Texas or Territory? Borderlands Separatism and Postwar Politics in the Trans-Nueces, 1848–1850

Abstract

This article historicizes an effort by South Texas businessmen in the late 1840s to secede from the State of Texas and to create a new federal territory to protect their landholdings between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande. Their pursuit centered on the trans-Nueces region, as the land between the two rivers was called, but it also tapped into broader political hostilities in the antebellum United States. In particular, the South Texans' territorial petition arrived in Congress as slavery's proponents and opponents fought bitterly over the institution's role in national life. Further, calls for a trans-Nueces territory represented a crisis for the United States and Texas in the immediate aftermath of the Mexican-American War. In effect, the South Texas separatists pitted both powers against each other, warning Congress that the Texas Legislature was on the verge of confiscating their lands and pleading with the federal government to step in. By simultaneously introducing the territory issue in Congress and agitating state lawmakers in Austin, the trans-Nueces entrepreneurs forced open a new path toward resolution that provoked the Texas government to act, eventually creating a commission that swiftly endorsed the men's land titles in the region. The territorial campaign was a borderlands response to the post-1848 land tenure arrangement that the businessmen saw as a threat to their economic power. Overall, the episode reveals the dimensions and lasting power of local negotiations in national histories.