The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 69, July 1965 - April, 1966 Page: 185
591 p. : ill., maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Henri Castro and James Hamilton
He spent it, first of all, in publicizing Texas. From his office
in Paris, he continued to write letters, newspaper stories, and
pamphlets about Texas and its advantages. He also contacted
influential persons during his travels to Lorraine and Alsace and
across the Rhine into the Rhenish western provinces. Everywhere
he made contacts and engaged the services of men who would
help him with his colonizing projects.
Castro's letters and his methods reveal the humanitarian ide-
ology characteristic of many Frenchmen in the late eighteenth
and early nineteenth centuries. Castro went first to Alsace to
solicit farmers for Texas because he wanted men who would stay,
no matter what the cost in toil and hardships. Moreover, he took
only those men who could pay their passage and who had enough
to tide them over until they could make their new land produc-
tive. By taking the Alsatians, he was getting a hardy class of
immigrants since they for centuries had formed the bulwark
along the Rhine or a portion of it. Sometimes German, some-
times French, their heritage had been struggle and sacrifice and
endurance. In Texas they again were to form a bulwark-between
Mexico and San Antonio, -and between the Indians and the white
race. It was well that they did not realize the exchange they were
making; but it was fortunate for Castro and Texas that less hardy
settlers had not been chosen to form the first town west of San
Antonio toward the Rio Grande. Castro was not intentionally
building a bulwark city, however, nor asking immigrants to be
a protection for the Anglo-Americans. A portion of his work in
Hamilton's plan was to bring peace and security to Texas, which
could be done in part by settling the land westward to the Rio
Grande.185
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 69, July 1965 - April, 1966, periodical, 1966; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth117144/m1/225/: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.