We crossed the Medina in returning from a trip to the Rio Grande, last Saturday morning, and hesitated whether we should not turn from our road and follow it up to the ranch of an Irish gentleman, who has one of the largest flocks [295] of sheep in Texas, which he had invited us to look at. Preferring, however, to spend Sunday in town, we fortunately concluded to postpone our visit.

The next morning (yesterday) a messenger came into the city with the information that during the night the ranch had been visited and plundered by Indians, who had also killed two of the shepherds. In the course of the day a party was formed to go in pursuit of the Indians.

This morning a woman came into the city with the information that yesterday a party of Indians came to her house, which is about sixteen miles from here, and called for meat and drink, and as soon as they had obtained it, shot her husband, killing him at once, and knocked her down by a blow upon her head with the butt of a rifle, and left her for dead, while they caught the children, of which there were four, the oldest a girl of fourteen. She recovered sufficiently to run from the house and escape through some thick bushes which grew near it. She heard for a long time the shrieks of the children, but whether they were killed or taken into slavery by the savages she cannot tell.

On the Rio Grande, and at other exposed points on this frontier, there have lately been a number of Indian outrages, but none perhaps so bold and frightful as this.

The absurd inefficiency of our national system of managing the Indian tribes is horribly apparent in these occurrences. Theoretically, there are no Indians allowed to come within some hundred miles of where these tragedies were enacted, except a few tribes, small in numbers and peaceable and friendly in disposition, with whom an agent of the Government, to make sure of their good behavior, is constantly living.

To keep the savage Indians at a distance from the settlement, there is a cordon of military posts which are greatly valued by the people on the frontier on account of the excellent market they offer for corn, beef, and so on. What the pioneers would do without the soldiers to provide for, Heaven knows. These posts are all called forts, though they are generally mere camps, with a log hospital, magazine and quartermaster’s store-houses—the soldiers living in tents. At one of them which we visited last week, there are two hundred men, admirably dressed, drilled and disciplined. There are some settlers immediately around this fort. Within a month these settlers have had their cattle killed and their horses stolen by the Indians. The Indians have even ventured into the stable of the post, and succeeded—though one of them was supposed to have been shot by the sentry—in taking off three of the Government’s horses.

At Fort Duncan there are four hundred men—infantry and artillery. They are in admirable condition for marching upon Mexico, but within a fortnight the Indians have stolen the beef from under their guns, and attacking a forage party, killed the beast the commanding sergeant was upon with an arrow, cut four mules from the wagon and escaped unharmed.

On the Mexican side of the Rio Grande we saw a mule which was worth about $60, but which the rider said he had bought of an Indian for $5, [296]

[297] and which our guide recognized as being one that had been stolen from an American settler a few weeks ago.

The last murder by the Indians was committed sixteen miles from here yesterday evening. I do not know what time it was that the woman who escaped arrived here. It was about 9 o’clock when I saw two Germans very hastily saddling their horses, strapping on each a blanket, and filling their pockets with bread. They told me what had occurred, and I asked where they were going.

“To hunt the Indians. There is a company making up; will you join us?”

“No,”

“Lend me your Colt, then?”

“Yes; here it is.”

“Loaded?”

“Yes,”

“All right. We shall start as soon as a company gets together on the plaza.”

I walked into the plaza an hour afterwards, and found my German friend very impatiently waiting, with two or three others, who were all talking of the business as if it were a frolic they were anxious should begin. There, too, was a Government Indian agent, guessing what Indians it had been, and very patiently waiting for certain preparations to be made for pursuing them. At noon, the German came home to dinner in extreme vexation. Some soldiers had been ordered to join them, and they had not got ready yet. There are four companies of infantry in camp near the city. I walked to the plaza again after dinner. There were still the small crowd of Indian agents, volunteers and idlers, smoking and talking, waiting, and making preparations.

About 3 o’clock this afternoon a squad of soldiers rode by my window, and I followed them to the plaza. Here they joined a number of citizens, and waited half an hour, everybody inquiring of everybody else what they were waiting for now. Finally, the Indian agent remarked that he did not see that there was anything else to wait for, and they had better go. A Mexican led off as a guide, and they trotted calmly out of town.

The soldiers were not exactly in parade equipment. Most of them wore flannel shirts, without coats. The only part of their uniform they retained, was the pantaloons and the fatigue cap. They were infantry soldiers, but had been for this occasion mounted. They each carried a blanket, a haversack of provisions, and a canteen. I asked the corporal why they did not take muskets or rifles like the volunteers? “They’d be too lumbersome, Sir; we have all got Colts.” A couple of pickayune Spanish mules, led by a Mexican mounted on another, followed the detachment with rations roped on to their backs, and a buffalo robe, and apparently a tent for the Indian agent to sleep in.

