November 11, 2021 • 37 mins
After its formation in 1836, the new Republic of Texas had some problems -- multiple people wanted the capital in different places. The Republic's archives were seen as a stamp of legitimacy to any city's claim, and by 1842, this led to what what we now call the Texas Archives War. Tune in to learn more.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
so much for tuning in. Who's that? That's our one
and only super producer, Mr Max Williams. Give him a
hand or two or three, but not too many. They
(00:50):
called me ben No, this is this is one that's
been on our list for a while. My friend. Uh,
you have actually traveled to aston Texas. Yeah? Yeah, well
wait to Austin Uh one time many years ago for
um this little thing they do they're called south by Southwest. Um.
(01:11):
I'm joking. It's not a little, it's huge. It's sort
of ballooned over the years. I didn't go to the
music portion of it, which I would like to do
one day. I went to the tech portion of it,
which I think happens like right before or after the
music thing. Overall, I've very much enjoyed at Austin. The
Uber drivers were all super helpful, and we're really knowledgeable
about the history of Austin Um, which is what we're
(01:32):
going to talk about today. And anyone who's been there
even is remotely familiar with it's probably aware of the
whole campaign or slogan to keep Austin weird. Um, because
you know, Texas is a very very large state and
the majority of it is very very red, very um conservative, traditional,
(01:53):
you know, kind of the idea of Texan. Everything's big.
You know, it's a big big attitudes, big hats, big
trucks and and big dreams. Right. Um. But Austin has
always been kind of this like liberal enclave of arts
and music and barbecue. Um. Also in other parts of
the state. But yeah, it's always kind of maintained. It's
(02:14):
little kind of oasis of weirdness, very similarly to how
Atlanta is in Georgia. Yeah. Yeah, that's not a bad
comparison at all. And it's funny because our research associate
Gave he liked to frame this conversation as the fight
to keep Austin weird, and he would love to point
(02:35):
out to everyone that it's a story that dates back
much further than you might think. It actually starts with
something called the Texas Archives War of eighteen forty two.
First thing you need to know about today's story is
the road from just Land to statehood for Texas was
an absolute mess. It was a train wreck. It was
(02:56):
like two trains filled with burning trash that Calli did
and then also someone through spaghetti on the wreckage. Like
that's how messy it was. The In the summer of
eighteen thirty nine, what was the then the nascent Republic
of Texas was threatened by Mexican forces to the south,
and they also had a bitter internal conflict over what
(03:24):
city should be the capital. And it's it's odd because
if you look at multiple U. S. States, you'll see
a lot of a lot of conflicts, a lot of
fights about which city gets to be the seat of power,
and Austin. Austin of course, ended up being the capital
today and a lot of historians think it's because of
(03:48):
this war. So maybe, well, maybe we talk a little
bit about how how the early days of Texas got
so messy, Right, there's the Texas Revolution. Yeah, And you know,
it's funny. We we don't really think about, first of all,
archive being particularly movable or something that's particularly contentious, um,
(04:11):
but in this case it absolutely was. There was this
whole kind of back and forth bush and pull over
where the capitol would go, and along with it it's
archive and uh. In eighteen thirty five that Texas revolution
you mentioned consisted of an uprising of colonists, United States
colonists and Mexican American UM tex sentence known as Tejanos
(04:31):
UM that lived in the southern part of Texas and
they were fighting against Mexican forces who were trying to
take back Texas or or you know, we're we're fighting
against the statehood of Texas, which was you know, a territory. Uh,
Mexico considered theirs. The issue was really about self governance
(04:53):
and an autonomy. These rebels would not accept any changes
that seeded power to Mexico, to the Mexican president UM
instead of with the state itself. They didn't want to
share any of that stuff, any of those the decision
making powers with Mexico. They wanted to rest with the
(05:14):
state and the local government. And that's because on March
two of eighteen thirty six, the Republic of Texas government
was formed. UM. It was meant to be treated as
an independent nation until it became part of the US
in eighteen forty five. There was that kind of brief
nine years, but still UM comparatively brief UM considering the
(05:39):
history of the United States, where Texas was self governed,
but it was not a particularly peaceful time there. There
was always, you know, threats coming to take back that
power of self governance. Yeah, yeah, that's the thing. The
Mexican government heard about this declaration of independence. In their
(06:00):
response was pretty much lowell uh and then yeah, and
they kept uh. They kept rating the southern western boundaries
of of the area well into the eighteen forties. Smithsonian
has a great article on this, and they point out
a little bit about how the government of the Republic
was created. It was modeled on the US Congress. Uh.
(06:23):
It had two houses of the legislature. They were elected
by what Texas considered to be citizens who were not
free people of color, not Native Americans. It was like
white dudes, the right kind of white dudes, etcetera. So
all in all, the Congress represented about seventy thousand people,
(06:44):
and we know this because they took a census once
in eighteen forty. One of the big things that you
have to figure out when you start your own country
is where you're gonna put the capital. And this is
how messy it was, folks. Five different cities in Texas
were temporarily capitals in the very first year of the
(07:07):
Republic's existence. And they were. They were not always jumping
around because of local pride, you know what I mean?
They were they were usually moving to escape invasion and
capture by forces from Mexico. Uh. Sam Houston chose the
city of Houston as the capital in eighteen thirty seven.
(07:29):
Was he biased? I think so because the city of
Houston was already named after him. So he was like,
I'm trying to like, I got one. You know. He
did have a worse in the race. The Texas Congress, though,
wanted to find some location in central Texas to build
a planned city. But for the moment, Sam Houston got
(07:50):
his way. The Republic's archives, which mentioned at the top,
included stuff like official documents, military records, land titles, trophies,
international treaties. All this stuff was shipped from the city
of Columbia to Houston with this new designation. And this
this comes from a Nestorian named Dorman Winfrey who wrote
(08:11):
about the Texas Archive wars like more than half a
century ago. And um, this is where it gets sticky,
because Houston is not the capital of Texas today. How
did that happen? No, that's right. Um. The next president
of that you know, short lived independent Texas Republic was
(08:32):
a guy named Marabeau Lamar. That's how he said it. Uh.
He was he was in a tiny from Georgia, and
he believed, uh that the only way to achieve any
kind of progress as a nation was to completely obliterate
and and and cause the extinction of the Native American
(08:53):
UM race class. Yeah. Yeah, pretty problematic guy there. He
wanted to move the capital to Austin, and he did
that thing in eighteen thirty nine, Um because it was
more central, Like you said, Ben folks were not into
this idea. UM. They were supporters of Sam Houston. And
(09:14):
Sam Houston himself. He felt that Austin was too remote,
it wasn't very developed, and it was too close to
Mexican and Native American UM rivals, you know that they
were potentially wanting to do them harm and invade their
sovereign lands. The Comanche and Cherokee nations in particular were
(09:35):
right around that that area, and we Houston then, you know,
it's not what it like looks like today. But I
do think of the the stereotypical image of Houston UM
as being a little bit more of like downtown kind
of you know, center of of government of you know,
like government buildings and things like that. Um, much more
(09:56):
access to trade with the Gulf of Mexico in all
of that. Yeah, and so guess who comes back into
the game. Sam Houston himself. He becomes president again the
second time in eighteen forty one, and Austin isn't is
the capital. And this, to me is hilarious. He's been
a lot of time beat me here, Max, He's been
(10:17):
a lot of time just bitching and winching about how
much he hated It's perfect about how much he hated Austin.
