Sam Houston became president of the Republic of Texas on this day in 1836. He was a pivotal figure in the state’s independence from Mexico and its becoming part of the United States, where he’d been born and grew up.
A teenage runaway from his family’s Tennessee farm, Houston joined a group of Cherokee Indians in Tennessee for three years before serving in the War of 1812. He was later tasked with managing the removal of those Cherokee to a reservation in the Arkansas Territory. He became a member of Congress before then moving back in with the Cherokee and becoming a member of the tribe. Relying on his experience connecting with Native American tribes, he was sent in 1832 by President Andrew Jackson to the Mexican state of Texas to negotiate with other Native American tribes on border trade.
By then, American settlers outnumbered Mexican citizens in Texas, and tensions were flaring over who should formally control the area. In 1835, the settlers openly rebelled against the Mexican government. Houston became their commander-in-chief and was a crucial figure in their successful waging of the war.
He was quickly elected president of the new Republic of Texas, serving from 1836-1838, and then 1841-1844. In that last year of his presidency, he signed a secret treaty with U.S. President John Tyler. Texas would officially become a part of its northern neighbor in 1846, causing the Mexican-American War.
Houston became one of the state’s first senators. As Southern interest in secession grew in the lead-up to the Civil War, he was part of a minority of the state’s Democratic Party in favor of staying in the Union. He wasn’t reelected in 1859 but did somehow end up becoming governor. He tried to stand in the way of the state’s secession in 1861 but was deposed as the state moved forward with joining the Confederacy anyway. He then retired to Huntsville, where he died two years later.
