Seat of Empire: The Embattled Birth of Austin, Texas

Grover E. Murray Studies in the American Southwest

by Jeffrey Stuart Kerr

In 1838 Texas vice president Mirabeau B. Lamar, flush from the excitement of a successful buffalo hunt, gazed from a hilltop toward the paradise at his feet and saw the future. His poetic eye admired the stunning vista before him, with its wavering prairie grasses gradually yielding to clusters of trees, then whole forests bordering the glistening Colorado River in the distance. Lamar’s equally awestruck companions, no strangers to beautiful landscapes, shuffled speechlessly nearby. But where these men saw only nature’s handiwork, Lamar visualized a glorious manmade transformation--trees into buildings, prairie into streets, and the river itself into a bustling waterway. And he knew that with the presidency of the Republic of Texas in his grasp, he would soon be in position to achieve this vision. The founding of Austin sparked one of the Republic’s first great political battles, pitting against each other two Texas Lamar, who in less than a year had risen to vice president from army private, and Sam Houston, the hero of San Jacinto and a man both loved and hated throughout the Republic. The shy, soft-spoken, self-righteous Lamar dreamed of a great imperial capital in the wilderness, but to achieve it faced the hardships of the frontier, the mighty Comanche nation, the Mexican army, and the formidable Houston’s political might.

Genres: History

352 pages, Hardcover

First published March 15, 2013

About the author

This author is also published under Jeff Kerr.

Jeff Kerr is an award-winning author who has published works in several genres, including nonfiction, historical fiction, and political satire. He is currently working on an action thriller, Refuge, which he plans on finishing by the end of this year.

An avid reader with an affinity for historical fiction, crime fiction, and action thrillers, Jeff will focus on the latter two genres for the foreseeable future.

Jeff lives in Austin with his wife and dog. When not writing, he can be found floating a river or battling cedar on his small chunk of land in the Texas Hill Country.

Reviews

[Laura Jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very thorough recounting of how Austin became the Capitol of the Republic of Texas.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've spent more than a few years dabbling in Texas history--and at the end of this book, I realized I had learned so much. There just aren't that many books about the Republic years--and how incredibly chaotic they were. It's hard to think of Austin as the frontier, and yet it was.
Sam Houston doesn't come off as a saint here, which was also rather refreshing. Highly recommended--and it made for some really great conversations at the DHV book club.

[Louis · Rating 5 out of 5]

History may be written by the winners, as the saying goes, but they can still be forgotten in time. Such a man was Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar. Today he is known (if at all) as a 19th century Texas politician. His greatest political triumph is brought to vivid life in Jeffrey Stuart Kerr’s Seat of Empire: The Embattled Birth of Austin, Texas. For anyone who enjoys reading about epic political feuds this book offers a juicy one.

Lamar had risen from obscurity (a refugee from family sorrow in Georgia) to military hero in the Texas revolution from Mexico and the vice presidency of the new Republic of Texas. In 1838 he aspired to the ultimate prize of his new country, the presidency. The incumbent was not allowed to succeed himself. This was Sam Houston, the ultimate hero of Texas’ battle for independence. Although Lamar was the unanimous choice to succeed Houston, the two men became political opponents.

Other enemies threatened Lamar’s authority. The Mexican army was still a threat as was the fearsome Comanches in Texas. Even so, Lamar found the time to engage in political pursuits. A buffalo hunt in 1838 brought him to a small community called Waterloo. How that town became Austin, the capital of the new republic, is the subject of this fascinating book.

Kerr brings long-forgotten political maneuvering and feuds back to life. The impressive research shows how a single decision made for political reasons managed to create an important and vital American city. This book will interest Texans, history buffs and anyone who enjoys a good political clash.

[Aaron Arnold · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd always wondered what the full story was behind the small statue at 7th and Congress of a defiant woman firing a cannon. I knew that she was protecting the state government archives in Austin from people trying to move them to Houston, but I never really knew where that colorful episode fit into the larger history of Austin. Kerr has written an exhaustively detailed history that answers just about any question a curious reader might have about that incident, as well as provides an interesting look at the early history of Texas and the colorful politicians who were in charge.