He called it the most unfortunate site on Earth for
a seat of government. And what I love about this
is like, wherever you live, picture your president or your
prime minister or whatever. Like if you live in the US,
picture picture Joe Biden starting every speech in d C.
(10:41):
Like he's an insults comic, you know what I mean.
And he's like, oh, you know, I hope a hurricane
comes through d C. It'll do billions of dollars worth
of improvements, and and like all all these terrible jokes
like it's it's just it's it's bad. It's like bad
school spirit, it's bad. From a rally you show up
and you're like, Okay, hey, thanks for coming, UMU d
(11:06):
C anyway go us I could catch And so he
wouldn't even like get a place there. He he was
so against it just in general, just as a city
like it sounded like he just had a fundamental issue
with the whole vibe again, you know it did. It
did strike me as being a bit more on the
(11:28):
it was on the upswing. But so it was probably
a little more underdeveloped. I mean there's talking like things
like a thoroughfare. You know, maybe I'm picturing in my
mind a little bit like you know, one of those
pioneer towns like in Deadwood or something like that. Maybe
it just was a little bit less developed, and maybe
there was like maybe it was muddy or something. He
didn't like getting his pantaloons besmirched. But he would only
(11:49):
stay in like boarding houses rather than or boarding house
rather than like taking up residents officially. Yeah, yeah, And
so Houston felt like he had a lot of political
capital to spend. He got three quarters of the vote
in the recent election, and so he said, I'm gonna
move the capital back to the town that happens to
(12:09):
be named after me, and he kept he kept starting
fights about this in the legislature, and people kept batting
down his his proposals. The people of Austin, of course,
they had they had pride in their hometown, but they
also had an economic interest in remaining the capital because
(12:29):
this was the capital of Texas. The city was growing
at a rapid pace, it was as you said on
the upswing, and if the capital relocated, then property values
would tank, there would be less investment like there would
there would be a litany of economic complications. So from
their perspective, this Sam Houston guy was abandoning the actual
(12:52):
seat of government, and he was maybe being alarmist about
the threats from Mexican forces, mainly to achieve his political
games and perhaps as a stop to his own ego. Uh.
Here's what happened though, This is who mentioned the forces
of the Mexican government. They gave him the excuse he
(13:14):
needed to cause us Belliott to move the capital again.
In March of eighteen forty two, seven hundred troops from
Mexico crossed the Republic of Texas borders and they occupied
San Antonio, which was only about eighty miles from Austin.
(13:35):
The Officials of the time declared martial law. Tons of
families evacuated to try to find a safer place to live.
Houston was like, look, this is an attack. There will
be more in the future. And we know from reading
his correspondencies with his fiancee that he was really concerned
not just from Mexican forces, but he was concerned that
(13:57):
the Native American populations nearby would burn and destroy the city,
especially it's archives. He thought that Austin was actually his
ego aside, not a safe place for the capital of
the Republic of Texas, and he was worried that he
would get in trouble if he let Austin be captured
(14:18):
as the capital. And we've got the we've got the
letters where he says this, But one of the things
he mentions is that if any president let this happen,
they would be culpable and the entire nation would hate them. Right,
It's true. It makes me you know, I again, I
haven't really given much thought to the importance of archives,
but you're right. And then the days where everything was
(14:38):
on paper, the burning of these archives or destruction would
cause some irrevocable harm, not only in terms of morale,
but just literally it would cause all kinds of problems
with like property, titles and deeds and all that he
wrote on Mar two, the destruction of the National Archives
would entail irremediable injury upon the whole people of Texas.
(15:00):
Should the infinite evil which the loss of the National
Archives would occasion fall upon the country through his neglect
referring to himself of imperious constitutional duty, he would be
culpable in the extreme and must justly incur the reproach
of a whole nation. Right, I mean this is remember
this before the cloud, they have all their stuff on paper.
(15:24):
It's it is all in one place. This is fo
bar if the archives get taken uh. And a couple
of weeks before this all goes down, Houston had talked
to his Secretary of War, a guy named George W. Hawkley,
and he said, move the archives out of Austin to Houston.
Doesn't matter what the capital is, just move them. And
(15:45):
there's a guy who's a commissioner of the General Land
Office that you know, deals with public lands and patents
and they keep track of all the records. This guy's name,
I kid you not is peg Leg. That's his street name,
Thomas peg leg word the Commissioner of the General Land Office. Uh,
he gets the word, you gotta you gotta start packing
(16:06):
up the boxes, get these archives ready to go. But
there's another guy in Austin who is planning against this.
He's the military commander. His name is Colonel Henry Jones,
and he says, this is malarkey, this is bs of
the highest stink factor. He gets a bunch of like,
he gets a bunch of piste off Austin nights together
(16:27):
and he's like, let's let's talk about this. But really
what he means is like, let's get our pitchfork sharpened.
Everybody brings something you can light as a torch. They
form what they call the Committee of Vigilance to stop
this transport, to guard the archives. They think this this
war like they're they're almost conspiratorial. Honestly, they're like the
(16:48):
war on San Antonio. If war it is is overblown,
it's a pretext to move the capital from our city.
Will we stand for that, good people of Austin, And
they're like, no, rabble rabble, rab rabble rabble, So they say, uh,
rabble rabble. Who said that? In the McDonald land pantheon?
Was that the Hamburglar rebel rebel. Oh, I don't know, maybe,
(17:12):
and then I think it was like all he said
as he was hammer, I still wanted to do a
great episode on the McDonald's pantheon. Man, I missed those folks,
even though, yeah, creepy, like what the fry the fry twins,
it's a little the little the little pom pom looking dudes.
They looked like those uh uh to give you all
(17:33):
an answer, it was the Hamburgler who said rebble rebel?
Did I say that? South Park they also have like
a rabble rapper rebble thing, I think. And you know
who I always thought was such an excellent representation of
capitalism as Mayor mccheese. Absolutely, that big old flat head.
You know, why did you have a sash that said mayor?
(17:55):
Was that ever a thing that people actually did? You know?
It's a good question, Um, all the fry guys. Yeah,
the fry guys. They were like little pom poms of
various genders with they were literally just pom poms made
of fries, I assume, with legs and and uh it
looks like kind of converse type sneakers. But to answer
(18:15):
your question, Ben, the mayoral sash. It does strike me
as kind of an old school, you know, um thing,
like in Deadwood, for example, the second time I've mentioned
this today, there is a character named eb Farnum who
owns the End and he is sort of a Everyone
calls him a grotesque because he's kind of this like hovering,
sort of like weirdo. Uh. They make him the mayor. Uh,
(18:37):
and it's clearly a symbolic gesture because he's kind of
an idiot. Uh. So that would strike me as the
kind of person that would wear a sash that says
mayor for their own benefit. Okay, all right, so now
we could go back to Texas. We sorted out our
v I T very important things for this episode. So
we're gonna take a flight, one way flight from McDonald
land back to Texas. One more thing, one more thing.
(18:59):
He has no what grimaces? He's a blob, right purple blob?
