The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 55, July 1951 - April, 1952 Page: 33
562 p. : ill. (some col.), ports., maps (some col.) ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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James O. Rice
nearest white settlement; they had neither food nor horses. It
was not until the fourth day after the fight that the men came
upon some buffalo and were able to kill four of them, thereby
staving off starvation. Thus supplied with meat, they pushed on
until they reached a Kickapoo camp on the site of the present
city of Dallas. From there they made their way to the Old San
Antonio Road and back to the settlements.7
In 1838 Edward Burleson located the town of Waterloo on the
north bank of the Colorado River near the present site of Austin.
There Jacob Harrell built the first house,8 but Rice was one of
the earliest inhabitants, living there at a time when only seven
men composed the town, three of whom were unmarried."
Rice's most significant military service occurred in 1839 and
was the result of a conspiracy led for the Mexican government
by Vicente Cordova and Manuel Flores. The situation has been
summarized as follows:
Previous to the French attack on Vera Cruz, and the civil war in
Mexico, that government had commenced a system, which, if it had
been carried out as was intended, would have been most disastrous
to Texas. Its object was to turn loose upon her all the Indian tribes
upon her borders, from the Rio Grande to Red river. Of this fact
the Texan government obtained undoubted evidence. Before the re-
volt of the Mexicans at Nacogdoches, Vicente Cordova had been in
correspondence with the enemy at Matamoras. In July, 1838, he ad-
dressed a letter to Manuel Flores, the Indo-Mexican agent at Mata-
moras, stating that he held a commission from [Viciente] Filisola,
to raise the Indians as auxiliaries to the Mexican army and had
already entered on his duties. He wished to co-operate with Flores
and have an understanding with him as to the mode of procedure;
and for that purpose he desired, if possible, to have a meeting and
personal consultation. Cordova wrote to Filisola on the 29th of
August and the 16th of September, 1838, from the head-waters of
the Trinity, giving him an account of his progress. The departure
of Flores from Matamoras was, from some cause, delayed until the
spring of the following year. In the meantime, on the 27th of Feb-
ruary, 1839, Brigadier-General [Valentin] Canalizo, who had suc-
ceeded Filisola at Matamoras, sent his instructions to Cordova-the
7Frank Brown, Annals of Travis County and the City of Austin (MS., Archives
Collection, University of Texas Library), Chapter V, pp. 22-26.
sIbid., 3o.
"Alexander W. Terrell, "The City of Austin from 1839 to 1865," Quarterly of the
Texas State Historical Association, XIV, 113-128.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 55, July 1951 - April, 1952, periodical, 1952; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101139/m1/55/: accessed April 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.