The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 91, July 1987 - April, 1988 Page: 315
619 p. : ill. (some col.), maps (some col.), ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Response to the Religious Establishment 315
as a foreign territory colonized primarily by Americans, presented
American Protestants with an unusual dilemma: even if Mexico were to
permit Protestant activity there, should Texas be treated as a foreign or
a domestic mission field? Until independence resolved that dilemma in
1836, the Protestants for the most part foreswore organized work in
Texas.'0' What missionary activities did go forward were characteristi-
cally undertaken by individuals, men who had to focus on informal re-
ligious education because organized Protestant worship was, of course,
proscribed by the Catholic establishment. Tales of secret Protestant
worship under the watchful eye of faithful sentries and stories about
genial Mexican officials who winked at Protestant worship so long as it
was private and did not force them to take note of it probably had some
basis in reality. But we know very little-almost nothing-about the
ways in which American Protestants worshipped in Spanish and Mexi-
can Texas. What we do know is that none of the American denomi-
nations created official structures in Texas until it was an independent
republic-the Cumberland Presbyterians in 1839, the Presbyterians,
Baptists, and Methodists in 1840, and the Episcopalians in 1845.102
On one level, then, the failure of evangelical Protestantism to assume
a familiar American form in Texas before 1836 is understandable
simply as the unavoidable result of the Catholic establishment and of
Texas's status as a foreign territory. It may also have been a result of the
agenda that confronted the first Anglo migration to Texas. Early on,
Texas earned a reputation as a rough-and-ready territory to which all
that was loose in the United States gravitated. It was customary in the
early nineteenth century to think of "civilization" marching westward
in successive "waves," with a vanguard of rowdy and lawless adven-
turers giving way quickly to more settled tillers of the soil, who them-
selves were succeeded in time by the merchants, professionals, and art-
ists of mature, cultivated, and cultured society. One need not subscribe
to that simple scenario to understand that, for the first Anglo-Texans,
establishing the structures of organized religion was not a notable pri-
ority before 1836, or, for that matter, before 1845.
101 Howard Miller, "The First 'Texas Question': Protestants Discover Texas, 1820-1845,"
paper dehvered to the American Society of Church History, Fort Worth, Texas, Apr. 3, 1986.
102 For the creation of denomination communities m Texas see Red, The Texas Colonists and
Religion; Walter N. Vernon et al., The Methodist Excitement in Texas: A History (Dallas: Texas
United Methodist Historical Society, 1984), Robert A. Baker, The Blossomzng Desert: A Concise
History of Texas Baptists (Waco, Tex : Word Books, Publisher, 1970); William Stuart Red, A His-
tory of the Presbyterian Church zn Texas ([Austin]: Steck Co , 1936); Carter E. Boren, Religzon on the
Texas Frontier (San Antonio: Naylor Co., 1968); and Lawrence L. Brown, The Episcopal Church in
Texas, 1838-1874: From Its Foundatzon to the Division of the Diocese (Austin: Church Historical
Society, 1963).
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 91, July 1987 - April, 1988, periodical, 1987/1988; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101211/m1/371/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.