Mirabeau as President of Texas

While Houston was out of Texas, Mirabeau Lamar exercised the Presidency of Texas like a bull in a china shop. Seemingly intent on erasing Houston’s mark on the Republic, the flag was changed from the gold star on a field of blue to a red, white, and blue tri-color. The capital was moved from Houston City to a new town named Austin located in the Comanche wilderness some eighty miles north east of San Antonio. He printed large issues of extravagantly engraved money, which had nothing to back it and quickly depreciated to a tiny percentage of its face value.

Houston’s dream of Texas annexation to the United States stopped cold with Lamar’s administration. Lamar’s dream was to extend Texas to the Pacific as the continental equal to the United States. The Mexican government canceled the Valasco Treaties, and Lamar responded by sending the Texas Navy to the Yucatan and an expedition to Santa Fe inviting that province to join Texas. The expedition was captured and marched with much brutality and many executions all the way to Mexico City and prison.

Worst of all, Lamar began a war to exterminate the Comanche Indians in which Texas had no hope of succeeding, and caused disturbance and terror across the frontier. Rather than honor Houston’s Cherokee Treaty to secure land title for them, Lamar declares war on the east Texas Cherokees, and among the dead was their aged chief The Bowl, whose friendship Houston had carefully cultivated. Lamar defeats them in battle and drives the entire remnant of the tribe into Oklahoma.

While Houston was in the United States, the people of San Augustine, where he had once centered his law practice, elected him to the Texas Congress. As a representative, he trekked to the raw village of Austin on the frontier and wrote this.

“This is the most unfortunate site upon earth for a seat of government. It is removed outside of the settlement and not a house between here and Santa Fe. Our eating is very plain, and no society to enjoy. The expenses of this here are appalling to those who do not wish to be buried by taxation. I might have been happy in ignorance at home had I not known the full extent of Lamar’s stupidity.”