peninsular with a slight rise running down the peninsular’s center. Over 1,350 Creek men, women, and children gathered here looking for protection and shelter. 1000 Red Stick warriors prepared to defend this site if attacked. When Jackson heard about it from his scouts he aggressively marched toward the site. 2,600 European Americans and another 600 friendly Native Americans (Choctaw, Cherokee, and even dissenting Creeks) made up Jackson’s force.

The Battle of Horseshoe Bend took place on March 27, 1814. Jackson started with an artillery barrage on the Red Sticks position which was on the rise behind a hastily constructed wooden breastworks made of logs and trees. The barrage was followed by a bayonet charge against the breastworks. Sam Houston, future governor of both Tennessee and Texas, as well as future president of the Lone Star Republic served as a third lieutenant under Andrew Jackson. He made the charge and was one of the first men to get over the barricade. In the process he received an arrow wound which would trouble him for the rest of his life. But he made it over and hundred more soon followed. The battle was fierce and lasted over five hours. Eventually Jackson’s men came to gain the field. 550 Red Sticks were killed on the field. Another 250 were killed trying to escape in the river. About 200 did escape over to the other side of the river and moved south to look for refuge with the Seminole Indians in Florida. Only about 50 of Jackson’s men had been killed.




The victory was significant for a couple of reasons. In August, 1814 Jackson and chiefs from the Creek nation signed the Treaty of Fort Jackson. The Creeks ceded 23 million acres of land (half of the state of Alabama as well as significant parts of southern Georgia) to the United States government. This in turned opened these lands up to settlement as the Creeks were pushed further and further West and in their place came hordes of American settlers. These same scenes would be repeated on frontier after frontier in America as Native American were dispossessed and their lands became available for settlement. In Alabama and Georgia the population of 9,000 Americans in 1810 grew to 310,000 Americans in 1830. Many of these new settlers came from the South, including South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, and older portions of Georgia. They moved from lands made unproductive by decades of cotton farming into new virgin lands just ripe for this crop. They brought cotton culture and slavery to this area of the new Southwest. What was left of the Creeks were first pushed into Western Arkansas and Tennessee and then were eventually moved even further west to Oklahoma during the period of Indian removal. Andrew Jackson initiated this mass movement of Native Americans including the infamous Cherokee Trail of Tears to make the lands on the east side of the Mississippi “safe” for white Americans and their slaves. Some of these men would latter follow the Creeks and other Native Americans even further West seeking new lands and new fortunes.


The other significance of the battle was the fame that Andrew Jackson received from this victory as well as his more famous victory in New Orleans. This fame would help to catapult him to the United States presidency in 1728. Jackson’s youth on the South Carolina frontier, and then later the Tennessee frontier, and beyond shaped his views of Native Americans and his policies of Indian removal. The old lands of the Southwest were swiftly transformed into the new lands of the South when the Creeks and other tribes were removed. Cotton and slavery made fortunes for those who settled them. Because of the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, Alabama and southern Georgia were reshaped into the image of the older coastal South. This set the stage for future transformations in the lands to the West of this as settlers continued to push further and further in that direction. Today the battlefield of Horseshoe Bend looks like a big grass field. The secret of its significance to American, Southern, and Western history, however, is currently in the commonplace of its familiar Southern countryside. This landscape was set in place by the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. The “new world” created by this battle led eventually to the further expansion and settlement of newly opened lands West of the bend in the Tallapoosa River. Southern history blended into Western history. That’s the secret of this big field of grass.

Andy Thomas

Sources Used to Write This Blog:


The Battle of Horseshoe Bend: Collision of Cultures, by Virginia Horak, Teaching with Historic Places: the National Park Service at: http://www.nps.gov/nr/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/54horseshoe/54about.htm

Battle of Horseshoe Bend, by Ove Jensen, Encyclopedia of Alabama at: http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-1044

Battle of Horseshoe Bend on U-S-History.com at: http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1128.html

Battle of Horseshoe Bend (1814) on Wikipedia at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Horseshoe_Bend

The Original Maverick

Sam Maverick.

http://www.tamu.edu/ccbn/dewitt/images/mavericksam.jpg

Sam Maverick was the original “maverick.” His name would come to embrace the name of a Texas county, unbranded cattle, and free-thinking individuals. He would help in the creation of the Texas Republic, its annexation by the United States, and would become one of the largest land owners in Texas in the 1850’s and 1860’s. Maverick was born in 1803, the year that the Lewis and Clark expedition set out from St. Louis to find an all-water route to the Pacific. His birthplace was in Pendleton, South Carolina in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains near today’s Clemson University. His father was a successful land speculator acquiring lands in South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama. Sam spent his early years growing up in Charleston and Pendleton. In 1822 he enrolled in college at Yale. He graduated four years later in 1825 and moved back to Pendleton to help his father in the family business.