Is he catching? Is he a condiment? He's a one
giant taste bud. Oh gross, it's so fucked up. I'm
not okay, man, Beep, I'm not I'm not okay with this.
(19:19):
I heard that somewhere and maybe another podcast or something recently.
I was like, are you kidding me? He's a taste?
But why is that? Why is his name Grimace? Then?
Shouldn't his name be like mommy or you know, tasty,
tasty to taste? But I don't know. Okay, alright, well
we're we're going back to Texas. We'll return to this.
We'll sort this out. It's got me cursing on air. Sorry,
(19:42):
Grimmace taste whatever. The McDonald corporation disputes this. Uh, I
think it's okay. I think I think it's still I
think it's still up in the air. But I like
the idea. Uh, the Internet is a is a wild
and mysterious place. We got some connects. We'll talk back
to Texas. Back to Texas, okay. So Sam Houston, Oh,
(20:02):
Sam Houston first tries to get these papers peacefully, but
then these Austinites from this Committee of Vigilance, they end
up going to the messengers from Sam Houston. They take
those messengers horses and they protest by shaving off the
tails and the mains of these poor innocent horses, which
(20:23):
is what our pals, Miles and Jack over at Dale's
Yecheis would definitely call a weird flex yeah, I don't know.
I don't I don't imagine the horses much cared or noticed.
Maybe they got a little chilly, but it's certainly not
a good look for the horse riders. Uh. They would
look absolutely foolish carrying their messages on these shorn horses.
But Houston didn't let this get to him. He called
(20:46):
a special session of Congress to get to the bottom
of all this and sort everything out. It met on June.
He made it clear that it was very important to
move the capital and the archives, but the legislature of
the time did not take up his cause. His please
fell on deaf ears, and they did not make any
moves in his favor. Then in the fall, troops from
(21:10):
Mexico attacked San Antonio, um, which caused Houston to gather
the Congress up for another special session. This time it
meant in an amazingly named hyphen it place that I
don't believe exists anymore, called Washington on Brazos. I imagine
that had to have been a reference to, like Washington
being the capital of the US. They're trying to feel
(21:33):
a little more like state like or US centric. I
don't know, that's weird. Why would they invoke Washington if
they're still trying to be independent. Man, No, I have
a theory. I have a theory. Theory. But it's like,
you know, the same reason why like kaisers are all
comes from the word Caesar is It's like, you know,
does Washington kind of mean like now to these people,
like this signifies like a capital Washington. Yeah, that's I
(22:00):
agree with you, Max. Yet, so this is interesting because
it feels like it could be a compromise. Right, it's
not Austin, it's not Houston. Uh, it's not named after
the president, so that conflict of interest is gone. But
this this comes to us, uh, courtesy of Patsy McDonald,
who was the author of Texas Senate Republic to Civil
(22:22):
War eighteen thirty six to sixty one. She also notes
that there was a President of the Senate at the time,
Edward Burlson, who didn't really dig Sam Houston's whole vibe,
and so he said, I'm not gonna support the legal
decision that would trigger the transfer of the archives. So
the motion to move this stuff stalled in a tie,
(22:46):
and Houston said, look, the official channels aren't doing what
I want. Well, I'm Texan. So I'm gonna take the
law into my own hands, outside of Congress, outside the government,
even though I run the government. He's he didn't really
stress about that part. So December ten, he secretly orders
two officers from the Texas Army, Captain Eli Chandler and
(23:07):
Colonel Thomas Smith, to gather up twenty guys to steal
the archives from Austin with secrecy, efficiency and dispatch and
take them to Washington on Brasos. You know what this means, fellas,
We've got a heist. Max sound cube? Yeah, I love
(23:28):
The best part of this, by the way, is watching
Max's face when I just requested a lunar chrously vague
sound cube. Max, you got it? That was you mean?
You mean when it lights up with joy and and
and the the the anticipation of a creative moment. Yeah,
I love that about Max. He's always down to clown
when it comes to sound effects, always down to sound clown. Um. Oh,
(23:52):
it'll be a good alternative to SoundCloud. What's called soundclown?
And um, I don't know what will work, So let's
get legs. We could work on it. As giant shoes
to the Texas Archives. War became a thing. Houston wrote
this of the momentous day that he ordered those those
two secret army officers Eli Chandler and Thomas Um to
(24:16):
gather those forces. He said, the importance of removing the
public archives and government stores from their present dangerous situation
at the city of Austin to a place of security
is becoming daily more and more imperative. While they remain
where they are, no one knows the hour when they
may be utterly destroyed. It's not necessarily hyperbole there, I
(24:44):
mean he has serious concerns. So his his covert strike
force enters town on December in the wee hours of
the morning. They were loading up the archives uh into
wagons when a local Indans keeper named Angelie Everley finds
them uh and she owns several spots in the city.
(25:05):
She's playing the Monopoly game in addition to her and
she's got some properties, and she said, these archives have
symbolic value to the republic. We've already lost the capital
here in Austin, and if we lose the archives, then
we're gonna be as a city left out of the
future of Texas. So she runs in kind of like
a Paul Revere style thing. Right, and she's telling everybody
(25:29):
in Austin, YO, look, they're still in the archives. I
don't know, she said yo at the time, but she
was like, you know, raising awareness. And then an ad
hoc army of angry locals gathered. And then on Austin's
main thoroughfare, Congress Avenue, there was a loaded six pound
howitzer and it was carrying grape shot. And this was
(25:51):
left over from the Republic's earlier wars with Native American communities.
So this lady Angelina, she faces the muzzle of the
howitzer towards the Land Office and fires the cannon. This
is we know this happened, and it comes from D. G. Wootton,
author of a complete history of Texas. And there was
like a Ward peg leg the land commissioner from earlier.
(26:16):
He writes a layer to Sam Houston about this and
he says there was a cry blow the old house
to places. Some shots hit the land Office, but no
one was injured, no damage was done. Everybody was very
lucky that there were no fatalities. History might have gone
differently now, of course, Ward there's a little historical least
(26:37):
ragg of course, ward um as pre existing beef with cannons.
Peg Leg was not a like ironic nickname. That's right, Ward,
who was Mayor of Austin at the time, lost his
right arm to a faulty cannon um during a celebration
of the five year anniversary of the Battle of Santia Sinto.
(26:58):
There's this thing as a peg arm. Why is he
peg leg if he lost an arm, not not to
not to diminish the man's suffering. I just feels like
a misplaced nickname if you ask me. Yeah, he lost
his right arm due to a cannon malfunction during the
five year anniversary of the Battle of Saint Jacinto, and
before that at an earlier siege, in Assault of Bexar
(27:19):
in eight thirty five, he lost his right leg to
cannon fire. So okay, cannon's hate him would be the
buzfeed headline, and and and also peg leg would take
precedent over the leg. The leg injury came first, presumably um,
and then the the arm and followed suit. But the
nickname was already you know, fully ensconced by that point.
(27:41):
So Smith, Chandler and their guys made off with the
archives in their wagons. This is the highest we're talking about.
They were pursued by twenty Austin knites out for blood. Uh.
Some were carrying that cannon, alright, a cannon and around
new In the next day, at Bushy Creek, which is
(28:02):
just a lovely, delightfully named creek north of Austin, the
Austin folks literally took the troops hostage. They held them
at gunpoint. Uh. Smith was ordered to uh surrender or fight.
