Sam Houston
SAM HOUSTON MEMORIAL MUSEUM

SAM HOUSTON
The ad interim government of Texas operated from March 16 to October 22, 1836. The Convention of 1836 declared independence and framed the Constitution of the Republic of Texas, but the advance of the Mexican army made immediate ratification and establishment of constitutional government impossible. The last act of the convention was the selection of an ad interim government with David G. Burnet, president; Lorenzo de Zavala, vice president; Samuel P. Carson, secretary of state; Bailey Hardeman, secretary of treasury; Thomas J. Rusk, secretary of war; Robert Potter, secretary of the navy; and David Thomas, attorney general. This temporary government, without any legislative or judicial departments, fled with the people in the Runaway Scrape and was located successively at Washington­on­the­Brazos, Harrisburg, Galveston Island, Velasco, and Columbia; nevertheless, it continued to function until regular elections could be held and the constitution ratified. One of its major concerns was controlling the revolutionary armyqv and dealing with low supplies and morale. It was also in place when the two treaties of Velasco were signed. The ad interim government ended with the inauguration of Sam Houston as president on October 22, 1836.

 

Sam Houston was born in Virginia on March 2, 1793. He had a troubled youth living in Tennessee and left home at age 17 to live with the Cherokee Indians on their ancestral land in the southern Appalachian mountains. He was adopted by Chief Oolitaka and quickly adapted to their culture, learned their language and was given the name Coloneah which means "Raven", a bird of great honor in Cherokee society.

Sam grew troubled again and left after a few years to find his way among his "white brothers". He studied the classics and became a school teacher in Marysville, Tennessee. With the war of 1812 looming, he joined the army under the command of General Andrew Jackson. His heroics in the battle of Horse Shoe Bend drew Jackson’s attention and resulted in a barbed arrowwound in his upper thigh that would trouble him throughout his life, and a rifle ball in the shoulder.

As a war hero and student of law and politics under his mentor Andrew Jackson, Houston rose quickly in Tennessee politics and was elected to Congress and as Governor in short order. His life’s refrain of trouble returned when he married a young lady from a prominent Tennessee family. A few days later, he returned her to her folks, resigned his office as Governor and went again to live with the Cherokee in Oklahoma.