how did agriculture impact settlement patterns for early texans

Stephen F. Austin led 300 families from the U.S. who settled and introduced a slave-based cotton-plantation system, essentially using the new land in Texas to extend the agricultural practices of the American south. In addition to new plantations, the early Texans expanded livestock cultivation and established small working farms.

Full Answer

How did agriculture change in Texas in the early 1900s?

By the turn of the century, new approaches to agriculture drove an industry that was responding to the rapid growth of Texas cities and the need for food and other agricultural products to support them. Between 1900 and 1920, the amount of cultivated land in Texas grew from 15 to 25 million acres.

What was the impact of the Spanish settlement of Texas?

But the impact of Spanish settlers was limited because most of the state was still dominated by Comanche and Apache tribes, which contained the Spanish foothold in Texas. Like so many Americans who moved westward across the continent in the 19th century, the first Anglo settlers were drawn to Texas by the promise of abundant land.

How did the cattle trails change the history of Texas?

The opening of the cattle trails would transform Texas into one of the biggest cattle producers in the world and instill the image of the cowboy in the world’s imagination. In many ways, the history of Texas’ growth is the history of agriculture.

How did the Texas Revolution affect Native Americans in Texas?

The new settlers, with the aid of the Texas Rangers, quickly came into conflict with the region's Native American population. Conflict between Anglo-Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans would continue for the next five decades, as Texas gained its independence and then joined the United States.

What influenced settlement patterns?

Spatial variation in climate, physiography, and natural resources has influenced human settlement patterns throughout history. Civilizations have flourished in fertile valleys, along river and lake shores, in coastal areas, and near other highly productive ecosystems.

What is pattern of settlement?

A settlement pattern refers to the way that buildings and houses are distributed in a rural settlement. Settlement patterns are of interest to geographers, historians, and anthropologists for the insight they offer in how a community has developed over time.

How do you think Mountains have influenced settlement patterns in the region?

Rugged topography hampered transportation and further limited agricultural development. Settlement congregated in areas that offered an identifiable economic potential. The result was a pattern of point settlement scattered across an otherwise nearly unpopulated landscape.

What are the types of settlement patterns?

There are three main settlement patterns: nucleated, linear and dispersed.

How does agriculture affect human settlement?

Agriculture allowed people to stay in one place, and increased food production caused the population density to expand far beyond levels that could be sustained by hunting and gathering alone. This growth in population density provided a critical mass of people to sustain and spread contagious infectious diseases.

What are the 3 settlement patterns?

Population settlement patterns can be separated into to three distinct patterns: Linear. Clustered (or nucleated) Scattered.

What are the 4 main settlement patterns?

Rural settlement patterns refer to the shape of the settlement boundaries, which often involve an interaction with the surrounding landscape features. The most common patterns are linear, rectangular, circular or semi-circular, and triangular.

What are the three general factors that affect rural settlement patterns?

Where people settle is determined by the main factors such as physical environment,demographic, natural, transportation, economic and social concerns. The authors examine the reasons for themigration of the rural population as well as the changes in the national composition of the rural population of therepublic.

How does the environment affect settlement patterns?

Natural factors such as terrain, rivers and sunlight influence the construction of settlements at both regional and local levels. This gives settlements certain characteristics of distribution, scale, hierarchy and morphology.

What is importance of settlement?

The function of a settlement helps to identify the economic and social development of a place and can show its main activity. Most large settlements have more than one function though in the past one function was maybe the most important in defining the success and growth in importance of the settlement.

How many patterns are there in rural settlement?

There are four types of rural settlements in India – compact, semi-compact, hamleted, and dispersed or scattered type of rural settlements.

What is settlement explain its types with examples?

There are 5 types of settlement classified according to their pattern, these are, isolated, dispersed, nucleated, and linear. ... In a nucleated or compact settlement, the buildings are clustered, linked by roads, and the settlement itself may have a nearly circular or irregular shape.

What are the 4 types of settlement?

