PRESENTATION OUTLINE
THE LIFE OF STEPHEN F. AUSTIN
STEPHEN F. AUSTIN was know for one name and that was father of Texas.
Stephen Fuller Austin, founder of Anglo-American Texas. Austin was born at the lead mines in southwestern Virginia on November 3, 1793. In 1798 Moses Austin moved his family to other lead mines in southeastern Missouri and established the town of Potosi in what is now Washington County.
To offer land to the settlers in quantities of 640 acres to the head of a family, 320 acres for his wife, 320 acres for each child, and 80 acres for each slave. For such quantity as a colonist desired, Austin might collect 12?.5 cents an acre in compensation for his services. Martínez warned Austin that the government was unprepared to extend administration over the colonists and that Austin must be responsible for their good conduct.
Austin returned to New Orleans, published these terms, and invited colonists, saying that settlements would be located on the Brazos and Colorado rivers. The long depression, followed by the panic of 1819 and changes in the land system of the United States, made settlers eager to take advantage of the offer, and the first colonists began to arrive in Texas by land and sea in December 1821.
Austin had complete civil and military authority over his colonists until 1828, subject to rather nominal supervision by the officials at San Antonio and Monterrey. He wisely allowed them to elect militia officers and local alcaldes, corresponding to justices of the peace in the United States; and, to assure uniformity of court procedure, he drew up forms and a simple civil and criminal code. As lieutenant colonel of militia, he planned and sometimes led campaigns against Indians.
Stephen Fuller Austin was the son of Moses and Maria (Brown) and then his father sent him to a school in Connecticut, from which he returned westward and spent two years at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky. At Potosi, Moses Austin was engaged in the mining, smelting, and manufacturing of lead and, in addition, conducted a general store. After his return from Transylvania in the spring of 1810, Stephen Austin was employed in the store and subsequently took over the management of most of the lead business.
Stephen Fuller Austin took the oath of office and qualified in July 1820, but he only briefly held court, for at the end of August he was in Natchitoches, Louisiana, and in December in New Orleans, where he had made arrangements to live in the home of Joseph H. Hawkins and study law. At this time Moses Austin was on his way to San Antonio to apply for a grant of land and permission to settle 300 families in Texas.
