Gone to Texas (23 page)

Greatly concerned over the threat of a devastating Indian war, Ellis continued to send men with conciliatory messages to the chiefs of the Shawnees, Delawares, Kickapoos, and Sacs, as well as the Cherokees. His warnings convinced war chief Bowles that it would be folly to join the Fredonians, and only thirty young Cherokee warriors joined the Edwards men. Perhaps on Bowles' orders, the Cherokees killed both Fields and Hunter for trying to involve them in a war with Mexico. The Kickapoos and other tribes hated and distrusted Americans too much to consider cooperating with the Fredonians, even though they were irate at Mexico for denying them land. But Ellis had no way of knowing this immediately.

On January 4, 1827, Ellis wrote again to inform Austin that he'd entered Nacogdoches “and found out those rascals were leaving. At this time there is only a guard of twelve men in the stone house. Hurry the troops on as fast as possible, for now is our time, before the Indians gather. I learned today that the Indians are divided, and it appears they won't be here very soon, but the troops must hurry all they can. Let the commander know the contents of my letter. Your friend and servant, Pedro Ellis Bean.”

Saucedo, Colonel Ahumada, and the troops had been delayed in San Felipe for three weeks because of heavy rains that made the road a quagmire. Saucedo wrote Edwards that he was coming to Nacogdoches for the purpose of restoring order and hearing complaints against local officials. Although Edwards' contract had been canceled, he added, his colonists wouldn't be molested, and all who had taken part in the revolt would be pardoned if they laid down their arms. He sent this conciliatory letter to Ellis to deliver. Ellis added a note of his own.

“It is not too late,” he wrote, “and we are able to forget past mistakes. You can gain much more by conciliation than by hostility.” Edwards, who regarded any compromise as unmanly, spumed the offer.

At the same time Saucedo wrote Edwards, Austin wrote to Burril Thompson, a friend from Missouri who had settled on Edwards' grant. He again urged the Fredonians to meet with the political chief and respectfully explain their grievances against Norris and the others. Austin knew that Edwards had legitimate reasons for complaint, but his attitude and approach were wrong. He warned Thompson that two hundred troops were coming, and that two hundred fifty of his colonists were with them. “I am a Mexican officer,” he concluded, “and I will sacrifice my life before I will fail in my duty or violate my oath of office.”

After recruiting a force of seventy men, Ellis rode into Nacogdoches, and grimly searched for Parmer. He failed to find him, for the Fredonians were safely across the Sabine. When the troops and militia finally arrived, Nacogdoches was quiet. Colonel Ahumada and Saucedo both praised Ellis warmly for his success in restoring order. If Saucedo felt a little guilty about his earlier doubts, he discreetly refrained from revealing them. With the senseless revolt over, he issued a general amnesty proclamation, excluding only Parmer, who had been president of Fredonia. He also removed Norris from office, for his illegal acts had helped bring on the crisis. The outcome of the Fredonian affair revived state officials' confidence in the loyalty of the settlers, but to some in Mexico City the uprising was what they had expected, and they remained apprehensive about the rapidly growing numbers of Anglos in East Texas.

No matter what he was doing, Ellis couldn't keep his thoughts from returning to Parmer. “Just because I had business in Mexico was no excuse for you whoring with that man,” he flung at Candace.

“You were gone so long,” the diminutive Candace tearfully replied, ‘ ‘everyone said you were dead. I meant nothing wrong, and I couldn't be sorrier. He was here only two days. Why can't you forget about it?”

Ellis thought of Micajah's advice, and knew what he'd said was true. All widows, especially those with young children, needed to marry a man who would protect them and see to it they didn't go hungry. What kept him feeling tortured was the thought that his manhood had been exposed as inferior, and for that he'd like to kill Parmer. His injured pride was like a livid brand on his forehead for all to see, and that he could never forget.

In late January 1827, about the time it was clear that the Fredonian revolt wouldn't erupt into an Indian war, Ellis received a letter from nephew Edmund Bean of Nashville. Times were hard and money scarce in Tennessee, he wrote, and he wanted to bring his family to Texas. What made him hesitate was that the papers were full of rumors of warfare between American settlers and Mexico. He asked about his prospects for acquiring land in Texas, and he wanted especially to know if Ellis expected war. Apparently aware that Ellis and Candace weren't legally married, he concluded by discreetly asking about Aunt Candace Midcalf. Spelling wasn't a Bean family attribute.

