Mission
Black in Texas
People of African descent have been residents of Texas, and by extension the United States since 1528. Estevanico, born around 1500, accompanied Spanish explorer Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca across the territory which would later be named Texas. One of their observations was the Rio de las Nueces (River of Nuts) which they first called the Guadalupe River because of its pecan and walnut lined banks.
With the founding of their Villa in 1731, and in compliance with the Laws of the Indies, Canary Islanders; Moors of African descent established the first civil settlement in the province of Texas. Royal authorities, hoping to reduce the expense of a purely military settlement, decided on a plan to transfer 400 families to Texas, some of whom would be located near San Antonio de Béxar Presidio. By 1744 the population of Tejas was about 1,500 and centered largely at San Antonio, with a few small settlements on the Rio Grande and in East Texas near Nacogdoches.
Within the Spanish empire, the legal status of free blacks resembled that of the Indian population. “The Old Three Hundred” is sometimes used to refer to the original settlers who received land grants in Stephen F. Austin's colony. By the fall of 1825, sixty-nine of the families in the colony owned slaves, and the 443 slaves accounted for nearly a quarter of the total population of 1,790.
Guadalupe County, Texas
Anglo settler Umphries (Humphries) Branch was awarded a league of land on the northeast bank of the Guadalupe, thirty-eight miles above Gonzales in 1831 and built a cabin on the site of what is now Seguin. On August 12, 1838, thirty-three of the Gonzales Rangers laid out a townsite near Walnut Branch and named the site Walnut Springs. The name was changed to honor Colonel Juan Seguin, one of Sam Houston's lieutenants throughout the struggle for Texas' independence just six months later. At least seven of the thirty-two original shareholders of Walnut Springs owned slaves.
Within a year of the establishment of Guadalupe County in 1847, slaves represented 23 percent of the local population. Over the next three years, that number would grow to 64 percent and from 1850 to 1860, increase to 422 percent. By 1860, 1,748 slaves represented 32 percent of the of the county’s total population of 5,444. On February 23, 1861, Texas went to the polls and voted for or against secession. The results for the state were 46,153 for and 14,747 against.
Slave Artisans in Concrete
The Sebastopol House depicted above is an antebellum Greek Revival house built of Park’s concrete is located within the city of Seguin. Joshua W. Young built the home between 1854 and 1856 for his sister, Catherine LeGette. Sebastopol House is a prime example of the limecrete structures of Seguin and was constructed entirely of unreinforced cast-in-place concrete and would become the oldest and largest structures in the state using this building method.
As early as 1850, Parks trained and utilized slave labor to construct the first concrete buildings and structures in the county. Guadalupe County was the center of experimentation with concrete in Texas. At least two citizens had their own formulas and competed for contracts to construct some of the first and largest structures. Dr. John E. Park, a physician and chemist who arrived in the late 1840s from Georgia, was one of them.
Years before Portland cement was patented, he developed and patented his own formulas for "limecrete" that used materials obtained locally.
Teams of slaves dug gravel and caliche on site and brought sand and water from nearby streams. These were mixed with trace ingredients like clay and ash, and with lime produced from Hill Country limestone, and brought by wagon from San Marcos. The resulting material was not so different from the adobe bricks widely used in West African buildings, but the construction technology was decidedly American.
The slaves poured the mix into wooden forms they had built, about a foot high and from one to two feet wide. These forms were joined by iron rods to keep them from spreading apart and held the set width apart by oak rods. When a layer hardened in about a week, the forms were raised, and another layer poured. The iron rods were driven out and used again and the oak rods remained imbedded in the thick concrete walls. This process required skilled labor to get the proportions right and if too hot or too cold, too wet, or too dry, the concrete would not set properly.
Civil War Begins
In Guadalupe County, less than half of the eligible voters cast a ballot with the tally at 314 for secession and 22 against. Although the first “actual engagement” engagement of the Civil War is said to have occurred when Fort Sumpter was fired on in April 1861, Seguinites believed the first engagement began with their own Ben McCulloch, along with a force of fighting men, participated in the taking of San Antonio in February 1861.
On May 10, 1861, fifty men enlisted at Seguin in the Confederate Army and a company was organized. On May 11, 1861, Jefferson Davis appointed Seguin planter and slaveholder Ben McCulloch as brigadier general, the second-ranking brigadier general in the Confederate Army and the first general-grade officer to be commissioned from the civilian community. McCulloch’s command was to cover the territory of Western Kansas and the Indian Territory.
On June 28, 1861, Captain Benton’s Company D., assembled on the courthouse lawn to receive the Confederate flag made by the young ladies of Seguin. A banner was presented to the company that was used and brought back at war’s end. On April 9, 1865, standing in formation outside the Appomattox Courthouse while Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant, was eighteen men of Seguin’s Company D. Texas was not invaded in the war and Seguin fared better than many of her Southern sister cities. Homes were left unmolested, and churches and schools still functioned.
June 19th, 1865 - Emancipation Day
Slavery formally ended in Texas on June 19, 1865 ("Juneteenth") when General Gordon S. Granger arrived at Galveston with occupying federal forces and announced emancipation. Guadalupe County suffered a severe economic decline immediately following the Civil War and throughout the Reconstruction period residents experienced a 69 percent loss in taxable property. About 35 percent of the lost property was in slaves, and the rest came from declines in total farm acreage, farm value, and livestock value, each of which had fallen nearly 50 percent by the time of the 1870 census.
"Athens of Texas"
The white citizens of Seguin were an active and enterprising class. It was said that no city of its age showed a larger percentage of wealthy people, many who started from comparatively nothing and made fortunes from local causes and advantages of the area. The people were moral, law abiding and exhibited a spirit of generosity and hospitality which strangers seldom found elsewhere.
Few cities or towns in the south had more genuine advantages to sustain and encourage growth than Seguin. There was one private bank in town with ample capital, and the courthouse was a substantial structure, located in the center of the square, and surrounded by a beautiful park and lovely shade trees. No institutions were admired more by the city than the churches, representing all leading denominations.
The public-school facilities could not be surpassed in any place of its size throughout the State and were thoroughly graded and conducted upon the latest improved methods. Its stores and businesses were numerous, modern, and well represented and always filled with fine goods of all descriptions enabling the city and surrounding country to purchase the necessaries and luxuries without leaving home.
Anti-segregation in Seguin
The 1896 Business Directory of the Enterprising and Professional Men of Seguin, Texas listed Abstracts of title, Real Estate agents, purveyors of agriculture implements, a Wells Fargo agent, multiple attorneys at law, a private bank, boot and shoe dealers, blacksmith and horse-shoers, bakeries, barbers, books and stationary, boot and shoe maker, a bottling works and brickyard, contractors and builders, cigar and tobacco shops, a crockery, glass and chinaware shop, several dentists, druggists, and dry goods and notions establishments.
There were additional stores for “fancy and toilet articles”, harness and saddleries, guns and ammunitions, and groceries and produce proprietors. There was a fire insurance agent, hardware and cutlery store, hotels, jewelers and watchmakers, a livery, feed, and stable, lumber dealer, and millinery and “fancy goods”. In town businesses additionally include meat markets, newspapers, optical goods, a photographer, restaurant and lunch stand, paints, oils and glasses merchants, a sash, doors, and blinds store, and finally stoves and tin-ware, school supplies, and undertaker, many physicians, and several tailors.
Black-owned Businesses in Town
There were three black-owned businesses in town proper, H.E. Ferguson & Co., Undertaker, William Stone; Restaurant and Lunch Stand, and Jacob Ray and H.C. Coleman each worked their own barber chair. All businesses were integrated and serviced all communities.
