Before The Live Oaks Were Mesquites
From Indentured Servitude, to Steamboat Pilot, to Rancher, to the Leader of a Nation - a short retelling of the life of Richard King.
Perhaps it was a steamboat he saw, and asked for the schedule for when they dispatched rides as far away as possible from his home in New York City. Quite possibly it was an impulsive escape to get away from the choked air of this metropolis. Regardless, it was unlike many young boys or men to be so courageous, maybe even so stupid. This leap of faith, ultimately, would lead to a legacy and dynasty that has stood the test of time; a leap that would take this boy and turn him into the brave man who withstood war, bandits, attempted assassinations, extreme drought, and life on the range among those for whom he was not accustomed. Such was the motif for this rootless little Irish punk.
Nobody knows whether it was the indifference or outright neglect of his poor Irish family, the detachment from his indentured apprenticeship to a New York City jeweler, or the blood memory of the wide open grassy knolls of Ireland, but young Richard King in 1835, at the age of eleven, stowed away on a ship bound for the burgeoning, yet quaint, city of Mobile, Alabama.
With his curiosity and dedication, this young boy could have lived a merchant life, perhaps made it big shorting the Confederate Dollar in the War Between the States, or made outstanding return in the New York Stock Exchange. The world was in his eyes and he had infinite potential, but rather than becoming a big banker or businessman, he chose a life of freedom and wide open spaces right off the bat.
Later in life he would stay silent about his upbringing, and no soul would know of his past, other than his family being poor Irish immigrants, and him being raised from the age of eleven to nineteen by stern steamboat crewmen. No doubt his later love of liquor and unbridled hardiness was shaped by the likes of simple Southern men looking to make a good, honest living on the rivers of Dixie. The muddy, mosquito-laden environment of the river gave him a sense of comfort, as this environment would be where he spent the rest of his life, though it wasn’t in the riverbanks of Alabama and Mississippi, but the wet flatlands of South Texas.
After getting a tip from his best friend who was seven years his senior, the Quaker Mifflin Kenedy (for whom Kenedy, Texas would be named after), the twenty-two year-old Richard would embark on his journey westward to the young, wild state of Texas. Nobody knows where he got the money, as he likely spent every last nickel and dime plus leverage to pay for his acreage in the unknown lands of South Texas.
This young man who had grown accustomed to adapting now found himself growing acquainted to the local Mexicans, mimicking the vaqueros, and likely learning a lot from these modest people of the Coastal Prairie on how to be a good rancher. Many of these Mexicans he would ultimately employ who would go on to become his faithful Kineños (King’s men) that he would absorb into his own family.
After much blessing playing his hand in the cotton and cattle market of Texas, this once impoverished indentured servant turned steamboat pilot turned rancher on the wild lands of South Texas became a force to be reckoned with as he commanded tens of thousands of acres, loyal servants, and blessed with a lovely wife Henrietta King and their newborn baby daughter Nettie King. It was here, in 1856, that Captain King, as he was compassionately referred to, had a brush with death.
Late that year, a lone family - Richard, Henrietta, and baby Nettie - embarked on a journey southward to their cottage in Brownsville when a lone Mexican entered their modest encampment. They offered him a blanket to rest upon around their fire, and of course some delicious eats from the lady Henrietta, when this stranger pulled out a dagger and lunged at the Captain. Richard, from his years of tussling crewmates aboard Mississippi steamboats was ready, and grabbed the Mexican by the arm and threw him over his shoulders. Any cowboy would have shot or stabbed this buffoon where he laid, but in mercy, the modest rancher let him go with a warning.
In those days, before the live oaks were supplanted by mesquites, the air flowed bitterly with the scent of vengeance and envy. To the Texians, no good word could be said about the oppressive and corrupt Mexican government, and the subsequent angry banditos who seeked retribution for the perceived, and understandably, unjust conquering of their home. Yet, among the racial, nationalistic, cultural, and ecological tensions between Anglo-American, Old Stock Southerner, and Old Stock Tejano, there was a uniting force of Mister Richard King, who through action, seeked not only capital gain, but a land he owned that fostered love and unity among a warring, divided population where only crooked sheriffs, cattle-rustling cowboys, and vengeful vaqueros reigned.
However, nothing can be said for Richard’s courage, steadfastness, and unity between the two cohabitating races of Texas, than a dusty and dry night in 1864.
He had made himself a name in the Confederacy for the last three years as he was a giant hub for trading cotton, along with his good buddy Mifflin Kenedy. Foreign places as far as Western Europe and even the Middle East were eager to trade arms for cotton in his secret trading hub he made with Kenedy in Mexico. Soon enough, the Union got heed of his operations, and as the Confederacy waned in its dominance against its enemy, the reality of the Union galloping upon his giant ranch nationstate was on the horizon. The great General Robert E. Lee, a long-time friend of his who had his own quaint cottage on King’s ranch, was even an influence in a young Richard King’s move towards buying up land and never selling - specifically on the advice of a younger, yet still authoritative and wise Colonel Lee.
