Texas

Texas (IPA: /ˈtɛksəs/) is a state geographically located in the South Central United States. Texas is known as the Lone Star State. Austin is the state capital. Texas is the second largest U.S. state in both area and population, with an area of 268,820 square miles (696,200 km²) and a growing population of 23.9 million. Houston is the state's largest city. The Dallas/Fort Worth area is the largest metropolitan statistical area.

Traveling from east to west, the landscape of Texas gradually evolves from that of the Deep South into that of the desert Southwest, going from piney woods to semi-forests of oak and cross timbers, into rolling plains and prairie, then finally to desert in the Big Bend. These wide open spaces of the Texas prairie have lent currency to the phrase that "everything is bigger in Texas".^[6] Due to its long history as a center of the American cattle industry, Texas is associated throughout much of the world with the image of the cowboy.

Historically and culturally, partly due to settlement patterns and its membership in the Confederacy, Texas has close ties to the American South. However, having once been both a Spanish and Mexican possession, it can also be classified as a Southwestern state. While residents acknowledge these categories, many claim an independent "Texan" identity superseding regional labels.

Spain was the first European country to claim Texas, and it was part of Mexico until 1836 when it became the independent Republic of Texas. In 1845 it joined the United States as the 28th state. The state's annexation was part of a chain of events that led to the Mexican-American War and the U.S. Civil War. The discovery of oil in the early 1900s led to an economic boom in the state. It has become economically diversified with a growing base in high technology.

[ Etymology

Texas state welcome sign

The state's name derives from táyshay, a word in the Caddoan language of the Hasinai, which means "friends" or "allies".^[2]^[7]^[8]

The word "Texas" has been incorporated into American English vernacular in many ways. Due to the state's large geographic size, the term "Texas-sized" is a metaphor for "big".^[9]^[10] The state's name is used in brands such as Texas Roadhouse and Texas Instruments. The abbreviated form of "Texas", "Tex", is used as a nickname for someone born and/or raised in the state, such as country music singer Tex Ritter. "Tex" is also a prefix for Texas related words including Tex-Mex or the restaurant chain, Texadelphia.

The nickname, The Lone Star State, comes from the single star of the former Republic of Texas.^[11]

[ History

Main article: History of Texas

The display of the "Six Flags" in Austin, Texas includes the flags of (left to right) Crown of Castile (Spain), the Fleur-de-lis of France, Mexico, the Confederate States of America, the Republic of Texas, and the United States of America.^[12]

[ Colonization


History of Texas
French Texas
Spanish Texas
Mexican Texas
Republic of Texas
Texas in the Civil War
State of Texas

Main articles: Spanish Texas and Mexican Texas

Alonso Álvarez de Pineda, creator of the first map of the northern Gulf Coast, made the first documented European sighting of Texas in 1519.^[13]^[14] On 6 November 1528, shipwrecked Spanish conquistador Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca became the first known European in Texas.^[15] Texas was claimed as part of New Spain but was not settled immediately.^[16] In 1685 La Salle established the first European community in Texas, the French colony of Fort Saint Louis.^[17] The colony, located along Matagorda Bay, lasted only four years before succumbing to harsh conditions and hostile natives.^[18]

Due to the perceived French encroachment, Spain established its first presence in Texas in 1691 constructing of missions in East Texas.^[19] The missions failed quickly, and Spain did not resettle Texas until two decades had passed.^[20] Spain returned to East Texas in 1716, establishing missions and a presidio to maintain a buffer between New Spain and the territory of Louisiana.^[21]^[22] Two years later, the first civilian settlement in Texas, San Antonio, was established as a way station between the missions and the rest of New Spain.^[23]

Fear of attacks from native tribes and remoteness from New Spain discouraged settlers from moving to Texas; it remained one of New Spain's least populated provinces.^[24] San Antonio was a target for raids by the Lipan Apache.^[25] In 1749, the Spanish signed a peace treaty with the Apache,^[26] which angered the enemies of the Apache and resulted in raids by the Comanche, Tonkawa, and Hasinai tribes.^[27] The Comanche signed a treaty with Spain in 1785^[28] and later assisted in defeating the Lipan Apache and Karankawa tribes which had continued to cause difficulties for Spanish settlers.^[29]^[30] An increased number of missions in the province allowed for a peaceful conversion of other tribes, and by the end of the 1700s only a few nomadic tribes had not been "Christianized".^[31]

The Louisiana Purchase by the United States from Napoleon led to a border dispute over Texas.^[32] U.S. President Thomas Jefferson insisted that the purchase included land to the east of the Rocky Mountains and to the north of the Rio Grande.^[33] The dispute was resolved in 1819, with the signing of the Adams-Onís Treaty recognizing the Sabine River as Texas's eastern boundary.^[34]

