I'd always wondered what the full story was behind the small statue at 7th and Congress of a defiant woman firing a cannon. I knew that she was protecting the state government archives in Austin from people trying to move them to Houston, but I never really knew where that colorful episode fit into the larger history of Austin. Kerr has written an exhaustively detailed history that answers just about any question a curious reader might have about that incident, as well as provides an interesting look at the early history of Texas and the colorful politicians who were in charge.

In large part, the history of the Republic of Texas is the history of the conflict between Sam Houston and Mirabeau Lamar. Houston's name is still well-known today, but arguably Lamar, a fierce enemy of Houston's, was just as important to the state's future. Fittingly for someone with the middle name Buonaparte, he was obsessed with the idea that Texas' destiny lay in aggressive expansion, like a mini-USA. In an echo over the mother country's protracted negotiations over the location of Washington, DC, one of the major internal arguments once Texas had won its independence was over where its capital should be. Houston and his supporters argued that it made more sense to locate the capital in the east, somewhere near the coast. That would not only make it safe from Indian attacks and raids from Mexican forces, but also more convenient to the majority of the population (perhaps not coincidentally, a major candidate was the burgeoning city of Houston, then newly founded by the enterprising Allen brothers). Lamar and his supporters, in contrast, argued that locating the capital to the west was essential to help Texas press its vaguely-defined border as far out as possible, befitting the seat of government of a hopefully great, continent-spanning nation. True, there were few settlers out west, and any city would not only have to be created from scratch but constantly defended, but it made sense to start promoting new trade routes and frontier settlements as quick as possible as a spur to growth.

This core-periphery debate continued for a surprisingly long time, much longer than the equivalent Hamilton-Jefferson debate in the USA. Part of that seems to have been the typically lower competence of frontier governments compared to the centuries of experience in government possessed by the Thirteen Colonies, while another part seems to have been the lower population and resources of what was then a mostly empty, underpopulated region. Part also was due to the different attitudes of the men. Houston was a lifelong friend of the Indians and made no secret of the fact that he thought Texas should join the US as quickly as possible. Lamar hated the Indians and thought that Texas should make its name on its own. Since Texas' status as a slaveholding region meant that its admission to the Union would be difficult, once Houston's first term was up Lamar intended to steer Texas to its own destiny. While Kerr doesn't spend much time on the debate between the two beyond the location of the capital, it's a noteworthy historical irony that Texas' eventual near-bankruptcy and bailout by the US was due mostly to Lamar's attempts to finance the rapid development of Texas by deficit spending and money-printing, even as Lamar's legacy of education and infrastructure plans would be crucial to its future (to this day, the University of Texas' motto of "The cultivated mind is the guardian genius of democracy" is a quote of Lamar's, an avid amateur poet).

Austin itself plays a small role in the story until later. Sam Houston once called its location "the most unfortunate site on earth for a seat of government", which any good Austinite will scoff at compared to the sullen swamps of his own namesake town, but in the 1830s the advantages of its physical beauty were outweighed in most minds by the fact that it was difficult to get to. There were no civilized roads connecting it to either San Antonio or anything on the coasts, and the constant threat of the marauding Mexican army and sporadic Indian attacks made settlement a dicey proposition (the fact that most Indian attacks were retaliations for similar atrocities perpetrated on them seems never to have occurred to the white settlers). Kerr covers the perpetual wandering of the capital starting at Washington-on-the-Brazos, then to Harrisburg, Galveston, Velasco, Columbia, Houston, and finally Austin, after great debate and legislation appropriating the funds. However, in those early days legislation was often considered somewhat flexible according to whoever was in charge. Lamar may have gotten Austin established, but when his term expired Houston retook the reins and used a rumor of a Mexican invasion as an excuse to try to have the seat of government moved back to Houston.

That's where the statue of the cannon comes in. Even though Houston and most of the government had left the small and frightened town, all of the state archives were still there, which caused confusion and frustration for people who wanted to settle or build and found they had to go to two different places. A delegation was sent to retrieve the archives and bring them back east. Local Angelina Eberly spotted them packing their wagons full of documents and fired a cannon to warn the other townsfolk, who caught up with the delegation just outside of town and forced them to relinquish their plunder. Houston grudgingly let the matter drop temporarily, until his successor and the final president of Texas Anson Jones found a more permanent solution. With the added time, Austin eventually became strong enough to win two more votes confirming its status as state capital, where it has remained ever since.

This book is full of people who will be familiar to anyone who pays attention when looking at street names and landmarks - David Burnet, Edwin Waller, Kenneth Anderson, Edward Burleson are all discussed, and of course Houston, Lamar, and Jones - and is about the most complete work you could expect about its subject. I was expecting a quick overview of the funny story behind Angelina Eberly's cannon, and got a lot more than that. Take that, Houston! ( )

Modern observers know that the business of politics is a nasty one. Jeffrey Stuart Kerr’s Seat of Empire reminds us, however, that as politics goes, it is simply business as usual, that little has changed since the founding of this country – or since the earliest days of Texas history. Here, Kerr tells the story behind the “birth of Austin, Texas,” a city forever linked to the personal feud between the first two presidents of the Republic of Texas: Sam Houston and Mirabeau B. Lamar.

Lamar was determined to create a permanent capitol for the new republic on the site of a hill whose natural beauty he fell in love with while on a remote buffalo hunt. Houston was determined that the permanent capitol of Texas be located just about anywhere else, and preferably far to the east of Lamar’s chosen site. (One would suspect that Lamar felt equally strongly that the permanent capitol would be anywhere but its present location, Houston, the city named after his despised political rival.)

Lamar’s vision was on shaky grounds from the beginning. Sam Houston, the hero of San Jacinto - the battle that effectively gave birth to the Republic of Texas - was not the only politician against setting the country’s capitol in an area so remote that it could not be securely protected from Comanche raids and Mexican army invasions from the south. Other prominent Texas politicians lobbied to have the new capitol placed in cities more convenient to, and more likely to be an economic godsend for, their own constituencies.

Kerr details how Lamar and his backers were finally able to pull off the coup that would create the built-from-scratch city that became the last capitol the Republic of Texas would know – and the only capitol that the State of Texas has ever had. As Kerr puts it, “The city of Austin was born in 1839, almost died in the early 1840s, and sprang back to life thereafter…the explanation begins with a buffalo hunt.”

State of Empire is an eye-opener for those (including, I suspect, most Texans) who do not know the colorful history of Austin’s founding. Those who know the modern city’s streets well will find it difficult to envision Comanche raids on the same ground so bold and horrific that they came close to forcing abandonment of the new settlement. Somehow, largely due to a handful of brave and determined citizens, Austin survived long enough for the rest of the Republic to catch up with it.

Bottom Line: State of Empire will be of particular interest to Texas readers but will also benefit Sam Houston and Mirabeau B. Lamar scholars and historians more generally interested in this period of Texas history. The book is aimed at general readers but includes a generous number of annotations, and enough bibliographic material, to lead scholars to other sources of detail concerning the birth of Austin, Texas. ( )