The history of the German settlements in Texas, 1831-1861

In presenting this study I have attempted to show how the dissatisfaction with the prevailing social, economic, and political conditions in Germany during the first half of the nineteenth century caused German emigrants to direct their footsteps toward Texas after that distant, promising land became known to them. Various plans were submitted to the Spanish and Mexican governments in the interest of German colonization in Texas, but these, as well as the proposals made later to the republic of Texas, proved unproductive. The actual founding of German settlements in Texas began in 1831 when Friedrich Ernst, a former subject of the grand-duchy of Oldenburg, settled on a league of land on the west bank of Mill Creek in what is now Austin County. This first settlement received the name of Industry and became the center of a number of German settlements founded in Austin, Colorado, Fayette, Washington, De Witt, and Victoria counties in the period before 1861. With the single exception of Yorktown, no concerted effort was behind the founding of any of these settlements. In western Texas, that is, in the counties of Comal, Guadalupe, Gillespie, Llano, Kendall, and Kerr, on the other hand, the German settlements were founded either directly or indirectly as the result of a colonization movement supported by the Society for the Protection of German Immigrants in Texas (Verein zum Schutze deutscher Einwanderer in Texas). Having first become interested in Texas in 1842, this Society in 1844 definitely embarked on a program of directing German emigration to Texas. It acquired two colonization contracts, one from Alexander Bourgeois d’Orvanne and Armand Ducos in 1843, the other from Henry Francis Fisher and Burchard Miller in 1844. The Bourgeois-Ducos contract, however, expired before the Society could make any use of its provisions, while the Fisher and Miller grant was so far in the interior of Texas that it was not very accessible. New Braunfels and Fredericksburg, the two principal settlements made by the Society, were both established on land not included in the Fisher and Miller grant. One of the greatest achievements of the early settlers in western Texas was a treaty by which the Comanche Indians allowed them to settle in the grant, a tract of over three million acres. Both before and after the Society was dissolved other settlements were founded in western Texas, but it is doubtful if these would have been made had not the Society carried on its pioneer work in that part of the state