Mary Maverick - Establishment in San Antonio

Establishment in San Antonio

In October 1837, Maverick, her brother, son, and seven slaves left South Carolina. After a brief stop in Tuscaloosa, they left for the Republic of Texas on December 7, accompanied by her fifteen-year-old brother, Robert Adams, and three additional slaves. The party crossed into Texas near New Year's Day 1838. On February 4, they rented rooms at the home of George Sutherland, and four months Maverick remained there while her husband continued on to San Antonio.

Maverick and the rest of her party reached San Antonio on June 15, 1838. In her memoirs, Maverick claims to have been the first U.S.-born female to settle in San Antonio, but letters to her mother mentioned another American lady, married to an Irishman, who died shortly after the Mavericks arrived. The family rented rooms at the same home where her brother William resided.

Shortly after moving into a new home along the San Antonio River, Maverick gave birth to her second child, Lewis Antonio Maverick, who became the first Anglo-American child to be born in and grow up in San Antonio. During the next few years, more Anglo families moved to San Antonio. Her brothers returned to Alabama, but William came back to Texas in 1839 with another brother, Andrew, to begin farming.

Maverick was often left alone, as her husband spent months traveling for business or combing the Texas wilderness on surveying missions. The Mavericks participated in the Council House Fight on March 19, 1840. Sixty-five Comanches arrived in San Antonio to bargain for the ransom of white captives. The Comanches had broken previous agreements to return the captives, and the army ordered that many members of the band be held until the captives were returned, and then the ransom would be paid. Maverick and a female neighbor had been watching several Indian children playing when they heard gunfire within the council house and saw Indians fleeing from the building. She alerted her husband and brother Andrew, and, while Samuel Maverick rushed outside to chase down the Indians, Maverick and Andrew hurried outside to find the children. They discovered three of the fugitive Indians in the back yard, while their slave cook, Jinny, tried to protect the two Maverick children and her own four children by threatening the Indians with a large rock. Andrew Adams shot two of the three Indians and joined the main fight. Maverick hid her children in the house and watched the battle through the windows. At one point she was curious enough to go outside for a closer look, but was ordered to return indoors by a soldier. The skirmish continued until all of the Indians were dead or captured. In her diary, Maverick wrote that "'All had a chance to surrender ... and every one who offered or agreed to give up was taken prisoner and protected.'"

Two days after the battle, Samuel Maverick again left his wife and children alone, under the protection of her two brothers. During Samuel Maverick's business trip, he sold many of his lands in South Carolina and Alabama, and bought two years worth of provisions, which he had shipped to Linville, Texas. Before he could escort the goods on to San Antonio, Linville was raided by a party led by Buffalo Hump, and all of their provisions were destroyed.

In December 1840, Maverick's aunt and uncle, John and Ann Bradley, arrived in Texas from Alabama along with their young children. Happy to be surrounded by family again, Maverick expanded her own family in April 1841 with the birth of her daughter Agatha. Later that year, Maverick's mother, Agatha Adams, planned a journey to visit them and to consider settling in Texas. She fell ill days before she was scheduled to leave, however, and died on October 2.