Stephen F. Austin

In 1821, the state became a province of Mexico after the Mexican War of Independence.^[35] Texas became the northern section of Coahuila y Tejas in 1824. Spain's policy of allowing only full-blooded Spaniards to settle Texas also ended with Mexico's independence. On 3 January 1823, Stephen F. Austin began a colony of 297 Anglo-American families known as the "Old Three Hundred" along the Brazos River, after he was authorized to do so by Governor Antonio María Martínez.^[36] By 1830, the 30,000 Anglo settlers in Texas outnumbered Tejanos six to one.^[37]

[ Independence

Main articles: Texas Revolution and Republic of Texas

The Convention of 1832 and the Convention of 1833 were responses to rising unrest at policies of the Mexican government. Delegates feared the end of duty-free imports from the United States and the threat of ending slavery.^[38] In 1835, Antonio López de Santa Anna, President of Mexico, created a unified constitution for Mexico.^[38] The new constitution, imposed a central style of government with power concentrated in the President, and turned states into provinces with governors appointed from Mexico City. States around Mexico rebelled against this imposition, including Chihuahua, Zacatecas and Yucatan. Centralista forces' suppression of dissidents in Zacatecas also inspired fear of the Mexican government.^[39] Texans also resented policies such as, the forcible disarmament of settlers, and the expulsion of immigrants and legal landowners originally from the United States.

Republic of Texas. The present-day outlines of the U.S. states are superimposed on the boundaries of 1836–1845

On 2 March 1836, the Convention of 1836 signed a Declaration of Independence.^[40]^[41] On 21 April 1836, the Texans—led by General Sam Houston—won their independence at the Battle of San Jacinto. Santa Anna's capture led to the Treaties of Velasco, which gave Texas firm boundaries. Mexico repudiated the treaties, considered Texas a breakaway province, and vowed to reconquer it. Later in 1836, the Texans adopted a constitution that formally legalized slavery. The Republic of Texas included the area of the present state of Texas, and additional unoccupied territory to the west and northwest.^[39]

[ Statehood

Main article: Texas Annexation

Most Texans wanted their Republic to be annexed into the United States because of the Republic's defensive and financial difficulties. Events such as the Dawson Massacre and two recaptures of Béxar in Texas of 1842 added momentum to the desire for statehood.^[42] However, strong Northern opposition to adding another slave state blocked Texas's admission until pro-annexation James K. Polk won the election of 1844. On December 29, 1845, Texas was admitted to the U.S. as a constituent state of the Union.^[43] The Mexican–American War followed, with decisive victories by the U.S.^[44] Texas's boundaries were set at their present form after the Compromise of 1850. Land which later became half of present day New Mexico, a third of Colorado, and small portions of Kansas, Oklahoma, and Wyoming, was ceded for the federal government's assumption of $10 million of the old republic's debt.^[45]

Post-war Texas grew rapidly as migrants poured into the cotton lands of the state.^[46] German immigrants started to arrive in the early 1840s because of economic, social and political conditions in their states. In 1842, German nobles organized the Adelsverein, banding together to buy land in central Texas to enable German settlement. The Revolutions of 1848 acted as another catalyst for so many immigrants that they became known as the "48ers". Many were educated artisans and businessmen. Germans continued to arrive in considerable numbers until 1890.^[47] With their investments in cotton cultivation, Texas planters imported enslaved blacks. They established plantations mostly in the eastern part of the state. The central area was settled more by subsistence farmers. By 1860, the population of Texas totaled 604,215 and was 30 percent enslaved African Americans.^[48]

[ Civil War, Reconstruction, and disfranchisement

Main article: Texas in the American Civil War

Civil war monument in Galveston, Texas

On 1 February 1861, elected delegates met in convention and authorized secession from the United States, which voters later approved in state-wide referendum. The state was accepted as a charter member of the Confederate States of America on 1 March 1861.^[49]^[2] During the American Civil War, Texas was a "supply state" for the Confederate forces due to its distance from the front lines, contributing men, especially cavalry. Texan regiments fought in every major battle throughout the war.^[50] Texas was cut off from the rest of the Confederacy mid-1863 when the Union capture of the Mississippi River made large movements of men or cattle impossible. The last battle of the Civil War was fought in Texas at Palmito Ranch on 13 May 1865.^[51]

Texas descended into anarchy two months between the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia and the assumption of authority by Union General Gordon Granger. Violence also marked the early months of Reconstruction, as people paid off old grudges and struggled for power.^[52] Juneteenth commemorates the announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation on 19 June 1865 in Galveston by General Gordon Granger, over 2-1/2 years after the original announcement.^[53]^[54] President Johnson, on 20 August 1866, declared that civilian government had been restored to Texas.^[55] Despite not meeting reconstruction requirements, on 30 March 1870 the Congress readmitted Texas into the Union.^[56] Social volatility continued as Texas struggled with agricultural depression and labor issues.

