|
Georgia-Texas
Connection
Architect Richard Thornton is a member of an alliance of Creek, Choctaw and
Seminole scholars, who over the past seven years have been intensely studying
the heritage of the Muskogean peoples. Much of their activities have involved
re-examination of the archives of the early Spanish, English and French
exploration of the Southeastern United States. We have asked Richard to provide
AccessGenealogy with some of his work. As we add to these articles we will
also be providing a question and answer section for the reader to ask questions
of Richard.
Blindfold a person; then transport
them either to Marshall in eastern Texas, or La Grange
in western Georgia. If the vehicle license tags were
removed, it would be almost impossible for our guest
contestant to determine which city they were in. The
architecture would be the same. The people would look
the same. The vegetation would look the same and the
accents would be very close. Local folks from both
regions love barbecued anything, hush puppies, corn
fritters, deep fried chicken, brunswick stew and deep
fried, corn meal battered catfish.
In the 1800s both Marshall and Lagrange blossomed
because of King Cotton, but there are 545 miles between
the two lovely cities. Eastern Texas was claimed by
Spain for 300 years and adjacent to French-speaking
Louisiana since 1700. Why wouldn't that region reflect
more Spanish or French influence? There is a reason in
history.
As mentioned in Part Three of this series, over 5,000
Creek, Alabama and Koasati Indians migrated from what is
now Georgia and Alabama to Louisiana and Texas at the
close of the French & Indian War, 1763. Some still
maintained their distinct tribal identities at the time
of the Texas War for Independence. Many had intermarried
with their new neighbors. Whatever the case, they
certainly passed along recipes to their neighbors for
their favorite foods: barbecued anything, corn-battered
poultry and fish deep oil fried, hush puppies, corn
fritters and brunswick stew. Many more Creeks arrived in
Texas during the early 1800s.
There are two styles of house that are typical in the
mid-1800s only of northern & western Georgia, and
eastern Texas. The simpler form, called "Georgia
Plantation Plain" is essentially a two story box with a
central hall and a modicum of Greek Revival details. A
somewhat more sophisticated version had a two story
portico in front, with simple square or doric columns.
This style is also labeled "Georgia Plantation Plain" by
some architectural historians, or "Georgia Vernacular
Greek Revival" by others.
Settlers from several states, including Georgia,
migrated to Texas during the late 1820s and early
1830's. However, there was a major "rush" of Georgians
immediately before, during and after the War of Texas
Independence. They came to Texas for a variety of
reasons.
Blending in with the locals
The Creek and Seminole Indians of the Southeast trace
their roots to the states of Jalisco and Colima in west
central Mexico, and the states of occupied by the
Totonacs, Olmecs and Mayas in eastern & southern Mexico.
They are generally taller than either the Spanish,
English and most indigenous peoples of Mexico - except
those in Colima and Jalesco. Mixed blood Creeks from
Georgia and Alabama would have easily been mistaken for
Mexican Indians with substantial Anglo-American blood.
By the late 1820s, there were plenty of mixed
Anglo-American - Mexican marriages in Texas. Thus, when
affluent Creek families moved to Texas, they knew that
their unique physical features would not stand out, and
they would readily be accepted in communities. It was
typical for them to conceal their Creek Indian heritage
once arriving in Texas, because Creeks had a reputation
for non-submissiveness and being "war-like."
Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar
Georgia was the only state government that openly
furnished munitions to troops headed for the Texas
revolt. When news arrived of the opening Battle of
Gozales, the October 1835 Macon Messinger stated, "The
cries of our fellow countrymen of Texas have reached us,
calling for help against the Tyrant and Oppressor."
Was it any accident that a member of one of Macon's most
prominent families, Mirabeau B. Lamar, had only recently
arrived in Texas? Lamar was from a wealthy French
Huguenot family, which helped settle Georgia, and
thoroughly detested anything Spanish, because of the
massacre at Fort Carolina. See
Fort
Caroline Jacksonville Florida-1564.
The Georgian newspaper of Milledgeville responded, ""Let
all who are disposed to respond to the cry, in any form,
assemble at the courthouse, on Tuesday evening next, at
early candle light." The newspaper, which Lamar founded,
the Columbus (GA) Enquirer urged the state to send
troops to Texas; that Georgia did . . . an entire
battalion, in fact. They were armed with new rifles
issued directly from the state armory. Georgia continued
to equip and send relatively large contingents of
soldiers, even after the Battle of San Jacinto. Many of
those Georgia boys stayed in Texas because of free or
cheap land. Many of their relatives and friends joined
them.
After being a hero at the Battle of San Jacinto,
Mirabeau Lamar was appointed Secretary of War. He was
elected Vice President under Sam Houston then elected
the second President of Texas. He appointed the
commission which selected the site of the national
capital, Austin, and then took an active role in its
planning. He went on to found the Texas State Library
and the Texas public education system. Lamar entered the
U.S, Army at the advent of the Mexican-American War,
where he served with distinction.
