The Mother of All Texans

The first recorded Anglo couple to immigrate to the province of Texas were James and Jane Long, considered a filibuster (uninvited trouble maker) and a lady.  It isn't the terribly romantic story you might expect.  As a matter of fact, Long was a bit of a jerk, a restless physician always seeking greener pastures.  His wife was the niece of General James Wilkinson, commander of U.S. troops in Louisiana and a man possessed by a strongly contagious case of Texas Fever.  The doctor himself was not immune.

In June of 1819, when he was 26, he and 80 men foolishly, to say the least, launched an invasion of the province.  This original "Bay of Pigs" was a dismal failure, even though the force grew to 300 when some of the Tejanos (native Hispanic Texans) joined in.  The Spanish Army easily ran the whole lot back into Louisiana.

The next year, Boomerang Long came back with 50 wild rovers from New Orleans--and Jane, all of 22 years old.  True, she liked excitement, but this was an unusual situation in an unfamiliar land.  To make things worse, her husband left her behind when he launched his new offensive that October.  She remained in the makeshift fort they had built on Point Bolivar at the mouth of Galveston Bay.  Her companions were her daughter, Rebecca, 14 months old, and Kian, a slave girl of about 14 years.  Jane was also pregnant.  This ain't Gone With the Wind.  But she promised James she would wait, and wait she did.

Not surprisingly, Long failed a third time.  He and his insurgents were set upon and captured by the Spanish at Goliad, in South Texas, taken to Mexico City, and given the hospitality of the finest prison there.  But, because he had "connections" to Anglos in the federal government, the doctor was released.  Ironically enough, this just saved the expense of a trial, for within hours he was "assassinated" in the city streets.  I'll leave you to work out whether justice was served.

Meanwhile, back at the fort, Jane and Kian, now devastated by the death of Rebecca but joined by another baby girl, Ann, wondered.  The time passed and 1820 became 1821.  They were not exactly safe, for the Karankawa Indians of the area kept them company.  There were problems with these neighbors, known to be a fierce lot.  They wore their hair spiked, cared little for clothing, relied on oysters as a staple, smeared themselves with alligator grease (to fend off mosquitoes, and everything else)--oh, and they ate people.  Yep, the Karankawa were cannibals, and here was a three piece meal of various meats.  So Jane and Kian took to firing the only cannon at regular intervals, as long as the ammunition lasted.

Finally, in the spring of 1822, this Penelope and her little family got word of Long's death.  A friend from New Orleans actually began to wonder where the woman was and if any one had bothered to report to her.  Realizing she might know nothing of James' death, the man traveled to Point Bolivar, via deserted Galveston Island, to tell her.

So you assume this is it, right?  Think again.  The first Anglo woman known to give birth in Texas--in a fort in the bay with only a teen and an infant and terrifying locals for company--did not take the news of her husband's death lightly, nor did she hurry home to Louisiana.  Instead, she began the search for Long's killer.  She, her baby, and Kian all rode on horseback to San Antonio, then on to Mexico City.  Finding no cooperation there, the little band continued on to Monterrey.  But satisfaction was not to be found.  None dared admit that they knew who killed the rebel leader.  No one ever did.

After two years of trekking all over colonial Spanish America, Jane returned to New Orleans in 1824.  But she could not be still.  Years later, as an older woman, she made her way back to the Texas Gulf Coast to stay.  She died in Richmond, south of Houston, in 1880, at the age of  82.

So, maybe the real romance in this tale was between the Longs and Texas.  The next time someone talks about men on the frontier or the heroes who settled Texas, remind them that Jane Long, even in her loneliness, was the "Mother of Texas."  She lived as a fighter and a survivor, while her husband managed to get himself killed.

VK