History of Texas


lived in what is now Texas more than 10,000 years ago, as evidenced by the discovery of the remains of prehistoric Leanderthal Lady. In 1519, the arrival of the first Spanish conquistadors in the region of North America now known as Texas found the region occupied by numerous Native American tribes. The name Texas derives from táyshaʼ, a word in the Caddoan language of the Hasinai, which means "friends" or "allies." In the recorded history of what is now the U.S. state of Texas, all or parts of Texas have been claimed by six countries: France, Spain, Mexico, the Republic of Texas, the Confederacy during the Civil War, and the United States of America.
The first European settlement was established in 1681, along the upper Rio Grande river, near modern El Paso. The settlers were exiled Spaniards and Native Americans from the Pueblo of Isleta after the Pueblo Revolt, from Santa Fe de Nuevo México. In 1685, Robert de La Salle, established a French colony at Fort Saint Louis, after sailing down and exploring the Mississippi River from New France and the Great Lakes. He planted this early French presence at Fort Saint Louis near Matagorda Bay, along the Gulf of Mexico coast, even before the establishment of New Orleans. The colony was killed off by Native Americans after three years, but Spanish authorities felt pressed to establish settlements to keep their claim to the land. Several Roman Catholic missions were established in East Texas; they were abandoned in 1691. Twenty years later, concerned with the continued French presence in neighboring Louisiana, Spanish authorities again tried to colonize Texas. Over the next 110 years, Spain established numerous villages, presidios, and missions in the province. A small number of Spanish settlers arrived, in addition to missionaries and soldiers. Spain signed agreements with colonists from the United States, bordering the province to the northeast ever since their Louisiana Purchase from the Emperor Napoleon I and his French Empire in 1803. When Mexico won its independence from Spain in 1821, Mexican Texas was part of the new nation. To encourage settlement, Mexican authorities allowed organized immigration from the United States, and by 1834, over 30,000 Anglos lived in Texas, compared to 7,800 Mexicans.
After Santa Anna's dissolution of the Constitution of 1824 and his political shift to the right, issues such as lack of access to courts, the militarization of the region's government, and self-defense issues resulting in the confrontation in Gonzales, turned public sentiment in Mexican and Anglo Texans towards revolution. Santa Anna's invasion of the territory after putting down the rebellion in Zacatecas provoked conflict in 1836, and between 1835 and 1836, the Texian forces fought and won the Texas Revolution.
Although not recognized as such by Mexico, Texas declared itself an independent nation, the Republic of Texas. Attracted by the rich lands for cotton plantations and ranching, tens of thousands of immigrants arrived from the U.S. and from Germany as well. In 1845, Texas joined the United States, becoming the 28th state, when the United States annexed it. Only after the conclusion of the Mexican–American War, with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, did Mexico recognize Texan independence. Texas declared its secession from the United States in 1861 to join the Confederate States of America. Only a few battles of the American Civil War were fought in Texas; most Texas regiments served in the east. When the war ended, enslaved African Americans were freed after ratification of the Emancipation Proclamation. Texas was subject to Reconstruction after the Civil War was over. Later on, White Democrats gained political dominance and passed laws in the late 19th century creating second-class status for blacks in a Jim Crow system of segregation which included disenfranchising them from voting in 1901 through passage of a poll tax. Black residents were excluded from the formal political system until after passage of federal civil rights legislation in the mid-1960s.
In early Texas statehood, things such as cotton, ranching, and farming dominated the economy, along with railroad construction. After 1870, railroads were a major factor in the development of new cities away from rivers and waterways. Toward the end of the 19th century, timber became an important industry in Texas as well. In 1901, a petroleum discovery at Spindletop Hill, near Beaumont, along with Kilgore, Texas with the discovery of the massive East Texas Oil Field in 1930, developed into the most productive oil well the world had ever seen. The wave of oil speculation and discovery that followed came to be known as the "Texas Oil Boom", permanently transforming and enriching the economy of Texas. Agriculture and ranching gave way to a service-oriented society after the economic boom years of World War II. Segregation would end in the 1960s due to federal legislation. Politically, Texas changed from virtually a one-party Democratic state achieved following disenfranchisement policies, to a highly contested political scene, until the early 1970s when it shifted to becoming solidly Republican. The population of Texas continued to grow rapidly throughout the 20th century, becoming the second-largest state in population in the United States by 1994. Also during the 20th century, the state continued to become economically highly diversified, with a growing economic base in emerging technologies in the 21st century.

