The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 64, July 1960 - April, 1961 Page: 171

THE SOUTHWESTERN HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
VOL. LXIV OCTOBER, i96o No. 2

rhe rexai Arcive War f /1842
DORMAN H. WINFREY
ANY UNUSUAL INTERNAL WARS have occurred in the course
of Texas history. There have been the Salt War, the
Fence-Cutters' War, the Cart War, the Hoodoo War,
the Regulator-Moderator War, the Jaybird-Woodpecker War, and
the Archive War. Most of these conflicts resulted from intense
economic struggles or differences between political factions. The
Texan Archive War, however, was unique in its cause and result,
and was especially significant in that there was no loss of life. The
Archive War, described by one writer as "an incident whose time
period is said to be limited to two days, whose geographic area
did not exceed twenty miles, and in which some hundred men
and one woman figured,"1 was brought on by a dispute which
arose over President Sam Houston's attempt to remove the ar-
chives of the Republic of Texas from Austin to Houston and later
to Washington-on-the-Brazos. The incident played a decisive part
in the final determination of the location of the capital of Texas.2
The archives of the Republic of Texas consisted of all the land
titles, the treaties between Texas and the European powers, the
tattered banners and trophies of the battle of San Jacinto, the
seal of the Republic, the military records of the revolutionary
period, and miscellaneous manuscripts and documents comprising
the official papers of the government. In 1836, during the Texas
Revolution, the archives were moved from one locality to another
by the ad interim government to avoid capture by the Mexicans.
iHope Yager, The Archive War in Texas (Master's thesis, University of Texas,
1939), 1.
2Henry J. Jewett, "The Archive War of Texas," De Bow's Review, Vol. I, No. 5
(New Series, May, 1859), 523.