The Hedgcoxe War of 1852, also known as the Peters colony rebellion, was an armed uprising of Texas colonists protesting what they viewed as an attempt by The Texas Emigration and Land Company (TELC was also known as the Peters Colony [1] ), to invalidate their land claims, but was also a conflict between stockholders and land speculators with land certificates worried about market inflation and lowered land value. [2]
On February 10, 1852, the state legislature, in an attempt to satisfy both the colonists and the land company, passed a compromise law. According to its terms all lawsuits were to be withdrawn, the colonists were to be given new guidelines, time would be extended for filing claims, and the state was to give the land company 1,088,000 acres (4,400 km2) of land. Concerned over the large land grant by the Republic of Texas, [2] and worried the company would flood the market and depress land values, colonists and speculators continued their protests.
In May 1852, the agent of the land company, Henry Oliver Hedgcoxe, published an explanatory proclamation that stated the colonists had until August 4, 1852, to establish their claims with him. The proclamation, contributed to the misinterpretation of the compromise law. The colonists were further aroused when the Texas attorney general, Ebenezer Allen, issued an opinion upholding the law. At a mass meeting of colonists in Dallas on July 15, 1852, Hedgcoxe was accused of fraud and corruption by an investigating committee. [1] On July 16, 1852, Dallas's citizen militia group leader, John Jay Good, [3] led about 100 armed men from the mass meeting to both Hedgcoxe's home on Rowlett's Creek in Collin County, and then to his office, which was located along Office Creek [4] in Stewartsville - what is now The Colony, TX (a historical marker currently resides near the original location). Hedgecoxe and his clerk S. A. Venters were warned in advance of the raid, and made off with some of the records during their escape. Hedgcoxe's office was burned and a portion of the files were seized by the raiders and removed to the Dallas County Courthouse. [4] Hedgcoxe was ordered to leave the colony. On January 1, 1853, the land company published a conciliatory letter to the settlers. On February 7, 1853, an amendment to the compromise law, satisfactory to both sides, was passed. Except for relatively minor adjustments made in the courts and the legislature over the next ten years, the colonists' title difficulties were ended. [5]
Uvalde County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, its population was 24,564. Its county seat is Uvalde. The county was created in 1850 and organized in 1856. It is named for Juan de Ugalde, the Spanish governor of Coahuila. Uvalde County was founded by Reading Wood Black, who also founded the city of Uvalde, Texas. Uvalde County comprises the Uvalde, TX Micropolitan Statistical Area.
Tarrant County is located in the U.S. state of Texas. As of 2020, it had a population of 2,110,640. It is Texas' third-most populous county and the 15th-most populous in the United States. Its county seat is Fort Worth. Tarrant County, one of 26 counties created out of the Peters Colony, was established in 1849 and organized the next year. It was named in honor of General Edward H. Tarrant of the Republic of Texas militia.
Denton County is located in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, its population was 906,422, making it the 7th-most populous county in Texas. The county seat is Denton. The county, which was named for John B. Denton, was established in 1846. Denton County constitutes part of the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. In 2007, it was one of the fastest-growing counties in the United States.
Lancaster is a city in Dallas County, Texas, United States. Its population was 41,275 according to the 2020 census. Founded in 1852 as a frontier post, Lancaster is one of Dallas County's earliest settlements. Today, it is a suburban community located in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, about 15 mi (24 km) south of downtown Dallas.
Denton is a city in and the county seat of Denton County, Texas, United States. With a population of 139,869 as of 2020, it is the 27th-most populous city in Texas, the 197th-most populous city in the United States, and the 12th-most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex.
The Colony is a city in Denton County, Texas, United States, and a suburb of Dallas. The population was 44,534 at the 2020 census.
Carrollton is a city in Dallas, Denton, and Collin counties in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, its population was 133,434, making it the 23rd-most populous city in Texas.
Lewisville is a city in the U.S. state of Texas, predominantly within Denton County with a small part lying within Dallas County. As a suburban community within the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the 2020 census tabulated a population of 111,822.
Ovilla is a city in Dallas and Ellis Counties in the U.S. state of Texas. The population was 4,304 at the 2020 census.
The Fredonian Rebellion was the first attempt by Anglo settlers in Texas to secede from Mexico. The settlers, led by Empresario Haden Edwards, declared independence from Mexican Texas and created the Republic of Fredonia near Nacogdoches. The short-lived republic encompassed the land the Mexican government had granted to Edwards in 1825 and included areas that had been previously settled. Edwards's actions soon alienated the established residents, and the increasing hostilities between them and settlers recruited by Edwards led Víctor Blanco of the Mexican government to revoke Edwards's contract.