Texas lies at the juncture of several major cultural areas of Pre-Columbian North America: the Southwestern, Southern Plains, Southeastern Woodlands, and Aridoamerica. Several major precontact groups with ties to Texas, known from Indigenous oral history, linguistics, and archaeology, include:
The Paleo-Indians who lived in Texas between 9200 and 6000 BC may have links to Clovis and Folsom cultures; these nomadic people hunted mammoths and bison latifrons using atlatls. They extracted Alibates flint from quarries in the panhandle region.
Beginning during the 4th millennium BC, the population of Texas increased despite a changing climate and the extinction of giant mammals. Many pictograms from this era, drawn on the walls of caves or on rocks, are visible in the state, including at Hueco Tanks and Seminole Canyon.
Native Americans in East Texas began to settle in villages shortly after 500 BC, farming and building the first burial mounds. They were influenced by the Mississippian culture, which had major sites throughout the Mississippi basin. In the Trans-Pecos area, populations were influenced by Mogollon culture.
Early Ceramics date back to ca. 500 BC. In Eastern Texas, the Tchefuncte tradition of ceramics flourished from around 500 to 100 BC. Local hunters adopted bows and arrows around the 8th century, replaced the long-distance but less accurate atlatl. Native peoples hunted bison for food, clothing, shelter, and more. They imported obsidian from suppliers in Mexico and the Rocky Mountains.
After Spanish explorers entered the area, Texas was largely divided between six cultural groups. Caddoan language-speaking peoples occupied the area surrounding the entire length of the Red River, and at the time of European contact, they formed four collective confederacies of the Wichita, Natchitoches, the Hasinai, and the Kadohadocho. Along the Gulf Coast region were the Atakapa tribes. Southward from the Atakapa, along the Gulf Coast to the Rio Grande river, at least one Coahuiltecan tribe was located. The Puebloan peoples, situated largely between the Rio Grande & Pecos river were part of an extensive civilization of tribes that lived in what are now the states of Texas, New Mexico, Colorado & Utah. While the northernmost Ancestral Pueblo groups faced a cultural collapse due to drought, many of the southern tribes survive to the present. North of the Pueblos were the Apache peoples, who included several tribes with distinct languages.
By the late 17th century, in Texas Panhandle region, the Comanches settled and later expanded their territories.
Native Americans determined the fate of European explorers and settlers depending on whether a tribe was kind or warlike. Friendly tribes taught newcomers how to grow indigenous crops, prepare foods, and hunting methods for the wild game. Warlike tribes made life difficult and dangerous for explorers and settlers through their attacks and resistance to European conquest. Many Native Americans died of new infectious diseases, which caused high fatalities and disrupted their cultures in the early years of colonization.

Early Spanish exploration

The first European to see Texas was Alonso Álvarez de Pineda, who led an expedition for the governor of Jamaica, Francisco de Garay, in 1520. While searching for a passage between the Gulf of Mexico and Asia, Álvarez de Pineda created the first map of the northern Gulf Coast. This map is the earliest recorded document of Texas history.
Between 1528 and 1535, four survivors of the Narváez expedition, including Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and Estevanico, spent six and a half years in Texas as slaves and traders among various native groups. Cabeza de Vaca was the first European to explore the interior of Texas.
In 1543, the Hernando de Soto expedition entered Texas from the east, becoming the first Europeans to visit the Caddo peoples. Searching for an overland path to Mexico, the expedition turned back to the Mississippi River after leaving Caddo territory and finding nomadic tribes without food stores to sustain the Spanish.