In large part, the history of the Republic of Texas is the history of the conflict between Sam Houston and Mirabeau Lamar. Houston's name is still well-known today, but arguably Lamar, a fierce enemy of Houston's, was just as important to the state's future. Fittingly for someone with the middle name Buonaparte, he was obsessed with the idea that Texas' destiny lay in aggressive expansion, like a mini-USA. In an echo over the mother country's protracted negotiations over the location of Washington, DC, one of the major internal arguments once Texas had won its independence was over where its capital should be. Houston and his supporters argued that it made more sense to locate the capital in the east, somewhere near the coast. That would not only make it safe from Indian attacks and raids from Mexican forces, but also more convenient to the majority of the population (perhaps not coincidentally, a major candidate was the burgeoning city of Houston, then newly founded by the enterprising Allen brothers). Lamar and his supporters, in contrast, argued that locating the capital to the west was essential to help Texas press its vaguely-defined border as far out as possible, befitting the seat of government of a hopefully great, continent-spanning nation. True, there were few settlers out west, and any city would not only have to be created from scratch but constantly defended, but it made sense to start promoting new trade routes and frontier settlements as quick as possible as a spur to growth.

This core-periphery debate continued for a surprisingly long time, much longer than the equivalent Hamilton-Jefferson debate in the USA. Part of that seems to have been the typically lower competence of frontier governments compared to the centuries of experience in government possessed by the Thirteen Colonies, while another part seems to have been the lower population and resources of what was then a mostly empty, underpopulated region. Part also was due to the different attitudes of the men. Houston was a lifelong friend of the Indians and made no secret of the fact that he thought Texas should join the US as quickly as possible. Lamar hated the Indians and thought that Texas should make its name on its own. Since Texas' status as a slaveholding region meant that its admission to the Union would be difficult, once Houston's first term was up Lamar intended to steer Texas to its own destiny. While Kerr doesn't spend much time on the debate between the two beyond the location of the capital, it's a noteworthy historical irony that Texas' eventual near-bankruptcy and bailout by the US was due mostly to Lamar's attempts to finance the rapid development of Texas by deficit spending and money-printing, even as Lamar's legacy of education and infrastructure plans would be crucial to its future (to this day, the University of Texas' motto of "The cultivated mind is the guardian genius of democracy" is a quote of Lamar's, an avid amateur poet).

Austin itself plays a small role in the story until later. Sam Houston once called its location "the most unfortunate site on earth for a seat of government", which any good Austinite will scoff at compared to the sullen swamps of his own namesake town, but in the 1830s the advantages of its physical beauty were outweighed in most minds by the fact that it was difficult to get to. There were no civilized roads connecting it to either San Antonio or anything on the coasts, and the constant threat of the marauding Mexican army and sporadic Indian attacks made settlement a dicey proposition (the fact that most Indian attacks were retaliations for similar atrocities perpetrated on them seems never to have occurred to the white settlers). Kerr covers the perpetual wandering of the capital starting at Washington-on-the-Brazos, then to Harrisburg, Galveston, Velasco, Columbia, Houston, and finally Austin, after great debate and legislation appropriating the funds. However, in those early days legislation was often considered somewhat flexible according to whoever was in charge. Lamar may have gotten Austin established, but when his term expired Houston retook the reins and used a rumor of a Mexican invasion as an excuse to try to have the seat of government moved back to Houston.

That's where the statue of the cannon comes in. Even though Houston and most of the government had left the small and frightened town, all of the state archives were still there, which caused confusion and frustration for people who wanted to settle or build and found they had to go to two different places. A delegation was sent to retrieve the archives and bring them back east. Local Angelina Eberly spotted them packing their wagons full of documents and fired a cannon to warn the other townsfolk, who caught up with the delegation just outside of town and forced them to relinquish their plunder. Houston grudgingly let the matter drop temporarily, until his successor and the final president of Texas Anson Jones found a more permanent solution. With the added time, Austin eventually became strong enough to win two more votes confirming its status as state capital, where it has remained ever since.

This book is full of people who will be familiar to anyone who pays attention when looking at street names and landmarks - David Burnet, Edwin Waller, Kenneth Anderson, Edward Burleson are all discussed, and of course Houston, Lamar, and Jones - and is about the most complete work you could expect about its subject. I was expecting a quick overview of the funny story behind Angelina Eberly's cannon, and got a lot more than that. Take that, Houston!

[Lana · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author definitely did his research and a true Austinite :). If you have never been to Austin, you can still visualize how the city looked during the formation of the capital. There were moments in the book when it was dull, particularly, the political drama that ensued on the decision to move the capital to Austin.

[Helen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Those of us who grew up in Texas and had Texas history in Jr. High (yes, it was called that in the 50's) never really learned about the animosity between Lamar and Houston. But now we know the whole story thanks to Dr. Kerr's well researched book.

I would love to have seen the site of the capital as Lamar saw it back then. Now we have tall buildings, traffic and a population explosion not the struggling town on the frontier.

"Build it and they will come," eventually.