The Archives War and Moving the Capital of Texas (August 4, 2026)
by Scott Sosebee
Texans tend to remember the years of the Republic of Texas through the hazy lenses of myth instead of the cold stare of reality. The Republic of Texas was, foremost, never truly intended to be permanent, but instead somewhat of an interim period until the politics in the United States steadied some—specifically the intransigence of the northern states to admit another slave state to the Union. The new nation was also financially broken, with no practical way to raise enough money to pay its debts, as well as constantly threatened on its western border by native tribes not happy with the usurpation of their lands, and on the southern border by its former colonial host that had never recognized Texas’ legitimacy as a sovereign nation. As if those conditions were not enough, the nation’s politics were split down the middle. The supporters of Sam Houston made up one faction who favored U.S. annexation, some way to end the nation’s financial woes, and negotiation and accommodation with both Indians and Mexico. On the other side were the “anti-Houston” forces led by second president Mirabeau Lamar and former interim president David Burnet. These devotees tended to oppose annexation, were rapid advocates of Indian extermination and expulsion, and had the untenable notion that Texas could somehow build a grand republic that would stretch across the entire southwestern portion of the North American continent. These two factions butted heads at almost every opportunity, but in 1842 their feud led to open confrontation in the so-called “Archives War.”
During the Texas War of Independence, the “capital” of Texas tended to be wherever the interim government happened to camp as they were fleeing Santa Anna’s army. After the Battle of San Jacinto, interim president David G. Burnet first moved the capital to Velasco, then west to Columbia, but it was assumed that after Texas held elections and elected a permanent government the new Congress would also choose an appropriate capital. When the Texas Congress met, they voted to make the new city of Houston the capital of Texas, which pleased new president Sam Houston. After all, what president would not want to preside over a government in a city named after him?
The decision to place the capital in a place named after Sam Houston infuriated Burnet and Lamar, who was also the Vice-President of Texas. Lamar particularly chafed as he was serving under a man he despised and in a city he detested. One must also remember that the city the Allen brothers had founded in 1836 was new and lacked full infrastructural development, which in the late 1830s meant that every time it rained—and it rains a lot in Houston—the streets turned into a quagmire of mud and what constituted “buildings” were often little more than log huts. In fact, the capital building was a five-room cabin with barely enough room to house the Texas Congress. Houston did not seem to mind since he believed that the situation was only temporary, but it incensed Burnet and Lamar whose vision for Texas was as the “grandest and most expansive republic in the world.”
Texas presidents, by constitutional decree, could not succeed themselves, so Houston searched for a suitable candidate to stand for him in the Election of 1838. He and his supporters first approached Thomas Jefferson Rusk, but he refused (and he was also not quite old enough to serve in the office), and their second choice, attorney general Peter Grayson, committed suicide before he could announce his candidacy. James Collinsworth, the Republic’s chief justice, was the next pick, but he drowned in Galveston Bay in late July. They then had to turn to Senator Robert Wilson, but his late start and lack of notoriety meant that Mirabeau Lamar easily won the election.
Lamar immediately began to entrench his vision of Texas, and at the same time try to erase and undo almost every Houston policy. High on his list was to get the capital out of Houston. He quickly convinced the Texas congress to move the capital to Waterloo, an isolated, almost non-existent village on the banks of the upper Colorado River. With the name changed to Austin, Lamar moved the government there in October 1839. Lamar may have thought he had solved his “Houston problem,” but the new location had shortcomings of its own. Besides its isolation and rustic nature, it was also on the very edge of the Indian frontier and subject to raids. Lamar barely had enough time to enjoy his new location before his term came to an end and Sam Houston returned as the president of Texas in the next election.
Houston, naturally, loathed having to conduct his administration in Austin and he looked for an excuse to once again relocate the capital. He got one in March of 1842 when a Mexican army under General Rafael Vásquez marched to and occupied San Antonio. Houston convened an emergency session of congress, but since San Antonio was less than a hundred miles from Austin and, as he claimed, he did not want to risk Mexican capture of the government, they were to meet in Houston, not Austin. The Lamar-Burnet faction—which dominated Austin—had feared just such a move and helped to form a vigilance committee to keep the Houston government from moving the governmental records, or archives. The Mexican army soon retreated back across the Rio Grande, but Houston went ahead with his called congressional session in December 1842, this time in Washington-on-the-Brazos. He then dispatched a contingent of Rangers to seize the archives, although he did give them specific orders not to engage the vigilance committee. The Rangers stealthily made their way into the Capitol without detection and loaded the records on wagons and then out of town on the road to Washington.
The Rangers believed they had made their escape, but they had not evaded the detection of one woman: Angelina Eberly. She fired a cannon at them as they were leaving, which woke the Vigilance Committee. The Committee retrieved a cannon from the arsenal and took out after the wagons. They overtook them at Kenney’s Fort on January 1, 1843. The Austinites fired a few shots at the Rangers who, to avoid bloodshed, gave up the archives, and they were returned to Austin. Houston and the Texas Congress did refuse to return to the capital city, but in 1844, after another election installed Anson Jones as President of Texas, Austin once again became the capital and has remained so since.
The East Texas Historical Association provides this column as a public service. Scott Sosebee the Executive Director of the Association and can be contacted at sosebeem@sfasu.edu or via www.easttexashistorical.org.