With Sam Houston in Texas / A Boy Volunteer in the Texas Struggles for Independence, When in the Years 1835-1836 the Texas Colonists Threw Off the Unjust Rule of Mexico, and by Heroic Deeds Established, Under the Guidance of the Bluff Sam Houston, Their Own Free Republic Which To-day is the Great Lone Star State

by Edwin L. Sabin

1782—By the Revolutionary War the United States succeeds England in North America east of the Mississippi, and becomes the neighbor of Texas.

1797—Philip Nolan, an Irish-American at New Orleans, enters Texas with a party to capture wild horses and to report on the country.

1800—Nolan and a party again enter Texas, in defiance of Spanish protests. Nolan is killed by the Spanish troops and the others are imprisoned.

1800—Spain cedes the Louisiana province back to France.

1803—France sells Louisiana province to the United States. Spain claims that France was under contract not to deliver the province to any other power, and protests the transfer.

1804—The United States claims that the province extends west to the Rio Grande River; Spain denies the right of the United States to any territory west of New Orleans. War is threatened.

1806—United States troops encamp on the east bank of the Sabine River, in Louisiana; the Spanish troops encamp on the west bank, in Texas. By a truce the United States forces retire to the Red River in Louisiana, and pending a settlement of the Texas boundaries dispute, the strip thirty miles wide between the Red River and the Sabine River is made a Neutral Ground.

1806–1819—The Neutral Ground is the resort of desperadoes, who much annoy the Spanish authorities of Texas.

1811–1812—Lieutenant Augustus Magee, a young American army officer, joins with a Mexican revolutionist, Colonel Gutierrez de Lara, in an attempt to seize Texas from Spain. The project fails.