Henri Castro - Republic of Texas Land Grants

Republic of Texas Land Grants

The Republic of Texas issued colonization land grants with individuals, conditional upon said individuals establishing settlements in a stated geographical area of Texas. The grants were limited to a given time period in which the colonization had to take place.

On February 15, 1842, Castro, in temporary partnership with Jean Jassaud, was issued two land grants by the Republic of Texas. The grants were for the colonization of 600 families (with an option to increase that number to 1000) in three years. The first 200 families had to be settled by August 15, 1843. One grant was approximately 600,000 acres, near what is now Starr County, along the Rio Grande. Castro would not be successful in fulfilling the colonization of this grant. The other grant totaled 1,250,000 acres, west of San Antonio and included the counties of Atascosa, Frio, La Salle, Medina and McMullen. This second grant would result in what came to be known as Castro's Colony.

Castro began recruiting from an office in Paris in 1842 and the first of his recruits sailed into the port of Galveston, Texas on January 1, 1843. In the fall of 1843, Castro recruits in Alsace, Baden and Switzerland. Waves of his colonists depart for Texas in the winter of 1843 and spring of 1844. Castro left Europe for Texas on May 19, 1844 by way of New Orleans. He made it to San Antonio in July 1844 to meet with the colonists and was escorted by the Texas Rangers to inspect his land grant. The first of Castro's colonists arrive at the land on September 2, 1844.

A grant covering 3,878,000 acres over 5,000 square miles, went to Henry Francis Fisher and Burchard Miller. On June 7, 1842, Fisher and Miller received a colonization land grant to settle 1,000 immigrant families of German, Dutch, Swiss, Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian ancestry. The grant was issued as the Fisher-Miller Land Grant. Fisher and Miller were also unsuccessful in colonization efforts, but they were able to get their deadline extended. On June 26, 1844, they sold the grant to the Adelsverein. Henry Fisher was made part of the Verein colonial committee.

On July 3 and July 6, 1842, two land grants were issued to Alexander Bourgeois d'Orvanne and Armand Ducos, for colonization of 1,700 families along the Uvalde, Frio and Medina rivers. On April 7, 1844, after their colonization efforts proved fruitless, Bourgeois and Ducos sold their grant to the Adelsverein, conditional on making Alexander Bourgeois d'Orvanne the Colonial Director. Unfortunately, the grant had already expired and Bourgeois was unable to get the deadline for colonization extended.