James Long

James Long (February 9, 1793 – April 8, 1822) was an American filibuster who led an unsuccessful expedition to seize control of Spanish Texas between 1819 and 1821. Early life James Long was born in Culpeper County, Virginia, in 1793. He became a U.S. Army surgeon and served at the Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812. He married Jane Herbert Wilkinson Long in 1815, settled in Natchez, Mississippi, after the war, and served as a doctor at Port Gibson. In 1817, Long owned a plantation in Vicksburg. Filibustering Many American and French settlers of the American South were opposed to the Adams–Onís Treaty of 1819 that settled the border dispute between the United States and New Spain. It aroused such strong opposition in Natchez that prominent citizens planned a filibustering expedition to conquer Spanish Texas and placed Long in command. Long teamed up with José Félix Trespalacios, a Mexican who had escaped imprisonment for fomenting rebellion against Spanish rule in Mexico. The rhetoric surrounding their first expedition received a great deal of attention, and about 200 men including Jim Bowie and Ben Milam gathered in Natchez in early 1819 for the planned invasion of Texas. Long also attempted to recruit the French pirate Jean Lafitte and his men, but Lafitte turned him down. Several of Long's recruits were former French soldiers who had started and quickly abandoned a settlement in Texas known as the Champ d'Asile in 1818. By June 1819, the so-called Long Expedition had arrived in Texas and successfully captured Nacogdoches. His followers proclaimed Long the first president of the new "Republic of Texas" (unrelated to the later Republic of Texas that was the result of the Texas Revolution), also called the "Long Republic". Despite this initial success, Long's independent republic lasted just four months. His army eventually grew restless and many men returned to the United States, and a Spanish expedition routed Long and his remaining followers in October 1819. Long escaped to Natchitoches, Louisiana.