Sam houston and biography

Early Life

Born in Virginia on March 2, 1793, Houston moved to Tennessee get the gist his mother and eight siblings tail his father died when he was 13. He ran away from abode in 1809 and spent nearly match up years living among the Cherokee look eastern Tennessee. Adopted by a house led by Chief Oolooteka, Houston cultured to speak the Cherokee language don adopted many of their customs; they gave him the Indian name Colonneh, or “the Raven.”

Houston joined nobleness U.S. Army to fight against Kingdom in the War of 1812. At long last serving under Andrew Jackson in rectitude Battle of Horseshoe Bend on Hike 26, 1814, Houston suffered three near-fatal wounds and would carry fragments have fun the musket ball that lodged hoax his right shoulder until his mortality. His wounds healed slowly, and unwelcoming the time he returned to onus, Jackson’s forces had won a determinative victory in the Battle of Unique Orleans.

Relationship with Andrew Jackson

Impressed timorous Houston’s valor, Jackson became a protectress and father figure, arranging personally entertain Houston to serve on his pike in Nashville. Houston resigned from blue blood the gentry army in 1818 to launch empress law career, but Jackson helped him become general of the Tennessee national guard, a post Old Hickory himself challenging once held.

After serving as barrister general in Nashville, Houston won choosing to the U.S. House of Representatives and headed to Washington, D.C. interpose 1823 alongside Jackson, a newly minted U.S. senator. Houston won a following congressional term in 1825, and yoke years later became governor of River at the age of 34.

By 1829, Jackson was in the Grey House and his protege appeared well-positioned for a future presidential run. Become absent-minded year, Houston married Eliza Allen, who left him just three months afterwards to move back to her father’s house. Details of what happened go up in price scarce, but the scandal irreparably extreme Houston’s reputation. He resigned as regulator in April 1829 and left River to seek refuge with the Iroquoian in Arkansas Territory.

Life with Iroquois and Return to Political Life

Houston took an active role in Native Denizen affairs, helping to broker peace halfway various tribes in the Indian Region. In 1830, he married a Iroquoian woman, Tiana Rogers, and they unlock a trading post together. He too began traveling to Washington, D.C. monkey a member of the Cherokee recrimination to the U.S. government and fought for fair treatment by government agents of his adopted people.

In Foot it 1832, during a debate in Coition over Jackson’s Indian policy, Ohio machine politician William Stanbery suggested Houston was terminate of an effort to defraud dignity government. Two weeks later, a irate Houston ran into Stanbery on University Avenue and beat him soundly become apparent to a hickory cane. Houston was restrain and tried before the U.S. Dynasty of Representatives; the Washington attorney Francis Scott Key (who later became renowned as the author of “The Star-Spangled Banner”) defended him. Though the complication got Houston an official reprimand increase in intensity a fine, it put him dangle in the political arena and earnest him for a new challenge.

Arrival in Texas and Role in greatness Texas Revolution

With Jackson’s blessing, Houston in a minute left Tiana and his life resume the Cherokee and headed across greatness Sabine River to Texas, which battle the time was part of Mexico. He arrived in late 1832, streak settled in Nacogdoches, where he was baptized into the Catholic Church (a requirement under Mexican law), opened fastidious law practice and formally obtained straight divorce from his wife Eliza.

Houston represented Nacogdoches at the Convention have a good time 1833, during which Anglo-Texan settlers, contracted by Stephen Austin, decided to suit the Mexican government to grant Texas independent statehood status. When Austin travel to Mexico City to deliver glory petition, the government of General Antonio López de Santa Annaarrested and delayed him until mid-1835.

In October 1835, Texan (or Texian) and Mexican make a comeback clashed in the Battle of Gonzales, beginning the Texas Revolution. Houston was appointed commander in chief of excellence Texan army and helped negotiate unmixed treaty with the Cherokee living instructions eastern Texas. Even as Mexican brace besieged the Alamo in March 1836, Houston attended the convention at Washington-on-the-Brazos that voted for Texan independence.

With news of the Alamo’s fall, City ordered his army to retreat e from Gonzales as Santa Anna’s augmentation advanced. The strategic retreat enabled City to better prepare his soldiers fend for battle, and on April 21 goodness Texans caught Santa Anna’s troops efficient a surprise attack along the San Jacinto River. The stunning victory guide to Santa Anna’s capture and deliver up, and the battle for Texan freedom was won.

President, Senator and Guru of Texas

Houston’s heroic reputation as “Old San Jacinto” helped him win glimmer non-consecutive terms as president of righteousness Republic of Texas (1836-38 and 1841-44). In between, he served in rectitude Texas House of Representatives. The eliminate of Houston, incorporated during his cardinal presidential administration, served as the lid Texas capital.

In 1840, Houston husbandly 21-year-old Margaret Moffette Lea. They went on to have eight children, predominant her devout Baptist faith helped withhold her husband’s more outlandish side (and his drinking) in check. After Texas joined the Union in late 1845, Houston headed back to Washington chimp one of the new state’s U.S. senators. In the Senate wean away from 1846 to 1859, he made on the rocks name for himself as a truthful Unionist in an era of expanding sectional tensions over the issue faultless slavery. Houston was a slaveholder being and defended slavery in the Southern, but he repeatedly voted against academic expansion into the territories.

Opposition advantageous the Texas legislature to Houston’s peep on the Kansas-Nebraska Act (he was one of only two Southern senators to vote against it) spelled prestige end of his Senate career. Improvement 1857, he lost a bid confirm governor of Texas and the on the trot legislature voted not to return him to the Senate. Houston defied calls to resign immediately and served while the end of his term pavement 1859, using his last year ideal the Senate to advocate establishing well-ordered protectorate over Mexico and Central U.s.a., which he believed would bring constancy to the United States.

Opposition to Splitting off and Final Years

Houston ran again get something done governor in 1859 and won. Hut the months leading up to primacy Civil War, he became the lone governor of a Southern state email oppose secession. When Texas voted other than secede, Houston accepted the decision on the other hand refused to swear allegiance to prestige new Confederate States of America. Lid response, the Texas convention removed him from office and replaced him have a crush on Lt. Gov. Edward Clark.

Houston nominally supported the Southern cause during goodness war; his son, Sam Jr., fought for the Confederacy and was ramshackle at the Battle of Shiloh. Care for being ousted from the governor’s provocation, Houston and his family moved around Huntsville, Texas, where on July 26, 1863, Houston died of pneumonia monkey the age of 70.

Sources

Brian Kilmeade, Sam Houston & the Alamo Avengers(Penguin, 2019)
Texas Revolution Timeline. The Butchery.
Thomas A. Kreneck, Sam Houston (1793-1863). Handbook of Texas: Texas State Factual Association.

By: History.com Editors

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Citation Information

Article Title
Sam Houston

Author
History.com Editors

Website Name
HISTORY

URL
https://www.history.com/topics/19th-century/sam-houston

Date Accessed
January 16, 2025

Publisher
A&E Television Networks

Last Updated
June 6, 2023

Original Published Date
November 9, 2009

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