Texas

• 1. Introduction

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  Texas stretches across 268,596 square miles of the southern United States, a territory so vast that it would rank as the 39th-largest country on earth if it stood alone. From the piney woods of East Texas to the desert mountains of the Big Bend, from the Gulf Coast marshes to the high plains of the Panhandle, no single landscape defines it. That variety is part of what makes Texas so difficult to categorize and so hard to stop thinking about once you start.

  The name itself comes from the Caddo word meaning 'friend.' The Spanish applied it first to the Caddo people, specifically the Hasinai Confederacy. By the time the republic was declared in 1836, the word had traveled through centuries of colonial maps and legal documents, Spanish missions and frontier disputes, to land on a flag bearing a single star.

  That star tells a compressed story: a territory claimed by Spain, absorbed by Mexico, torn free by revolution, governed briefly as its own republic, and folded into the United States as the 28th state in 1845. No other American state carries that particular sequence of sovereignties. And no other American state has since managed to project its identity so forcefully outward, making the Texas cowboy, the Texas oil field, and the Texas boom economy into images recognized across the world.

  How did one place accumulate so many transformations? What forces shaped the economy that now posts a gross state product larger than the GDP of Brazil? Who actually lives in Texas today, and what do the patterns of settlement, language, and religion reveal about where the state is heading? Those questions run through this documentary.

• 2. Deep Roots, Many Nations

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  Long before European contact, Texas sat at the crossroads of three major cultural spheres: the Ancestral Puebloans from the upper Rio Grande region to the west, the Mississippian Mound Builders extending along the Mississippi River Valley to the east, and the civilizations of Mesoamerica to the south. No single culture dominated what would become Texas. Influence from Teotihuacan in northern Mexico peaked around AD 500 before declining between the 8th and 10th centuries.

  When Europeans first arrived, the languages spoken across the territory included Caddoan, Atakapan, Athabaskan, Coahuiltecan, and Uto-Aztecan, along with several language isolates such as Tonkawa. The Caddo controlled much of the northeastern part of the state, farming along the Red, Sabine, and Neches River basins. The Karankawa lived along the central coast; Atakapan peoples such as the Akokisa and Bidai occupied the northeastern Gulf Coast. At least one Coahuiltec group, the Aranama, lived in southern Texas, though their entire culture group, primarily centered in northeastern Mexico, is now extinct.

  The Spanish were most interested in the Caddo, who, like the Spanish themselves, were a settled agricultural people. Spanish missionaries opened several missions in Caddo territory, but few Caddo converted. Positioned between French Louisiana to the east and Spanish Texas to the west, the Caddo maintained relationships with both colonial powers, though they were closer with the French. After Spain took control of Louisiana, most of the eastern Texas missions were closed and abandoned.

  The first president of the Republic of Texas, Sam Houston, aimed to cooperate with Native tribes. His successor, Mirabeau B. Lamar, took a far more hostile stance. Aggressive expansionism and systematic hostility sanctioned by state policy eventually forced most indigenous populations north of the Red River into what became Indian Territory, present-day Oklahoma. Only the Alabama-Coushatta remained in the parts of Texas subject to white settlement, while the Comanche continued to control most of the western half of the state until their defeat in the 1870s and 1880s.

• 3. Colonization and Revolution

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  Alonso Álvarez de Pineda drew the first historical document related to Texas in 1519: a map of the Gulf Coast. Nine years later, shipwrecked Spanish explorer Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and his companions became the first Europeans to set foot in what is now Texas. Cabeza de Vaca recorded that when the Spanish landed in 1528, half the native population died from a disease of the bowels, and blamed the newcomers.

  European powers largely ignored the territory until René-Robert Cavelier de La Salle accidentally established a colony at Matagorda Bay in 1685, intending to reach the Mississippi River. The colony lasted only four years before harsh conditions and hostile Native people ended it. La Salle himself was killed by disgruntled expedition members. Alarmed by the French presence, Spanish authorities constructed missions among the Caddo in East Texas in 1690, then pulled back, then tried again in 1716. Two years later they founded San Antonio as the first Spanish civilian settlement in the area.

