When you read the words Texas Ranger or see an image of a Ranger, what comes to mind? The roots of today’s Texas Rangers trace back to the first days of Anglo-American settlement of the Mexican province of Coahuila y Tejas, in what is now Texas. And, while now recognized as one of the most highly-respected law enforcement agencies in the world, the early history of the Texas Rangers is one of economic expansion, rugged determination, taming of rugged land, and a complicated relationship with Mexico. And, as such, not unlike what can be said about Texas.
By the early 1820s, the Mexican War of Independence had subsided, Mexico was newly independent, and at the urging of the young Mexican government, some 60 to 70 families had settled north into land that would become known as Texas. Because there was no regular army to protect the citizens against attacks by native tribes and bandits, in 1823, Stephen F. Austin organized small, informal armed groups whose duties required them to range over the countryside from the Brazos River north to present-day Dallas, and who thus came to be known as “rangers.”
The Empressario of Texas employs the first “rangers”
Austin was an empressario (Spanish for entrepreneur) of Texas, and it was in that capacity that he wrote to Mexican Emporer Agustín de Iturbide on August 4, 1823, that he would “ … employ ten men … to act as rangers for the common defense … the wages I will give said ten men is fifteen dollars a month payable in property … “
While there is some discussion as to when Austin actually employed men as “rangers,” Texas Ranger lore dates the anniversary year of their organization to this event. The unique characteristics that the Rangers adopted during the force’s formative years and that give the division its heritage today — characteristics for which the Texas Rangers would become world-renowned — have been accounted for by the nature of the Rangers’ original duties, which was to protect a thinly populated frontier against protracted hostilities, first with Plains Indian tribes, and after the Texas Revolution, repeated hostilities with Mexico.