Lamar was not particularly an admirer of Native
Americans. He didn't bother the Creeks, Koasati and
Alabama's because they had helped the Texas cause,
however, because the Cherokees had given nominal
assistance to General Santa Ana, he ordered a peaceful
Cherokee band in Texas to be attacked and driven out of
Texas, even though the chief was a personal friend of
Sam Houston. Lamar also exhausted the Texas treasury to
finance repeated, unsuccessful attacks on the
Comanche's. Ironically, the Lamar family owned a vast
tract of land near Macon, which once was the site of the
Creek capital of Achese. It is where the Creek
Confederacy was founded, but is known to archaeologists
as "the Lamar Village" site in Ocmulgee National
Monument.
Mirabeau Lamar also personally financed an expedition
sent to New Mexico to conquer it. The entire expedition
was captured without firing a bullet. One should not
attempt to cross deserts without bringing plenty of
bottled water along!
James Fannin
James Fannin was a merchant from Columbus, GA, who had
immigrated to Tejas and immediately become prosperous.
He had attended West Point, but received no combat
experience. Fannin moved his family from Georgia to
Velasco, Coahula Y Tejas in 1834, just as the resistance
to dictator Santa Ana was quickly evolving from
political protest to military action. Prior to
permanently relocating, he had been an empresario, who
had recruited hundreds of Georgia families to relocate
to Texas. He participated in the initial Battle of
Gonzales and several other battles in the fall of 1835.
In December of 1835, he was made a colonel in the army.
His primary talents, though, was essentially that of a
quartermaster, not a field commander.
When the commanding general of the provisional Texas
Army resigned, Fannin, Sam Houston, Frank W. Johnston
and James Neill feuded over who was in command. For
weeks, each ignored the orders of the others. Of the
four, only Houston and Neill had any military
experience, whatsoever; and that consisted of
participation as temporary volunteers in the Battle of
Horseshoe Bend against the Redstick Creeks, near
Talladega, AL.
Once Houston was named by the Provisional Government as
Commander-in-Chief, Fannin was appointed commander at
its largest garrison in Goliad. Fannin was definitely no
military genius, but he faced extremely serious
obstacles to molding a fighting force out of the
volunteers at Goliad. Only about 25 of the approximately
400 men in the garrison were citizens of Texas. The rest
had recently arrived from the Southeast. When ordered to
lead his 600 man army to relieve the Alamo, they went
one mile out of Goliad, and began to balk. Fannin was
forced to turn around and go back to Goliad. Fannin was
soon ordered to abandon Goliad because a much larger
Mexican force was headed toward him. When General
Urrea's army blocked his path, he submitted articles of
surrender, rather than putting up a fight or trying to
escape.
As discussed in the previous article of the series,
Fannin and his entire command were executed after
surrendering. However, Fannin's little army was heavily
armed and well provisioned. The Anglo-Americans had
proved themselves superior in hand-to-hand fighting,
while being rather inept in conventional warfare. At
least some of Fannin's men would have probably made it
to safety, while causing severe casualties among Urrea's
troops.
True Women
The movie about the era of the Texas War for
Independence, which had the most historical accuracy,
was the 1997 CBS mini-series, "True Women," which
ironically, was based on a 1991 novel by Texas author,
Janice Woods Windle. The conversations of the book's
characters are of course, fictional, but many of the
characters were real people, and ancestors of the
author. The author is a descendent of Georgia Woods, the
central character in the movie version. Windle wrote
history from an eyewitness perspective.
The plot of the movie, "True Women," was expanded into a
sweeping drama that covered five decades. It starred
Angelina Jolie, Dana Delany and Annabeth Gish. The
cinematic version begins in western Georgia, where the
character played by Jolie is a beautiful mixed blood
Creek girl, growing up in comfort on the Hawkins
plantation in Crawford County, Georgia. Her maternal
grandfather was one of the great leaders of the Creek
Nation, while her paternal grandfather was Benjamin
Hawkins, the famous Superintendent of Indian Affairs
during the early 1800s. Her grandmother was actually
from Georgia, not Tuckabachee Town, AL as the movie
states.
Georgia Woods becomes distraught after her Creek cousin
is raped and hung near the plantation. This happened
often in Georgia during the 1800s. After many of her
Creek relatives are illegally forced off their farms,
she and her husband immigrate to eastern Texas to start
a new life. This part of the plot is very much based on
fact. Many mixed-blood Creeks moved to Texas during that
era and became soldiers for the Republic of Texas. The
movie accurately portrays another historical fact. After
achieving independence, these same mixed-heritage
families were forced to fight other Native Americans,
the Comanches and the Apaches, for their survival.
Many Texas families have dim memories of ancestors being
from Georgia or even being Creek Indians from Georgia,
but until Kindle wrote her masterful novel, few
historians realized the scale of the Georgia-Texas
connection. That is why antebellum houses in eastern
Texas look like antebellum houses in Georgia . . . and
why juicy, slow-cooked Georgia barbecue is vastly
superior to that torched leather that Texans think is
barbecue. They didn't have time to make real barbecue on
the long wagon ride out west; then completely forgot how
to cook while birthing a new republic.
Part 1 |
Part 2 |
Part 3 |
Part 4 |
Part 5
Notes About this Material
Source: Richard Thornton, an alliance of Muskogean scholars, professors and
professionals. Copyright Richard Thornton, Blairsville, GA, 2010. Used here with
permission.
|
|
Order Family Tree Maker 2012!!!