Ellis replied that Edmund could acquire a league (4,428 acres) of grazing land and a
labor
(177 acres) of farmland by paying fees that amounted to the modest sum of about two hundred dollars. American settlers had been well treated, he said, and most were content to live under Mexican rule. Except for the misguided Edwards and his men, who brought on their own troubles by scorning Mexican authority, there had been no friction between the Texians and Mexico. The vast majority of the settlers had opposed the Fredonians. Unless conditions changed drastically, he said, he foresaw no likelihood of conflict. “Mexico has been generous to them in every way, and they know it. As for me, after so many years in Mexico I'm as much Mexican as American. Your Aunt Candace is well,” he concluded.

Before Saucedo and Ahumada returned to San Antonio, Ellis accompanied the colonel on a tour of the border area. They counted 168 families that had settled illegally in the twenty-league (about sixty miles) border reserve, where aliens were banned. Some families lived a hand-to-mouth existence in one-room cabins with dirt floors, but many had well-cultivated, prosperous plantations and comfortable houses. They saw a surprising number of cotton gins and grist mills, as well as wagon roads. Greatly impressed by the settlers' industry, and aware that they had opposed the Fredonians, Ahumada promised to recommend that a commissioner be sent to grant them titles to the lands they'd developed.

After Saucedo and Ahumada left, Ellis resumed his duties as Indian agent. He made frequent visits to the chiefs of the immigrant tribes, which kept him in the saddle and away from home much of the time. He had to admit to himself, when he thought about it, that a widow with small children desperately needed a husband; under the circumstances, Candace did only what any woman would have done. He tried hard to put it out of his mind, but the thought of Parmer in bed with her for two nights continued to nettle him like a deep-seated, irritating rash.

With a well-traveled Delaware guide and a squad of cavalry from the small force Ahumada had left in the old Nacogdoches barracks, Ellis set out for the villages of the hostile Wacos and Tawakonis. An extra pack mule bore gifts from the Cherokees to the two tribes. They approached the Wacos cautiously, bearing a white flag and hoping the Indians would recognize it as a symbol of peaceful intent. They responded to the Delaware's hand signals and allowed the riders to enter their village, but their reception was cool. After a few days of talks in Spanish and sign language, the Wacos accepted a peace treaty and agreed to cease their raids. A few of them then accompanied Ellis and his party to the Tawakonies, who were also willing to make peace.

On his return to Nacogdoches, Ellis wrote Austin concerning the treaties, and assured him that his settlers could now treat the two tribes as friends. Some of them, he added, had even agreed to accompany him to San Antonio, and from there to Comanche camps, so he could try to make peace with them.

They met with only one small band under a chief named Wounded Bear, for no other Comanches were in the area. Although Wounded Bear was willing to talk peace, one of the Tawakonis who spoke Spanish took Ellis aside. “If you make peace with just this one band,” he warned Ellis, “you are condemning them to death. Each band does what it wants, and none of the others will even know about this treaty. When others raid and a party of whites goes hunting Comanches, they're likely to come onto this band because it won't be trying to hide. To whites, all Comanches are enemies, so they will kill the peaceful warriors.”

Realizing that what the Tawakoni said was true, Ellis broke off the peace talks with Wounded Bear. “When all the Comanches are willing to talk peace,” he told the Comanche leader, “have the chiefs send word to the officers in San Antonio.”

In June, Colonel José de las Piedras arrived as commander of the Nacogdoches garrison, bringing with him two hundred cavalrymen. Piedras, who was senior to Ellis, was humorless and strictly military in all actions. Ellis found him stiff-necked and inflexible, and he was soon unpopular with both Tejanos and Texians, who yearned for the opportunity to catch him away from his troops and cane him.

In March 1828, Ellis wrote Austin about a small party of filibusters under a Dr. Dayton, who claimed that two or three hundred more followers were coming. When they arrived, Dayton said, they would seize De León's fort. He recruited a few idlers in Nacogdoches, then left. Ellis doubted that more were coming, but warned Austin that the troublemakers appeared to be headed for his colony.

