Texas
Texas is the most populous state in the South of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the west, and an international border with the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas to the south and southwest. Texas has a coastline on the Gulf of Mexico to the southeast. Covering and with over 31 million residents as of 2024, it is the second-largest U.S. state by area and population. Texas is nicknamed the "Lone Star State" for the single star on its flag, symbolic of its former status as an independent country, the Republic of Texas.
Spain was the first European country to claim and control Texas. Following a brief period of French colonization, the territory became part of Mexico after its independence from Spain in 1821. Increasing tensions between settlers and the Mexican government culminated in the Texas Revolution, which included the Battle of the Alamo, and led to the establishment of the independent Republic of Texas in 1836. In 1845, Texas joined the United States as the 28th state. The state's annexation contributed to the Mexican–American War in 1846. Texas remained a slave state until the American Civil War, during which it seceded from the Union in 1861 and joined the Confederate States. After the war and the restoration of its representation in the federal government, Texas entered a prolonged period of economic stagnation.
The economy of Texas has been shaped by bison, cattle, cotton, oil, and timber industries. The cattle industry was a major economic driver and created the traditional image of the Texas cowboy. In the later 19th century, cotton and lumber grew to be major industries as the cattle industry became less lucrative. Ultimately, the discovery of major petroleum deposits initiated an economic boom that became the driving force behind the economy for much of the 20th century. Texas developed a diversified economy and high tech industry during the mid-20th century., it has the second-highest number of Fortune 500 companies headquartered in the United States. With a growing base of industry, the state leads in many industries, including tourism, agriculture, petrochemicals, energy, computers and electronics, aerospace, and biomedical sciences. Texas has led the U.S. in state export revenue since 2002 and has the second-highest gross state product. Texas consistently ranks highly among national averages for business growth, job creation, and economic opportunity with low taxes and a regulatory environment that encourages innovation.
The Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex and Greater Houston areas are the nation's fourth and fifth-most populous urban regions respectively. Its capital city is Austin. Due to its size and geologic features such as the Balcones Fault, Texas contains diverse landscapes common to both the U.S. Southern and the Southwestern regions. Most population centers are in areas of former prairies, grasslands, forests, and the coastline. Traveling from east to west, terrain ranges from coastal swamps and piney woods, to rolling plains and rugged hills, to the desert and mountains of the Big Bend.
Etymology
The name Texas, based on the Caddo word táy:shaʼ 'friend', was applied, in the spelling Tejas or Texas, by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves, specifically the Hasinai Confederacy.During Spanish colonial rule, in the 18th century, the area was known as Nuevas Filipinas and Nuevo Reino de Filipinas, or as provincia de los Tejas, later also provincia de Texas,. It was incorporated as Mexican Texas into the Mexican Empire in 1821, and declared a republic in 1836. The Royal Spanish Academy recognizes both spellings, Tejas and Texas, as Spanish-language forms of the name.
The English pronunciation with is unetymological, contrary to the historical value of the letter x in Spanish orthography. Alternative etymologies of the name advanced in the late 19th century connected the name Texas with the Spanish word teja, meaning 'roof tile', the plural tejas being used to designate Indigenous Pueblo settlements. A 1760s map by Jacques-Nicolas Bellin shows a village named Teijas on the Trinity River, close to the site of modern Crockett.
