Tom Blue

Last updated
Tom Blue, enslaved by General Sam Houston, ran away and joined the Mexican military Tom Blue, General Sam Houston's bodyguard.jpg
Tom Blue, enslaved by General Sam Houston, ran away and joined the Mexican military

Tom Blue (died 1910) was an enslaved personal servant and coachman of Sam Houston, who purchased Blue prior to his marriage to Margaret Lea. He worked for Houston for nearly 30 years. In the fall of 1862, he ran away with another servant, a boy named Walter Hume. They traveled together to the border and Blue sold Hume for $800. Blue crossed into Mexico, where he lived as a free man. He later settled in Harrisburg, where he married a woman who was around age 30. He said at the time that he was 119.

Contents

Early life

Tom Blue, of West Indian and European descent, [1] was born in Pennsylvania [2] between 1790 and 1817. [a] He was enslaved in Kentucky and ran away in 1832. [2] Blue lived in Houston, Texas "when the stars fell" (Great Meteor Storm of 1833). [3]

Sam Houston

Washington Bogart Cooper, American frontiersman and statesman Sam Houston (1793-1863), 1845, Tennessee Portrait Project Houston-sam-by-wb-cooper.jpg
Washington Bogart Cooper, American frontiersman and statesman Sam Houston (1793–1863) , 1845, Tennessee Portrait Project

Enslaved during Houston's military career

In the meantime, Sam Houston resigned his post as Governor of Tennessee (1829) and he settled in Indian Territory. In late 1832, Houston moved to Mexican Texas and established a law practice in Nacogdoches. [7] Mexican law prohibited any religion other than Catholicism, and Houston converted to the faith at the Nacogdoches home of Adolphus Sterne.

In 1834, [2] Blue was purchased in Tennessee by Houston. [2] [4] The Consultation of October 1835 to March 1836 convened in San Felipe de Austin on November 3, and created of a constitutional provisional government and the Provisional Army of Texas, a paid force of 2,500 troops. Houston was named commander-in-chief of the new army and in charge of training those who enlisted. On April 21, 1836, Houston's troops attacked the Mexican army during the 18-minute Battle of San Jacinto. Although outnumbered, and with Houston wounded, the Texans were victorious [7] against General Antonio López de Santa Anna of Mexico. [2]

On May 7, the Yellowstone steamboat transported Houston and his prisoner Santa Anna, along with the government Santa Anna tried to extinguish, to Galveston Island. Blue said he served with Houston at the battle, [8] [9] [b] and was detailed by Houston to serve the captured Mexican general. [5] From there, the government and Santa Anna traveled to Velasco for the signing of treaties. [10] Houston had suffered a serious wound to his foot during the battle [11] and on May 28 boarded the schooner Flora for medical treatment in New Orleans. [12] Houston won the 1836 presidential election for the Republic of Texas. [7]

Role in the Houston household

Blue was Houston's body guard and coachman. [13] [14] He was also described as a "negro retainer" along with a man named Esau (also Esaw), [13] both of whom were acquired before Houston's marriage to Margaret Lea. [15] Blue was described as "a fine-looking mulatto with the manners and speech of a high-class gentleman." [14]

Houston had twelve enslaved people when he became the Governor of Texas. Blue, Joshua Houston and Jeff transported Houston, his family, and their belongings to the Governor's Mansion in Austin. One of the maids was named Eliza. [16] Aunt Mary and her daughters Creasy and Mary were also enslaved by Houston. [17] The male servants of the Houston family had quarters in the stable. [16]

Throughout his life, Houston had a penchant for travel and his family and their servants learned to become "as mobile as the calvary". [18]

The march of years had not diminished his passion for motion, and the Houston family, with its cluster of little ones, whose number methodically increased to seven, became as mobile as calvary. A notion to trek would strike the General. In an hour the children would be rounded up by Margaret and the maids. With trunks lashed to the boot, a surplus negro or two perched on the top and a flourish of Tom Blue’s long whip, the great yellow carry-all and four horses would be off in a cloud of rolling dust, General Houston leading the way in a single-seated top buggy beside the gigantic Joshua, his driver… On, on—always in flight.

