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The history of the Texas War for Independence is heavily entrenched in the land campaign fought between the Texas rebels led by Sam Houston and the Mexican Army led General Antonio López de Santa Anna. The ‘Last Stand’ at the Alamo and the wars’ penultimate battle at San Jacinto being the two most popular and well studied events in both academic and popular histories to date. The history of the First Texas Navy (1835-1837) and its very small fleet of brigs and schooners is nonetheless highly important to the study of the conflict and the eventual success of the Texian revolt against Mexico in April 1836. As both a blue water (ocean) and brown water (rivers) naval force, the Texas Navy fought many small engagements and carried out several minor blockades before, during, and after the Texas Revolution in defense of the young Republic of Texas and its ally, the short lived Republic of Yucatán (1841-1848). See, Texas Revolution 1835-1836: Battle for North Mexico and the Birth of the Texas ...

The Second Anglo-American War, more commonly known as the War of 1812, (1812-1815), was fought throughout North America between Great Britain and her Native American Indian allies and the United States of America and its Native American allies. Even though the War of 1812 was predominantly a war between Great Britain and the United States in the context of the greater Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815), it was also one of the first great “Indian Wars” of post-Revolutionary American history. Through a military allegiance with the great Shawnee chief Tecumseh (b.1768-1813) a large struggle between the native peoples of North America (Great Britain’s 1812 Allies) and the young American inhabitants (settlers and military men) who now controlled the territorial destiny of the expanding United States of America began in 1811. By the conclusion of the War of 1812 with the Treaty of Ghent in 1814-1815, US army and state militias had engaged Native American warriors from Canada to Ohio, Tennessee, and...

American interest in ‘Norte’ (North) Mexico, what would become the nation and later American state of Texas, dated back to the Mexican struggle for independence from Spain, which stalled Moses Austin plans for colonization of the fertile Texas river valley. Known as the first empresario (a settler bound by contract to lead other settlers and homesteader parties to the territory), Austin was unable to complete his vision of a new settlement in what would become Texas , dieing in 1821 before he could see the territory himself. Stephen F. Austin It was his son second son Stephen F. Austin (b.1793-1836), who received his fathers’ grant for colonization in Southeastern Texas, though it is long handed down that the younger Austin was reluctant to travel to Texas . The first settlers, the “Old Three Hundred” remain an enduring symbol of the founding of Texas and in a sense represent the spirit of those who still reside there today. Though it is now believed that the beloved ‘Ole Three Hundre...