Michener, James A. (46 page)

On the third evening, when she appreciated most clearly the dreadful loss she had sustained, and the reasons for it, she began to weep, not for The Kronk, whose days of confusion were over, but for all those who ventured into a strange land or encountered strange responsibilities, and the sorrow of civilization was almost more than she could bear. She wanted no more of war, no more of argument between Catholic and Protestant, no more confrontation between Mexico and the American states. She wanted only to operate her ferry, run her inn, feed the traveler, and save enough money to buy a new dress at the store in San Felipe or perhaps some extra forks and spoons.

But most of all, she prayed in her desolation that her son would somehow or other grow into manhood, with the capacity to meet a man's obligations.

No American settlers since the Revolution of 1776 had faced the nagging moral problems encountered by those citizens of the republic who moved into Texas in the period of 1820-1835. And none faced the confusions with more vacillating reactions than Jubal Quimper.

Even those later settlers who would cross an entire continent to

build new homes in California or Oregon would have the reassurance that in moving from one part of the United States to another, they would carry their religion, their language and their customary law with them. But when people like the Quimpers emigrated to Texas they surrendered such assurances, placing themselves under the constraints of a new religion, a new language and a much different system of law.

Facing these complexities, Mattie and Jubal followed one simple rule: 'Whatever Stephen F. Austin decides is probably right.' Like many others, they revered the strange little man, forgiving him his arbitrary manner. Mattie especially realized that there was a good deal wrong with Austin: Why has he never married? Is he afraid of women? And why does he stare at you with those fixed eyes, like a hawk? All he can think Qf is his colony.

But despite his faults, and they were many, she saw him as the reliable guide, and whenever he stopped at her inn during his travels throughout the colony, she nodded approval to what he told the visitors who dropped by to talk politics with him: 'Gentlemen, Tejas will not only live under this new Mexican Constitution of 1824; it will prosper.'

'Aren't there weaknesses in it?' a farmer asked, and Austin snapped: 'There are weaknesses in every document drawn by the human mind. Our new law has certain peculiarities reflecting Mexican custom, but they will not impinge upon our freedom. Tejas is to be a Catholic state, but we've seen how easily we live under that constraint. And, yes, priests and soldiers will be tried in courts manned only by their own people, but that's always been the case and we haven't suffered.'

'Are you satisfied,' a settler from Alabama asked bluntly, 'to live under Mexican law for the rest of your life?' and Austin answered: 1 am.

Jubal Quimper, usually agreeing with whoever spoke to him last, grasped Austin's hands and said: 'Mr. Austin, I'll stand beside you as a Mexican citizen . . . permanent.'

But some days after Austin departed with this pledge of allegiance from the people at Quimper's Ferry, a copy of the new constitution arrived and the man from Alabama who had interrogated Austin rushed to the inn, waving the paper in the air: 'Good God! Listen to what this document says!' And he asked Quimper to read the offending passage: 'With the adoption of this constitution, slavery is forbidden throughout Tejas, and six months from this date, even the importation of slaves already on their way to Tejas will be outlawed.'

Neighbors quickly gathered, and thus began one of the insoluble

contradictions of Texas history: of a hundred families like the Quimpers, not more than fifteen owned slaves, which meant that the vast majority could have had no financial interest in preserving slavery, yet most of those without slaves defended the institution and seemed ready to battle Saltillo to preserve it.

Jubal and Mattie were representative: 'We never had no slaves in Tennessee and didn't know many people who did. Lord knows, we don't have any to share our work here in Texas. But it stands to reason, it says right in the Bible that the sons of Ham shall be hewers of wood and drawers of water, and that's the way it's got to be.'

Mattie, who befriended everyone, even Karankawa, was especially strong in her condemnation of the proposed law: 'Niggers ain't really human. I don't yearn to own none, but those good folks who bring 'em here ought to be protected in their property.'

