The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 60, July 1956 - April, 1957 Page: 349
616 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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James Bowie, Big Dealer
increasingly looked upon the public lands of Texas as almost value-
less. The Coahuila politicos in 1834 and 1835 granted away, ille-
gally, millions of acres of Texas lands for a song, antagonizing
responsible Texans.24 John T. Mason, representing a New York
syndicate and also representing himself, acquired titles in 1834 to
300 leagues and in 1835 to x xoo leagues-more than 6,250,000
acres. He was a pompous, polite, canting land shark," but was by
no means alone among the grabbing North Americans.
Early in 1835 the Coahuila and Texas government made San-
tiago (James) Bowie special land commissioner to issue titles on
the Mason grants. With grand flourish and rubric he signatured
away, mostly in the month of September, titles to eleven-league
tracts of lands aggregating toward half a million acres.26 The
trades were on slim margins and he could not have collected
much money.
One of the first acts of the provisional government of Texas was
to nullify titles to the Mason and other grants of land acquired
"under suspicious circumstances." The Texas Constitution, adopt-
ed on March 17, 1836, declared "each and every grant" made to
John T. Mason "null and void from the beginning."
Bowie's speculations in Texas lands were more ineffectual than
dishonest. Many men grabbed and gained more successfully. As
a minor illustration, before Sam Houston rose to the responsi-
bility of office and became a powerful bulwark for the state
against-in his phrase-"the cupidity and avarice of land claim-
ants," he applied as a "married man" for a league of land in
Austin's colony and got it and then applied as an "unmarried
man" for another league in Burnet's colony and got it. After
Texas cut off from Mexico and had unhampered disposition of
24Barker, "Land Speculation as a Cause of the Texas Revolution," Quarterly of
the Texas State Historical Association, X, 76-95.
25Kate Mason Rowland, author of "General John Thompson Mason," Quarterly
of the Texas State Historical Association, XI, 163-198, was a descendant and her
sketch gives a better opinion of the man than his letters give.
28File (or Volume) 30o, in the General Land Office of Texas records ten titles
covering ninety-five leagues of land to various individuals signed with flourish and
rubric by Santiago Bowie, at Nacogdoches, Texas, February-November, 1835.
Bowie seems to have followed a custom of signing on blank pages to be filled in
and dated by a clerk. He was at San Antonio or in that region on some of the
dates attached to his signature. See statement by John T. Borden, Land Commis-
sioner of Texas, in appendix to House Journals of the Fifth Congress of Texas,
184o, p. 356.349
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 60, July 1956 - April, 1957, periodical, 1957; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101163/m1/378/: accessed April 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.