According to um Winfries account of the story, of which
there are several another one written by Wootton, at the
(28:23):
mob forcing Smith to move the archives back to Austin,
and wards account um had the vigilantes hauling the archives
back themselves. UM fabulous article from Smithsonian Magazine by Shella mcclear,
The Fascinating Story of the Texas Archives War of two
gives you the play by play for a lot of
(28:45):
this stuff, highly worth the full read. So, regardless of
the specifics, they did surrender the archives. The archives were
returned to Houston. The Committee of Vigilance decided to party hardy,
and they got together the New Year's celebration and some accounts,
again there's discrepancy between these accounts. Some accounts say they
(29:07):
even said, hey, you know Colonel Smith come hang out
and uh depend on which story you here. He may
have accepted, he may have declined. Either way, No one
was seriously injured, no one died. It seemed like it
was It seemed like the War of the Texas Archives
was over. But they had to settle somewhere, and the
(29:30):
land Office was damaged by you know, the ends keeper
firing a cannon uh to bring the building down. She actually,
Mrs Eberley, actually got the archives herself. The records were
sealed in these tin boxes. They were stored at her
place under seven guard, and any attempt to take them
(29:51):
by force, according to historians like Louis Wills Kemp, would
have triggered a civil war in Texas. Everley definitely had
a financial concern involved because she owned so much property
and the property values. Who tank if Austin lost the
capital and the archives. Um Old peg Leg is not
(30:14):
super jazzed about this. He writes to Houston and says,
I have employed all the exhaustion I could to have
them restored to this place, but in vain and what
the result? Maybe providence alone can determine. Many threats have
been made against me. But how I have a dangerous
song present my situation. Maybe we will not complain if
(30:36):
I can do a service to the republic. Oh and
then Congress got mad at Houston. It was a whole
to do. They reprimanded him. But what what does that mean?
They all all they were just like, we're mad at you. Yeah,
they might have pounded a fist on a table or something.
I possibly slammed the door or stumped a foot or something,
(30:56):
but it did not appear to amount to any official
like censure or actual consequences. Right, yeah, Yeah, they just said,
you know, you had no legal reason to attempt to
move the archives, and he knew he didn't. He went
outside of the law to do it. Uh. The archives
stayed in Austin for a while. The seat of government
(31:18):
was still Washington on Brassos, and Austin was at the
time on the decline, was turning into a ghost town. Eventually,
like peg Leg spends the first half of eighteen forty
three trying to get the archives back in the possession
of the Land Commission. And then this, obviously, you know,
plays into the whole idea of what we talked about,
(31:40):
that the Austinites were very concerned that if the archives
were not there selfishly, Um that that explosion and you know,
development and all that stuff would probably start to wane,
and as we see it most certainly did, right, Yeah, yeah,
it most certainly did. And so so when peg Leg
(32:01):
doesn't have any luck getting these archives out of Austin,
he creates a new land office in the current capital
and he starts making a new archive. If you fast
forward just the next year July four Independence days, we
know what today in the US without too much hubbub
and without too many growing pains, those two archives get
(32:24):
combined and reunited in Texas. The Republic of Texas joins
the USA a few months later on December twenty nine eight,
and Austin ends up becoming the capital. Uh, this doesn't
really get resolved until eighteen fifty that's when the people
(32:45):
of Texas finally vote to choose Austin as their capital.
But that's still doesn't become like official, like concrete, concrete,
until eighteen seventy two, when there's a statewide vote that
marks the end to this strange, very messy journey. I
(33:06):
I don't know, man, should we start keeping archives? They
seem important? Like what if we need to make a
state later we should have some archives. Who's going to
be in charge of the art? Max? Max? Will you?
Will you run the archives for us? I guess that
kind of seems like could be. I don't know more.
Y'all are the creatives on the functional one, so I
guess you know, thank you don't sell yourself short. You're
(33:29):
creative as well. He's functional. That nothing if not nonfunctioning creatives.
But I think I think between the three of us
we could successfully run and operate an archive, don't you.
I would like to think that. But you know, now
we live in a world with the benefit of the Internet.
(33:51):
We have, uh, we have our own archive kind of
going with ridiculous historians over on Facebook. Yeah, that's where
we start. We have podcast episodes that's probably in the archive.
You know what we need? We need to flag. I'm
an amateur vexillologist, which is the fancy word study or flags?
We could we could uh, I don't know what would
(34:12):
be on our flag. Maybe that's a question for the
folks in the audience that has a great idea design
a ridiculous history flag for the ridiculous nation one nation
under fraud. I don't know what are we um, one
nation under whimsy. Sure we gotta work one nation under
Uh yeah, we'll work on it. Send our sender suggestions
(34:34):
for that as well. That's our that. This is our
story today and it's an amazing history. If you're listening
and you are lucky enough to live in the city
of Austin, uh, we hope you enjoy this episode. We
hope you can also tell us where all the all
the good food is for when we when we hit
the road again, which maybe sooner than later, hopefully coming
(34:56):
to a town near you. I just remember really enjoying torches, tacos.
I'm a big fan of a breakfast taco, breakfast Mexican
food of any kind. Clabst French eiros is really great.
But hey, Austin Knights, let us know what your favorite
taco places. And you know we we promised at the
top of the show. They're being kind of a full
circle connection as to how this whole back and forth
hullebluh sort of led to the strong identity of Austin
(35:19):
and its citizens. Obviously we've seen that, and then how
you know how much they fought for keeping the archive
and the capital there um, but how how did this
kind of enter into the current sort of keep Austin
weird mentality that we talked about on the top of
the show. Yeah. Well, first it's a weird story. That's
not that's not a story that all capitals can lay
(35:41):
claim to. And secondly, this show's Austin's own independence within
a first republic and then a state that very much
prizes its own independence. Austin fought to become the capital,
and even when things were looking dire, they did not
give up. Uh, And they maintained a unique identity which
(36:04):
I would argue continues to date to great acclaim. Indeed, Um, well,
let us know if you have any more. Like I said,
all the the Uber drivers that I had when I
was in Austin were super super um knowledgeable about the
history of their city and we're very proud. Uh. And
one thing I also remember we didn't see it in action,
but there's this bridge where all of these bats hang
(36:25):
underneath it and usually at a certain time every single evening,
the bats all, um, you know, dissipate like on mass
But I think we missed it or it didn't happen
that night or something like that. But lots of really
cool things to check out in Austin, and I hope
to make it back very soon. So let us know
what your favorite things to eat and do in Austin are.
You can write to us at Ridiculous and I heart
(36:47):
media dot com. You can join our Facebook group Ridiculous Historians,
by you know, just going to Facebook and pointing it
towards Ridiculous Historians. Answer a couple of very simple questions
and you're in lots of cool folks chatting about history
there and memes of plenty being shared, and I think
you'd enjoy it. And you the royal, You, You the listener,
you specifically you listening now thanks to you, You specifically
(37:11):
of course in Texas and abroad, thanks of course to
our Ride or Die super producer Max Williams, Gabe Bluesier,
Research Associate extraordinaire, Eve's Jeff co Christopher Ociotis you know
all the hits, all the good ones, um owen Thanks
to Jonathan strictly indeed, I love that guy. In quotation fingers,
(37:34):
We'll see you next time. For more podcasts for my
Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
so much for tuning in. Who's that? That's our one
and only super producer, Mr Max Williams. Give him a
hand or two or three, but not too many. They
(00:50):
called me ben No, this is this is one that's
been on our list for a while. My friend. Uh,
you have actually traveled to aston Texas. Yeah? Yeah, well
wait to Austin Uh one time many years ago for
um this little thing they do they're called south by Southwest. Um.