A month later Austin wrote to thank Ellis for the warning. Dayton had been in his colony trying to stir up trouble by telling men that the
empresario
should bear all of the expenses for settling them on their lands, and trying to recruit followers. Austin's men had seized Dayton and convicted him of disturbing the peace. After shaving his head, they'd stripped him to his drawers and tarred and feathered him. Then they ordered him to leave and not return. He appeared eager to comply, Austin wryly added.

With all but the Comanches at peace, Ellis took up buying and selling land, hoping to make money while waiting for an
empresario
contract. He maintained his ranch at Mound Prairie, and with a pair of slaves he'd traded for, he cultivated cotton as well as corn. His cattle, bearing his “B” brand and swallow fork cut in the right ear, now numbered nearly a thousand head. Each year he sold fat steers to men who drove them to New Orleans. On May 28 Candace gave birth to a son. She immediately named him Ellis, hoping that would be balm on Ellis' wounded pride. It was, but only briefly.

Early in June 1828, aristocratic General Manuel de Mier y Terán rode into Nacogdoches accompanied by Lt. José María Sánchez and several scientists. He immediately sent for Ellis.

“I'm inspecting the boundary and making a scientific survey, “ he explained after greeting Ellis warmly. “I'm also selecting sites for new presidios, and I want your opinion. After the Fredonian revolt, and with all the warlike Indians, we certainly need more garrisons than the ones at San Antonio, LaBahía, and Nacogdoches.” Ellis agreed, but not wholeheartedly.

“There are Indian troubles on the frontiers,” he admitted, “but I don't expect to see another foolish affair like that one. Everyone was against it.”

“That may be true,” Mier y Terán admitted, “but officials in Mexico City are still aroused over it. It confirmed the fears of many of them that the American government plans to seize Texas if we won't sell it, and they don't intend to allow that to happen.”

“The ones who have titles to their lands are all satisfied and grateful to Mexico,” Ellis assured him. “Austin once said that the worst thing that could happen would be for the U. S. to take over Texas and introduce its land policy.”

Lt. Sánchez spoke up. “In my opinion, the spark that ignites the torch that will consume Texas will be struck at San Felipe.” Ellis tugged at his earlobe, then shook his head.

“You won't find a more loyal or reliable Mexican citizen than Stephen F. Austin,” he replied, “and his colonists follow his lead. Remember that a lot of them helped put down the Fredonian revolt. Things would have to get pretty bad to change Austin's attitude. In my judgment, trouble is much more likely to start among those who can't get titles to their lands, and that includes the Cherokees and other tribes. Luckily for us, they listened to me and only a few of them joined the Fredonians.”

“Nacogdoches doesn't look at all like San Felipe,” Mier observed. “Straight streets with houses built of lumber, instead of log cabins that look like they'd been blown there in a storm and scattered every which way.” He paused. “Speaking of storms,” he continued, “the worst one I ever saw struck us at San Felipe. Lightning striking all around us, and the rain so heavy you couldn't see ten feet. And the wind!”

“Yes,” Lt. Sánchez added, “and the river rose so high we were stuck there. We finally got an American to ferry us across, and that was a mistake. He was drunk and trying to steer the boat while two slaves rowed it. They must have been drunk, too, for they sang—it was more like howling than singing—the whole way. I thought I'd go mad before a floating log could swamp us. Somehow we made it across, but it was awful.” Mier nodded and smiled at the thought of the wild boat ride.

Ellis took Mier y Terán through the piney woods to visit the chiefs of the Cherokees and other tribes who came to the meeting. “I'll do what I can to get you titles,” Mier y Terán assured them, while they listened, their faces impassive. He also promised the squatters in the border area that he would urge the governor to send a commissioner to give them titles, as Colonel Ahumada had already recommended. Mier wrote the governor as promised. “I asked him to appoint you as
empresario
of the border reserve,” he told Ellis, “so that you can see to it that the region is legally colonized.” Ellis' hopes rose again.

Accompanied by Ellis, Mier y Terán chose a number of sites for new presidios, and he gave most of them Aztec names to emphasize that they were Mexican. Anáhuac was to be at the head of Galveston Bay, Tenoxtitlán, where the Nacogdoches–San Antonio road crossed the Brazos. Lipantitlán would be on the Nueces. The smaller posts were Terán on the lower Neches and Lavaca on the river of the same name. Later, a strong force would be stationed at Velasco near the mouth of the Brazos. These posts were strategically located for dominating the approaches to all of the settlements.