This question so agitated the settlers that a delegation of three planters, led by Jubal Quimper, went resolutely down to Austin's headquarters and told him bluntly: 'Our liberties must be preserved.' And with that simple statement arose the tantalizing ethical issue which would plague Texas for decades, because good-hearted men like Jubal Quimper honestly believed that their freedom could be ensured only by the right to enslave others.

Austin, perceiving the moral wrong in this position, laid bare his honest feelings: 'Gentlemen, I tell you frankly that I oppose slavery with even' fiber of my body, now and forever. I condemn it four times. It's bad for society in general. It's bad for commerce. And bad for both master and slave. Never have I departed from this belief and never shall I. The wise men in Saltillo who framed our constitution knew what they were doing, and they did it well. Slavery should be outlawed.'

There could have been no statement of principle more unequivocal than that, and it persuaded Quimper, who spoke for the others: 'You're right, Stephen. What we need is a whole new start. No masters. No slaves.'

But no sooner had Quimper renewed his support than an extraordinary reversal occurred, for that night Austin began to review the problem, not according to his personal convictions but according to his role as leader of a tentative colony not yet securely based, and the more he studied reality the more convinced he became that Tejas had little chance of survival if it failed to attract hundreds or even thousands of established Southern gentlemen who would bring with them prosperity and culture. In an open meeting next morning he attacked the philosophical problem first.

'Gentlemen, order, order. I do not derogate the great states of

Kentucky and Tennessee from which many of our finest settlers have come, nor do I speak against any man standing here. But I have become painfully aware that our colony can progress only if we attract in large numbers families of wealth, high cultural attainment and sound moral training from our educated Southern states like Virginia, Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi. When they join us with their books, their wealth and their long experience in trade, they will make Tejas a state of which we shall be proud.'

There was a long silence while the inescapable truth of what he had said was judged, and then Quimper cried: 'You're right, Stephen. We need schoolteachers and men who know the Bible.'

While many nodded and some whispered, Austin waited, almost afraid to point out the consequences of what he had just said, but finally he summoned courage and spoke: 'Such men will not join us if they cannot bring their slaves. What white man could grow sugar cane in our steaming river bottoms? What white man from Alabama could toil under our blazing sun chopping cotton? Then pick it? Then haul it to the gin? Only Negroes can do such work, and slavery seems to be the pattern ordained by God for handling them. It is clear that Tejas must have slavery or perish.'

So Jubal Quimper, in a committee of seven, only one of whom owned slaves, helped Austin draft an appeal to the state government in Saltillo and the national government in Mexico City, explaining that whereas the abolishment of slavery was unquestionably right for the rest of the nation, it was not appropriate, at this time, in a frontier region like Tejas: 'We cannot work our fields without slaves, and we cannot populate our empty spaces unless men of property from the Southern states of America are permitted to bring their slaves with them.' Austin, a man who hated slavery, had become its champion.

During the trip back home Quimper reviewed the sudden shifts of their leader: 'First he was stern morality: "Slavery must be abolished." Then he was all for the South: "They must be allowed to bring in their slaves." I wonder where he really stands? Matter of fact, I wonder where I stand.'

This moral confusion on the part of Austin and his adherents would continue, for when Austin concocted a dream for enticing thousands of German and Swiss settlers, he became an ardent opponent of slavery, in deference to their known dislike for keeping anyone in bondage:

'The possibility of such a country as Tejas being overrun by a slave population almost makes me weep Slavery is an injustice and a demor-

alizing agent in society. When 1 started this colony I was forced to tolerate it for a while, because 1 had to draw upon the slave states for my emigrants. But slavery is now most positively prohibited by our Mexican constitution and I hope it may always be so, for it is a curse of the curses and one of the worst reproaches of civilized man.'

But later he would be forced once more to consider the realities of settlement, and again he would reverse himself completely:

'I used to oppose slavery, but during the last six months I have had to restudy the matter and now conclude that Texas must be a slave country Circumstances and unavoidable necessity compel it. It is the wish of the people, and 1 shall do all I can, prudently, in favor of it. I will do so.'

