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OLD
THREE HUNDRED
by Archie P. McDonald |
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The first group of
settlers in Mexican Texas who came to Mexican Texas legally in the 1820s found
land in Stephen F. Austin’s colony along the lower Brazos River. Because Austin
had been authorized to convey 300 land grants to individual settlers in his larger
empresarial grant, those first settlers are called the Old Three hundred.
Stephen F. Austin’s father, Moses Austin, received permission to settle the families
in 1819, but died before he could complete the venture. Even while Stephen Austin
worked his way through several revolutionary governments early in the 1820s, securing
permission from each to succeed to his father’s grant, settlers had already begun
to come to Texas.
The first arrived aboard the Lively, a costal
packet from New Orleans in 1821. Others came overland via Nacogdoches and El
Camino Real. With permissions secured, Austin returned to his colony with
the Baron de Bastrop, the government’s land alienation agent.
As
empresario, Austin had been instructed to admit only industrious settlers
with good morals and work habits. The colonists also had to be or agree to become
Roman Catholics. That established, Austin could award farmers a labor,
or 177 acres, and stock raisers a sitio, or 4,428 acres. Not surprisingly,
many a dirt farmer metamorphosed instantly into a rancher upon learning the difference
in rewards.
Once Austin decided a settler met the qualifications,
and a site was located, De Bastrop did the necessary work of moving that land
from public domain to private property. The language of the document literally
said, "we put him in possession." When De Bastrop had to depart, this role was
assumed later by Gaspar Flores de Abrego.
Together, they officiated at
the transfer of 307 land grants. Twenty-two of them went not to families but to
men in partnership, and nine families received two land grants, so actually only
297 grants were included in the Old Three Hundred, but the number of actual residents
admitted doubtless exceeded 500 souls.
The government’s and Austin’s requirements
helped produce the most successful, affluent, and best educated of all the empresarial
grant developments. Only eight of Austin’s colonists were listed as illiterate,
and Jared Groce, an immigrant from Alabama, unquestionably was the wealthiest
colonist in Texas.
Modern descendants of the Old Three Hundred hold an
annual reunion to remember the founders of Anglo Texas who also were the founders
of their families in Texas. |
© Archie P. McDonald
All
Things Historical
July 5, 2005 column
A syndicated column in over 40 East Texas newspapers
(This column is provided as a public service by the East Texas Historical Association.
Archie P. McDonald is director of the Association and author of more than 20 books
on Texas) | | |
