Welcome To Our Texas House District 76 Page

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Sugar Land's roots extend back to the first 300 settlers who came to Texas in the 1820's with Stephen F. Austin, the "Father of Texas." The northern territory of Mexico, Austin negotiated a grant with the Mexican government to bring 300 colonists to settle a large area of land between the San Antonio and Brazos Rivers, which was his first colony in the Mexican territory of Texas. Many brought enslaved persons with them. Heads of families were offered grants of 4,605 acres at a cost of about 12 1/2 cents an acre. Among the earliest colonists to receive land grants in the Sugar Land area were Samuel May Williams, George Brown, Charles Belknap, Elijah Allcorn, William Stafford, Alexander Hodge, and Mills Battle.

Centuries before this area of southeast Texas was settled, water cut through the land creating a large river that stretched from the northern plains of Texas, coursing 840 miles to the Gulf of Mexico. In the 1500's, Spanish gold hunters exploring the area named the river Los Brazos del Dios-the arms of God. It is known today as the Brazos River. One of those early explorers, Cabeza de Vaca, described in his journal their exploration of the prairie land and waterways that included present day Oyster Creek. Grass grew waist high in the red, alluvial soil, enriched from centuries of floods and as deep as twenty feet in some areas. Beyond the river's edge, the soil turned to heavy black clay. Prehistoric animals roamed this region, their ancient remains uncovered centuries later in the riverbed.

Buffalo roamed the area, leaving their distinctive mark on the earth as if just freshly plowed. Deer, wolves, buzzards, owls, and numerous small game such as the prairie chicken were abundant. Colonists brought horses, cattle, oxen and dogs, and planted corn, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, potatoes, and other vegetable along with sugar cane and cotton. In the fall, sleds piled with cotton were pulled to the river, placed on flatboats and sent to market in Houston or 

Galveston. Daily signal dominated their lives, but despite the hardships, the colony flourished.

Mexico granted settlers leagues of land (4,428 acres) and labors of land (177 acres). The leagues were for ranching and the labors were for farming. Stepen F. Austin recognized the area's potential. His first colony was bordered on the north by the Old San Antonio Road which stretched between San Antonio and Nacogdoches, on the east by the Trinity River, on the south by the Gulf of Mexico and on the west by the Lavaca River. For his personal homestead, Austin chose five leagues approximately centered between Richmond, the Imperial refinery and present-day Eldridge Road, an extremely fertile area of the Brazos River and Oyster Creek watersheds. Modern day Sugar Land was within that prime real estate that Austin chose for himself. It was the western portions of present-day Sugar Land.

1820-1830

Sugar production in Texas developed gradually. Small mule-powered mills in the fields produced enough sugar for personal use. Over time, some farmers grew enough cane to sell raw sugar locally. However, cotton and corn were still the main exports. although slavery was outlawed in Mexican Texas in 1829, landowners continued to use enslaved persons to work on their plantations. After Texas won independence in 1836, markets expanded and more of the land once covered with bluestem prairie grass was planted with cotton, corn, and sugar cane.

Sugar Land's history is permanently displayed in the plaza in the front of Sugar Land City Hall. The following narrative is included in the paving stones that are part of the plaza's foundation.

1500-1700's  

1519 Sailing in search of a fabled passage to the Pacific Ocean, Alonso Alvarez de Pineda becomes the first known European to explore the Gulf coast region, claiming it for Spain and creating the first map of the Texas coast.

1528 - Cabeza de Vaca and survivors of the Narvaez expedition shipwreck between Galveston Island and the Brazos River. They encounter the Karankawa Indians. these nomadic natives inhabit the banks of Oyster Creek where they harvest pecans, persimmons, and freshwater clams. De Vaca lives with them for several years. A century and a half will pass before a European expedition visits this ground again.

1685 – In an ill-fated effort to establish a French colony in Texas, explorer Rene Robert Cavelier Sieur De LaSalle records the Indian name for the Brazos River as Tokohono. La Salle calls it the Maligne.

1690 – For the next 130 years, Spanish rulers attempt to colonize Texas with little success. Settlers, adventurers, soldiers, and missionaries use an old Indian trail across a low water point on Oyster Creek to travel from the Gulf Coast to San Antonio de Bexar, the capital of Spanish Texas. Explorers frequently confuse the Colorado and Brazos rivers.

