Stephen F. Austin

Description

Stephen F. Austin, the "Father of Texas," has long been enshrined in the public imagination as an authentic American hero, but one who was colorless and rather remote. This book, the first major biography in more than seventy years, brings Austin’s private life, motives, personality, and character into sharp focus, revealing a driven man who successfully mixed effort and cunning, idealism and pragmatism to build an illustrious career. Gregg Cantrell traces Austin’s early life from his privileged boyhood as the son of the Missouri mining baron Moses Austin to his family’s humiliating financial downfall after the War of 1812. He tells how in 1821 Stephen Austin inherited his father’s daring plan to colonize Spanish Texas. Over the next fifteen years Austin carried out this plan with dazzling success, becoming a consummate manager, exhorter, politician, and diplomat, and playing a central role in the events that led to the Texas Revolution and the establishment of the Lone Star Republic. Within a generation, as a result largely of forces that he helped set in motion, the United States completed its drive for mastery over the North American continent. Contents Acknowledgments A Note on Spelling, Punctuation, and Usage Introduction ONE A Foundation for Greatness 1793–1810 TWO Successes and Failures 1810–1818 THREE New Beginnings 1819–1820 FOUR Texas 1820–1821 FIVE Mexico 1821–1823 SIX Empresario Estevan F. Austin 1823–1825 SEVEN Staying the Course 1825–1827 EIGHT Crises, Personal and Political 1828–1830 NINE We Will Be Happy 1830–1831 TEN The Call of Duty 1832–1833 ELEVEN Prison 1833–1834 TWELVE War Is Our Only Resource 1835 THIRTEEN The Road to Independence 1835–1836 FOURTEEN Home 1836 EPILOGUE The Father of Texas Stephen F. Austin in Retrospect Appendix. Austin's Circle Notes An Essay on Sources Index