(01:11):
I'm joking. It's not a little, it's huge. It's sort
of ballooned over the years. I didn't go to the
music portion of it, which I would like to do
one day. I went to the tech portion of it,
which I think happens like right before or after the
music thing. Overall, I've very much enjoyed at Austin. The
Uber drivers were all super helpful, and we're really knowledgeable
about the history of Austin Um, which is what we're
(01:32):
going to talk about today. And anyone who's been there
even is remotely familiar with it's probably aware of the
whole campaign or slogan to keep Austin weird. Um, because
you know, Texas is a very very large state and
the majority of it is very very red, very um conservative, traditional,
(01:53):
you know, kind of the idea of Texan. Everything's big.
You know, it's a big big attitudes, big hats, big
trucks and and big dreams. Right. Um. But Austin has
always been kind of this like liberal enclave of arts
and music and barbecue. Um. Also in other parts of
the state. But yeah, it's always kind of maintained. It's
(02:14):
little kind of oasis of weirdness, very similarly to how
Atlanta is in Georgia. Yeah. Yeah, that's not a bad
comparison at all. And it's funny because our research associate
Gave he liked to frame this conversation as the fight
to keep Austin weird, and he would love to point
(02:35):
out to everyone that it's a story that dates back
much further than you might think. It actually starts with
something called the Texas Archives War of eighteen forty two.
First thing you need to know about today's story is
the road from just Land to statehood for Texas was
an absolute mess. It was a train wreck. It was
(02:56):
like two trains filled with burning trash that Calli did
and then also someone through spaghetti on the wreckage. Like
that's how messy it was. The In the summer of
eighteen thirty nine, what was the then the nascent Republic
of Texas was threatened by Mexican forces to the south,
and they also had a bitter internal conflict over what
(03:24):
city should be the capital. And it's it's odd because
if you look at multiple U. S. States, you'll see
a lot of a lot of conflicts, a lot of
fights about which city gets to be the seat of power,
and Austin. Austin of course, ended up being the capital
today and a lot of historians think it's because of
(03:48):
this war. So maybe, well, maybe we talk a little
bit about how how the early days of Texas got
so messy, Right, there's the Texas Revolution. Yeah, And you know,
it's funny. We we don't really think about, first of all,
archive being particularly movable or something that's particularly contentious, um,
(04:11):
but in this case it absolutely was. There was this
whole kind of back and forth bush and pull over
where the capitol would go, and along with it it's
archive and uh. In eighteen thirty five that Texas revolution
you mentioned consisted of an uprising of colonists, United States
colonists and Mexican American UM tex sentence known as Tejanos
(04:31):
UM that lived in the southern part of Texas and
they were fighting against Mexican forces who were trying to
take back Texas or or you know, we're we're fighting
against the statehood of Texas, which was you know, a territory. Uh,
Mexico considered theirs. The issue was really about self governance
(04:53):
and an autonomy. These rebels would not accept any changes
that seeded power to Mexico, to the Mexican president UM
instead of with the state itself. They didn't want to
share any of that stuff, any of those the decision
making powers with Mexico. They wanted to rest with the
(05:14):
state and the local government. And that's because on March
two of eighteen thirty six, the Republic of Texas government
was formed. UM. It was meant to be treated as
an independent nation until it became part of the US
in eighteen forty five. There was that kind of brief
nine years, but still UM comparatively brief UM considering the
(05:39):
history of the United States, where Texas was self governed,
but it was not a particularly peaceful time there. There
was always, you know, threats coming to take back that
power of self governance. Yeah, yeah, that's the thing. The
Mexican government heard about this declaration of independence. In their
(06:00):
response was pretty much lowell uh and then yeah, and
they kept uh. They kept rating the southern western boundaries
of of the area well into the eighteen forties. Smithsonian
has a great article on this, and they point out
a little bit about how the government of the Republic
was created. It was modeled on the US Congress. Uh.
(06:23):
It had two houses of the legislature. They were elected
by what Texas considered to be citizens who were not
free people of color, not Native Americans. It was like
white dudes, the right kind of white dudes, etcetera. So
all in all, the Congress represented about seventy thousand people,
(06:44):
and we know this because they took a census once
in eighteen forty. One of the big things that you
have to figure out when you start your own country
is where you're gonna put the capital. And this is
how messy it was, folks. Five different cities in Texas
were temporarily capitals in the very first year of the
(07:07):
Republic's existence. And they were. They were not always jumping
around because of local pride, you know what I mean?
They were they were usually moving to escape invasion and
capture by forces from Mexico. Uh. Sam Houston chose the
city of Houston as the capital in eighteen thirty seven.
(07:29):
Was he biased? I think so because the city of
Houston was already named after him. So he was like,
I'm trying to like, I got one. You know. He
did have a worse in the race. The Texas Congress, though,
wanted to find some location in central Texas to build
a planned city. But for the moment, Sam Houston got
(07:50):
his way. The Republic's archives, which mentioned at the top,
included stuff like official documents, military records, land titles, trophies,
international treaties. All this stuff was shipped from the city
of Columbia to Houston with this new designation. And this
this comes from a Nestorian named Dorman Winfrey who wrote
(08:11):
about the Texas Archive wars like more than half a
century ago. And um, this is where it gets sticky,
because Houston is not the capital of Texas today. How
did that happen? No, that's right. Um. The next president
of that you know, short lived independent Texas Republic was
(08:32):
a guy named Marabeau Lamar. That's how he said it. Uh.
He was he was in a tiny from Georgia, and
he believed, uh that the only way to achieve any
kind of progress as a nation was to completely obliterate
and and and cause the extinction of the Native American
(08:53):
UM race class. Yeah. Yeah, pretty problematic guy there. He
wanted to move the capital to Austin, and he did
that thing in eighteen thirty nine, Um because it was
more central, Like you said, Ben folks were not into
this idea. UM. They were supporters of Sam Houston. And
(09:14):
Sam Houston himself. He felt that Austin was too remote,
it wasn't very developed, and it was too close to
Mexican and Native American UM rivals, you know that they
were potentially wanting to do them harm and invade their
sovereign lands. The Comanche and Cherokee nations in particular were
(09:35):
right around that that area, and we Houston then, you know,
it's not what it like looks like today. But I
do think of the the stereotypical image of Houston UM
as being a little bit more of like downtown kind
of you know, center of of government of you know,
like government buildings and things like that. Um, much more
(09:56):
access to trade with the Gulf of Mexico in all
of that. Yeah, and so guess who comes back into
the game. Sam Houston himself. He becomes president again the
second time in eighteen forty one, and Austin isn't is
the capital. And this, to me is hilarious. He's been
a lot of time beat me here, Max, He's been
(10:17):
a lot of time just bitching and winching about how
much he hated It's perfect about how much he hated Austin.