1721 - By now, the 840-mile-long Brazos de Dios River, with its three branches, has been given its lasting name by the Spanish who travel and trade here. As the longest, mightiest and most navigable river in the territory, it gives rise to many legends.

1800's 

November 1820 - A year after the Panic of 1819 depletes his fortune and stirs unrest in the states, entrepreneur Moses Austin, the father of Stephen Fuller Austin, travels from Missouri across the deserted wilderness to San Antonio seeking a contract to bring settlers into Spanish Texas. It is ambitious plan to restore his wealth.

December 1820 - The governor of Texas refuses Moses Austin and orders him out of Texas. He has a chance meeting with a long-lost friend, the Baron de Bastrop, who is the vice mayor of San Antonio. The Baron intercedes on his behalf. The governor reconsiders and decides in favor of a contract permitting Austin to settle 300 families in Texas and establish a town at the mouth of the Colorado River. The approved contract is received one month later.

June 1821 - Before Moses Austin can begin the colony, he falls ill after a perilous trip home. Two days before dying, he asks his wife Maria to write to his son Stephen with his "father's last request to prosecute the enterprise." Stephen Fuller Austin is 27 years old. He has just moved to New Orleans to study law and work at a newspaper to support his family. He had only reluctantly agreed to help his father with his "Texas Venture."

July 1821 - Expecting that his father has departed New Orleans with a ship of settlers, Stephen F. Austin is in Natchitoches, La., to meet Spanish officials for an overland trip to the land grant. Austin sets out on horseback for Texas. A rider overtakes the group with word of his father's death. Writing his mother that "we must resign ourselves to the dispensations of Providence," he travels on to San Antonio seeking approval to assume his father's contract.

August 1821 - Austin and his party reach the Brazos River, noting the fertile soil, abundant deer and black bear. Across the river are grassy prairies and buffalo. In San Antonio, they learn of Mexico's new independence from Spain. The governor recognizes Austin as the heir to the contract. He takes on the role of "empresario," of colonization agent. Empresarios contract with the Mexican government to bring Roman Catholic settlers to Texas in exchange for 23,000 acres for each 100 families brought.

September 1821 - Austin spends a month exploring between the Lavaca and Brazos rivers for a suitable site. He chooses an area traversed by the Brazos, writing in his journal, "Land is all first rate, plenty of timber, fine water."

October 1821 - Back in Louisiana, Austin receives hundreds of letters from people in Missouri, Kentucky, and other states with an interest in the colony, which has been publicized in newspapers as far east as Baltimore. "I am convinced that I could take on 1,500 families as easy as 300," he writes to the Texas governor.

November 1821 - In New Orleans, Austin begins recruiting, offering settlers thousands of acres apiece for pennies an acre and no money down. By comparison, the U.S. Congress has begun requiring full cash payment up front to purchase public lands, which few frontiersmen can pay. He has no trouble finding volunteers.

November 1821 - Austin purchases a 30-ton schooner, the Lively, and the outfits it to take the first settlers from New Orleans to the colony. Aboard are nearly 20 men carefully chosen to form the nucleus of the colony. Austin has signed special contracts with them providing free land in exchange for their labors. On November 25, they head for the mouth of the Colorado, where the men are to meet Austin, build cabins, stock supplies, and plant at least five acres of corn each.

December 1821 - The Lively is blown far off course and spends weeks at sea.

January 1822 - In a fateful error the crew mistakes the Brazos River for the Colorado and makes landing on New Year's Day. With William W. Little and Joseph Polley in charge, the men travel 90 miles upstream. At a clearing on the river's bend, they construct a large log house known first as "Fort on the Bend," and later, "Fort Bend." When food grows scarce, most of the party returns to the United States, but a few stalwarts remain. In the meantime, Austin searches fruitlessly for the missing Lively party along the coast, concluding they were lost at sea. A handful of settlers have already arrived on the Colorado. Many more are on the way.

March 1822 - With colonists expecting to receive their land grants, Austin rides first to San Antonio and then Mexico City to urgently affirm his contract with officials of the new Mexican government. There, political uncertainty forces him to wait for a full year until a stable government is in place to approve his empresario agreement.

