Texas joined the
United States of America as its 28th member
state in 1845. It has the postal abbreviation
TX.
The state name derives from a word in a
Caddoan language of the
Hasinai,
tejas, meaning
friends or
allies;
Spanish explorers mistakenly applied the word to the people and their location.
Major state designations and symbols include:
With an area of
690,000 km
2, Texas forms the second-largest US state in size after
Alaska and the largest state in the contiguous 48 states. It has historically had a "larger than life" reputation, especially in cowboy films.
Location
Texas borders
New Mexico on the west,
Oklahoma on the north (across the
Red River), and
Louisiana (across the
Sabine River) and
Arkansas on the east. To the southwest, across the
Rio Grande, Texas borders the
Mexican states of Chihuahua,
Coahuila,
Nuevo León, and
Tamaulipas. To the southeast of Texas lies the
Gulf of Mexico.
Texas lies in the south-central part of the United States of America. Depending on whom you talk to (and which part of Texas they come from), Texas forms part of the US South or part of the US Southwest. Texas shares some cultural elements with both regions, with more similarities with the South, especially Arkansas and Louisiana, in
East Texas, and more similarities with the Southwest, especially Mexico and New Mexico, in
West Texas and
South Texas.
History
Main article: History of Texas
Texas can claim that
Six Flags have flown over its soil: the
Fleur-de-lis of
France, and the national flags of
Spain,
Mexico, the
Republic of Texas, the
United States of America and the
Confederate States of America.
Pre-Historic Texas
For more information on Texas Pre-History, go to the
Handbook of Texas On Line.
Native American Texas
Native American tribes that once lived inside the boundaries of present-day Texas include Apache, Atakapan, Bidai,
Caddo,
Comanche,
Cherokee,
Kiowa,
Tonkawa, and
Wichita. Currently, there are three federally-recognized Native American tribes which reside in Texas: the Alabama-Coushatta Tribes of Texas, the
Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas, and the Ysleta Del Sur Pueblo of Texas. For more information on Texas Indians, see
Handbook of Texas On Line.
Spanish Texas
Prior to 1821, Texas was part of the
Spanish colony of
New Spain; see
Spanish Texas for details.
On
November 6, 1528 shipwrecked Spanish
conquistador Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca became the first known European to set foot on Texas.
The Republic of Mexico (1821–1836)
After
Mexican independence in 1821, Texas became a part of Mexico. See
Mexican Texas.
The Texas Revolution (1835–1836)
Travis' Appeal for Aid from the Alamo 24 February 1836
The Texas Declaration of Independence 2 March 1836
The Treaties of Velasco 14 May 1836
The Republic of Texas (1836–1845)
The
Republic of Texas included all the area now included in the state of Texas, although its self-proclaimed western and northwestern borders extended as far west as
Santa Fe and as far northwest as present-day
Wyoming, respectively.
Annexation of Texas (1845)
In 1845, Texas became the first and, to date, only
internationally recognized independent,
sovereign state directly admitted to the United States as a constituent state of the Union. (
Vermont, which declared itself an
independent Republic in 1777, and joined the Union in 1791, operated autonomously of the United States during that period, but was not internationally recognized. The self-proclaimed
California Republic and the internationally-recognized
Republic of Hawaii were both annexed by the United States, but were not immediately admited as states. The territory included in the California Republic operated under military rule from 1848 until California's admission to the Union in 1850. Hawaii was annexed in 1898, but was organized into a
territory in 1900 and remained such until its admission in 1959.)
Resolution Annexing Texas to the United States 1 March 1845
Civil War Texas
Reconstruction Texas
Early Modern Texas
20th Century Texas
Important dates
- 1519: Alonso Alvarez de Pineda, a Spanish explorer, became probably the first European to map the Texas coast.
- 1528–1534: Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, another Spanish explorer, spent six years visiting Texas for trade.
- 18 February 1685: René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de LaSalle established Fort St. Louis at Matagorda Bay, thus establishing a French claim to Texan territory.
- 1690: Alonso De León crosses the Rio Grande to establish San Francisco de los Tejas Mission in East Texas, effectively blazing the Old San Antonio Road portion of the Camino Real - one of the oldest continuously-used roadways in the United States.
- 1700–1799: Spain established Catholic missions in Texas throughout the 18th century.
