Texas Austin example essay topic

Stephen Fuller Austin was born November 3rd 1793 in Austin ville, Virginia. At age five his family moved to Missouri. Austin attended school in Connecticut and graduated with honors from Transylvania University in Kentucky. Prior to coming to Texas Austin worked in his father's general store and eventually took over the management of the family mining business.

Austin served as a director of a failed bank, militia officer, and was a member of the Missouri territorial legislature. In 1821 the governor of Arkansas appointed Austin as a circuit judge. It was Austin's father who took the first steps toward establishing an American colony in Mexican Tejas. Though not thrilled with his father's idea he decided to cooperate. Moses Austin traveled to San Antonio in 1820 to petition for a land grant. Approval was received in 1821 for three hundred American families to settle on two hundred thousand acres.

But Moses Austin died before being able to complete his plans and the responsibility of establishing the colony fell to Stephen at age twenty-seven. The governor of Mexico allowed Austin to explore the coastal plains between the San Antonio and Brazos rivers for the purpose of selecting a site for the colony. Austin selected the colony site on the lower Colorado and Brazos rivers allowing for plenty of water to be available to the colonists. The town was called San Felipe de Austin and was a good place to live because the colonists lived in peace with one another, were honest in their dealings, and were generous towards strangers. Characteristics Austin required of the colonists were that they become citizens of Mexico, only those who planned to live in Texas could buy land, produce evidence of good moral character, and had to practice Christianity. The three hundred colonists who settled in Texas became known as the "Old three hundred".

Austin is referred to as the Father of Texas for the hundreds of families he brought with him into the state of Texas due to the poor conditions of the United States at the time. Austin believed that most disputes could be worked out in the Mexican system where he had mixed success. He was imprisoned in Mexico City by President Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna for proposing statehood for Texas and for inciting insurrection. He briefly commanded Texas volunteers during the Texas Revolution and then went to the United States to gain support for the Texas cause. Later he served as secretary of state in the government of the Texas Republic. Austin devoted the best years of his life to the cause of Texas.

He died on December 27, 1836 at the age of forty-three. He was remembered as an unassuming man with a kindly presence, and was deeply respected by all.