Passport to Texas

This is Passport to Texas

Enduring Spirit: African Americans in 19th Century Texas is a yearlong exhibit at the Texas Star of the Republic Museum in Washington-on-the-Brazos.

08—It actually started from a recent acquisition that we acquired. It was about 15-hundren documents from a gentleman names Asa Hoxey.

Houston McGaugh, director of the museum for Blinn College, says Hoxey moved to Washington County in the early 1830s, and brought black slaves with him.

14— And that prompted us to wonder if there are any descendants of those slaves still in Washington County. And we were able to identify some. So, that really made us start thinking about, more of – well, gosh, there’s an awful lot of African American history that you don’t hear about.

A question the museum wanted answered: when did Blacks first arrive in Texas?

10— And we were surprised to find out they started coming in the 1820s when this was still part of Mexico; and they were actually trying to get land grants like some of the Anglo settlers were in Austin’s Colony.

Mexico abolished slavery in 1829, so Blacks here before Texas Independence were free. That changed when Texas became a republic.

07— And, actually, the free blacks that were here, were given one year to either go back into servitude, or leave the Republic.

Many of these free Blacks went to Mexico where their ancestors live today. Learn more about the exhibit and special events and speakers at starmuseum.org.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 2nd, 2015 at 12:00 am and is filed under Events, Historic Sites. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.