He was very good at handling land deals and sometime after he began to help his father he decided to become a lawyer. He moved to Virginia for several years as he pursued a law degree. He returned to South Carolina in 1829 and became a lawyer. He ran for office in the South Carolina legislature in 1830 but was soundly defeated because of his anti-secession and anti-nullification views. He certainly was a lone wolf in trying to convince his constituents that South Carolina was better off in the Union. Because of his political views and his desire to acquire a land empire like his father had done, he left South Carolina in 1833. After living briefly in Georgia and Alabama he set off for the far western frontier and arrived in San Antonio, Texas in September 1835.


Detail of a mural in the museum at Gonzales, Texas. Photograph by J. Williams (Jul. 6, 2003).

Sam Maverick arrived with lots of other Americans just as the Texas Revolution was heating up. Because of the number of Americans arriving in this important city and the rumors of Rebels outside, the Mexican authorities cracked down and placed many, including Maverick, under house arrest. Mexican military forces began to concentrate in the city. Outside of San Antonio de Bexar, Texas volunteers began to gather under Stephen F. Austin. Shortly afterwards, San Antonio was put under siege by this rebel Texas army. During his months in captivity, Sam was able to study the layout and defenses of the Mexican forces from his house prison. In December 1835, the city under siege, Maverick was released along with other Americans with the promise they would not participate in the fighting and would go straight back to America. Sam, however, had other ideas. He went to the Texas volunteers’ camp and reported all that he had seen. Impressed with his knowledge he was picked to command a force to take the city. The Texas forces were successful and were able to take the city of San Antonio, including the mission of the Alamo in December 1835. This set the scene for the Battle of the Alamo in March, 1836. Many of the men who had wrested the city from Mexican control would face a larger Mexican force attempting to reassert control.

Sam Maverick was so well liked and had helped so much in the taking of San Antonio that he was elected as one of two delegates by the Alamo garrison to attend the Texas Independence Convention at Washington on the Brazos on March 1, 1836. Later, he would write that attending the convention saved his life. It was during this time that the siege of the Alamo took place and he speculated that he would have been with the defenders if he had not gone to Washington on the Brazos to meet about Texas Independence. At Washington on the Brazos, Maverick signed the Texas Independence document, one of 4 South Carolinians to do so. Soon afterwards he heard of the fate of the men defending the Alamo. He then rode back to South Carolina to assure his family that he was alive and well, fearing the mail would not outrace the news of the Alamo massacre. He also had some business to take care of for his father. On his way through Alabama he met, fell and love, and then married Mary Ann Adams. The couple returned to San Antonio and set up a home in 1838. Here Maverick became a lawyer and began to once again turn to land speculation. He also began to serve in the Texas legislature. He argued strongly that Texas should become an American state and was instrumental in making that occur. Afterwards he would serve in the state legislature from 1851-63. He also served two terms as the mayor of San Antonio. He began to acquire thousands of acres of land during this time. In the 1850’s and 1860’s he was one of biggest land barons in the state of Texas. By his death in 1870, he owned more than 300,000 acres of land. Most of his holdings were in West Texas. Maverick County in West Texas is today named in honor of him.

"The Reading of the Texas Declaration of Independence" Charles and Fanny Norman, Star of the Republic Museum, Washington, Texas

It was during this time that the term “maverick” came into use. Sam had accepted some cattle in payment for debts. He was not really a rancher but he ran these cattle on his lands. He let the cattle roam free on the open grasslands where most were unbranded until others branded them. It wasn’t long before Cowboys and others began referring to any stray, unbranded cows as mavericks. In addition, his friends used the term to refer to his independent, free-thinking stance. This mantle came to be used on others who seemed to have Sam Maverick’s traits which included reluctance to go along with the crowd, a stance of dissent from the dictates of larger group or causes, and a passionate sense of independence.

Maverick, being maverick, opposed succession but seeing that he was once again outnumbered, he relented and supported the Confederate cause. During the war he served on the Texas Succession Convention and as the Chief Justice of Bexar County. After the Civil War he was pardoned and worked against the radical Republican regime of Reconstruction. His health began to decline during these years and he passed away in 1870 after a brief illness. The term maverick has a real connection to the American West and frontier and the people who lived there. Sam Maverick stands tall as an enduring symbol of freedom, independence, and fearless belief in standing for what one believes in.

Andy Thomas

Sources used to write this blog:
Marks, Paula Mitchell. “Samuel Augustus Maverick.” The Handbook of Texas Online. August 23, 2007: http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/MM/fma84.html


Andrew Gill: “Bexar County Judge Samuel Augustus Maverick.”
http://www.bexar.org/commct/cmpct4/History/Elected_Officials/Past_County_Judges
/Samuel_A__Maverick/samuel_a._maverick.htm