The four main types of settlements are urban, rural, compact, and dispersed.

What is an example of a settlement?

An example of a settlement is when divorcing parties agree on how to split up their assets. An example of a settlement is when you buy a house and you and the sellers sign all the documents to officially transfer the property. An example of settlement is when the colonists came to America.

What are the 5 types of settlements?

There are 5 types of settlement classified according to their pattern, these are, isolated, dispersed, nucleated, and linear.

What is the pattern of human settlement?

Linear pattern: In such settlements houses are located along a road, railway line, and river, canal edge of a valley or along a levee. • Rectangular pattern: Such patterns of rural settlements are found in plain areas or wide inter montane valleys. The roads are rectangular and cut each other at right angles.

Why was the Texas cattle trail important?

The opening of the cattle trails would transform Texas into one of the biggest cattle producers in the world and instill the image of the cowboy in the world’s imagination.

How did A&M impact the Texas cattle industry?

The school’s first big impact came when scientists at A&M helped eradicate Texas fever, which had devastated the cattle industry. By the turn of the century, new approaches to agriculture drove an industry that was responding to the rapid growth of Texas cities and the need for food and other agricultural products to support them. Between 1900 and 1920, the amount of cultivated land in Texas grew from 15 to 25 million acres.

How did the Spanish influence Texas?

The arrival of Spanish settlers and missions began to change the way Texas’ inhabitants interacted with the land. The Spanish introduced livestock — particularly cattle , sheep, goats, and hogs . Mission settlements were not merely ways to spread Spanish political influence and the Spanish Catholic faith into Texas; they also brought new ideas about how to cultivate crops and raise livestock, including the introduction of irrigation ditches. But the impact of Spanish settlers was limited because most of the state was still dominated by Comanche and Apache tribes, which contained the Spanish foothold in Texas.

What is Texas known for?

Before European settlers, most of the peoples who lived in what we now call Texas were hunters and gatherers — nomadic tribes who lived off the abundant herds of wild buffalo or foraged for game and wild edible plants, fruits, and berries.

What percentage of Texas land was used for farming?

By the 1920s, the future of Texas agriculture had taken shape. Seventy percent of the state’s agricultural land was used for livestock, and nearly 20% of the land was used for growing crops, with cotton dominating.

What tribes were forced to settle in Texas after the Civil War?

After the Civil War, the Texas Rangers and the U.S. Army forced Comanche, Apache, and all other remaining tribes onto reservations, thus opening the vast expanse of Texas’ west for settlement and ranching.

What was the major cash crop in Texas?

Cotton became Texas’ major cash crop, and the expansion of the railroads helped expand the state’s reach to markets for the crop. In addition, commercial farms began producing wheat, rice, sorghum, hay, and dairy in the latter half of the 19th century.

How did Texas agriculture affect their decisions?

Oftentimes, the ability of an array of agribusinessmen from private enterprises or cooperatives to supply such goods and services as implements, seeds, fertilizers, chemicals, fuel, repair facilities, and other necessities affected their decision making. In addition, representatives from federal agencies supervised their compliance with production programs or counseled them on conserving their land. Information gathered by researchers at federal and state agricultural experiment stations, universities, or private firms became available through county agents, farm magazines, radio and television broadcasters, and other sources. Whether farmers raised rice, corn, wheat, cotton, grain sorghum, fruits, livestock, or other commodities, they usually belonged to a general organization such as the American Farm Bureau Federation, the National Farmers Union, or the American Agriculture Movement, and perhaps to more than one commodity association; both the general organizations and the commodity associations became the farmers' instruments for promoting their interests in political arenas or in marketing their produce.

How did Texas change its agriculture?