- 3 January 1823: Stephen F. Austin began a colony of 300 families along the Brazos River in present-day Fort Bend County and Brazoria County, centered primarily in the area of what is now Sugar Land. This group became known as the "Old Three Hundred".
- June 26 1832: The Battle of Velasco resulted in the first casualties of the developing Texas Revolution.
- 1832–1833: The "Conventions" of 1832 and 1833 responded to rising unrest at the policies of the ruling Mexican government. Policies that most irritated the Texians included the Mexican ban on slavery, the forcible disarmament of Texian settlers, and the expulsion of illegal immigrants from the United States of America. The example of the Centralista forces' suppression of dissidents in Zacatecas also inspired fear of the Mexican government.
- 1835: The Texas Revolution began. Early in 1835 Stephen F. Austin announced that only war with Mexico could secure Texian freedom.
- 2 October 1835: Texians fought a Mexican cavalry detachment at the town of Gonzales, which began the actual revolution.
- 28 October 1835: At the "Battle of Concepcion", 90 Texians defeated 450 Mexicans.
- 2 March 1836: The "Convention of 1836" signed the Texas "Declaration of Independence", making an attempt at a clear break from Mexican rule.
- 6 March 1836: A Mexican army (numbering 4,000 to 5,000) besieged approximately 190 Texians, led by William B. Travis, at the Alamo in San Antonio. The thirteen-day siege resulted in the deaths of all of the defenders, including Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie and Travis.
- 27 March 1836: By the order of General Antonio López de Santa Anna, the Mexicans executed James Fannin and nearly 400 Texians in the Massacre at Goliad. The place-names Goliad, Alamo. San Jacinto, etc. line the rim of Rotunda of the Capitol in Austin.
- 21 April 1836: General Santa Anna, having defeated the Texas rebellion, while conducting mopping up operations advanced to San Jacinto in pursuit of the fleeing rebels. Led by Sam Houston, the Texians won their independence in one of the most decisive battles in history when they defeated the Mexican forces of Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto. Houston's army of 800 killed or captured the entire Mexican force of 1,600 men, themselves suffering only nine fatal casualties. Santa Anna himself passed into captivity.
- 14 May 1836: Republic of Texas officials and General Santa Anna signed the treaty of Velasco.
- 1836: Five cities (Washington-on-the-Brazos, Galveston, Harrisburg, Velasco, and Columbia) each served as temporary capitals of Texas before Sam Houston moved the capital to Houston in 1837.
- 5 March 1842: A Mexican force of over 500 men, led by Rafael Vasquez, invaded Texas for the first time since the revolution. They soon headed back to the Rio Grande after briefly occupying San Antonio.
- 11 September 1842: 1,400 Mexican troops, led by Adrian Woll, captured San Antonio again. They retreated, as before, but with prisoners this time.
- 29 December 1845: President James K. Polk of the United States of America followed through on a campaign platform promising to annex Texas, and signed legislation making Texas the 28th state of the United States.
- 9 September 1850: The Compromise of 1850 stripped Texas of a third of its claimed territory (now parts of Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Wyoming) in return for the federal government assuming $10 million of Texas's pre-annexation debt.
- 1 February 1861: The "Secession Convention" met and voted 171 to 6 to submit an ordinance of secession to the people.
- 23 February 1861: In the statewide election on the secession ordinance, Texans voted to secede from the Union by a vote of 46,129 to 14,697 (a 76% majority). The Secession Convention immediately organized a new state government, replacing Sam Houston when he refused to take an oath of allegiance to the Confederacy.
- 1 August 1862: Confederate troops kill 34 German Texans in the "Nueces Massacre"
- 19 June 1865: Union troops landed in Galveston, Texas with news of the Emancipation Proclamation, two-and-a-half years after Lincoln signed it.
- 30 March 1870: The United States Congress readmitted Texas into the Union.
Government and politics
Law and government
Austin is the capital of Texas. The
state Capitol resembles the federal
Capitol Building in Washington, DC, but is faced in pink granite and is topped by a statue of the "Goddess of
Liberty" holding aloft a five-point Texas
star. Like several other southern state capitols, it faces south instead of north. The capitol building is taller than the U.S. national capitol, but less massive.
Republican
Rick Perry has served as
Governor of Texas since December 2000 when the office was vacated by President-elect
George W. Bush; two Republicans represent Texas in the U.S. Senate:
Kay Bailey Hutchison (since 1993) and
John Cornyn (since 2002).