April 1822 - With no contact between the Lively party and the other Austin colonists, rumor persist that the passengers were drowned at sea or starved by Indians. Some of the original passengers eventually return to Texas and tell what happened.

May 1822 - Before the Mexican Congress, Austin claims that 100 men settled along the Colorado and 50 at various points along the Brazos. Only eight have brought their families.

August 1822 - Fifteen settlers arrive at Fort Bend by summer. With no sign of Austin, the few are known as the "Forlorn Fifteen." Newspapers across the western U.S. carry erroneous reports of Austin's demise by drowning, shooting, shipwreck, or Indian attack. Circumstances are dire. Drought devastates crops throughout Texas, and colonists subsist on whatever wild game they can find.

April 1823 - The Mexican Congress finally approves Austin's contract. He is cleared to bring the first 300 American households into Texas under Mexican rule. Austin's total charter is 15,000 square miles. It includes the finest agricultural lands in Texas, plenty of fresh water, lumber, grass, and game. Along the Brazos, prospects are hopeful. "The settlers are perfectly satisfied and determined to stay," writes one observer. By fall, dry weather and hardships return.

1824 - "The Old 300" original colonists begin to settle their land grants. Each married man is eligible to receive a "league," (sitios) or 4,428 acres of grazing land and a "labor," (libors) or 177 acres of farmland. To receive the most land, a settler presents himself as both a rancher and a farmer. Most of the Old 300 are from the southern states and intend to raise corn, cotton, and cattle as they had back home. Forty-one of the initial land grants are located along the Brazos River in the area called Fort Settlement. Jane Long, the "Mother of Texas" who sewed the Lone Star flag first flown in 1820, receives her league there.

1824 - As a compensation for his role as empresario of the colony, Austin awards himself 22 1/2 premium leagues of land, including five leagues along Oyster Creek, which is the western portions of present-day Sugar Land. He will later release these leagues for reissue. Half of his land holdings will be deeded to his New Orleans lender in the venture, and none of it will have cash value for many years. "Whether rich or poor, here I expect to remain permanently," he wrote.

1825 - A census of Austin's colony counts 1,800 inhabitants, including 443 slaves.

1825 - Although the best tracts along the Brazos and Colorado are taken, a large amount of unclaimed land remains in the colony. Austin is granted a second empresario contract to locate five hundred settlers on this land and is permitted to open a port of entry at Galveston. He will ultimately be granted five contracts.

1827 - Austin joins with two other empresarios in negotiating a treaty with the Karankawas. The Mexican military makes peace with the Tawakonis, Wacos, and Comanches. Protecting colonists from Indian raids has preoccupied Austin since 1823.

1828 - Elections are held to create the first civil government in the colony under the state constitution of Coahuila and Texas.

1828 - Austin gives a league of his land on Oyster Creek to his aide, Samuel May Williams, who names the property Oakland Plantation after the five species of oak trees that live there.

1828 - The first recorded flood of the Brazos River erodes the banks along the river's bends and brings down enormous trees.

1829 - Two local ranchers drive a herd of 60 cattle from Ford Settlement to the markets of San Antonio, where they hire a butcher and sell the beef. It is the beginning of the local cattle industry.

1830 - The Mexican Congress passes the Law of April 6, 1830, prohibiting further empresario contracts and thus halting Anglo-American immigration into Texas. Austin writes that it "destroys in one blow the happiness and prosperity of this colony."

April 1833 - Delegates from the colony hold a convention where they draft a petition calling for separate statehood and the repeal of the April 1830 law.

June 1833 - Brazos River flooding contributes to an outbreak of cholera in the area. Even with frequent flooding and variable water levels, the Brazos is the principal waterway into Texas. It is navigable for 250 miles inland. Steamboats and barges ply this course for the next three decades as travel and commerce increase.

1834 - The first school in the settlement opens up at Stafford's Point on Oyster Creek. Seven children attend classes in an old blacksmith shop. School adjourns in September when the boys are needed to work in the fields.

1834 - Austin carries the colonists' petition for separate statehood to Mexico City where he is imprisoned, without formal charges, for treason. He spends the entire year in prison and is detained for another six months before his situation is favorably resolved. When he returns homes in the fall of 1835 the colonists welcome him with a tribute dinner and dance.