Robert Field Stockton was the principal officer who brought to President Tyler the annexation of the Republic of Texas for the United States.
To understand how this came about, you need to go back just a bit to the dysfunction in Europe.
The French Revolution lopped off the head of King Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antionette. The power vacuum led to Napoleon taking over France and aiming at the rest of Europe. Spain, led by Charles IV, tried to be a neutral ally to Napoleon.
Charles’ domineering wife, Maria Luisa of Parma and Prime Minister Manuel de Godoy were handling most of Spain’s affairs, while the king mostly enjoyed hunting and sport. Godoy was rumored to be sleeping with the Queen, which soured them with the people. Then they made a fatal mistake. To raise revenue, they ordered the sale of assets held by church corporations.
In New Spain, the missions had been the source of capital in their communities. For example, Alta California was comprised of 21 Pacific coast missions, each separated by a day’s ride. The missions acted like banks, writing mortgages on new buildings and property. The new laws would foreclose on these mortgages, and the ranchers and settlers faced financial ruin. They wanted independence. The Spanish empire was crumbling.
Fedinand VII forced his father Charles IV to abdicate. Napoleon didn’t trust either of them, and he put his brother Joseph Bonaparte on the Spanish throne. When Napoleon’s empire fell, Ferdinand returned to the throne but suspended the constitution. New Spain (Mexico) considered the crown to be illegitimate. After eleven years of uprisings, rebels in Mexico forced the viceroy to agree to a treaty of Mexican independence in 1821.
Upon its independence, Mexican leaders knew that their holdings were sparsely populated, particularly in their north and eastern frontier. Texas had very few significant settlements, except at San Antonio and a port at Galveston. The region was mostly occupied by bands of the Apache nation. The Mexicans encouraged American settlement.
1836 Republic of Texas map
By the 1830s, Texans were demanding American-style laws, while new Mexican President Antonio Lopez Santa Ana suspended the Mexican constitution after civil unrest.
The Texans, under the command of Stephen F. Austin, skirmished and then took the Alamo, a former mission, then a fortification in San Antonio, scattering the Mexican army.
In February 1836 Santa Ana led a regrouped Mexican army of 2,000 men to retake the Alamo. After a 13-day siege, William Travis, Davy Crockett, and Jim Bowie elected to fight to the death with 200 men. By daybreak, 400-600 of the Mexicans had been killed, and every Texan was dead. The Alamo was lost, but the Texas leaders declared their independence. Santa Ana was drawn out to capture the Republic’s leadership and met Sam Houston’s Texas Volunteers on the banks of the San Jacinto River in April 1836. The Mexican Army was decimated to cries of “Remember the Alamo” and Santa Ana was captured. He negotiated a treaty of Texas Independence.
The Alamo ruins as painted in 1847.
The first election in the Republic voted Sam Houston President and the voters were 3,277 to 91 in favor of joining the USA. Mexico warned the US that any attempt to annex Texas would result in war.
Martin Van Buren did not want war and left the Republic of Texas independent.
Now we can go back to Stockton.
With the Princeton repaired, Captain Stockton patrolled the Gulf of Mexico unchallenged and gathered intelligence.
James Polk ran the 1844 Presidential race to succeed John Tyler with the slogan “54.40 or fight”. It was a reference to the Northwest Territories, which had been jointly held by Great Britain and the United States after the War of 1812.
The Hudson Bay Company had control of the vast area and ran operations in British Columbia up to the 54th parallel. Adventurous Americans had struck west and were settling the Willamette Valley via the Oregon Trail. Some in Congress wanted war with Britain to keep them off the Pacific coast. The debate over the Northwest also renewed the call for Texas annexation.
With Mexico lacking a strong military, and the opportunity for provocation in America’s favor, Tyler near the end of his term asked Stockton to see if the Republic of Texas would negotiate for annexation. Robert brought the triumphant news home aboard the Princeton. However, the Senate failed to ratify the annexation treaty.
In 1845, Commodore Stockton was given command of the 52-gun frigate Congress, with instructions to set sail for the Sandwich Islands in early October. It was a flagship, and he would command a small squadron. Commodore is a temporary term that captains used when they had command of more than one vessel. Like governor or colonel, it was also a title unofficially used to show respect to senior members of the Navy who had achieved the captain rank. He would be referred to as The Commodore by most historians from this point forward.
Robert was ready for battle. He knew the USA was likely to be at war along the Pacific coast with Mexico, Britain, or both, and this mission to take Anthony Ten Eyk as US commissioner to the Hawaiian Islands was frustrating. He knew half the fleet was along the California coast. His letter to the Secretary of the Navy reeked of disappointment. He was carrying civilians and “women and children.” There were no shortcuts. He would have to sail around the tip of South America and halfway across the Pacific.
His mission also contained sealed orders from Polk, not to be opened until he was in the open sea.
Stockton stopped in Galveston. He wrote the Secretary of the Navy and relayed that Mexico was planning for war. “War now exists and as any & every man here fights on his 'own hook’”
Stockton knew the flash point. If Texas positioned troops south of the Nueces River into disputed territory, about one hundred miles north of the Rio Grande, it would spark a Mexican reaction. The Congress spent a week in port. They threw a farewell ball for the Commodore. He then sailed his squadron south along the Mexican coast hoping to trigger a conflict before annexation would be passed via a joint act of Congress, which only required a simple majority. He worried annexation might cause the US to get way less than they could from war. He and Polk had eyes on California. Stockton sailed to Hawaii thinking he might miss out on the most important action of his career. His orders would make him the commander of the Pacific fleet, but only after he sailed back from Honolulu.