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Julian Trinidad

Dr. Ramos

HIST2341 - Texas to 1865

15 November 2019

Gender in American Expansion into Texas

Texas is a special case in regards to American expansionism due to how it was acquired.

Texas originally started as a small state and became massive after its “acquisition” from Mexico,

and was still being settled well into the 1800s due to its gargantuan size. Gender played a

surprising role in this, with female settlers taking a lot of the responsibilities that men would take

on while they were out exploring new lands, while also maintaining their own responsibilities

with the American expansion to the west. These responsibilities ranged from huge things, such as

being the bearers of diplomacy with indigenous tribes, to smaller, more “feminine” roles, such as

being the agents of marriage and housekeepers. In addition, the reasoning behind women

expanding further into Texas (such as financial woes the liberal land policies that Texas

employed in the 1800s) is important as well, as it provides key insight into why women served

the roles they did, and why they decided to migrate there to begin with.

The largest role that American women undertook when the Americans were pushing west

into Texas had to have been their acts of diplomacy toward indigenous tribes. Women, in both

American and indigenous society, were seen as the signifiers of peace and pacifism. With both

societies viewing women in a somewhat-similar fashion, things like diplomacy and trade were

significantly easier than they would have been if men were the ones doing all the talking. This is
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also the case with Mexican settlers and their society, as the American and Mexican cultures saw

women in similar ways, due to their patriarchal roots in European society.

There were several huge factors that went into play in regards to women migrating into

Texas. First and foremost, the states that women primarily migrated from were all in the

immediate vicinity of the state of Texas. Few women would have migrated from places like New

York, which is over a thousand miles away, to live in a newly-founded state. The things that

would push these women into coming to Texas included crippling debt and wanting to build

something new, leading to them migrating here and taking on their own gender roles as

frontierswoman. These roles would shift depending on the wealth of these women, with poor

women serving as housewives and maidens, and wealthy women helping to lead the Anglo

expansion into the far reaches of Texas.

Women that had the role of being housewives during the expansion era would often

oversee plantations and the slaves that occupied them. While this role was primarily given to

men, as they were generally the ones that owned slaves, women would take charge when the man

wasn’t around. This created an interesting dynamic between the slave and master, as the woman

would, more than likely, be somewhat kinder to the slaves. This behavior was generally frowned

in Texas, primarily because it sought to be the slave capital of the world, but it would go on

anyway, with some of the slave owners allowing their slaves to go free.

All in all, western expansion into Texas by the Anglo-Americans was a sight to see. The

sheer size of Texas influenced a lot of the major events that took place in the nineteenth century,

and gender played a larger role than one would expect. Women, in particular, were a key element

to the success of the western expansion and acquisition of Texas from Mexico, and should be

honored more in history than they are.

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Works Cited

Scheer, Mary L. Women and the Texas Revolution. Denton: University of North Texas

Press, 2012. muse.jhu.edu/book/17715.

Smith, F. Todd. "Texas through 1845: A Survey of the Historical Literature of Recent

Decades." The Southwestern Historical Quarterly 113, no. 3 (2010): 310-41.

www.jstor.org/stable/40495760.

Terri L. Snyder. "Refiguring Women in Early American History." The William and Mary

Quarterly 69, no. 3 (2012): 421-50. doi:10.5309/willmaryquar.69.3.0421.