The
current Texas constitution, adopted in 1876, is the second longest in the nation. As with many
state constitutions, it explicitly provides for the separation of powers and incorporates its bill of rights directly into the text of the constitution (as Article I). The bill of rights is considerably lengthier and more detailed than the federal
Bill of Rights, and includes some provisions unique to Texas.
The executive branch consists of the Governor,
Lieutenant Governor, Comptroller of Public Accounts, Land Commissioner, Attorney General, Agriculture Commissioner, the three-member Railroad Commission, the State Board of Education, and the Secretary of State. Except for the Secretary of State—who is appointed by the Governor with the advice and consent of the Senate—each of these officials is elected. There are also a large number of state agencies and numerous boards and commissions. Partly because of the large number of elected officials, the Governor's powers are quite limited in comparison to other state governors or the U.S. President. In popular lore and belief the Lieutenant Governor, who heads the Senate and appoints its committees, has more
power than the Governor. The Governor commands the state militia and can veto bills passed by the Legislature and call special sessions of the Legislature. He or she also appoints members of various executive boards and fills judicial vacancies between elections.
The Legislature of Texas, like the legislature of every other state except Nebraska, is bicameral (that is, has two chambers). The House of Representatives has 150 members, while the Senate has 31. The speaker of the house (currently Tom Craddick R-
Midland) leads the House, and the Lieutenant Governor (currently Republican David Dewhurst) leads the State Senate. The Legislature meets in regular session only once every two years.
The judicial system of Texas has a reputation as one of the most complex in the United States—if not in the world—with many layers and many overlapping jurisdictions. Texas has two courts of last resort: the Texas Supreme Court—which hears civil cases—and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Except in the case of some municipal benches, partisan elections choose all of the judges at all levels of the judiciary; the Governor fills vacancies by appointment.
Texas has a total of 254 counties, each run by a county commissioners' court headed by an elected "county judge".
Politics
Main article: Politics of Texas
Texas politics is currently dominated by the
Republican Party, which has strong majorities in the Texas Senate and House of Representatives. Every executive branch official elected statewide is Republican, as is every member of Texas' two courts of last resort; no Democrat has won a statewide election since 1994. The majority of the state's delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives is Republican, as are both U.S. Senators.
Like other Southern states, Texas historically was a one-party state of the Democratic Party. The Democrats controlled a majority in the Texas House and in the state's Congressional delegation until the 2002 and 2004 elections, respectively.
Geography
Texas has five major topographic regions:
# The Coastal Plain, from the Gulf of Mexico inland to about San Antonio and just southeast of Austin
# The Hill Country and
Edwards Plateau, a hilly rocky area in central Texas bordered on the east by the
Balcones Fault zone and
Blackland Prairie.
# The Great Plains region extends into northern Texas, including the
Llano Estacado and the Panhandle high plains
# The North Central Plains
# The Trans Pecos Desert.
Texas map depicting rivers, roads and major cities
Articles on Texas regions:
For the 254
counties of Texas, see:
List of Texas counties
United States highways
| North-south routes | East-west routes |
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Economy
Cotton harvesting in Texas.
Texas remained largely rural until
World War II, with
cattle ranching, oil, and agriculture as its main industries. In 1926
San Antonio had over 120,000 people, the largest population of any city in Texas.
After
World War II, Texas became increasingly industralized. Its economy (circa 2000) relies largely on information technology, oil and
natural gas, energy exploration and energy trading, agriculture, and manufacturing. Two major economic centers exist: Houston—Sugar Land—Baytown, centered in Houston, and
Dallas—Fort Worth—Arlington, centered on
Dallas and
Fort Worth. Houston stands at the center of the petrochemical and
NASA/
space trades while Dallas functions as the center of the agricultural and
information technology labor market in Texas. Other major cities include
San Antonio,
Austin,
Brownsville,
Lubbock,
Amarillo,
McAllen,
Tyler,
Odessa and
Midland. Other important cities include Killeen, home to
Fort Hood the largest military Post in the US,
El Paso,
Eagle Pass, and
Laredo; these have particular significance due to their location on the border with Mexico, making them important trade points.