Mexican Texas is the historiographical name used to refer to the era of Texan history between 1821 and 1836, when it was part of Mexico. Mexico gained independence in 1821 after winning its war against Spain, which began in 1810. Initially, Mexican Texas operated similarly to Spanish Texas. Ratification of the 1824 Constitution of Mexico created a federal structure, and the province of Tejas was joined with the province of Coahuila to form the state of Coahuila y Tejas.
La Réunion was a utopian socialist community formed in 1855 by French, Belgian, and Swiss colonists on the south bank of the Trinity River in central Dallas County, Texas (US). The colony site is a short distance north of Interstate 30 near downtown Dallas. The founder of the community, Victor Prosper Considerant, was a French democratic socialist who directed an international movement based on Fourierism, a set of economic, political, and social beliefs advocated by French philosopher François Marie Charles Fourier. Fourierism subsequently became known as a form of utopian socialism.
An empresario was a person who had been granted the right to settle on land in exchange for recruiting and taking responsibility for settling the eastern areas of Coahuila y Tejas in the early nineteenth century. The word in Spanish for entrepreneur is emprendedor.
Tennessee Colony is an unincorporated community in Anderson County, in the U.S. state of Texas. According to the Handbook of Texas, the community had a population of 300 in 2000. It is located within the Palestine, Texas micropolitan area.
Foster exists in memory as a pioneer Texas community that is located in Fort Bend County, Texas, United States along Farm to Market Road 359, beginning approximately 1.0 mile (1.6 km) northwest of its intersection with Farm to Market Road 723. It is considered by local homeowners to be an unincorporated community.
Edward H. Tarrant was an American politician who served the Republic of Texas and the State of Texas by fighting multiple indigenous nations for two decades. He, along with John Nealy Bryan, John B. Denton, John H. Reagan, and surveyor Warren Angus Ferris, participated in the massacre of Caddo Indians along the Trinity (Arkikosa) River. Once all native people were removed from the area Bryan was able to claim the land, divide it, and sell it, all thanks to the efforts of Gen. Tarrant. This area along the Arkikosa is now known as Dallas, TX. He also served in the Texas House of Representatives during both periods.
The Great Hanging at Gainesville was the execution by hanging of 41 suspected Unionists in Gainesville, Texas, in October 1862 during the American Civil War. Confederate troops shot two additional suspects trying to escape. Confederate troops captured and arrested some 150–200 men in and near Cooke County at a time when numerous North Texas citizens opposed the new law on conscription. Many suspects were tried by a "Citizens' Court" organized by a Confederate military officer. It made up its own rules for conviction and had no status under state law. Although only 11% of county households enslaved people, seven of the 12 men on the jury were enslavers.
Peters Colony is a name applied to four empresario land grant contracts first by the Republic of Texas and then the State of Texas for settlement in North Texas. The contracts were signed by groups of American and English investors originally headed by William Smalling Peters. Samuel Browning, Peters' son-in-law signed the first contract with the Republic of Texas in Austin on August 30, 1841. Ownership of the empresario company changed many times during the life of the contracts.
Bethel is an unincorporated community in Anderson County, located in the U.S. state of Texas. According to the Handbook of Texas, 50 people lived in the community in 2000. It is a part of the Palestine, Texas micropolitan area.
Sam Houston Jr. (1843–1894) was the oldest of eight children born to Sam Houston and Margaret Lea Houston, and was the only Houston child born in the Republic of Texas, before its December 29, 1845 annexation to the United States. He was home-schooled by his mother, and later attended both Bastrop Military Institute and Baylor University. After Texas seceded from the Union in 1861, he enlisted in the Confederate States Army 2nd Texas Infantry Regiment, Company C Bayland Guards. Wounded at the April 1862 Battle of Shiloh, he served time as a prisoner of war at Camp Douglas in Illinois. Following his release, he received a medical discharge from the Confederate States Army. He attended the Philadelphia University of Medicine and Surgery. Upon graduation, he returned to a private life, and it is unknown if he ever practiced medicine. At some point, he became a writer. Houston married Lucy Anderson in 1875. Their daughter Margaret Bell Houston (1877–1966) was also a writer, as well as a suffragist who became the first president of the Dallas Equal Suffrage Association. Upon his death, Sam Jr. was buried on private property near his mother.