— Marquis James, The Raven: A Biography of Sam Houston  [19]

Flight

Blue left Huntsville, Texas, for Mexico in the fall of 1862. [1] [8] [14] [c] He traveled with a boy named Walter Hume who was also held by Houston. [1] [14] Since Blue was able to pass as white with his light complexion, he convinced Walter, the son of a slave owned by a Huntsville blacksmith, that the best way to get to Mexico would be to present themselves as slave and master. [1] Blue was able to pass for white at the immigration office in Eagle Pass. After they crossed the border to Mexico, Blue sold Walter for $800. [14] [20] [d]

Houston's slaves

Blue has been said to have runaway just before Houston freed his slaves. Houston was said to have conveyed to them Abraham Lincoln's September 1862 Emancipation Proclamation, which would free all enslaved people on January 1, 1863. According to the story published in James Haley's Sam Houston, Houston decided to free them immediately. [1] [21] However, the Emancipation Proclamation was not announced in Texas until June 1865, Juneteenth. [22] [e]

Later life

Blue worked at the Harris County Courthouse, where he met Judge Vasmer. He later received a pension from the county. [3] He was married on September 2, 1909, to 30-year-old Camille Milton by Judge Vasmer. Blue said that he was 119 years old at the time. [3]

He lived in Harris County, Texas most of his life. [3] He was a religious man who quoted Biblical scripture and attended church in Harrisburg. Blue never learned to read or write. [2]

Blue died in Harrisburg of old age in July 1910 [4] and was interred at the Harrisburg-Jackson Cemetery. [26] He is mentioned on a Texas historical marker as one of the interred African American citizens of Harrisburg. [9]

Notes

  1. ↑ Blue claimed to have been 119 years old when he married in 1909 (meaning he was born around 1790), [3] he was said to have been born in Pennsylvania in 1791, [2] and he has said that he was born in 1796. [4] He was said to be 90 years of age in 1899 (born 1809) [5] and was also said to have been at least 93 at the time of his death (born 1817 or earlier). [6]
  2. ↑ When Blue lived in Harrisburg, he signed an affidavit that he had been at the battle with Houston. [6]
  3. ↑ There is an erroneous claim in a magazine article and in his obituary that Blue was with Houston until his death (1863). [4] [2]
  4. ↑ James L. Haley recorded that they traveled together to Laredo where Blue sold Walter for $800. Blue then crossed the border into Mexico. [1]
  5. ↑ When Houston died in 1863, his slaves were part of the inventory of his estate and valued at $10,530 (~$204,690 in 2023). [23] [24] Joshua Houston's son Samuel Walker Houston was born in February 1864, seven months after Sam Houston's death, and is always referred to as having been born into slavery. [25]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sam Houston</span> American general and statesman (1793–1863)

Samuel Houston was an American general and statesman who played a prominent role in the Texas Revolution. He served as the first and third president of the Republic of Texas and was one of the first two individuals to represent Texas in the United States Senate. He also served as the sixth governor of Tennessee and the seventh governor of Texas, the only individual to be elected governor of two different states in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephen F. Austin</span> American empresario (1793–1836)

Stephen Fuller Austin was an American-born empresario. Known as the "Father of Texas" and the founder of Anglo Texas, he led the second and, ultimately, the successful colonization of the region by bringing 300 families and their slaves from the United States to the Tejas region of Mexico in 1825.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fugitive Slave Act of 1850</span> Act of the United States Congress

The Fugitive Slave Act or Fugitive Slave Law was a law passed by the 31st United States Congress on September 18, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850 between Southern interests in slavery and Northern Free-Soilers.

<i>Queen: The Story of an American Family</i> Novel by Alex Haley and David Stevens

Queen: The Story of an American Family is a 1993 partly factual historical novel by Alex Haley and David Stevens.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">J. Pinckney Henderson</span> Governor of Texas from 1846 to 1847

James Pinckney Henderson was an American and Republic of Texas lawyer, politician, and soldier, and the first governor of the State of Texas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fugitive slaves in the United States</span>

In the United States, fugitive slaves or runaway slaves were terms used in the 18th and 19th centuries to describe people who fled slavery. The term also refers to the federal Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850. Such people are also called freedom seekers to avoid implying that the enslaved person had committed a crime and that the slaveholder was the injured party.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Margaret Lea Houston</span> First Lady of the Republic of Texas (1819–1867)