Quimper, listening to this speech, noticed that Austin had dropped the Spanish Tejas in favor of the English Texas, indicating serious doubt that his colony could long remain with Mexico, which he also now pronounced in the American fashion. Never again would his friends hear him use the Spanish names which he had tried so faithfully to defend but which he now abandoned forever.

Jubal's attention to such heady political matters was Diverted in late 1828 by an exciting letter from his former lawyer in Gallatin, Tennessee:

Jubal, I send you great news! Your persecutor, Hammond Carver, was killed in a duel, and this legally terminates his case against you. I have ascertained from his survivors that they have no intention of resurrecting the suit, and they have acknowledged in writing that the contested land is yours, along with all the buildings on it. You find yourself not a rich man but one with ample fields and some money, which you can claim only by coming here in person. Do so immediately, for you and Mattie have many friends in these parts who are eager to see you resume your life among them.

This heaven-sent opportunity to escape the tensions of a frontier Texas made Jubal realize how much he longed for the stability of a settled Tennessee, and he was ready to depart immediately: 'Mattie! We're free to go home!'

She deflated his enthusiasm by saying with bulldog stubbornness: T have no wish to see Tennessee again,' and he began placing before her all the reasons why they should return to the pleasant life that they could now have in Gallatin: 'Arthur says we won't be really rich, but we'll have enough to buy us a couple of slaves.

You won't have to worry about the ferry, and we won't have strangers traipsin' into our home. More important, we can have real walls and windows.'

He threw at her an impressive summary of the differences between civilized Tennessee and barbarian Texas, but in the end she countered with an incontestable reply: 'I like it here.' And in fragmentary comments she let him and Yancey know how deeply Texas had infected her: 'Nothin' I saw in Tennessee is better than that clump of oak trees in the meadow.' During another debate she said: 'I like the Brazos, the way it rises and falls, like it had a will of its own.' On a different day she said: 'My heart beats faster when a stranger comes to the door at night, needin' food—and we have it.' And finally: 'Like a rock gatherin' moss, I've allowed Texas to grow over me, and I admire the feel.'

Guarding each word, she said: 'You and Yancey can go back and settle the claim, and if you're so minded, you can stay. I'll give you your freedom, in the courts if you wish, but this is now my home and I expect to end my days runnin' my ferry.'

The force of her statement made )ubal pause. Twice he started to speak but could find no words, then abruptly he turned away and went to walk beneath the oak trees that Mattie loved so deeply, and as he tried to see their new home through her eyes he began to appreciate why she loved Texas and was so unwilling to leave it. After more than an hour of walking along the Brazos he returned to his wife and took her in his arms: 'Mattie, old girl, if this is your home, it'll be mine, too. I could never leave you, because I know how often it was you held me upright.'

She cherished his embrace but did not wish to impede him: if your heart's set on Tennessee . . .'

'Hush! I'll go back, sell the land, and buy some lumber in New Orleans. I'm goin' to build you a proper house.' With this commitment, from which he would never deviate, Jubal Quimper became a Texican.

That day Mattie, with a song trembling on her lips, started to pack the goods her two men would require for their long trip, but 1 her work was interrupted by Yancey, who came whispering: i don't want to go. Indians and that Strip and all,' and she could guess that what really held him back was his memory of that fistfight with the smaller boy. What will happen to him? she asked herself. A boy who refuses a journey up the Mississippi?

She had finished packing when a cloud of dust appeared from the south; Benito Garza was on his way to New Orleans with another convoy of mules for the American army. He was twenty-two now, a slim, neat fellow with a small mustache, an ingratiating

smile and a fair command of English: 'This time I take the mules myself. I do not need guide of trader from San Antonio.'

He had brought with him a Mexican boy, no more than fourteen, and a large remuda of some three dozen mules, which he hoped to augment as he moved north: i like to buy any mules you might have, Sefior Quimper?' When jubal said he had none, Garza asked: 'Is it true, sefior? You're going to Tennessee?'

i must.'