African Americans in the Texas Revolution

Joe, the man the plaque calls Joe Travis, was enslaved by William B. Travis. He said he fought beside Travis on March 6, 1836, then fired from inside a building; when he showed himself he was shot and bayoneted before a Mexican captain stopped it. Santa Anna questioned him. On March 20 he told his account to the Texas Cabinet, and William F. Gray praised its candor and clarity. Joe was then returned to Travis's estate near Columbia. On April 21, 1837, he escaped with two horses; the executor's fifty-dollar notice ran until August.

What the plaque says

African Americans in the Texas Revolution Many African Americans, free and slave, supported Texas during its 1835-36 War of Independence from Mexico. Although official recognition of the African American role was generally denied, recorded accounts of individual acts of bravery and patriotism survived. Hendrick Arnold distinguished himself as a guide and soldier for Ben Milam's Texas army at the Siege of Bexar and later at the Battle of San Jacinto. William E. (Bill) Goyens, a prominent African American businessman of Nacogdoches, served as an interpreter and liaison for Sam Houston during treaty negotiations with the Cherokee Indians at the outset of the war. Samuel McCullough, Jr., a freeman, was severely wounded in the Goliad campaign in late 1835 and later recognized by the Texas Congress as among the first to shed blood in the Texas War for Independence. Joe Travis was among the few defenders of the Alamo to survive the devastating siege by Mexican general Santa Anna in 1836. Travis later carried news of the battle to General Sam Houston. African Americans are counted among the Texas army massacred at Goliad, among those who contributed money and transported supplies for the Texas army, and among those who died defending the Alamo. (1994)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas State Capitol — steps away
  Austin's fourth statehouse, a Renaissance Revival capitol of 1888 that stands 311 feet to its Goddess of Liberty and was restored after the 1983 fire.
• Bullock Texas State History Museum — 0.6 mi
  The state's history museum at the head of Congress Avenue, built around the hull of La Salle's ship La Belle, raised from Matagorda Bay with 1.8 million artifacts.
• French Legation State Historic Site — 0.7 mi
  A raised pine house built in 1840 and 1841 for France's envoy to the Republic of Texas, who left Austin in a rage over a neighbor's pigs before it was finished.
• Harry Ransom Center — 0.8 mi
  The University of Texas archive where a Gutenberg Bible and the earliest surviving camera photograph are always on view, free, beside the papers of Watergate and the movies.

More markers nearby

• First Classes of the University of Texas Law School — steps away
• The Woman Suffrage Movement in Texas — steps away
• Governor Andrew Jackson Hamilton — steps away
• Governor James Edward Ferguson, Governor Miriam A. Ferguson — steps away