Margaret Lea Houston was First Lady of the Republic of Texas during her husband Sam Houston's second term as President of the Republic of Texas. They met following the first of his two non-consecutive terms as the Republic's president, and married when he was a representative in the Congress of the Republic of Texas. She was his third wife, remaining with him until his death.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Texas in the American Civil War</span>

Texas declared its secession from the Union on February 1, 1861, and joined the Confederate States on March 2, 1861, after it had replaced its governor, Sam Houston, who had refused to take an oath of allegiance to the Confederacy. As with those of other states, the Declaration of Secession was not recognized by the US government at Washington, DC. Some Texan military units fought in the Civil War east of the Mississippi River, but Texas was more useful for supplying soldiers and horses for the Confederate Army. Texas' supply role lasted until mid-1863, when Union gunboats started to control the Mississippi River, which prevented large transfers of men, horses, or cattle. Some cotton was sold in Mexico, but most of the crop became useless because of the Union's naval blockade of Galveston, Houston, and other ports.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of slavery in Texas</span>

The history of slavery in Texas began slowly at first during the first few phases in Texas' history. Texas was a colonial territory, then part of Mexico, later Republic in 1836, and U.S. state in 1845. The use of slavery expanded in the mid-nineteenth century as White American settlers, primarily from the Southeastern United States, crossed the Sabine River and brought enslaved people with them. Slavery was present in Spanish America and Mexico prior to the arrival of American settlers, but it was not highly developed, and the Spanish did not rely on it for labor during their years in Spanish Texas.

Samuel Walker Houston was an American pioneer in the field of education.

Joshua Houston was born into slavery in about 1822 on the Perry County, Alabama plantation owned by Temple Lea and Nancy Moffette Lea, parents of Margaret Lea Houston. When Margaret married Sam Houston, Joshua moved to Texas with the newlyweds. Joshua traveled with Sam Houston and worked on the construction of Raven Hill in Huntsville, Texas. He became educated and was elected to local public offices. He had three wives and was the father of eight children, including Samuel Walker Houston. Joshua was a Texas delegate at the 1884 Republican National Convention. He helped establish the Bishop Ward Normal and Collegiate Institute.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bibliography of Sam Houston</span>

Samuel "Sam" Houston represented the state of Tennessee in the United States House of Representatives, and was elected Governor of Tennessee. He resigned the governorship in 1829 and lived with the Cherokee in the Arkansas Territory. The Cherokee named him "Golanv" meaning "The Raven". In 1832 he moved to Coahuila y Tejas and was a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence on March 2, 1836. Houston was appointed commander-in-chief of the Provisional Army of Texas, and accepted the surrender of Mexican general Antonio López de Santa Anna following the Battle of San Jacinto.

Samuel McKinney (1807–1879) was an Irish-born Presbyterian minister and educator in the American South, particularly Tennessee, Mississippi, and Texas. He founded the Chalmers Institute in Holly Springs, Mississippi, in 1850. He served as the founding president of Austin College in Huntsville, Texas, from 1850 to 1853, and again from 1862 to 1871.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sam Houston and slavery</span> Sam Houstons relationship with slavery

Sam Houston was a slaveholder who had a complicated history with the institution of slavery. He was the president of the independent Republic of Texas, which was founded as a slave-holding nation, and governor of Texas after its 1845 annexation to the union as a slave state. He voted various times against the extension of slavery into the Western United States and he did not swear an oath to the Confederate States of America, which marked the end of his political career.

Nancy Moffette Lea (1780–1864) was the mother of Margaret Lea Houston and mother-in-law of Sam Houston. She was an integral member of the Houston family, running the household when Margaret was ill or pregnant. She is believed to have helped her son-in-law convert and be baptized in 1854. In appreciation, she donated a bell to the Independence Baptist Church in honor of him. The wife of Temple Lea, she inherited an estate from her family that she managed. She purchased a cotton plantation which was operated by 50 enslaved people.

