Hendrick Arnold Land Grant

Despite his military service in the Revolution, a Texas veteran's citizenship faced scrutiny in the new Republic.

Hendrick Arnold (unknown–1849) was a free Black man who moved to Texas from Mississippi and settled with his parents on the Brazos River in 1826. Arnold's father was white and his mother was Black, but his race didn’t effect his ability to live freely in Mexican Texas. After Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1821 it abolished its racial caste system and began to slowly curb the practice of slavery. However, the status of slavery and the rights of Black citizens changed when Texas gained independence.

Arnold was living in San Antonio in 1835 when fighting broke out in the first major campaign of the Texas Revolution. Mexican forces under General Martín Perfecto de Cos occupied San Antonio and fortified positions in the town plaza and San Antonio de Valero Mission, also known as the Alamo. Arnold volunteered to act as a guide for the Texan forces, to provide information about the terrain, scout Mexican positions, and to advise commanders on the movement of Texan soldiers.

The Siege of Bexar lasted from October through December 1835 as Texans attacked Mexican forces, disrupted their supply lines, and cut off reinforcements. The final action of the campaign involved an ambush by three divisions of Texan forces, one of which was led by Colonel Ben Milam. Hendrick Arnold served as the guide for Milam's division. General Cos surrendered on December 9, 1835, and afterward an official report on the battle credited Arnold for his important service. Arnold went on to serve as a spy at the Battle of San Jacinto, the final battle of the Revolution.

After the Texas Revolution, the first constitution of the Republic of Texas reinforced it's commitment to legalized slavery and barred emancipated people from living in Texas without legislative permission. In 1837, Congress decided that free Black Texans who were in Texas before independence, like Arnold, could remain. That same year the Republic approved an act that provided land grants to veterans. As a result, Arnold was awarded 640 acres of land on December 22, 1838. Despite this award and previous Congressional action, the 1840 Act Concerning Free Persons of Color reversed previous legislation and again required free Black Texans to seek permission from Congress to remain in the Republic.

Although he never formally petitioned to remain in Texas himself, Hendrick Arnold claimed the land awarded to him in a lightly populated area northwest of Bandera on the Medina River. He was able to secure neighboring land for his grandmother and father, who were white, and his brother Holly who passed as white. Hendrick Arnold died in 1849 as the result of a cholera epidemic, but a few months later a resolution passed the Texas House of Representatives that permitted his daughter, Harriet, to remain in the state as a free Black woman.