It was 3½ o’clock when the pursuit commenced. When the prisoners are brought in, I will tell you.

My German friend, who had been ready on the parade-ground at half past 9, fully armed, equipped and rationed for a forced march of several days, [298]

had left the plaza before the soldiers came. Whether he had given it up in despair, or had in his impatience ordered himself to advance before the company, as a scouting party, I do not know.

It is my private opinion that if there had been ten New-York firemen scattered over the ten miles square around San Antonio, when that poor woman came in this morning, they would in some way or other have heard of it, and got together and been twenty miles on their way to rescue the children before the detachment had drawn its rations.

April 18.—They found the dead bodies of three of the children in the house. The Indians are supposed to be Comanches, the most formidable of American savages. Could it have been the mere gratification of the love of cruelty and bloodshed that they had in view in these murders? It seems hardly possible. How else can their conduct be explained?

A month ago we were about making a trip through the Bandera Pass, which is at the head of the Medina valley, near which these occurrences have taken place, but were deterred by accounts of Indian disturbances. According to the account sent to the newspapers by some people who belong to a faction of the Mormons, and who are squatting in the Pass this Summer, they had been annoyed by the Indians killing their cattle, and formed a company to attack them. They stole upon the Indians, surprising them in camp, fired a volley upon them, killing several as they believed, though they found no dead bodies. The Indians fled, and they took as booty what they left behind. We [299] afterwards learned from a German who lives in that vicinity, that there was in the Pass an old Indian burying ground, and he believed that the Indians had come to visit it, and had found that the graves had been opened and the bones of their fathers scattered by the whites, and that if they really committed any depredations at all, at that time, it was in revenge for this outrage on their feelings. The most they had done was to shoot some oxen.

It seems to me probable that the present massacres have been made by the Indians in retaliation of the attack then made upon them by the whites.

When the Republic of Texas was annexed as a State to the United States, it was the expectation that it would eventually be so divided as to make five States, giving to the slave property interest the advantage of ten additional votes in the National Senate. A provision in the Act of Annexation renders it optional with the people of Texas to separate their territory from time to time into as many States, not exceeding five, as may each contain a population equal to the number required by our fundamental law for the construction of a State by special act of Congress.

It has been generally expected that a separation of Texas into two States would soon be made. It has been supposed that Trinity River would be the division, and in anticipation of the event, that part of the country lying east of this stream is universally designated as Eastern Texas, and that beyond its right bank is distinguished with equal exactness as Western Texas.

A sectional, political jealousy of a very strong nature exists between these two sections of the State, which has its basis in a covetousness of the people of each to obtain as much as possible [of] the patronage and credit and the use of the Commonwealth property of the entire State, before it shall be divided for their own part of it.

This jealousy, which amounts with many of the people to a bitter animosity, has been greatly increased during the last two sessions of the Legislature by alleged breaches of faith on the part of the majority who represent the interests of the East.

The Pacific Railroad project, which proposes to carry the road through Northern Texas, is looked upon by the people of the West with no favor. If constructed as proposed, they consider that the road will be rather an injury than a benefit to them. To the East, however, it would be of incalculable advantage. To carry the bill, which offered to donate to the road an immense amount of State property as an inducement to foreign capitalists to undertake its construction, it is alleged, and universally believed in the West, that the Eastern members pledged themselves to vote for the so-called Loan bill, the passage of which would have insured the construction of certain internal roads which have been undertaken and are grievously needed by the West. The Pacific Railroad bill became a law; the Loan bill was subsequently defeated by Eastern votes. The people of the West, generally, consider themselves, to use their own phrase, as having been sold in the transaction, and are in consequence intensely exasperated.

Yet no public demonstration of this feeling is made, and in the legislative debates you may see nothing reported by which any distinct division of [301] interests between the two sections of the State is proclaimed. Only the vehemence and rhetorical emphasis with which it is denied, except in the lapses of excitement, betray it. The hope is expressed and the intention avowed that Texas may long remain one great, united, powerful State, retaining the undoubted advantage it has in the united strength of all parts acting together, and that distinction, consequence and power it holds as the greatest State in the Territorial area of the Union.

And these declarations on the part of the political leaders in the Legislature and elsewhere, are sincere. The intention of a speedy division of the State into two has been abandoned. It is now the purpose to endeavor by all possible means to continue the State in its unity, until, at least, the time arrives when it may be divided at once into five States.

