For the better administration of justice: the legal culture of Texas, 1820-1836

Abstract

Texas underwent monumental changes during the years from 1820 to 1836 as the area developed from a Spanish province into a Mexican department before becoming an independent republic. An evolving legal system accompanied these political changes. Early immigrants to Texas from the United States found in their new home an unfamiliar judicial doctrine based on the Hispanic tradition of a civil code. The settlers carried with them a different heritage, however, one that reflected English and American faith in the common law. Consequently, the encounter between two legal cultures and the resultant effort to establish a viable judicial system constituted a significant element in shaping early Texas. Scholars have long recognized that the convergence between the Hispanic and the American traditions gives Texas a unique system of civil law. The growth of criminal law, on the other hand, has attracted less attention, leaving an important current in Texas history unexplored. Over time, Texans rejected much of Hispanic jurisprudence. Although the Anglo-American immigrants at first accepted Mexican practices, the settlers clung to some of their judicial customs, particularly jury trials and circuit courts. Their insistence on maintaining familiar legal institutions entwined with other concerns that led to war with Mexico, and following independence Texans established a framework for criminal law that clearly reflected their American heritage. Consequently, they created a legal culture in Texas similar to the one they had known in the United States, particularly in Alabama and Tennessee. Endeavors in Texas to fashion an effective criminal justice system occurred at the same time that reformers in the United States were campaigning for the democratization of the judiciary and the mitigation of capital and corporal sentences. The history of crime and punishment in early Texas, then, shows how Americans responded to an alien legal environment. The creation of the Lone Star Republic reveals, in addition, how they responded to changing attitudes toward their own judicial heritage.