  By 1821, when Mexico won independence from Spain, Texas was one of New Spain's least populated provinces. Mexico liberalized immigration policies to reduce Comanche raids, parceling large land grants to empresarios who recruited settlers from the United States. Stephen Austin's colonists, the Old Three Hundred, put down roots along the Brazos River in 1822. By 1834, the population had grown to about 37,800 people, only 7,800 of whom were of Mexican descent. Many immigrants openly violated Mexican law, especially the prohibition on slavery.

  Tensions broke into armed conflict at the Battle of Gonzales in late 1835. The Texas Revolution had begun. Mexican President Antonio López de Santa Anna personally led an army to crush the revolt. After a thirteen-day siege, his forces overwhelmed Texian defenders at the Battle of the Alamo. The Goliad massacre followed. On the 2nd of March 1836, newly elected Texian delegates signed a declaration of independence, forming the Republic of Texas. Sam Houston's army then defeated Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto. Captured and forced to sign the Treaties of Velasco, Santa Anna ended the war.

• 4. Statehood, War, and Reconstruction

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  Texas first applied for annexation to the United States in 1836, but its status as a slaveholding republic made admission controversial and it was initially refused. It took the election of expansionist James K. Polk in 1844 to break the impasse. On the 29th of December 1845, Congress formally admitted Texas as the 28th state.

  Mexico broke off diplomatic relations immediately. While the United States insisted the border ran to the Rio Grande, Mexico claimed it was the Nueces River. President Polk ordered General Zachary Taylor south to the Rio Grande on the 13th of January 1846. A few months later, Mexican troops routed an American cavalry patrol in the disputed zone in the Thornton Affair, triggering the Mexican-American War. The first battles were fought on Texas soil: the Siege of Fort Texas, the Battle of Palo Alto, and the Battle of Resaca de la Palma. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the two-year war, with Mexico ceding control of Texas for US$18,250,000. The Compromise of 1850 fixed Texas's current boundaries; Texas gave up claims to land that became parts of New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Wyoming in exchange for the federal government assuming $10 million of the old republic's debt.

  The enslaved population of Texas tripled between 1850 and 1860, rising from 58,000 to 182,566. When Abraham Lincoln was elected, the state did not wait long. A convention in Austin voted 166 to 8 on the 1st of February 1861 to adopt an Ordinance of Secession. Texas voters confirmed it on February 23. The state's most prominent Unionist, Governor Sam Houston, refused to swear loyalty to the Confederacy and was deposed.

  Far from the major battlefields, Texas served mainly as a supply state. The Texas-Mexico border became known as the backdoor of the Confederacy because trade across it bypassed the Union naval blockade. The final battle of the Civil War was fought at Palmito Ranch near Brownsville in a Confederate victory. General Gordon Granger later announced the Emancipation Proclamation in Galveston, an event commemorated as Juneteenth, almost two and a half years after the original announcement.

• 5. From Cattle to Oil

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  After the Civil War, the phrase 'Gone to Texas' circulated widely as shorthand for fleeing the law elsewhere. The state genuinely attracted fugitives from debt and conflict, but it also attracted ranchers, merchants, and settlers drawn by open land. The cattle industry thrived in this environment and created the enduring image of the Texas cowboy, built on massive cattle drives that ranchers organized from Texas northward.

  Cotton and lumber grew into major industries through the later 19th century as cattle profits softened. Railroad networks expanded quickly. Galveston developed as the chief port city after hurricanes in 1875 and 1886 destroyed the rival port at Indianola. Then, in 1900, the Galveston hurricane killed an estimated 8,000 to 12,000 people in the deadliest natural disaster in United States history. It was a catastrophic blow to a city that had served as the state's commercial center.