The main reason for this change of purpose, I have no doubt is this:

A majority of the citizens of the whole of Western Texas are Mexicans and Germans, who have no attachment to the institution of Slavery, and whose interests would lead them to look with disfavor upon the continued filling up of the country by slave laborers. It is possible that the further introduction of slaves into the new Western State would be prohibited, or that it would be required that all slaves subsequently introduced into the country, should be educated and held subject to be made free after their labor should have paid their value and the expenses of their support and education.

The great Territory of what has been known as Western Texas would thus be made attractive to free emigrants, and would probably increase in population more rapidly than the East.

I will give the opinion upon this point of a very intelligent gentleman, who has lately himself come hither from Germany, and who for two years before his emigration had an opportunity, in the way of his business, of conversing with several thousand persons intending to leave that country for the United States. The objection of the existence of Slavery, he informs me, is constantly made by them to Texas, as a destination, and he has not the least doubt the immigration would be increased more than one hundred per cent., if Slavery were legally forbidden, or henceforth excluded from Western Texas.

Should, therefore, a division of the State be now made at Trinity River, as has been generally anticipated, it is probable not only that two Senators, not particularly devoted to the perpetuation of Slavery as the prime interest of their constituents, would be added to Congress, but that Western Texas would increase in population so rapidly as to secure the right to redivide itself once, if not twice, before the East would be able to do so. Thus it might happen that, instead of the Slave States gaining power by the annexation of Texas, they would have actually given to Freedom six Senatorial votes, while they themselves gained but four.

Of course the slave owners of the East, and the slave owners and those ambitious to become slavemasters in the West, will now be sufficiently careful not to let their minor quarrels touching railroads and such unimportant means [302] of wealth, interfere with their paramount interest in the stability of the value of negroes.

It seems to them now probable that the State of Texas will remain one, casting but two votes in the Senate, until its population is sufficiently large to permit a division of it into five States. It may then be expected that one entirely inland State will be formed, its northern boundary being New-Mexico and Kansas; its eastern boundary Arkansas and Louisiana. If the Pacific Railroad is constructed through this, as is the Texas project, it will be settled extensively by slave planters throughout its whole length. If this scheme fails, it will for a long time be very sparsely settled, except in the East, between the Red River and the Trinity, which is now being more rapidly taken possession of by slave owners than any other part of the present State, and will soon be a rich and populous planting district. The Southern boundary line of this State will be carried where it is necessary to effect the desired division of votes.

Four States may be conveniently constructed of the remaining Territory; each having a front (as town-lot speculators would say) on the sea-shore. The first between the Sabine and the Trinity, the second and third between the Trinity and the Guadalupe, the division between them being probably the Brazos, above San Felipe de Austin and the Colorado below; and the fourth, between the Guadalupe and the Rio Grande.

This last State to be west of the Guadalupe, as far as I have been able to judge from the prevailing sentiment of the people, is likely to enter the Union, nominally, as a Slave State, because it will not be thought right to destroy the value of their property in slaves, which immigrants to the Territory have brought with them while Slavery was legal. But the further introduction of slaves will be prohibited, and such will be the public feeling that this prohibition will be enforced, as a similar prohibition of the State of Georgia never has been. Slaves which have previously been brought into the country will be likely to be held, subsequently to the formation of the State, subject to great amelioration of their condition, and to education, and the earliest practicable scheme of emancipation which can be carried out without a practical confiscation of the property of their owners in them. The political position of the State will be generous and broadly Democratic, and it will be virtually an acquisition to the number and the power of the Free States.

Although the time at which this may occur is still many years distant, and circumstances may seem to entirely change the aspect of affairs, I give my opinion that this is the prospect from present indications, with distinctness, because I have formed it with care, and because it is a subject of great interest to all those who look from elsewhere towards Western Texas as a desirable country for their future residence. Among the grounds for my opinion are the following:

A very large majority of the present population of the territory described (which I should have observed compares in its area with the State of [303]

[304] New-York) are men who have been, or now are, accustomed to hard labor with their own hands, for the support of themselves and their families. The proportion of this class to that of the slaves, and of slaveholders or whites from Slave States, is much more likely to be increased than lessened in the future. Consequently, the majority of the laborers in the State are likely to be freemen, and these free laborers will not only not be slaves, as is the case with a majority of the laborers in Delaware and Maryland, but they will be voting citizens, looking out sharply for their own interests.

And it is only by especial laws, onerous in their execution upon the rest of the community, that Slavery can be sustained. Especially will this be the case here, where the facilities for the escape of negroes from Slavery are greater than anywhere else at the South, and the people at large are already heavily taxed for the apprehension of fugitives. Neither the Mexican nor the German population is at present regarded and treated by the Anglo-American Texans with that respect for their rights and regard for their interests and opinions which might be likely to conciliate their political friendship.