The state passed
New York in the
1990s to become the second-largest U.S. state in population (after
California). In 2001 Texas had a
gross state product of $764 billion. Texas's growth is often attributed to the availability of jobs, the low cost of living, the lack of a
state income tax, low taxation of
business, limited government (the state legislature of Texas meets only once every two years) and favorable climate.
Film and Television
Texas is one of the top filmmaking states in the United States, just after
California and
New York. More than $1.2 billion has been spent in Texas just for filming since 1990.
The Texas Film Commission was founded for free services to filmmakers, from location research to traveling.
Demographics
The people of Texas, historically often known as
Texians, are now generally referred to as
Texans.
As of 2003, the state had a population of 22,118,509, nearly one-third of them
Latinos, some of whom have recently immigrated from Mexico,
Central America, and
South America. Others, known as Tejanos, have ancestors who have lived in Texas since before Texan independence, or at least for several generations.
Other population groups in Texas also exhibit great diversity. Frontier Texas saw settlements of
Germans, particularly in
Fredericksburg and
New Braunfels. After the European
revolutions of 1848, German,
Polish,
Swedish,
Norwegian,
Czech and
French immigration grew, and continued until
World War I. The influence of the diverse immigrants from Europe survives in the names of towns, styles of architecture, genres of music, and varieties of cuisine.
In recent years the
Asian population in Texas has grown, especially in Houston and in Dallas. People from
mainland China,
Vietnam,
India,
South Korea,
Japan,
Taiwan,
Pakistan and other countries have settled in Texas.
Texas will be before 2010 the fourth minority-majority state in the nation (after Hawaii, New Mexico and California). Moreover, according to the Texas state Data center, Latinos will become a majority by 2030.
Racial makeup of Texas:
2000 demographic data comes from the United States Census http://www.census.gov. 2003 demographic data comes from estimates by the Demographer of the State of Texashttp://txsdc.utsa.edu/download/pdf/presentations/2005_02_23_Leadership_Group_Austin.pdf. The State Demographer does not currently have estimates on Asian and American Indian demographics for the state; these are included under Mixed/Other for 2003. The 2003 estimates are necessarily not as accurate as the 2000 census.
The most prominent ancestry groups in Texas include
Mexican (24.3%),
African (11.5%),
German (9.9%),
American (7.2%), and
Irish (7.2%).
Census data reports 7.8% of Texas's population as under 5, 28.2% under 18, and 9.9% over 64 years. Females made up 50.4% of the population.
Religion
The religious affiliations of the citizens of Texas are:
- Protestant – 66%
- Roman Catholic – 23%
- Other Christian – 1%
- Other Religions – 1%
- Non-Religious – 6%
The three largest Protestant denominations in Texas are:
Baptist (32% of the total state population), Methodist (9%), Pentecostal (3%).
Important cities and towns
Houston]]
Dallas]]
San Antonio]]
Austin]]
Main Article: List of cities in Texas
List of cities by population (2000)
List of metropolitan areas by population (2000)
Texas has 27 Metropolitan Statistical Areas or MSAs designated by the
U.S. Census as of November 2004.
Education
Colleges and universities
The University of Texas at Austin]]
[[Texas A&M University]]
[[University of Houston]]
[[Rice University]][[Baylor College of Medicine]]
The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center]]
Professional sports teams
The Houston Oilers, formerly based in Texas, moved to
Memphis and later to
Nashville, Tennessee, and became the
Tennessee Titans. Houston also formerly had the
Arena Football League team
Houston Thunderbears, and the Minor League Soccer team Houston Hotshots.
Through 2004, El Paso had a minor-league baseball team in the Texas League, the El Paso Diablos, but the club moved to
Springfield, Missouri after that season and became known as the
Springfield Cardinals.
- Famous for their role in the history of Texas law enforcement, the Texas Rangers continue today to provide special law enforcement services to the state.
- At 311 feet, Texas' capitol building in Austin is taller than the capitol building in Washington, D.C.
Other state designations
The pledge to the Texas Flag is:
Honor the Texas Flag
I pledge allegiance to thee
Texas, one, and indivisible
See also
References
Further reading
- Imperial Texas: An Interpretive Essay in Cultural Geography, D. W. Meinig, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1969, hardback, 145 pages.
- Great River, The Rio Grande in North American History, Paul Horgan, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, reprint, 1977, in one hardback volume, Order: ISBN 0-03-029305-7
External links
Category:U.S. states
Category:States of the American West
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