The combination of the government programs and the nation's involvement in World War II laid the basis for a major shift in the structure of Texas agriculture. First, farm tenancy declined from 60 percent of the state's farm operators in 1930 to 37.6 percent fifteen years later, as some landowners took advantage of government checks and cheap credit to replace tenants with machines. Furthermore, the rapid growth of good industrial jobs in urban areas during the war years contributed to a decrease in farm population from 2.16 million to 1.52 million and a loss of approximately 115,000 farm units in the ten years following 1935, when farms had numbered a half million. Yet farm income grew from approximately $500 million to $1.1 billion as wartime demand forced prices higher. The improved economic situation for Texas farmers, along with a guarantee of 90 percent of parity prices for at least two years after the war, set the stage for the modernization of the Texas agricultural system.

How did the New Deal affect agriculture?

The Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 launched a series of programs designed to control surpluses and to maintain a minimum level of income. For such basic commodities as cotton, corn, wheat, rice, hogs, and milk, farmers accepted acreage allotments and marketing quotas and engaged in soil conservation practices, in exchange for receiving payments or guarantees of parity prices through nonrecourse loans. In addition, the availability of both long and short term credit through agencies of the Farm Credit Administration made money more accessible. Furthermore, the Soil Conservation Service was established to awaken farmers to the need of protecting their land through such techniques as terracing, contour listing, strip cropping, and the maintenance of vegetative cover.

What was the impact of the 1980s on agriculture?

By the 1980s their efforts contributed to the rise of average wheat yields from ten bushels to thirty bushels an acre ; irrigated semidwarf winter varieties exceeded 100 bushels per acre, corn production grew from 15 to 120 bushels per acre, rice from 2,000 pounds to 4,600 pounds per acre, and cotton from approximately 200 pounds to 400 pounds per acre on dry land and 500 pounds on watered acreage.

What was the livestock industry in Texas?

Though the governmental restriction programs applied primarily to crop production, the livestock industry maintained a significant role in Texas agriculture, for cash receipts from livestock and livestock products exceeded crop sales continuously after 1970. In a state where two-thirds of the space was pastureland, beef-cattle enterprises, which normally furnished more income than any other agricultural endeavor, operated in every Texas county. On farms and ranches the basic cow-calf operations, including the breeding of registered animals, prevailed. Though a portion of the calves were maintained on the pastureland, others were either sent to graze on winter wheat from late fall to late winter or went directly or indirectly to feedlots for fattening before slaughter. Another aspect of cattle production, dairying, grew as urbanization spread in the state. With 95 percent of the milk produced east of a line from Wichita Falls to Corpus Christi, large dairy farms often consisted of herds in excess of 100 cows, which gave an average of 15,000 pounds of milk per animal annually. Sheep and goat ranching, with its wool and mohair harvest, continued to be centered on the Edwards Plateau. Along with raising hogs for pork, poultry operations provided income through the sale of eggs and broilers; Angelina and Camp counties in East Texas and Gonzales County in south central Texas were the leading producers.

What was agriculture like before the Civil War?

Most agriculture before the Civil War involved small, subsistence family farms. The great majority of people were nonslaveholders. Germans established small farms and communities such as New Braunfels, Brenham, and Boerne. Czechs settled heavily in Fayette and Brazos counties. Other settlers streamed in from the South and Midwest and spread across the Blackland Prairies and Cross Timbers of north central Texas by 1860.

What contributed to the growth of cattle in Texas?

Advanced cultivation practices, improved plant varieties, the mechanization of agriculture, and the greater availability of capital contributed to both higher yields and increased acreage in cultivation. Bonanza farming and large-scale cattle operations, often funded by foreign investors, developed in Texas in the 1880s. Many of these ventures failed in the depression of the 1890s. New corporate operations developed intermittently after 1900.

How did the agrarian culture affect the South?

Despite that fact, following the Civil War and leading up into the middle 20th century, the agrarian culture was so deeply ingrained in the South that the lack of industrialization and education stunted their ability to catch up to the rest of modernized society in the U.S. Of course, we cannot discount the effects the war itself had on the South.

What are the development of colonizers?

Developments such as weapons, blacksmithing (metal work), written word, and complex societies with a broad range of skills and trades. Hence if you watch any historically accurate movies of colonizers in relation to indigenous peoples, there is a huge discrepancy in the weapons and tools being used.