He called it the most unfortunate site on Earth for
a seat of government. And what I love about this
is like, wherever you live, picture your president or your
prime minister or whatever. Like if you live in the US,
picture picture Joe Biden starting every speech in d C.
(10:41):
Like he's an insults comic, you know what I mean.
And he's like, oh, you know, I hope a hurricane
comes through d C. It'll do billions of dollars worth
of improvements, and and like all all these terrible jokes
like it's it's just it's it's bad. It's like bad
school spirit, it's bad. From a rally you show up
and you're like, Okay, hey, thanks for coming, UMU d
(11:06):
C anyway go us I could catch And so he
wouldn't even like get a place there. He he was
so against it just in general, just as a city
like it sounded like he just had a fundamental issue
with the whole vibe again, you know it did. It
did strike me as being a bit more on the
(11:28):
it was on the upswing. But so it was probably
a little more underdeveloped. I mean there's talking like things
like a thoroughfare. You know, maybe I'm picturing in my
mind a little bit like you know, one of those
pioneer towns like in Deadwood or something like that. Maybe
it just was a little bit less developed, and maybe
there was like maybe it was muddy or something. He
didn't like getting his pantaloons besmirched. But he would only
(11:49):
stay in like boarding houses rather than or boarding house
rather than like taking up residents officially. Yeah, yeah, And
so Houston felt like he had a lot of political
capital to spend. He got three quarters of the vote
in the recent election, and so he said, I'm gonna
move the capital back to the town that happens to
(12:09):
be named after me, and he kept he kept starting
fights about this in the legislature, and people kept batting
down his his proposals. The people of Austin, of course,
they had they had pride in their hometown, but they
also had an economic interest in remaining the capital because
(12:29):
this was the capital of Texas. The city was growing
at a rapid pace, it was as you said on
the upswing, and if the capital relocated, then property values
would tank, there would be less investment like there would
there would be a litany of economic complications. So from
their perspective, this Sam Houston guy was abandoning the actual
(12:52):
seat of government, and he was maybe being alarmist about
the threats from Mexican forces, mainly to achieve his political
games and perhaps as a stop to his own ego. Uh.
Here's what happened though, This is who mentioned the forces
of the Mexican government. They gave him the excuse he
(13:14):
needed to cause us Belliott to move the capital again.
In March of eighteen forty two, seven hundred troops from
Mexico crossed the Republic of Texas borders and they occupied
San Antonio, which was only about eighty miles from Austin.
(13:35):
The Officials of the time declared martial law. Tons of
families evacuated to try to find a safer place to live.
Houston was like, look, this is an attack. There will
be more in the future. And we know from reading
his correspondencies with his fiancee that he was really concerned
not just from Mexican forces, but he was concerned that
(13:57):
the Native American populations nearby would burn and destroy the city,
especially it's archives. He thought that Austin was actually his
ego aside, not a safe place for the capital of
the Republic of Texas, and he was worried that he
would get in trouble if he let Austin be captured
(14:18):
as the capital. And we've got the we've got the
letters where he says this, But one of the things
he mentions is that if any president let this happen,
they would be culpable and the entire nation would hate them. Right,
It's true. It makes me you know, I again, I
haven't really given much thought to the importance of archives,
but you're right. And then the days where everything was
(14:38):
on paper, the burning of these archives or destruction would
cause some irrevocable harm, not only in terms of morale,
but just literally it would cause all kinds of problems
with like property, titles and deeds and all that he
wrote on Mar two, the destruction of the National Archives
would entail irremediable injury upon the whole people of Texas.
(15:00):
Should the infinite evil which the loss of the National
Archives would occasion fall upon the country through his neglect
referring to himself of imperious constitutional duty, he would be
culpable in the extreme and must justly incur the reproach
of a whole nation. Right, I mean this is remember
this before the cloud, they have all their stuff on paper.
(15:24):
It's it is all in one place. This is fo
bar if the archives get taken uh. And a couple
of weeks before this all goes down, Houston had talked
to his Secretary of War, a guy named George W. Hawkley,
and he said, move the archives out of Austin to Houston.
Doesn't matter what the capital is, just move them. And
(15:45):
there's a guy who's a commissioner of the General Land
Office that you know, deals with public lands and patents
and they keep track of all the records. This guy's name,
I kid you not is peg Leg. That's his street name,
Thomas peg leg word the Commissioner of the General Land Office. Uh,
he gets the word, you gotta you gotta start packing
(16:06):
up the boxes, get these archives ready to go. But
there's another guy in Austin who is planning against this.
He's the military commander. His name is Colonel Henry Jones,
and he says, this is malarkey, this is bs of
the highest stink factor. He gets a bunch of like,
he gets a bunch of piste off Austin nights together
(16:27):
and he's like, let's let's talk about this. But really
what he means is like, let's get our pitchfork sharpened.
Everybody brings something you can light as a torch. They
form what they call the Committee of Vigilance to stop
this transport, to guard the archives. They think this this
war like they're they're almost conspiratorial. Honestly, they're like the
(16:48):
war on San Antonio. If war it is is overblown,
it's a pretext to move the capital from our city.
Will we stand for that, good people of Austin, And
they're like, no, rabble rabble, rab rabble rabble, So they say, uh,
rabble rabble. Who said that? In the McDonald land pantheon?
Was that the Hamburglar rebel rebel. Oh, I don't know, maybe,
(17:12):
and then I think it was like all he said
as he was hammer, I still wanted to do a
great episode on the McDonald's pantheon. Man, I missed those folks,
even though, yeah, creepy, like what the fry the fry twins,
it's a little the little the little pom pom looking dudes.
They looked like those uh uh to give you all
(17:33):
an answer, it was the Hamburgler who said rebble rebel?
Did I say that? South Park they also have like
a rabble rapper rebble thing, I think. And you know
who I always thought was such an excellent representation of
capitalism as Mayor mccheese. Absolutely, that big old flat head.
You know, why did you have a sash that said mayor?
(17:55):
Was that ever a thing that people actually did? You know?
It's a good question, Um, all the fry guys. Yeah,
the fry guys. They were like little pom poms of
various genders with they were literally just pom poms made
of fries, I assume, with legs and and uh it
looks like kind of converse type sneakers. But to answer
(18:15):
your question, Ben, the mayoral sash. It does strike me
as kind of an old school, you know, um thing,
like in Deadwood, for example, the second time I've mentioned
this today, there is a character named eb Farnum who
owns the End and he is sort of a Everyone
calls him a grotesque because he's kind of this like hovering,
sort of like weirdo. Uh. They make him the mayor. Uh,
(18:37):
and it's clearly a symbolic gesture because he's kind of
an idiot. Uh. So that would strike me as the
kind of person that would wear a sash that says
mayor for their own benefit. Okay, all right, so now
we could go back to Texas. We sorted out our
v I T very important things for this episode. So
we're gonna take a flight, one way flight from McDonald
land back to Texas. One more thing, one more thing.
(18:59):
He has no what grimaces? He's a blob, right purple blob?
Is he catching? Is he a condiment? He's a one
giant taste bud. Oh gross, it's so fucked up. I'm
not okay, man, Beep, I'm not I'm not okay with this.
