Things that weren't: Cameron's Grant and a Boundary Line at the Red River
Robin Cole-Jett- 29 minutes ago
- 3 min read
A map from 1835 shows Cameron's Grant and a proposed boundary line, both at the Red River, and both unsuccessful.
When you look at early maps of the Texas Republic (1836 to 1845), and then look at the Red River because OF COURSE you do, you might notice a large swath of land dedicated to "John Cameron's Grant" that today, roughly, includes parts of Fannin, Grayson, Cooke, Montague, Clay, Wichita, Wilbarger, Hardeman and perhaps Childress Counties. Also some of Archer and Baylor counties.
But notice that, according to this map, John Cameron's empresario did not contain any towns or people, unlike the grants south of his line. This doesn't mean that there weren't any people here, just that they didn't file with Mr. Cameron and/or he didn't have success in bringing "200 families onto land along the Red River" which his patent with Mexico in 1828 demanded.
So what happened to Cameron's Land Grant?
John Cameron, a Scotsman, came to Mexican Texas in the late 1820s and became a Mexican citizen. He received the land grant that had been initially assigned to Reuben Ross, a Virginian who fought with other Anglo Americans for Mexican independence in the revolutionary wars of the 1810s. Ross was killed before being able to claim his land grant in the newly-minted Mexican Texas, so in 1828, Cameron received permission to colonize the Red River valley instead.
Like Ross, Cameron was a federalist. Unlike American federalists, Mexican federalists opposed centralized powers. Of course, people like the Mexican President Santa Anna opposed the federalists, leading to the eventual rebellion in Texas and Coahuila in 1836. After imprisonment alongside fellow Mexican Benjamin Milam for his opposition to Santa Anna's dictatorship, Cameron served on the Texian side of the Texas Revolution, and was awarded his own land donation for his service in the Siege of Bexar of 1835. He lived until 1861, when he died in the Rio Grande Valley fighting for secession (side note: Texas's Cameron County is not named for John Cameron).
Because it was unsuccessful, the Cameron empresario was later divided into the Peters Colony and the Mercer Colony land grant schemes during the Republic of Texas.
But wait, there's more to talk about in this map!
Notice the portion of the Red River and Sulphur River valleys in the extreme eastern portion of this map, where Texas met the Choctaw Nation, Arkansas, and Louisiana. This is the Great Bend area. No land grants are indicated here, because the Anglos who moved into today's Bowie and Red River counties during the Mexican period came either because of the mismanaged Wavell Grant (1826); considered the land a portion of Arkansas Territory; or just ignored any nation's claims. Then, notice the green boundary line: the straight line to the Sabine River is the Index Line, aka the "boundary of 1819," named after the Adams-Onis Treaty. The green line directly south of Fort Towson, at this point a border crossing, is the "proposed boundary of Arkansas."
The reason for the "proposed boundary of Arkansas" in the extreme northeastern corner of today's Texas is geo-political. The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 included all land surrounding the western rivers that emptied into the Mississippi River. The Red River is the southern-most major river to do this, and the Sulphur River (here, Sulphur Fork and South Little River) were connected to the Red River. So, technically, this area should be part of the Louisiana Territory and therefore, part of the United States, not Texas. But this is not how Spain nor Mexico viewed it, and the United States ultimately didn't either.
Because I'm most interested in how people move, I find the early roads the most important aspects of this map. Notice how SO many roads originated from Washington (Hempstead County, Arkansas), and the only one in today's northeastern Texas was the Trammel's Trace.
Look at the maps in all its glory here:
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