The Republic of Texas from the German Perspective

Texas fascinated the Europeans as a splendid opportunity for settling on the frontier and beginning to live the American Dream.

There was also an important political perspective. Many governments were alarmed by the idea of United States’ Manifest Destiny, and the threat such power created for their opportunities in international commerce and influence. Germans were particularly intrigued with central Texas, and the opportunity to escape their nearly feudal life under the local noblemen.

This original engraved map contains a wealth of information valued by any prospective immigrant. The earliest counties in southeast Texas are shown, including the mammoth Bexar, Robertson and Milam areas, the last conversions of the original Mexican land grants to counties under the government of the Republic. Most notably, the areas of particular interest to the German settlers around Fredericksburg are named Deutsche Colonie des Mainzen Vereins (colored green) and for the French around Castroville (colored yellow) is an area marked Franz Colonie. These colonies were on the edge of the frontier, while an enormous amount of growth blossomed in southeast Texas.
Perhaps the most dramatic land promotion scheme took place in what is now the Texas panhandle and the eastern half of New Mexico. A tract of land comprising an astonishing 48,000,000 acres was granted to Stephen Wilson, a North Carolina trader living in Mexico City. Several years earlier he had worked in the mines at Santa Rosa, New Mexico. When the empresario grant was confirmed, Wilson hired Alexander LeGrand, another veteran trader and explorer of New Mexico’s north, living variously in Santa Fe and Taos.

LeGrand’s lasting contribution to the cartography and land promotion was to report, as marked on this map, that the area was: “naturally fertile, well wooded and with a fair proportion of water” in a now obvious attempt to lure settlers to the remote region. Interestingly, there is considerable speculation as to whether or not LeGrand in fact even made the survey, or rather spent his time trading with the various Indian tribes on the Southern Plains, while accepting a reported $10,000 from Wilson for the questionable survey and the supporting journal. This German cartographer more accurately notes the area as the “Mountainous Summer Range of the Comanches.”

The routes of explorers, and a variety of other trails are recorded to the west of Texas as they cross the interior of New California, the center of which bears the inscription: “Vast land with saline soil almost without vegetation.” The regions controlled by various Indian Nations are also marked. There was obviously a keen interest — and rivalry — between cartographers of the different world powers where Texas was concerned. In the northernmost reaches of Texas are several rivers marked as either not being on the American Emory map or the British Arrowsmith map.