A rider hurriedly hastened upon the King’s homestead, a close friend of Richard’s, and passed along a message: “Captain, tonight a troop of Yankees are coming to your ranch. I know this. They say they are coming to arrest you. I came to tell you.” After years of being an enemy to the nation his poor Irish family migrated to, the tall, long-bearded, and weathered Captain King made the quick decision to leave his family behind under the protection of his Kineños, with Francisco Alvarado, a reliable and good friend of Richard, standing watch against anyone who would so much as think to lay a finger on his seven-months pregnant wife or their children.
The Captain set out with two other horsemen towards the border, a route he knew like the back of his hand, even as the dark shadow of night laid upon the distressed men. The last thing Mister Alvarado would here from his boss being, “Francisco, you go and sleep at my house and take care of my family. I have to leave now and I don’t know when I can return.”
At the homestead, the sounds of galloping drew nearer, shots rang out, the tyrannical boot of Lincoln was finally stomping upon the prosperous King territory. Telling La Madama that he must keep lookout so as the house wouldn’t be barged into and causing the deaths of the King family inadvertently, Henrietta told Alvarado to be careful. In the stomping wake of audacious Union cavalry running up on this peaceful homestead, Mister Alvarado yelled out, “Don’t fire on this house! There is a family here —,” a steel ball smashed into him before he could finish speaking, killing him near instantly, and he fell to the ground. A loyal servant of the Captain, in protection of the family who treated him so kindly, brashly murdered and casted aside like a bag of meat by Union soldiers.
Barging into the home of the Kings, the severely pregnant Henrietta was pushed aside as soldiers broke into every room searching for the Captain, piercing beds, angrily yelling for him to come out.
After taking several Mexicans as prisoners, and leaving the King family alone at the house, the disorderly lot of Northerners galloped off away from their land - the carcass of a one Francisco Alvarado left as a testament to their peace-bringing, freedom-fighting operation.
After the war, the Captain would manage and expand his land well beyond the 15,000 he started off with. He would die from stomach cancer in 1885, at the age of sixty, in San Antonio, Texas. Henrietta would live well past his death, not remarrying. When she passed on in 1925, oilmen, politicians, businessmen Texas-round would come to her funeral, but none more than the hundreds of Kineños who trekked days just to pay their respects to the matriarch of the land they’d become so ingratiated.
In present day, the giant territory, larger than the state of Rhode Island at 825,000 acres, standing as a testament to the wild, pioneering spirit of a rootless, poor son of Irish immigrants stands as the largest ranch in the United States. Upon the prairies, the waving hills, the windy southern dust, the mesquite, oak, and ebony trees, stands the King Ranch.
What can be said for the cowboy? Is he nothing more than a rootless robber baron without a home or identity? Or perhaps, he is a special hybrid of nomad and homesteader - unafraid of the unknown, but still honestly seeking to make a good, honest, God-fearing society out of wild, pagan lands.
Much can be said for many American cowboys and sheriffs, but nothing hits to the heart of American heroism than the stoic who was Richard King. He was obviously a quiet, yet hardy and adaptable man who didn’t seek just fortune and fame, but family and legacy. In what was essentially foreign territory, he grew close to not just the Anglo-Americans looking to fashion a homestead in the west, but the Tejanos and Mexicans for whom he welcomed in open arms into his own family. Beyond race, beyond nation, beyond fame, beyond riches, the Captain seeked love for which he was never afforded, and because of his mercy and kindness, he grew one of the largest and most sturdy legacies in American history. For that, the ephemeral chasing of pride, power, and money is shown for the meaningless endeavor that it is when the superiority of everlasting love is allowed to prosper.
The Captain could have killed that bandit, usuriously taken advantage of Mexicans and poor white Americans, acted as a subversive against the Confederacy, and put money before his family, but he made it the object of his life to enforce an agrarian and hierarchical lifestyle that was built on the rural, wide open ranges of South Texas. In love and mercy there is a growth of trust and beauty that knows no bounds. Well before the live oaks died off, and the mesquites took over - Captain Richard King, a testament to the Spirit of Texas.
“You who live your lives in cities or among peaceful ways cannot always tell whether your friends are the kind who would go through fire for you. But on the Plains one's friends have an opportunity to prove their mettle.”
William Frederick Cody, AKA Buffalo Bill
Thanks for the history lesson!
I've been to King Ranch, as a farm owner it's impressive in ot of ways...