Eliza Houston Douglass was the first wife of Sam Houston. Their marriage, over after just eleven weeks, ended Houston's career as governor of Tennessee. Houston resigned and went to the home of his foster father John Jolly, a leader of the Cherokee people. Allen returned to her family in Sumner County. For years, their marriage was the subject of rumors and theories about what made the marriage unsuitable to both Allen and Houston. They did not publicly expose any information about their marriage and they both seemed to be protective of one another's reputation. Allen's brother, Judge Benjamin Franklin Allen offered his opinion: "like many other couples they were not congenial".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sam Houston and Native American relations</span> Sam Houstons relationships with Native Americans

Sam Houston had a diverse relationship with Native Americans, particularly the Cherokee from Tennessee. He was an adopted son, and he was a negotiator, strategist, and creator of fair public policy for Native Americans as a legislator, governor and president of the Republic of Texas. He left his widowed mother's home around 1808 and was taken in by John Jolly, a leader of the Cherokee. Houston lived in Jolly's village for three years. He adopted Cherokee customs and traditions, which stressed the importance of being honest and fair, and he learned to speak the Cherokee language. He felt that Cherokees and other indigenous people had been short-changed during negotiation of treaties with United States government, the realization influenced his decisions as a military officer, treaty negotiator, and in his roles as governor of the states of Tennessee and Texas, and president of the Republic of Texas.

Samuel Houston Jr. was the oldest of eight children born to President of the Republic of Texas, Sam Houston, and First Lady Margaret Lea Houston, and was the only of the children born in the Republic of Texas, before its December 29, 1845 annexation to the United States.

John Houston was an Irish-born American planter. He immigrated from Ireland to Colonial America in the 1730s. During the voyage the passengers learned that the ship's captain planned on robbing the wealthy passengers of their gold sovereigns. They took control of the vessel and sailed to Philadelphia. After living a number of years in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Houston moved his family and established a plantation in what is now Rockbridge County, Virginia. His great-grandson was Sam Houston.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joe Travis</span>

Joe Travis was an enslaved man who was one of the only survivors of the Battle of the Alamo. Joe was sold four times in his life, with his most well known owner being William B. Travis, a 19th century lawyer and soldier, who would later serve as one of the commanding officers at The Battle of the Alamo.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Haley 2015, p.  407.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 The Wide World Magazine. A. Newnes, Limited. 1908. p. 520.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 "Married at age of 119: Tom Blue, an Aged Negro, Became a Bridegroom Yesterday at Judge Vasmer's Office". The Houston Post. September 3, 1909. Retrieved 2021-07-10.
  4. 1 2 3 4 "Obituary for Tom Blue". The Houston Post. July 18, 1910. Retrieved 2021-07-08.
  5. 1 2 "Tom Blue of Houston, 90 years old". Houston Daily Post. December 17, 1899.
  6. 1 2 Prather & Monday 1993, p.  186.
  7. 1 2 3 Rust, Randal. "Houston, Sam". Tennessee Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2021-07-10.
  8. 1 2 Gray, Lisa (2000-09-28). "Grave Importance". Houston Press. Retrieved 2021-07-08.
  9. 1 2 Elsbury, Katie (2001-02-21). "Cemetery earns historic designation". Chron. Retrieved 2021-07-09.
  10. ↑ Moore 2004, pp. 375–386, 405–407.
  11. ↑ Moore 2004, pp. 338–339.
  12. ↑ Moore 2004, p. 407.
  13. 1 2 James 1929, p.  385.
  14. 1 2 3 4 5 Prather & Monday 1993, p.  70.
  15. ↑ Prather & Monday 1993, pp. 53, 70.
  16. 1 2 Prather & Monday 1993, p.  53.
  17. ↑ "One Horrible Day". San Antonia Observer. December 27, 2017. Retrieved 2021-07-10.
  18. ↑ Prather & Monday 1993, p.  50.
  19. ↑ James 1929, p.  385.
  20. ↑ Roberts 1993, p.  319.
  21. ↑ Prather & Monday 1993, pp. 70–71.
  22. ↑ "Junteenth". Texas State Library and Archives. Archived from the original on 20 February 2012. Retrieved 11 March 2012.
  23. ↑ Williams 1984, p. 363.
  24. ↑ Roberts 2001, p. 113.
  25. ↑ Lucko, Paul M. "Samuel Walker Houston". Handbook of Texas Online. Texas State Historical Association. Archived from the original on 21 January 2012. Retrieved 10 March 2012.
  26. ↑ Vaughn, Carol E. (September 27, 2001). "City's sale of strip stirs memories of Harrisburg". Chron. Retrieved 2021-07-08.

Sources

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.