History
Precontact era
Texas lies between two major cultural spheres of Pre-Columbian North America: the Southwestern and the Plains areas. Archaeologists have found that three major Indigenous cultures lived in this territory, and reached their developmental peak before the first European contact. These were: the Ancestral Puebloans from the upper Rio Grande region, centered west of Texas; the Mississippian culture, also known as Mound Builders, which extended along the Mississippi River Valley east of Texas; and the civilizations of Mesoamerica, which were centered south of Texas. Influence of Teotihuacan in northern Mexico peaked around AD 500 and declined between the 8th and 10th centuries.When Europeans first arrived in the Texas region, the languages present in the state were Caddoan, Atakapan, Athabaskan, Coahuiltecan, and Uto-Aztecan, in addition to several language isolates such as Tonkawa. Uto-Aztecan Puebloan and Jumano peoples lived near the Rio Grande in the western portion of the state, and the Athabaskan-speaking Apache tribes lived throughout the interior. The agricultural, mound-building Caddo controlled much of the northeastern part of the state, along the Red, Sabine, and Neches River basins. Atakapan peoples such as the Akokisa and Bidai lived along the northeastern Gulf Coast; the Karankawa lived along the central coast. At least one tribe of Coahuiltecans, the Aranama, lived in southern Texas. This entire culture group, primarily centered in northeastern Mexico, is now extinct.
No one culture was dominant across the territory of present-day Texas, with many peoples inhabiting the area. Native American tribes who have lived inside the boundaries of present-day Texas include the Alabama, Apache, Atakapan, Bidai, Caddo, Aranama, Comanche, Choctaw, Coushatta, Hasinai, Jumano, Karankawa, Kickapoo, Kiowa, Tonkawa, and Wichita. Many of these peoples migrated from the north or east during the colonial period, such as the Choctaw, Alabama-Coushatta, and Delaware.
The region was primarily controlled by the Spanish until the Texas Revolution. They were most interested in relationships with the Caddo, who were - like the Spanish - a settled, agricultural people. Several Spanish missions were opened in Caddo territory, but a lack of interest in Christianity among the Caddo meant that few were converted. Positioned between French Louisiana and Spanish Texas, the Caddo maintained relations with both, but were closer with the French. After Spain took control of Louisiana, most of the missions in eastern Texas were closed and abandoned. The United States obtained Louisiana following the 1803 Louisiana Purchase and began convincing tribes to self-segregate from whites by moving west; facing an overflow of native peoples in Missouri and Arkansas, they were able to negotiate with the Caddo to allow several displaced peoples to settle on unused lands in eastern Texas. These included the Muscogee, Houma Choctaw, Lenape and Mingo Seneca, among others, who came to view the Caddoans as saviors.
The different temperaments of Native American tribes directly affected the fates of the European explorers and settlers coming to the area. Friendly tribes taught newcomers how to grow local crops, prepare foods, and hunt wild game, while warlike tribes resisted the settlers. Prior treaties with the Spanish forbade either side from militarizing its native population in any potential conflict between the two nations. Several outbreaks of violence between Native Americans and Texans started to spread in the prelude to the Texas Revolution. Texans accused tribes of stealing livestock. While no proof was found, those in charge of Texas at the time attempted to publicly blame and punish the Caddo, with speculation that the U.S. government was trying to keep them in check this way. The Caddo never turned to violence because of the situation, except in cases of self-defense.
By the 1830s, the U.S. had drafted the Indian Removal Act, which was used to facilitate the Trail of Tears. Fearing retribution, Indian Agents all over the eastern U.S. tried to convince all Indigenous peoples to uproot and move west. This included the Caddo of Louisiana and Arkansas. The first president of Texas, Sam Houston, aimed to cooperate and make peace with Native tribes, but his successor, Mirabeau B. Lamar, took a much more hostile stance. Hostility towards Natives by white Texans prompted the movement of most Native populations north into what would become Indian Territory. Only the Alabama-Coushatta would remain in the parts of Texas subject to white settlement, though the Comanche would continue to control most of the western half of the state until their defeat in the 1870s and 1880s.
Colonization
The first historical document related to Texas was a map of the Gulf Coast, created in 1519 by Spanish explorer Alonso Álvarez de Pineda. Nine years later, shipwrecked Spanish explorer Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and his cohort became the first Europeans in what is now Texas. Cabeza de Vaca reported that in 1528, when the Spanish landed in the area, "half the natives died from a disease of the bowels and blamed us." Cabeza de Vaca also made observations about the way of life of the Ignaces Natives of Texas. Francisco Vázquez de Coronado described another encounter with native people in 1541.The expedition of Hernando de Soto entered into Texas from the east, seeking a route to Mexico. They passed through the Caddo lands but turned back after reaching the River of Daycao, beyond which point the Native peoples were nomadic and did not have the agricultural stores to feed the expedition.
