Five Texas cities served as temporary capitals in the republic’s first year of existence – jumping around to evade Mexican capture - before Sam Houston, elected the Republic’s second president (after interim president David G. Burnet), chose the city of Houston, already named after him, as the capital in 1837. The Republic’s archives, including military records, official papers, land titles, war banners and trophies, the seal of the government and international treaties, came from the city of Columbia to Houston with the new designation, according to historian Dorman Winfrey, who wrote about the Texas Archives War more than 50 years ago.
The next president, Mirabeau Lamar — an attorney from Georgia who believed that the literal extinction of Native Americans was necessary for progress — moved the capital to Austin the capital in 1839 because of the city’s central location. Detractors, the most vocal of whom was Sam Houston, felt that Austin was too remote, too undeveloped, and too close to Mexican and Native American enemies, mostly from the Comanche and Cherokee Nations. Houston (the city), meanwhile, enjoyed greater access to trade with its close proximity to the Gulf of Mexico.
Houston (the man) ascended to the presidency a second time in 1841, inheriting Austin as the capital, and he made no bones about how much he hated the city, often calling it “the most unfortunate site on earth for a seat of government,” and refusing to move in to the official residence, preferring instead to take a room at a boarding house.
Having won three-quarters of the vote, Houston felt empowered to move the capital back to his namesake city. He agitated for such a change with the legislature, but representatives defeated his proposals. Austinites had hometown pride, but their obstinacy went beyond that. Losing the capital would stunt the growth of their rapidly developing city, and result in a drop in property values. Sam Houston was, in their minds, abandoning the seat of government and exaggerating the seriousness of the Mexican threat to achieve his political aims.
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In early March of 1842, 700 Mexican troops under General Rafael Vasquez crossed the Republic of Texas borders, and by March 5 occupied San Antonio, about 80 miles from Austin. Officials declared martial law; many families left for somewhere safer.
In the aftermath of the attack, Houston feared the worst in what was to come. Letters to his fiancée express true concern of not only Mexican attack, but that Comanches would burn and destroy the city – and crucially its archives - as well. Houston felt strongly that Austin was not a safe place for the republic’s capital.