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Texas seceded from the United States in 1861 and joined the Confederate States of America on the eve of the American Civil War. It replaced the pro-Union governor, Sam Houston, in the process. During the war, slavery in Texas was little affected, and prices for enslaved people remained high until the last few months of the war.
Texas' annexation as a state that tolerated slavery had caused tension in the United States among slave states and those that did not allow slavery. The tension was partially defused with the Compromise of 1850, in which Texas ceded some of its territory to the federal government to become non-slave-owning areas but gained El Paso.
On June 19, 1865 — Juneteenth — U.S. Army general Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, and announced General Order No. 3, proclaiming freedom for slaves in Texas, [26] which was the last state of the Confederacy with slavery. Juneteenth has been celebrated annually on June 19 ever since in various parts of the United States.
Texas annexation, wrote Walker, would eliminate all these dangers and "fortify the whole Union." [94] Walker's pamphlet brought forth strident demands for Texas from pro-slavery expansionists in the South; in the North, it allowed anti-slavery expansionists to embrace Texas without appearing to be aligned with pro-slavery extremists. [95]
Regarding slavery, influential settler Stephen F. Austin, who reasoned that the success of his colonies needed slave labor and the economics it produced to lure more whites to the area, used his relationships to get an exemption from the law. [7] Therefore, slavery remained in Texas until the end of the American Civil War.
The day becomes a holiday celebrating emancipation in Texas, and then spreads throughout the nation. Dec. 6, 1865: National ratification of 13th Amendment, which ends slavery in the United States ...
Although he governed Texas as a slave-holding state and was a slave owner himself, he did not feel that it was in the best interests of Texas to secede from the Union over slavery. Houston and his wife, Margaret Lea Houston , relied on slaves to perform household, agricultural, carpentry, blacksmithing, and other duties for the family.
The population of slaves in Texas more than tripled in the decade leading up to 1860. Southerners were particularly fearful that the growing abolitionist movement would attempt to organize rebellion. [1]: 1–8 Local Texas governments expelled their Tejano or Mexican population because they believed Tejanos were unsupportive of slavery.