(19:19):
I heard that somewhere and maybe another podcast or something recently.
I was like, are you kidding me? He's a taste?
But why is that? Why is his name Grimace? Then?
Shouldn't his name be like mommy or you know, tasty,
tasty to taste? But I don't know. Okay, alright, well
we're we're going back to Texas. We'll return to this.
We'll sort this out. It's got me cursing on air. Sorry,
(19:42):
Grimmace taste whatever. The McDonald corporation disputes this. Uh, I
think it's okay. I think I think it's still I
think it's still up in the air. But I like
the idea. Uh, the Internet is a is a wild
and mysterious place. We got some connects. We'll talk back
to Texas. Back to Texas, okay. So Sam Houston, Oh,
(20:02):
Sam Houston first tries to get these papers peacefully, but
then these Austinites from this Committee of Vigilance, they end
up going to the messengers from Sam Houston. They take
those messengers horses and they protest by shaving off the
tails and the mains of these poor innocent horses, which
(20:23):
is what our pals, Miles and Jack over at Dale's
Yecheis would definitely call a weird flex yeah, I don't know.
I don't I don't imagine the horses much cared or noticed.
Maybe they got a little chilly, but it's certainly not
a good look for the horse riders. Uh. They would
look absolutely foolish carrying their messages on these shorn horses.
But Houston didn't let this get to him. He called
(20:46):
a special session of Congress to get to the bottom
of all this and sort everything out. It met on June.
He made it clear that it was very important to
move the capital and the archives, but the legislature of
the time did not take up his cause. His please
fell on deaf ears, and they did not make any
moves in his favor. Then in the fall, troops from
(21:10):
Mexico attacked San Antonio, um, which caused Houston to gather
the Congress up for another special session. This time it
meant in an amazingly named hyphen it place that I
don't believe exists anymore, called Washington on Brazos. I imagine
that had to have been a reference to, like Washington
being the capital of the US. They're trying to feel
(21:33):
a little more like state like or US centric. I
don't know, that's weird. Why would they invoke Washington if
they're still trying to be independent. Man, No, I have
a theory. I have a theory. Theory. But it's like,
you know, the same reason why like kaisers are all
comes from the word Caesar is It's like, you know,
does Washington kind of mean like now to these people,
like this signifies like a capital Washington. Yeah, that's I
(22:00):
agree with you, Max. Yet, so this is interesting because
it feels like it could be a compromise. Right, it's
not Austin, it's not Houston. Uh, it's not named after
the president, so that conflict of interest is gone. But
this this comes to us, uh, courtesy of Patsy McDonald,
who was the author of Texas Senate Republic to Civil
(22:22):
War eighteen thirty six to sixty one. She also notes
that there was a President of the Senate at the time,
Edward Burlson, who didn't really dig Sam Houston's whole vibe,
and so he said, I'm not gonna support the legal
decision that would trigger the transfer of the archives. So
the motion to move this stuff stalled in a tie,
(22:46):
and Houston said, look, the official channels aren't doing what
I want. Well, I'm Texan. So I'm gonna take the
law into my own hands, outside of Congress, outside the government,
even though I run the government. He's he didn't really
stress about that part. So December ten, he secretly orders
two officers from the Texas Army, Captain Eli Chandler and
(23:07):
Colonel Thomas Smith, to gather up twenty guys to steal
the archives from Austin with secrecy, efficiency and dispatch and
take them to Washington on Brasos. You know what this means, fellas,
We've got a heist. Max sound cube? Yeah, I love
(23:28):
The best part of this, by the way, is watching
Max's face when I just requested a lunar chrously vague
sound cube. Max, you got it? That was you mean?
You mean when it lights up with joy and and
and the the the anticipation of a creative moment. Yeah,
I love that about Max. He's always down to clown
when it comes to sound effects, always down to sound clown. Um. Oh,
(23:52):
it'll be a good alternative to SoundCloud. What's called soundclown?
And um, I don't know what will work, So let's
get legs. We could work on it. As giant shoes
to the Texas Archives. War became a thing. Houston wrote
this of the momentous day that he ordered those those
two secret army officers Eli Chandler and Thomas Um to
(24:16):
gather those forces. He said, the importance of removing the
public archives and government stores from their present dangerous situation
at the city of Austin to a place of security
is becoming daily more and more imperative. While they remain
where they are, no one knows the hour when they
may be utterly destroyed. It's not necessarily hyperbole there, I
(24:44):
mean he has serious concerns. So his his covert strike
force enters town on December in the wee hours of
the morning. They were loading up the archives uh into
wagons when a local Indans keeper named Angelie Everley finds
them uh and she owns several spots in the city.
(25:05):
She's playing the Monopoly game in addition to her and
she's got some properties, and she said, these archives have
symbolic value to the republic. We've already lost the capital
here in Austin, and if we lose the archives, then
we're gonna be as a city left out of the
future of Texas. So she runs in kind of like
a Paul Revere style thing. Right, and she's telling everybody
(25:29):
in Austin, YO, look, they're still in the archives. I
don't know, she said yo at the time, but she
was like, you know, raising awareness. And then an ad
hoc army of angry locals gathered. And then on Austin's
main thoroughfare, Congress Avenue, there was a loaded six pound
howitzer and it was carrying grape shot. And this was
(25:51):
left over from the Republic's earlier wars with Native American communities.
So this lady Angelina, she faces the muzzle of the
howitzer towards the Land Office and fires the cannon. This
is we know this happened, and it comes from D. G. Wootton,
author of a complete history of Texas. And there was
like a Ward peg leg the land commissioner from earlier.
(26:16):
He writes a layer to Sam Houston about this and
he says there was a cry blow the old house
to places. Some shots hit the land Office, but no
one was injured, no damage was done. Everybody was very
lucky that there were no fatalities. History might have gone
differently now, of course, Ward there's a little historical least
(26:37):
ragg of course, ward um as pre existing beef with cannons.
Peg Leg was not a like ironic nickname. That's right, Ward,
who was Mayor of Austin at the time, lost his
right arm to a faulty cannon um during a celebration
of the five year anniversary of the Battle of Santia Sinto.
(26:58):
There's this thing as a peg arm. Why is he
peg leg if he lost an arm, not not to
not to diminish the man's suffering. I just feels like
a misplaced nickname if you ask me. Yeah, he lost
his right arm due to a cannon malfunction during the
five year anniversary of the Battle of Saint Jacinto, and
before that at an earlier siege, in Assault of Bexar
(27:19):
in eight thirty five, he lost his right leg to
cannon fire. So okay, cannon's hate him would be the
buzfeed headline, and and and also peg leg would take
precedent over the leg. The leg injury came first, presumably um,
and then the the arm and followed suit. But the
nickname was already you know, fully ensconced by that point.
(27:41):
So Smith, Chandler and their guys made off with the
archives in their wagons. This is the highest we're talking about.
They were pursued by twenty Austin knites out for blood. Uh.
Some were carrying that cannon, alright, a cannon and around
new In the next day, at Bushy Creek, which is
(28:02):
just a lovely, delightfully named creek north of Austin, the
Austin folks literally took the troops hostage. They held them
at gunpoint. Uh. Smith was ordered to uh surrender or fight.
