Indian Agent: Peter Ellis Bean in Mexican Texas

Chapter 13. Almonte’s 1834 Inspection

C oinciding with austin’s arrest—and partially motivated by it—Vice President Farías authorized Col. Juan N. Almonte to go to Texas and gauge the rebellious sentiment of the foreign colonists . Almonte was the illegitimate son of Peter Ellis Bean’s revolutionary war mentor, Gen. José María Morelos, and an Indian woman. Bean had conducted thirteen-year-old Almonte to New Orleans shortly before the capture and execution of Morelos by Royalist forces. There Almonte had remained until independence was achieved. Once Bean quit the struggle and returned to Louisiana after the death of Morelos, he probably spent time with the lad and looked after his interests as much as possible. And now the son, grown into a thirty-year-old colonel in the Mexican army, was coming to Texas. Apart from their personal relationship , Bean’s military duties in east Texas made him Almonte’s chief informant about public affairs in that section of the Mexican republic.1 Almonte did not reach Nacogdoches until April 26, having been assured while in Natchitoches by Bean that his reception would be a friendly one. Just before Almonte’s arrival, Bean had petitioned Land Commissioner Vicente Aldrete to put him in possession of the eleven leagues he held on behalf of Gavino Aranjo. As already noted, the surveys were completed on April 4, 1834, by José María Carvajal in two tracts. One of them was described as below the San Antonio Road on the waters of the Neches and Angelina.2 This tract was five leagues of Aranjo’s eleven located west of the defunct Fort Terán, and we know from a later sale (arranged by Frost Thorn in 1835) that Bean located the other six leagues on the Red River near Pecan Point.3 According to this document, Bean received his title on May 18, and less than a week later he and Thorn sold a portion of it to J. K. ( John Kirby) and A. (Augustus) C. Allen for five hundred dollars.4 They were brothers from New York and big-time speculators in the Nacogdoches region, later founders of the city of Houston.5 Chapter 13 Almonte’s 1834 Inspection Being on the main road to Texas from Arkansas and points east, lands in the Pecan Point district had a hot sales potential to incoming immigrants. It will be recalled that Bean had located one of his own eight leagues on the Red River in 1833, placing it ten miles below the mouth of the Kiamichi . In 1834 Bean also had the Garza four leagues surveyed for him— not ten miles above the main Camino Real, east of the Neches as planned —but well out of any conflict with Cherokee claims; title was conferred on April 5.6 These extensive land operations of Bean’s were put on hold (for a short time, at least) once Almonte got to town. In his first communication from Nacogdoches, Almonte mentioned the ten or twelve men whom the inhabitants themselves termed “land speculators.” These men Almonte considered in association with Austin. Like him, they hoped to make Texas into a separate state “in order to deal at will in the lands of this most fertile country and create their patrimony from it.”7 While Bean was operating on a much smaller scale than these speculators, he was friends with most of them (Frost Thorn and Adolphus Sterne in particular) and selling his grants to several of the largest land merchants. Thus Bean was treading on thin ice when he told Almonte about the dimensions of the land game around Nacogdoches. Like Terán, Almonte believed that speculation of this sort by foreigners undermined the territorial integrity of Mexico. Monitoring the situation with the immigrant tribes in east Texas was also one of Almonte’s responsibilities. He was given two sets of private instructions, and in what appears to be an earlier draft these Indians were a topic of concern. All “nomadic” tribes were to be informed that Mexico would award them lands and they would be integrated into the Mexican federation, as long as they settled at permanent sites. They were even allowed to choose their own authorities for governing themselves and, when their numbers allowed, could create territories under self-rule with the federal government’s protection. If Almonte thought it indispensable that “some concessions or favors” be made to their chiefs, “giving them the most flattering expectations for this purpose,” he was to immediately...