Like other Southern states, by the late 1870s white Democrats regained control, often with a mix of intimidation and terrorism. They passed a new constitution in 1876 that segregated schools and established a poll tax to support them, but it was not originally required for voting.^[57] In 1901 the legislature passed a poll tax as a prerequisite for voter registration. Given the economic difficulties of the times, the poll tax caused participation by poor whites, African Americans and Mexican Americans to drop sharply. By the early 20th century, the Democratic Party in Texas started using a "white primary", which the state legislature authorized in 1923.^[53] Since the Democratic Party dominated the state after 1900 for decades, the "white primary" provision reduced what little minority participation there was as the primaries were the true competitive contest. These provisions extended deep into the 20th century.^[53]

[ Modern era

Spindletop

The first major oil well in Texas was Spindletop, south of Beaumont, on 10 January 1901. Other fields were later discovered nearby in East Texas, West Texas, and under the Gulf of Mexico. The resulting “Oil Boom” permanently transformed the economy of Texas.^[58] Oil production eventually averaged three million barrels of oil per day at its peak in 1972.^[59]

The economy, significantly improved since the civil war, was dealt a double blow by the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. Migrants abandoned the worst hit sections of Texas during the Dust Bowl years. Especially from this period on, blacks left Texas in the Great Migration to get work in the North or California and to escape the oppression of segregation.^[60] With increased immigration, although the numbers of African Americans increased, their proportion of population decreased from 20.4 percent in 1900 to 12.4 percent in 1960.^[60]

From 1950 through the 1960s, Texas modernized and expanded its system of higher education. Under the leadership of Governor John B. Connally, the state created a long-range plan for higher education, a more rational distribution of resources, and a central state apparatus designed to manage state institutions more efficiently. These changes helped Texas universities receive federal research funds during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.^[61]

[ Geography

Main article: Geography of Texas

See also: List of Texas state parks

El Capitan

Texas is located at the southernmost part of the Great Plains, which ends in the south against the folded Sierra Madre Oriental of Mexico. It is in the south-central part of the United States of America. The state has been categorized as part of the U.S. South and also part of the U.S. Southwest.

The Rio Grande, Red River and Sabine River are natural state borders, Oklahoma on the north, Louisiana and Arkansas on the east, & the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas to the south. To the west, its borders with New Mexico & Oklahoma are not based on natural features of terrain. The state's Texas Panhandle has a western border with New Mexico at 100° W, a northern one at 36°30' N and a western one at 103° W. The state's western tip is located on the 32th parallel extending from the Rio Grande to the Panhandle.^[45]

Because of its size and unique history, the regional affiliation of Texas is debatable. Depending on the source, it can be fairly considered either or both a Southern or Southwestern state. The vast geographic, economic, and cultural diversity within the state itself prohibits easy categorization of the whole state into a recognized region of the United States. The East, Central, and North Texas, regions have a stronger association with the American South than with the Southwest. Others, such as far West Texas and South Texas share more similarities with the latter. The upper Texas Panhandle is similar to the Midwestern United States and the South Plains parts of West Texas, is a blend of South and Southwest.^{[citation needed]}

Texas can be divided into five human geographical regions: North, East, Central, South, and West. Texas Almanac divides Texas into four physical geographical regions: Gulf Coastal Plains, Interior Lowlands, Great Plains, and The Basin and Range Province.^{[citation needed]}

[ Geology

Main article: Geology of Texas

Shaded Relief Map of the Llano Estacado

Texas is the southernmost part of the Great Plains, which ends in the south against the folded Sierra Madre Occidental of Mexico. The continental crust here is a stable Mesoproterozoic craton which changes across a broad continental margin and transitional crust into true oceanic crust of the Gulf of Mexico. The oldest rocks in Texas date from the Mesoproterozoic and are about 1,600 million years old. These Precambrian igneous and metamorphic rocks underlie most of the state, and are exposed in three places: Llano uplift, Van Horn, and the Franklin Mountains, near El Paso. This is overlain by mostly sedimentary rocks. The oldest sediments were deposited on the flanks of a rifted continental margin, or passive margin that developed during Cambrian time. This margin existed until Laurasia and Gondwana collided in the Pennsylvanian era to form Pangea. This is the buried crest of the Appalachian Mountains—Ouachita Mountains zone of Pennsylvanian continental collision. This orogenic crest is today buried beneath thee GFDL.
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Texas

Texas

Contents

[ Etymology

[ History

[ Colonization

[ Independence

[ Statehood

[ Civil War, Reconstruction, and disfranchisement

[ Modern era

[ Geography

[ Geology