According to um Winfries account of the story, of which
there are several another one written by Wootton, at the
(28:23):
mob forcing Smith to move the archives back to Austin,
and wards account um had the vigilantes hauling the archives
back themselves. UM fabulous article from Smithsonian Magazine by Shella mcclear,
The Fascinating Story of the Texas Archives War of two
gives you the play by play for a lot of
(28:45):
this stuff, highly worth the full read. So, regardless of
the specifics, they did surrender the archives. The archives were
returned to Houston. The Committee of Vigilance decided to party hardy,
and they got together the New Year's celebration and some accounts,
again there's discrepancy between these accounts. Some accounts say they
(29:07):
even said, hey, you know Colonel Smith come hang out
and uh depend on which story you here. He may
have accepted, he may have declined. Either way, No one
was seriously injured, no one died. It seemed like it
was It seemed like the War of the Texas Archives
was over. But they had to settle somewhere, and the
(29:30):
land Office was damaged by you know, the ends keeper
firing a cannon uh to bring the building down. She actually,
Mrs Eberley, actually got the archives herself. The records were
sealed in these tin boxes. They were stored at her
place under seven guard, and any attempt to take them
(29:51):
by force, according to historians like Louis Wills Kemp, would
have triggered a civil war in Texas. Everley definitely had
a financial concern involved because she owned so much property
and the property values. Who tank if Austin lost the
capital and the archives. Um Old peg Leg is not
(30:14):
super jazzed about this. He writes to Houston and says,
I have employed all the exhaustion I could to have
them restored to this place, but in vain and what
the result? Maybe providence alone can determine. Many threats have
been made against me. But how I have a dangerous
song present my situation. Maybe we will not complain if
(30:36):
I can do a service to the republic. Oh and
then Congress got mad at Houston. It was a whole
to do. They reprimanded him. But what what does that mean?
They all all they were just like, we're mad at you. Yeah,
they might have pounded a fist on a table or something.
I possibly slammed the door or stumped a foot or something,
(30:56):
but it did not appear to amount to any official
like censure or actual consequences. Right, yeah, Yeah, they just said,
you know, you had no legal reason to attempt to
move the archives, and he knew he didn't. He went
outside of the law to do it. Uh. The archives
stayed in Austin for a while. The seat of government
(31:18):
was still Washington on Brassos, and Austin was at the
time on the decline, was turning into a ghost town. Eventually,
like peg Leg spends the first half of eighteen forty
three trying to get the archives back in the possession
of the Land Commission. And then this, obviously, you know,
plays into the whole idea of what we talked about,
(31:40):
that the Austinites were very concerned that if the archives
were not there selfishly, Um that that explosion and you know,
development and all that stuff would probably start to wane,
and as we see it most certainly did, right, Yeah, yeah,
it most certainly did. And so so when peg Leg
(32:01):
doesn't have any luck getting these archives out of Austin,
he creates a new land office in the current capital
and he starts making a new archive. If you fast
forward just the next year July four Independence days, we
know what today in the US without too much hubbub
and without too many growing pains, those two archives get
(32:24):
combined and reunited in Texas. The Republic of Texas joins
the USA a few months later on December twenty nine eight,
and Austin ends up becoming the capital. Uh, this doesn't
really get resolved until eighteen fifty that's when the people
(32:45):
of Texas finally vote to choose Austin as their capital.
But that's still doesn't become like official, like concrete, concrete,
until eighteen seventy two, when there's a statewide vote that
marks the end to this strange, very messy journey. I
(33:06):
I don't know, man, should we start keeping archives? They
seem important? Like what if we need to make a
state later we should have some archives. Who's going to
be in charge of the art? Max? Max? Will you?
Will you run the archives for us? I guess that
kind of seems like could be. I don't know more.
Y'all are the creatives on the functional one, so I
guess you know, thank you don't sell yourself short. You're
(33:29):
creative as well. He's functional. That nothing if not nonfunctioning creatives.
But I think I think between the three of us
we could successfully run and operate an archive, don't you.
I would like to think that. But you know, now
we live in a world with the benefit of the Internet.
(33:51):
We have, uh, we have our own archive kind of
going with ridiculous historians over on Facebook. Yeah, that's where
we start. We have podcast episodes that's probably in the archive.
You know what we need? We need to flag. I'm
an amateur vexillologist, which is the fancy word study or flags?
We could we could uh, I don't know what would
(34:12):
be on our flag. Maybe that's a question for the
folks in the audience that has a great idea design
a ridiculous history flag for the ridiculous nation one nation
under fraud. I don't know what are we um, one
nation under whimsy. Sure we gotta work one nation under
Uh yeah, we'll work on it. Send our sender suggestions
(34:34):
for that as well. That's our that. This is our
story today and it's an amazing history. If you're listening
and you are lucky enough to live in the city
of Austin, uh, we hope you enjoy this episode. We
hope you can also tell us where all the all
the good food is for when we when we hit
the road again, which maybe sooner than later, hopefully coming
(34:56):
to a town near you. I just remember really enjoying torches, tacos.
I'm a big fan of a breakfast taco, breakfast Mexican
food of any kind. Clabst French eiros is really great.
But hey, Austin Knights, let us know what your favorite
taco places. And you know we we promised at the
top of the show. They're being kind of a full
circle connection as to how this whole back and forth
hullebluh sort of led to the strong identity of Austin
(35:19):
and its citizens. Obviously we've seen that, and then how
you know how much they fought for keeping the archive
and the capital there um, but how how did this
kind of enter into the current sort of keep Austin
weird mentality that we talked about on the top of
the show. Yeah. Well, first it's a weird story. That's
not that's not a story that all capitals can lay
(35:41):
claim to. And secondly, this show's Austin's own independence within
a first republic and then a state that very much
prizes its own independence. Austin fought to become the capital,
and even when things were looking dire, they did not
give up. Uh, And they maintained a unique identity which
(36:04):
I would argue continues to date to great acclaim. Indeed, Um, well,
let us know if you have any more. Like I said,
all the the Uber drivers that I had when I
was in Austin were super super um knowledgeable about the
history of their city and we're very proud. Uh. And
one thing I also remember we didn't see it in action,
but there's this bridge where all of these bats hang
(36:25):
underneath it and usually at a certain time every single evening,
the bats all, um, you know, dissipate like on mass
But I think we missed it or it didn't happen
that night or something like that. But lots of really
cool things to check out in Austin, and I hope
to make it back very soon. So let us know
what your favorite things to eat and do in Austin are.
You can write to us at Ridiculous and I heart
(36:47):
media dot com. You can join our Facebook group Ridiculous Historians,
by you know, just going to Facebook and pointing it
towards Ridiculous Historians. Answer a couple of very simple questions
and you're in lots of cool folks chatting about history
there and memes of plenty being shared, and I think
you'd enjoy it. And you the royal, You, You the listener,
you specifically you listening now thanks to you, You specifically
(37:11):
of course in Texas and abroad, thanks of course to
our Ride or Die super producer Max Williams, Gabe Bluesier,
Research Associate extraordinaire, Eve's Jeff co Christopher Ociotis you know
all the hits, all the good ones, um owen Thanks
to Jonathan strictly indeed, I love that guy. In quotation fingers,
(37:34):
We'll see you next time. For more podcasts for my
Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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