A variety of circumstances will tend to render slave property insecure in this frontier territory, except at the expense of kindness or relaxation of discipline, which will interfere materially with its profits, and bring its results more directly in unfavorable contrast with those of competitive labor. This is already very perceptible.

The larger the population of free laboring proprietors, the smaller will be the proportion of land open to occupation by slave-owners and their property. But a small part of the country is attractive to planters, from its natural adaptation to their purposes. Much of this is already settled upon by Germans. The vicinity of free laboring families, I have shown in my letters on the “Industry of the South,” in the Times, is everywhere considered objectionable, as demoralizing (to discipline) and otherwise interfering with the profit of working slaves, by their owners.

The territory not adapted to planting consists of mountains, with narrow valleys, suitable for the fields of small farmers, and the steadings of sheep ranges; and of great prairies, intersected and divided by arid plains and thorny thickets, and deficient in wood and water. A large part of these are well adapted to grazing purposes, and especially to wool-growing.

Experiments indicate that much of the land is remarkably well adapted to vineyards, and that the manufacture of wine, to which many of the Germans are accustomed, will be profitable.

In one part of the territory, there are several abundant water-courses, with rapid streams, unnavigable, and readily dammed at frequent intervals. On the banks of these streams are inexhaustible quarries of the most easily-worked stone, suitable to building purposes, that I have ever seen, equal to the Caen stone of France, superior to the Portland stone of England, more like the Leith stone, of which Edinburgh is built, than any other I remember, but superior to [305] it in softness and fineness. Sand, lime and clay, are also here found in abundance. Bituminous coal, iron, copper and lead, have been found in the mountains. On the one hand of these streams are the most productive cotton lands in the world; on the other is an unsurpassed wool-growing region.

The Germans find the climate very favorable to their health, and not inimical to vigorous labor.

Taking these natural circumstances into consideration, in connection with the character of its present population, especially of that part of it derived from Germany, it seems probable that the State must be one of very varied industry, and that the habits and the interests of the people will generally be opposed to the continuance of a degrading labor system among them. It must be remembered that the Mexican population within the territory is large and increasing, and that it is a dark-colored, mixed race, including often no small proportion of African blood, so much so that it requires the eye of an expert to distinguish many of those held as slaves, on account of their color, from others among the Mexicans who are constitutionally eligible to the highest offices. The Mexicans have no repugnance, but rather the contrary, to equality and the closest intimacy with negroes. But the intelligence, the enterprise, and the peculiar habits of mind which are the effects of early industrial training, that exist as most important elements in the Germans, as well as the rational regard for liberty, as a right of man, which they generally have, is wanting in the degraded Mexicans.

There are no capitalists among the Germans, but they will inevitably gain wealth much more rapidly than the Anglo-Americans, though it will be by productive industry rather than speculation. They are cautious but patient, industrious and persevering in whatever they undertake. They contrast remarkably with the American Southerners in this respect. Southerners are rarely enterprising, but they are adventurous. Their business must be magnificent and attended with excitement and grand glory, or they sleep over it. A German will speculate patiently for years on a half acre of vines in which he can work before breakfast, while he finds it hard to earn his living by the rest of his day’s labor. If wine is to be profitably made in Texas, this poor German settler will be the one to demonstrate it, to find how it is to be profitably made and to make it. So it will be of Wheat and Barley and Rice; so of Olives, of Indigo and of Tea; of the Fig, the Palm and the Agave. So it will be especially of all kinds of manufacturing and mining, and of various enterprises, to success in which Southern American proprietorship and Slave labor has never yet been found adequate.

I have found the Germans everywhere remarkably contented and satisfied with their success and their prospects. Their success and contentment is every year increasing the emigration, and I see no reason why it should not continue growing larger, year after year, for an indefinite time. The present residents have proved the climate to be unexpectedly favorable to the health of [306] Northern Europeans. They have proved that there is an abundant reward for labor to be obtained from the soil, and a large interest to be had on the employment of capital. They have demonstrated that cotton can be cultivated to greater advantage by free white laborers than with negro slaves, and at present prices with great profit. They have demonstrated that the climate is not destructive to energy and industry in white men, as is so frequently asserted, and they do not at present seem at all likely to fall into those indolent and inefficient habits which so generally characterize the Anglo-American settlers. With the latter, emigration certainly does seem to tend strongly towards barbarism. It is not so with the patient and industrious, but genial German. This is seen, as I have often shown in my letters, in the comfort which even the poorest Germans contrive to secure in their homes, so much more than the generality of Americans in Texas.

There is, then, I conclude, in Western Texas, a most favorable territory and a promising basis of character for a prosperous, wealthy, healthy-minded, and happy community, and a great, free, independent state. And such a State, self-governed by such a people, I hope to live to see here.