What is the main focus of hunter gatherers?

If I am a hunter gather, the lack of a consistent food supply is the society’s main focus. The majority of the everyday effort is put into sustaining the population’s food supply, through hunting, gathering, or small scale farming. Leaving no, if little, discretionary time available for individuals or subgroups to develop complex governments, furthering culture/education, and most importantly invention.

Is agriculture a center of society?

Throughout most of our world’s history, agriculture in some form or another, is at the center of societal development.

Is agriculture a fundamental factor in world history?

Agriculture has typically been a fundamental factor in world history in answering both those questions -- events that came about and those that had the potential, but failed. Despite America’s unprecedented urbanization in the 20th century, the move from rural to urbanized areas has never diminished the need for agrarian industries in any society.

Is the theory of agriculture oversimplified?

Now, there are historians who suggest this theory is oversimplified and other factors contributed -- factors we should not rule out. However, prior to trade and assimilation in many instances, the advantages and disadvantages among the two vastly differing societies have been argued are a result of harnessing large-scale agriculture.

Can agriculture be discussed in the New World?

Moving right along through history, one cannot discuss agriculture in the New World without putting a focus on slavery. We do a disservice to those who endured this horrifying institution if we do not mention it.

What tools did the Clovis people use?

These were the spear tips that they used in hunting. They also made knives and scrapers out of flint. They probably also had bone tools and wooden tools that they used. Men are the hunters, and the women and children do a lot of the basic food collecting and gathering of plant foods and small game, and do a lot of the processing of these foodstuffs and processing of hides. Hunters and gatherers planned their schedules, they know where they’re going to be, they know what they’re going to do. So they schedule their whole year or their season to season movements based on where the plants and animals and other resources are going to be.”

What do hunters and gatherers do?

Hunters and gatherers planned their schedules, they know where they’re going to be, they know what they’re going to do. So they schedule their whole year or their season to season movements based on where the plants and animals and other resources are going to be.”.

What did the Comanche people do in the 1680s?

Wallace Coffey (Chairman, Comanche Tribe): “About the 1680s, when our Comanche people began to look to the buffalo as a way of life, we became a horse culture after the acquisition of the horse, the maneuverability, the ability to travel from one location to another, it became an economic resource. We became very functional with regards to the Southern Plains, the areas of Oklahoma and Texas were very conducive to our standard of living, and by all means the buffalo was one of the main purposes with regards to the relationship that we had with the Southern Plains. So we were very adept in warfare, we were probably some of the greatest hunters on horseback, and to this day we have a reputation that our ancestors established for us as the Lords of the Plains.”

What were the first Texans?

The first Texans were nomadic hunters. Between approximately 12,000 to 8,000 years ago, small bands of hunters were living in Texas. These Paleoindians, known as the Folsom, Clovis, and Plainview cultures from the places in Texas and New Mexico where their sites were first found, shared a number of characteristics. They made weapon points, scrapers, and knives, used fire, hunted in groups, and used the spear or atlatl as their principal weapon.

What is the significance of the Lower Pecos Rock Art?

Thomas Hester: “Some archaeologists look at the Lower Pecos rock art that depicts figures that are human and often have deer associated with them or panthers associated with them as hunting magic art that was done to guarantee the success of the hunt, or that the panther was a rival to the humans. Other people look at them and see them as shaman figures or medicine men, and their regalia, and that the deer and the antlers and so forth are all part of the medicine man’s gear that he would use. Other people look at them as shamans who are in the process of transforming themselves from humans into animals, which is a phenomenon that we see around the world, a lot of cultures have medicine men who claim that they can transform themselves into other kinds of animals.”

What were the three major cultures of the 1500s?

Generally, they can be categorized into three major culture types: Coastal Hunter/Gatherers, Farmers, and Plains Hunters.

Is Native American a sovereign nation?