  The following year changed everything. On the 10th of January 1901, workers struck the first major oil well at Spindletop, south of Beaumont. Other fields followed in East Texas, West Texas, and under the Gulf of Mexico. Oil production would eventually peak at an average of three million barrels per day in 1972. The founders of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries used the Texas Railroad Commission, which had regulated the state's oil and gas industry, as one of their models for international petroleum price control.

  The Great Depression and the Dust Bowl arrived together to test the economy that oil had rebuilt. Migrants abandoned the worst-hit sections of Texas during the Dust Bowl years. Black Texans left in large numbers during the Great Migration to seek work in the North and escape segregation. World War II then brought a different kind of transformation: 750,000 Texans left for military service, while federal money poured in to build bases, munitions factories, and hospitals. Texas manufactured 3.1 percent of total United States military armaments during the war.

• 6. A Modern Economic Giant

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  By the mid-20th century, Texas had begun trading its rural, agricultural character for something urban and industrialized. The Sun Belt growth of the 1970s and early 1980s accelerated that shift, and the state diversified its economy to reduce its dependence on petroleum. By 2025, Texas posted a gross state product of $2.904 trillion, second highest of any U.S. state, a figure larger than the GDP of Brazil, the world's eighth-largest economy.

  Texas has led the nation in state export revenue since 2002. As of 2024-52 Fortune 500 companies are headquartered in the state, second only to California. Small businesses, those employing fewer than 500 people, make up 99.8 percent of businesses and employ roughly 5.1 million Texans as of December 2025. The number of small businesses grew by 24 percent between 2017 and 2022.

  Energy remains central. Texas holds about 44 percent of known U.S. crude oil reserves and produces about 32 percent of the nation's natural gas. The Port Arthur Refinery in Southeast Texas is the largest in the country. At the same time, the state leads the nation in wind power production. The Roscoe Wind Farm in Roscoe carries a 781.5 megawatt capacity. In 2014, wind turbines supplied 10.6 percent of Texas's electricity consumption.

  Technology and aerospace have added new weight to the economy. The Austin area is nicknamed the Silicon Hills; the north Dallas area goes by the Silicon Prairie. Fort Worth hosts Lockheed Martin's Aeronautics division, where the F-35 Lightning II is built. NASA's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center sits in Southeast Houston. Both SpaceX and Blue Origin run test facilities in Texas. Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport ranks fourth in the world by area at 18,076 acres, and the Dallas-Fort Worth region can reach 93 percent of the nation's population by truck within 48 hours.

• 7. The People of Texas

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  Texas counted 29,145,505 residents in the 2020 census, a 15.9 percent increase over 2010. By July 2024 the U.S. Census Bureau estimated the population at 31,290,831. The state was named the most popular destination for migration for three consecutive years in the early 21st century, and one study in 2019 put the growth rate at 1,000 people per day.

  As of 2022, Hispanics and Latinos replaced non-Hispanic Whites as the largest share of the state's population. Mexican Americans make up 32.2 percent of the total population and 80 percent of the state's Hispanic population, giving Texas the second-largest share of Mexican Americans in the country. In 2015, 4.7 million foreign-born residents lived in Texas, about 17 percent of the population. Mexico was the country of origin for 55.1 percent of Texas immigrants, followed by India at 5 percent.

  Roughly 30 percent of Texans speak Spanish at home according to 2020 American Community Survey estimates. The most widely spoken Native American language in Texas is reportedly Cherokee. By 2021, about 50,546 Texans spoke French or a French-based creole language, and nearly 92,000 spoke Vietnamese.

  Religion follows a pattern shaped by the state's history of Catholic mission work and Protestant settlement. As of 2020-75.5 percent of Texans identified as Christian. The Catholic Church, with roughly 5.9 million members in the state, was the largest single denomination. The oldest Latin Church diocese in Texas is the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston. Southern Baptists numbered 3,319,962 in the 2020 Association of Religion Data Archives study, making them the largest Protestant group. The 2021 winter storm named Uri exposed the vulnerability of this dense, growing population: more than 3 million Texans lost power as the ERCOT-managed grid buckled under historically high demand, and over 4 million came under boil-water notices.