The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 84, July 1980 - April, 1981 Page: 330
502 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
desperate as their leader's obeyed the call & assembled at Nacogdoches
where one poor solitary family alone resided. He was a merchant there
with a few articles exclusively for Indian trade. Long & all his follow-
ing could not raise ioo dollars. It was therefore justifiable in such emer-
gencies to press private property into the public service; this poor
merchant accordingly was stripped of every thing & left pennyless. Genl
Long's Widow is now living somewhere upon the coast; Long married
her at Natches & spent her fortune & then went on this adventure. He
was a Dr at Natches and lived extravagantly.
From 1813 up to the settlement of the above merchant in 1819, a
period of more than 5 years, Nacogdoches had been entirely aban-
doned; not a single individual lived in the place, the ... silence and
solitude never broken except by travellers & traders passing thro on
their way to Natchitoches.... In consequence of Long's treatment to
[the] trader above mentioned, the money subscribed at Natchi-
toches[,] about iooo dollars to out fit the expedition[,] was withheld.
Like Falstaffs army they had but one shirt, & as for his purpose & intent
the prospect of pay or plunder suited not their schemes; & so when the
spaniards came they scattered without the fire of a gun.126
126An expedition to "invade Texas and establish a Republic" was organized in Natchez,
Mississippi, by men bitterly opposed to the abandonment of any American claim to Texas
in the United States-Spanish treaty of 1819. The leader of this 1819 expedition was Dr.
James Long, a protege of Andrew Jackson, recently married to young Jane Wilkinson,
niece of filibusterer James Wilkinson. (See also note 119.) Although Long easily took de-
serted Nacogdoches, where he declared Texas a free and independent republic and him-
self the elected president, Spanish forces were soon able to drive him out. In 1821-1822, a
second expedition, this time financed by New Orleans supporters, also failed. Long was
captured and taken to Mexico City, where he was killed under rather confused circum-
stances. T. R. Fehrenbach, Lone Star: A History of Texas and the Texans (New York,
1968), 128 (quotation), 129-131; Crocket, Two Centuries, 73-74.
Lamar's comments on James Long in this journal are a remarkable contrast to several
chapters which he prepared in 1838 for a projected biography of the filibusterer, in
which he speaks of the dignity, zeal, valor, and good breeding of the "chivalerous Gen-
eral Long." The purpose of the 181g expedition, according to these chapters, was "to
make one more effort to destroy the merciless domination of Spain in that beautiful and
outraged land [Texas], and to plant upon its soil the broad banner of freedom, happi-
ness and Independence." Far from trying to restore his "ruined fortune," Long "pledged
the whole of his private fortune in the enterprise...." Lamar, Papers, II, 53 (first quota-
tion), 56 (second quotation), 57 (fourth quotation). See also note 63.
The Rio Grande at Frontera, eight miles north of early El Paso. Com-
prised of a ranch and a store established by T. F. White in 1848, Frontera
served as an astronomical observatory for the United States Boundary Sur-
vey between 1851 and 1853. The site was destroyed by Apache Indians and
subsequently abandoned in 1854. Courtesy Archives Division, Texas State
Library, Austin.330
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 84, July 1980 - April, 1981, periodical, 1980/1981; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101225/m1/378/: accessed April 23, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.