Towana Spivey: “We have a very interesting situation in our modern society today regarding Native Americans. Native Americans have been officially and legally recognized as being sovereign nations within this United States of America. On the one hand, they are Americans like everyone else. They are Native American.

What was Texas like in the nineteenth century?

Since the arrival of Spanish explorers in the sixteenth century, Texas was a center of conflict between Europeans, Native Americans, and eventually Americans and Mexicans. The nineteenth century proved to be arguably the most chaotic century in Texan history. Texas started the century as a contested territory between Spain and the United States, eventually came under the control of Mexico, gained independence, and finally joined the United States. All the while, Anglo-American settlers were settling there and expanding its frontiers.

What was the name of the group that captured the frontier land during the Civil War?

In particular, the Comanches and Kiowas captured vast amounts of frontier land during the time of the Civil War. It would take the end of the Civil War before the U.S. federal government rededicated itself to reinforcing the Texas frontier.

What happened to the Texas frontier?

This left settlers on the Texas frontier largely undefended and inviting new aggression from Native American tribes. In particular, the Comanches and Kiowas captured vast amounts of frontier land during the time of the Civil War. It would take the end of the Civil War before the U.S. federal government rededicated itself to reinforcing the Texas frontier. This led to a climactic conflict between Anglo-American forces and Native American tribes on the Southern Plains, the Red River War (1874-75).

What was the Texas frontier?

The Texas Frontier under U.S. Rule. After the U.S.-Mexican War in 1848, Anglo Texans hoped to expand further to the West. The rate of settlement quickly outstripped military protection and forced the U.S. military to establish further forts along the Rio Grande in south Texas.

What river did Texas settle on?

Texas' government established Native American reservations along the Brazos River, but this divided settlers' opinions on the Natives. While many settlers hoped Native Americans could adapt to American culture, others regarded the reservations with suspicion.

What battles did the Texas Rangers win?

The Texas Rangers had a successful military record, gaining victories in the Cherokee War (July 1839), the Council House Fight (March 1840), and the Battle of Plum Creek (1840). They also successfully beat back Mexican assaults in 1842. After Texas joined the United States in 1846, the Texas Rangers remained a premier military unit on the frontier.

Why did Austin hire the Rangers?

He hired the so-called 'rangers' to help with expeditions against Native Americans. While Austin began hiring rangers in the 1820s, the Texas Rangers were not formally founded until 1835. They quickly took on a critical military role once the Independent Republic of Texas was formed in 1836.

How were townships laid out?

Townships were laid out as blocks, each six by six miles in size, oriented with the compass directions . Thirty-six sections, each one square mile, or 640 acres (260 hectares), in size, were designated within each township; and public roads were established along section lines and, where needed, along half-section lines. At irregular intervals, offsets in survey lines and roads were introduced to allow for the Earth’s curvature. Individual property lines were coincident with, or parallel to, survey lines, and this pervasive rectangularity generally carried over into the geometry of fields and fences or into the townsites later superimposed upon the basic rural survey.

How were farms connected to towns?

Successions of such farms were connected with one another and with the towns by means of a dense, usually rectangular lattice of roads, largely unimproved at the time. The hamlets, villages, and smaller cities were arrayed at relatively regular intervals, with size and affluence determined in large part by the presence and quality of rail service or status as the county seat. But, among people who have been historically rural, individualistic, and antiurban in bias, many services normally located in urban places might be found in rustic settings. Thus, much retail business was transacted by means of itinerant peddlers, while small shops for the fabrication, distribution, or repair of various items were often located in isolated farmsteads, as were many post offices.

How much land did farms have in the 1980s?

By the late 1980s, for example, when the average farm size had surpassed 460 acres, farms containing 2,000 or more acres accounted for almost half of all farmland and 20 percent of the cropland harvested, even though they comprised less than 3 percent of all farms.

What was the primary policy of the British government?

government was to promote agricultural and other settlement —to push the frontier westward as fast as physical and economic conditions permitted.

