Following the Civil War, Texas was still a frontier society—the majority of the population lived in rural areas and the predominantly male population retained a frontier mentality. However, signs that the state was moving toward modernity included formation of new towns, increase in railroad track laid, the growth of labor unions, and innovations in education.

Postwar Texas Society

The population grew significantly during the postwar era. Most “in-migrants” were from the devastated south. With the pacification of the Indian peoples and their confinement on reservations, cattlemen, farmers and their families, and accompanying social institutions and railroad lines were soon pushing westward. South Texas also looked promising—cheap land and cheap labor. A small but significant influx of American and European civilians included such men as Mifflin Kenedy and Richard King who became wealthy independent ranchers. Slowly, there was a transition toward commercial farming as South Texas acreage was converted to farmland. Unfortunately, fraud played a significant role in this process as many Mexican grantees were dispossessed of their lands.

However, the turmoil of the postwar era permitted the Comanches to regain control of western territory. The U. S. government responded with a continuation of the policy of displacement. A line of defensive forts was reestablished, but the forts were spaced too far apart to effectively eliminate Indian raids. Colonel Ranald Slidell Mackenzie led a new U. S. Army military offensive that followed the Salt Creek Massacre in 1871. Destruction of Indian pony herds and entire Indian villages had its intended effect—by 1873, the frequency of Comanche raids decreased markedly.

The last remaining Plains Indian tribes lacked farms or an efficient infrastructure to stem the relentless tide of white settlers pushing westward. Disease, alcoholism and a new reliance on consumer goods acquired from whites eroded traditional skills and culture but the most devastating factor was the destruction of the great buffalo herds. By the 1880s the Indian peoples were destitute with no other choice but to relinquish their independence.

The Cattle Kingdom

The Texas Cattle Kingdom era began as the Civil War drew to a close and lasted until the mid-1880s. Once new stock restored the war-depleted herds in the North, the price of beef skyrocketed. The Chisholm Trail, the Great Western Trail and the Goodnight-Loving Trail were marked and posted. By the late 1870s, “land and cattle companies” dominated more than half the rangeland and livestock in the South Plains and Panhandle. Even so, Texas cattle drives did not stand the test of time. Severe winters and extended droughts in the mid-1800’s dealt the final blow and barbed-wire became the symbol of the modern cattle industry.

Farmers also pushed westward as new railroads lured many to “new centers of commerce…” (186) such as Abilene, Sweetwater, Big Spring, Midland and Odessa, Amarillo, and Lubbock.

Sheep ranching was introduced into the Wild Horse Desert (the Rio Grande plain) but did not thrive in the region until the 1870s and then was short-lived; overgrazing, severe droughts, hard freezes, and drops in the price of wool weakened the industry in South Texas. The sheep and goat industry, as well as the cattle industry, then moved into the Edwards Plateau where it became a major producer of sheep (mutton) and wool. It was also an ideal region in which to raise Angora goats. Texas was second only to California in the number of sheep in 1886.

Violence and Lawlessness

Lawlessness and violence dominated the period of Reconstruction through the 1890s. Historians have tried to explain the violence by citing the bitterness arising out of the Civil War and Reconstruction but Indian warfare, banditry, racial tension, unrest among agrarians and ranchers, and the unsettling aspects of modernization and a closing frontier were also instigating factors.

Vigilante movements surfaced in a region bounded by Houston, the Hill Country, and the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Some were family feuds while others were community conflicts. The most notorious was the Sutton-Taylor feud stemming from the bitterness of the Civil War. Lynchings by “White cappers” (white racist vigilantes) motivated the Legislature to pass an anti-lynching law in 1897, but the measure did little to deter racially motivated brutality.

Violence and vigilantism impacted the Tejano community as well. Raids by Mexican nationals upon thousands of unbranded cattle [mavericks] that roamed the area between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande led to the Cattle Wars, which lasted until the late 1870s. Many peaceful Mexican farmers and ranchers were also victimized. Harassment and persecution increased as a direct result of Catarino Garza’s attempt to use South Texas as his base for launching a revolution against Mexican President Porfirio Diaz. Other acts of violence were demonstrated in  the Salt War and the Rio Grande City Riot of 1888.

Texas Rangers, often overstepping the very laws they sought to enforce, aided in collecting taxes, protecting prisoners from vigilante mobs, maintaining the peace during sensational court cases, monitoring elections,  mediating  labor strikes, and enforcing quarantines against diseases. They also tracked down outlaws and protected the frontier.

Urban and Rural Texas

Although Texas remained overwhelmingly agrarian, cities began to swell. San Antonio led the way in terms of growth; the four other largest cities were situated in the eastern half of the state: Houston, Dallas, Galveston and Fort Worth. However, as late as 1900, Texas cities lagged behind other U. S. towns in urban and industrial development but also lacked tenement housing, systems of mass transportation and visible (European) ethnic enclaves. 

Minority and Ethnic Groups in the Postwar Era

Black Texans, concentrated in East Texas, lacked self-sustaining black communities. The church was the most influential social force, serving to develop leadership qualities among blacks. Benevolent associations and mutual aid societies also helped to sustain community and build racial solidarity. In the isolated West Texas frontier, the military provided sustenance, leadership training and racial solidarity. The buffalo soldiers, in spite of prejudice and segregation, made significant contributions to the peace, security, and settlement of West Texas.

On the other hand, Mexican Americans were ethnically segregated into poverty-stricken communities known as barrios. In Hispanic South Texas towns (Laredo, Brownsville) only the larger barrios displayed a semblance of self-sufficiency. Tejanos’ sheer numbers helped them maintain cultural traditions, the mother tongue, and familial structures they honored. Eventually political participation drew them into mainstream culture; and in areas where Tejanos predominated, Tejano mayors and other local and state government officials were elected.

By 1887, the number of Germans in Texas had increased dramatically to 130,000, representing more than half of all European immigrants in the state. Slavs, Czechs, Wends, Poles, Dutch, and Greeks composed the rest of the European element. Of the small contingent of Asians, the Chinese were the most visible. Most were male who did not intermarry. In Robertson County, however, Chinese did wed local black women, begetting the “black Chinese” found in modern-day Calvert. Each group blended its distinctive features into Texas culture.

Overall, the legal status of women had changed little since antebellum times. No woman could bring suit, sit on a jury, vote, or hold public office. They could not purchase property in their own name or dispose of it without the consent of their husbands. Married women stayed home to take care of their family while they tilled fields and maintained the household garden, accomplishing “men’s work” diligently. Single women worked outside the home only until they married; however, many married women were forced to take up domestic service — washing and ironing, or taking in boarders to supplement the family income.

The number of women employed as teachers and nurses increased significantly in these years. Women’s labors were evident in the teaching profession but also increasingly manifest in organizational efforts on behalf of social reform.

The Legacy of the Frontier

Texas was transformed in the last quarter of the nineteenth century as native peoples were displaced. The struggle for territorial supremacy had been international, but Anglo Texans established their hold over the state once and for all. New technology pushed people westward, helped them exploit the land and natural resources, and then facilitated the transportation of crops and products to market.

A self-confidence and individualism born in that frontier adventure developed. Its legacy was not all positive. Arrogance often expressed itself at the expense of others, namely racial and ethnic minorities. The push westward was also accompanied by violence, greed, and wastefulness. Both positive and negative attitudes persisted into the new industrial/urban age that came with the new century.