Winter 2016

Jane Long
“Mother of Texas”
WRITTEN BY BRENDA BEUST SMITH
PHOTOS COURTESY OF TOM OLSEN, CLAUDIA PERKINS AND JANE LONG SOCIETY MEMBERS
Most Texans know her name.
She’s the “Mother of Texas.”
Unfortunately, that’s usually all
they know about Jane Long. Aside
from an obligatory paragraph in
almost every school history book, few Texans realize
Jane Long was a Texas Revolution hero who not only
assisted the likes of Sam Houston, Stephen F. Austin,
William Barrett Travis and Mirabeau B. Lamar, she was
courted by many of them!
“She was one of the most
politically powerful women
in Texas in the early 1800s,
a time when women were
supposed to give birth and
do little else. That is the truly
amazing thing about Jane
Long,“ explains Helen Mooty
of the Galveston County
Historical Commission.
Jane Herbert Wilkinson
Long was a 22-year-old
Mississippi heiress who, in
1819, followed her husband
James Long to the new and often treacherous land
known as Spanish Texas. James was a filibuster,
a leader of soldiers who arrived in then contested
territory to help unhappy settlers declare their right to
independence.
Determined to establish a Republic of Texas, James
and the majority of his troops left Jane in September
1821, on Bolivar Peninsula, just a few miles east across
a narrow water stretch from Galveston Island. The
“Pioneer Woman brave and true
Yes, Jane Long was a lady
Who did what she had to do”
—“The Ballad of Jane Long”
Original score by Bruce Haire
Lyrics by Linda C. Elissalde
famous pirate, Jean Laffite, had only a short time,
previously been headquartered in his Campeche
compound on the isle’s eastern end. Karankawa Indians
(supposedly cannibalistic) held sway on Galveston’s
western end.
James assured Jane he would return, to stay put.
Neither realized the coming winter would be the worst
on record to that date. Nor did they realize Long’s
remaining soldiers would desert, leaving Jane, then
pregnant, the only adult with two very young girls on
that otherwise uninhabited
peninsula.
Most of what we actually
know about Jane comes
from Mirabeau B. Lamar
(later to become President
of the new Republic) and his
numerous interviews with
her. These, plus anecdotal
sources, tell us:
• Jane was actually
threatened by the
Karankawa Indians who tried
to sail across the narrow
channel separating Galveston’s tip from Bolivar.
Some historians say Jane used her red petticoat as
a flag and uniforms left by the deserters to trick the
Karankawas into thinking her Bolivar compound was
still occupied by some of her husband’s soldiers.
• During that horrendous winter, Jane gave birth
to her second daughter, with only the other two
children in attendance, prompting the “Mother of
Texas” accolade.
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