Editing Guadalupe County, Texas (section)

==History==
[[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|Indigenous]] [[Paleo-Indians|paleo-Indian]] [[hunter-gatherers]] were the first inhabitants of the area, thousands of years before European colonization. Later, historic Indian tribes settled in the area, including [[Tonkawa]], [[Karankawa]], [[Kickapoo people|Kickapoo]], [[Lipan Apache people|Lipan Apache]], and [[Comanche]].<ref name="Guadalupe County, Texas">{{cite web|last=Smyrl|first=Vivian Elizabeth|title=Guadalupe County, Texas|url=https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hcg12|work=Handbook of Texas Online|publisher=Texas State Historical Association|access-date=December 13, 2010}}</ref>

In 1689, [[Alonso de Leon]] named the Guadalupe River in honor of [[Our Lady of Guadalupe]].

In 1806, [[France|French]] army officer José de la Baume, who later joined the Spanish army, was rewarded for his services to Spain with title to {{convert|27000|acre|ha}} of Texas land, the original El Capote Ranch. The grant was reaffirmed by the [[Republic of Mexico]] after it achieved independence.<ref>[http://www.9key.com/markers/marker_detail.asp?atlas_number=5187001412 Texas Historical Marker, El Capote Ranch] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110928144350/http://www.9key.com/markers/marker_detail.asp?atlas_number=5187001412 |date=September 28, 2011 }}</ref>

Following [[Mexico]]'s independence from Spain, Anglo-Americans from the United States settled in Texas in 1821, and claimed Mexican citizenship. In 1825, Guadalupe County was part of [[Green DeWitt]]'s petition for a land grant to establish a [[DeWitt Colony|colony]] in Texas, which was approved by the Mexican government. From 1827 to 1835, 22 families settled the area as part of DeWitt's colony.<ref name="Guadalupe County, Texas"/>

Following [[Texas Declaration of Independence|Texas' gaining independence from Mexico]] (1836), 33 Gonzales Rangers and Republic veterans established Seguin. Founded as Walnut Springs in 1838, the settlement's name was changed to Seguin the next year to honor [[Juan Seguin|Juan Nepomuceno Seguín]], who had fought for independence.<ref name="Seguin, Texas">{{cite web|last=Gesick|first=John|title=Seguin, Texas|url=https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hes03|work=Handbook of Texas Online|publisher=Texas State Historical Association|access-date=December 13, 2010}}</ref>

In 1840, the [[Virginia]]n Michael Erskine acquired the El Capote Ranch<ref>{{cite book|last=Perry|first=Ann|title=A Guide to Hispanic Texas|year=1996|publisher=University of Texas Press|isbn=978-0-292-77709-5|author2=Smith, Deborah |author3=Simons, Helen |author4=Hoyt, Catheriine A |page=204}}</ref> for use as a cattle ranch. In 1842, the [[Republic of Texas]] organized Guadalupe County as a [[judicial county]]. The Texas Supreme Court declared judicial counties to be unconstitutional. In 1845, [[Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels]] secured title to {{convert|1265|acre|ha}} of the Veramendi grant in the northern part of the former judicial county.<ref name="Guadalupe County, Texas"/>

Following the [[Texas Annexation|annexation of Texas]] by the United States (1845),  [[Prussia]]n immigrant August Wilhelm Schumann arrived on the Texas coast aboard the SS'' Franziska'' in 1846, and purchased {{convert|188|acre|ha}} in Guadalupe County. Shortly thereafter, the state legislature established the present county from parts of [[Bexar County, Texas|Bexar]] and [[Gonzales County, Texas|Gonzales]] Counties.<ref name="Guadalupe County, Texas"/>

In 1846, during the war between the United States and Mexico, a wagon train of German immigrant settlers bought Guadalupe land from August Schumann. The following year, the town of [[Schumansville, Texas|Schumannsville]] was established by [[German people|German]] immigrants and named after him.<ref name="Guadalupe County, Texas"/> Numerous German immigrants entered Texas at Galveston following the [[revolutions of 1848 in German states]], settling in Guadalupe County and central Texas. After their own struggles, they tended to oppose slavery.

The last Indian raid into the area was made by the [[Kickapoo people|Kickapoo]] in 1855.<ref name="Guadalupe County, Texas"/>

By 1860, 1,748 [[slaves]] of African descent were in the county, generally brought in from the South by slaveholder migrants. In 1861, the people of the county voted 314–22 in favor of [[Texas in the American Civil War|secession]] from the Union. Guadalupe County sent several troops to fight for the [[Confederate States Army]]. Following the end of the Civil War and the [[abolitionism in the United States|emancipation]] of the slaves (1865), a [[Freedmen's Bureau]] office opened in 1866 in Seguin to supervise work contracts between former slaves and area farmers.<ref name="Freedman's Bureau">{{cite web|last=Harper|first=Cecil Jr.|title=Freedman's Bureau|url=https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/ncf01|work=Handbook of Texas Online|publisher=Texas State Historical Association|access-date=December 13, 2010}}</ref> Together, German Americans and African Americans joined the Republican Party, leading Guadalupe County to be a reliably Republican one into the 20th century,<ref name="kesselus">{{cite book|last=Kesselus|first=Ken|title=Alvin Wirtz, The Senator, LBJ, and LCRA|publisher=Eakin Press|place=Austin|year=2002|ISBN=1-57168-688-6}}</ref>{{page needed|date=February 2014}} even after the state [[Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era|disfranchisement]] of African Americans in 1901 by imposition of a poll tax.<ref name="yale">[https://www.jstor.org/stable/791091 "Nixon v. Condon. Disfranchisement of the Negro in Texas"], ''The Yale Law Journal'', Vol. 41, No. 8, June 1932, p. 1212, accessed March 21, 2008</ref>

By 1876, the [[Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway]] reached Seguin. It was completed as far as San Antonio the following year.<ref>{{cite web|last=Longhorn Chapter of the N.H.R.S.|title=Seguin and The Railroad|url=http://www.txtransportationmuseum.org/SEGUIN.htm|publisher=Texas transportation Museum, San Antonio|access-date=December 13, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090504054033/http://www.txtransportationmuseum.org/SEGUIN.htm|archive-date=May 4, 2009|url-status=dead}}</ref> By 1880, ethnic Germans accounted for 40% of the county population. [[Tenant farmer|Tenant farming]] and [[sharecropping]] accounted for the operation of 25% of the county's farms. By 1910, immigrants from Mexico accounted for about 11% of the country's population.

In 1929, oil was discovered at the Darst Creek oilfield.<ref>{{cite web|last=Smith|first=Julie Cauble|title=Darst Creek Oilfield|url=https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/dod05|work=Handbook of Texas Online|publisher=Texas State Historical Association|access-date=December 13, 2010}}</ref> By 1930, [[Tenant farmer|tenant farming]] and [[sharecropping]] comprised 64% of the county's farms.

Over the next five decades, the economy changed markedly, as the area became more urbanized and less dependent on agriculture. By 1982, professional and related services, manufacturing, and wholesale and retail trade involved nearly 60% of the workforce in the area.<ref name="Guadalupe County, Texas"/>