What are the patterns of rural settlement?

Patterns of rural settlement indicate much about the history, economy, society, and minds of those who created them as well as about the land itself. The essential design of rural activity in the United States bears a strong family resemblance to that of other neo-European lands, such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Argentina, or tsarist Siberia —places that have undergone rapid occupation and exploitation by immigrants intent upon short-term development and enrichment. In all such areas, under novel social and political conditions and with a relative abundance of territory and physical resources, ideas and institutions derived from a relatively stable medieval or early modern Europe have undergone major transformation. Further, these are nonpeasant countrysides, alike in having failed to achieve the intimate symbiosis of people and habitat, the humanized rural landscapes characteristic of many relatively dense, stable, earthbound communities in parts of Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America.

What are the characteristics of American settlement?

Another special characteristic of American settlement, one that became obvious only by the mid-20th century, is the convergence of rural and urban modes of life. The farmsteads—and rural folk in general—have become increasingly urbanized, and agricultural operations have become more automated, while the metropolis grows more gelatinous, unfocused, and pseudo-bucolic along its margins.

How many states surrendered to the new government?

With the coming of independence and after complex negotiations, the original 13 states surrendered to the new national government nearly all their claims to the unsettled western lands beyond their boundaries. Some tracts, however, were reserved for disposal to particular groups.

What were the first settlements in Colorado?

The Sangre de Cristo Grant lay east of the Rio Grande and was one of the largest such land claims in Colorado. There were no settlements until 1848, when George Gold (or Gould) tried to establish a town along the Costilla River. Being in trespass, he was promptly evicted by New Mexicans, and the San Luis Valley was again without settlement. However, 1849 saw a new village founded near present-day Garcia, Colorado. This place was called the Plaza de los Manzanares. The name was changed when Garcia got a post office a few years later. [ 5] This first step toward settlement led to further efforts. Several events helped. First, a treaty was signed with the Utes in 1849 and these natives now allowed New Mexicans to settle unmolested. Next, merchants sensed an oncoming "land boom" and decided to set up stores catering to settlers. Since the Utes were out of the way, a village of crude jacales (huts) appeared along the Costilla, followed in 1851 by some log cabins and a general store run by Ferdinand Meyer. [ 6] The little communities of San Luis and San Pedro represented the first permanent agricultural settlements in southeast Colorado and certainly in the San Luis Valley. These places were based on a Spanish classic "plaza" concept, where homes were built around a central square with spaces reserved for governmental buildings and churches. From the plazas, homesteaders went to their fields during the day and returned at night. The fields were divided in a long, narrow fashion and were semi-communal in nature. There was also a common pasture area for animals to graze. This settlement pattern was a duplicate of New Mexican homesteading in the 1600's. The only difference was that there were hostile Utes instead of sedentary Pueblo natives in the San Luis Valley. By 1851, a permanent European settlement was in operation (San Luis), and farming was an ongoing enterprise. To provide water for an arid environment acequias, or irrigation ditches, were dug. The first recorded water rights (in Colorado) date from April 10, 1852, and this became known as the San Luis People's Ditch. [ 7] For the first time, Colorado's dry soil was irrigated, a harbinger of things to come. By 1852, the San Pedro Ditch was built, with the Acequia Madre Ditch following. The Montez Ditch was finished in 1853, the Vallejos and Manzanares Ditches in 1854; then the Acequiacita Ditch in 1855. These efforts at farming were not only the earliest in southeast Colorado, but were among the most successful anywhere. [ 8]

What caused the San Luis Valley to become a settlement?