European powers ignored the area until accidentally settling there in 1685. Miscalculations by René-Robert Cavelier de La Salle resulted in his establishing the colony of Fort Saint Louis at Matagorda Bay rather than along the Mississippi River. The colony lasted only four years before succumbing to harsh conditions and hostile natives. A small band of survivors traveled eastward into the lands of the Caddo, but La Salle was killed by disgruntled expedition members.
In 1690 Spanish authorities, concerned that France posed a competitive threat, constructed several missions in East Texas among the Caddo. After Caddo resistance, the Spanish missionaries returned to Mexico. When France began settling Louisiana, in 1716 Spanish authorities responded by founding a new series of missions in East Texas. Two years later, they created San Antonio as the first Spanish civilian settlement in the area.
Hostile native tribes and distance from nearby Spanish colonies discouraged settlers from moving to the area. It was one of New Spain's least populated provinces. In 1749, the Spanish peace treaty with the Lipan Apache angered many tribes, including the Comanche, Tonkawa, and Hasinai. The Comanche signed a treaty with Spain in 1785 and later helped to defeat the Lipan Apache and Karankawa tribes. With numerous missions being established, priests led a peaceful conversion of most tribes. By the end of the 18th century only a few nomadic tribes had not converted.
File:Stephen Fuller Austin Posthumous Portrait.jpg|thumb|upright|Stephen F. Austin was the first American empresario given permission to operate a colony within Mexican Texas.
When the United States purchased Louisiana from France in 1803, American authorities insisted the agreement also included Texas. The boundary between New Spain and the United States was finally set in 1819 at the Sabine River, the modern border between Texas and Louisiana. Eager for new land, many U.S. settlers refused to recognize the agreement. Several filibusters raised armies to invade the area west of the Sabine River. Marked by the War of 1812, some men who had escaped from the Spanish, held Philippines had immigrated to and also passed through Texas and reached Louisiana where Philippine exiles aided the United States in the defense of New Orleans against a British invasion, with Filipinos in the Saint Malo settlement assisting Jean Lafitte in the Battle of New Orleans.
In 1821, the Mexican War of Independence included the Texas territory, which became part of Mexico. Due to its low population, the territory was assigned to other states and territories of Mexico; the core territory was part of the state of Coahuila y Tejas, but other parts of today's Texas were part of Tamaulipas, Chihuahua, or the Mexican Territory of Santa Fe de Nuevo México.
Hoping more settlers would reduce the near-constant Comanche raids, Mexican Texas liberalized its immigration policies to permit immigrants from outside Mexico and Spain. As a result of this, large swathes of land were allotted to empresarios, who recruited settlers from the United States, Europe, and the Mexican interior, primarily the U.S. Austin's settlers, the Old Three Hundred, made places along the Brazos River in 1822. The population of Texas grew rapidly. By 1834, the population had grown to about 37,800 people, with only 7,800 of Mexican descent.
Many immigrants openly flouted Mexican law, especially the prohibition against slavery. Combined with United States' attempts to purchase Texas, Mexican authorities decided in 1830 to prohibit continued immigration from the United States. However, illegal immigration from the United States into Mexico continued to increase the population of Texas. New laws also called for the enforcement of customs duties angering native Mexican citizens and recent immigrants alike.
The Anahuac Disturbances in 1832 were the first open revolt against Mexican rule, coinciding with a revolt in Mexico against the nation's president. Texians sided with the federalists against the government and drove all Mexican soldiers out of East Texas. They took advantage of the lack of oversight to agitate for more political freedom. Texians met at the Convention of 1832 to discuss requesting independent statehood, among other issues. The following year, Texians reiterated their demands at the Convention of 1833.