The Czech-Texas Connection

Mid 19th Century

The Texas Revolution began in October of 1835 after years of struggle between settlers from the United States and the Mexican government. After his defeat at the hands of Sam Houston and the Army of the Republic of Texas at the Battle of San Jacinto, Mexican president Santa Anna signed the Treaty of Velasco, giving Texas its independence. Ten years later, the Republic of Texas would be annexed into the Union as the 28th state.

In 1848, a major wave of Czech participants in the 1848 Revolution in Bohemia fled to the United States to escape political persecution by the Austrian Habsburgs. Rev. Josef Arnost Bergmann, a Czech minister, arrived with his family in Galveston in 1850, two years after the revolutions. Upon settling in Texas, he became a preacher, school teacher, and farmer. Most importantly, he sent letters praising the affordable land and freedoms offered in Texas back home to his friends, which would make him instrumental in the encouragement of Czech immigration to the United States. After his letters were published in the Moravian newspaper Moravské Noviny, a large number of Czech families immigrated to Texas. Many found themselves living near German immigrants, where language and cultural connections made life abroad easier. The diverse influences within these immigrant communities formed lasting traditions in the cultural fabric of the Texas we know today.