While the San Luis Valley progressed nicely, events on the eastern plains caused more and more settlement along the Arkansas River and its tributaries. One of the earliest villages, El Pueblo or Fort Pueblo, was wiped out in 1854. Bent's Fort disappeared as did the fur trade. What then caused trappers, traders, and settlers to stay? Similar to the San Luis Valley, the Mexican government was worried about both Texan and American intrusions into New Mexico. As in the Valley, that government granted large tracts of land for settlement, based upon the premise that occupation equaled ownership. In 1843, Ceran St. Vrain (of fur trade fame), and Cornelio Vigil obtained a grant along the Huerfano River, east of future Walsenburg. The Vigil-St. Vrain Grant was not huge in the style of the San Luis grants, but it was in a well-watered area. However, little development occurred, and no permanent settlements were founded. [ 23] Of more interest was a giant grant made to Carlos Beaubien and Guadalupe Miranda, also in 1843. This land extended from the Culebra Mountains on the west, eastward along the Purgatoire River to near modern-day Trinidad. The grant became known as the Maxwell Grant when Lucien Maxwell, Beubien's son-in-law took over control of the tract in later years. [ 24] The other land grant of note was a tract called the Nolan Grant that was south and east of present-day Pueblo, Colorado. This grant was also supposed to be settled and developed, but that never took place. As happened in the San Luis Valley, the various Mexican grants on the eastern plains were turned over to the American government in 1848 and claims to these grants were adjudicated in 1853 by Claims Courts. The Maxwell Grant was upheld in full while the Nolan and Vigil-St. Vrain Grants were reduced. The Conejos Grant remained in court for years, while the Sangre de Cristo Grant was confirmed. [ 25]

What was the first step toward settlement?

This first step toward settlement led to further efforts. Several events helped. First, a treaty was signed with the Utes in 1849 and these natives now allowed New Mexicans to settle unmolested. Next, merchants sensed an oncoming "land boom" and decided to set up stores catering to settlers.

What were the major events of the 1850s?

The 1850's on the eastern plains was a time of retrenchment for most settlers and residents. The fur and buffalo trade died, and California or Oregon bound travelers went north along the Oregon Trail, leaving southeastern Colorado to the natives. The Santa Fe Trail trade also ended with the annexation of New Mexico, and there was simply little incentive for settlers to remain. Yet a few hardy souls stayed on in the Raton Basin-Arkansas River area. Maurice Le Duc and Mathew Kinkead's fur post on Hardscrabble Creek struggled along, trading with the Utes and a few die-hard fur trappers. Of course, Fort Pueblo was in business until 1854 while Bent's (New) Fort served the lower Arkansas River Valley. Charles Autobees established a plaza in 1853 at the mouth of the Huerfano River and proceeded to farm and ranch. [ 26] During the 1850's, little plazas were founded along the Purgatoire River, too. These places, generally without names, were agricultural settlements that were subsistence in nature and did not provide much export trade. They were usually unorganized, had no governmental functions, and probably had no churches or other infrastructure. Yet these places became the core towns that sprang up during the 1860's in this region. [ 27]

Where was Fort Massachusetts?

Finally, in 1852, the United States government authorized the establishment of a fort just off the Sangre de Cristo Pass trail, about fifty miles west of the Conejos settlements. [ 10] . Fort Massachusetts was the home of Edwin V. Sumner's cavalry.

What was the name of the land grant that Beubien's son-in-law took over?

The grant became known as the Maxwell Grant when Lucien Maxwell, Beubien's son-in-law took over control of the tract in later years. [ 24] . The other land grant of note was a tract called the Nolan Grant that was south and east of present-day Pueblo, Colorado.

What was the first recorded case of a black slave being in southeast Colorado?

Easterday, doing well, imported a "Negro woman" to do housework. This was the first recorded case of a black slave being in southeast Colorado. [ 19] Slavery was not new or unusual to the settlers of the valley, for Navajo and Apache natives were often enslaved after capture.

Precolonialand Spanish Texas

Earlytexas

Cowboysand King Cotton

Into Themodern Age

• Thefirst step toward the modern era of Texas agriculture was taken in 1876, whenTexas A&M University opened. The university would be pivotal in advancingthe science and research around agricultural practices in the state. Theschool’s first big impact came when scientists at A&M helped eradicateTexas fever, which had devastated the cattle industry. ...

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