Black Texans fought for Texas' independence
BY DR. JOHN ROSS SPECIAL CONTRIBUTOR

The successful struggle to free themselves from Mexico has long been a great source of pride for Texans. But the outbreak of the Texas independence movement in 1835 presented a terrible quandary for the small community of 400 free African-Americans who had made a place for themselves among the 20,000 Anglo- Americans and 2,000 slaves of Mexican Texas.

With the independence of Mexico in 1821, Texas had become a haven for free African-Americans. The new government of Mexico extended full citizenship rights to free black people, moved toward abolition of slavery and accepted black immigrants on equal terms with whites. Mexico's lack of prohibition on interracial marriage made it especially attractive: many of the free African-Americans who came to Mexican Texas were members of mixed race families who sought to legalize their relationships.

Mexico had been good to them, but they were, after all, Americans, and their lives were bound up with those of their white neighbors. They certainly did not want to help bring down on themselves the sort of restrictions that an Anglo-American government was likely to impose. Yet under Santa Anna, Mexico was moving away from democracy and toward a system that would deny basic rights to everybody.

As war approached, most free black Texans joined the army or otherwise supported the independence forces. The stories of some of these people provide a fascinating insight into the tiny, extraordinary community of the free African- Americans of Mexican Texas and the dilemma thrust upon them in the 1830s.

In May 1835, Samuel McCulloch Jr., born free in South Carolina in 1810, came to Texas with his three sisters and their white father. Five months later, McCulloch joined George M. Collinsworth's command in their attack on the Mexican garrison at Goliad. McCulloch suffered a severe shoulder wound. His was the first blood shed in the cause of Texas independence.

Hendrick Arnold moved to Texas from Mississippi with his white slave-owner father and mixed-race family in 1826. In 1835, Hendrick settled in San Antonio and married Martina Durán, the Mexican step-daughter of the famous Texan scout Erastus "Deaf" Smith. Arnold took part in the Battle of Concepción, guided Ben Milam's division in the assault on San Antonio and fought through the rest of the war, including San Jacinto, with Deaf Smith's scouts. One of Arnold's comrades at San Antonio was Greenberry Logan. Born a slave in Kentucky in 1799, he was freed by his white father. He came to Texas in 1831 and took a land grant in present Brazoria County as part of Austin's Third Colony, one of three free African- American colonists accepted by Austin. In 1832, Logan bought a slave woman named Caroline, manumitted, and then married her. He fought at Velasco in 1832 and joined the Texan army besieging San Antonio in 1835. He was severely wounded, suffering permanent damage to his right arm.

Others helped the cause of independence without taking up arms. Wealthy land-owner William Goyens of Nacogdoches assisted Sam Houston in the negotiations that kept the Cherokee neutral. William and Aaron Ashworth, free brothers of mixed race, came to Texas as colonists for empresario Lorenzo de Zavala, settling in what is now Jefferson County. Like William Goyens, the Ashworths became prosperous land owners and slave holders in the Beaumont area, collecting around them a large clan of relatives and friends. Also like Goyens, the Ashworths avoided military service in the Revolution, but provided funds and supplies to the Texans.

Whatever hopes the free black community may have entertained about their service and loyalty to Texas being rewarded by a continuation of Mexican egalitarianism in independent Texas were very soon dashed. In November 1835, Texas proclaimed itself a separate state of the Mexican union. On Jan. 5, 1836, the new state legislature prohibited free black people from entering the state, though it granted residency rights to those already here.

With the Declaration of Independence, all restraint was removed. Stripping free black residents of their civil rights and prohibiting intermarriage was only the beginning.

The Constitution of the Republic of Texas proclaimed: "No free person of African descent, either in whole or in part, shall be permitted to reside permanently in the republic, without the consent of congress." This consent proved hard to win, but eventually the Republic allowed people who had immigrated before independence to remain, but under very circumscribed conditions. Disabled veteran Greenberry Logan complained that the Republic Constitution deprived him of "every privilege dear to a free man . . . no vote or say in any way."

Greenberry Logan would have to endure for 30 years and survive a great Civil War before he would again be as free as he had been in Texas under the Mexican flag.

Dr. Ross is academic dean at Lon Morris College. He earned his PhD at Texas Tech University specializing in Southern and Black History.