In August 1836, two real estate entrepreneurs—Augustus Chapman Allen and John Kirby Allen—from New York, purchased 6,642 acres (26.88 km2) of land along Buffalo Bayou with the intent of founding a city. The Allen brothers decided to name the city after Sam Houston, the popular general at the Battle of San Jacinto, who was elected President of Texas in September 1836. The great majority of slaves in Texas came with their owners from the older slave states. Sizable numbers, however, came through the domestic slave trade. New Orleans was the center of this trade in the Deep South, but there were slave dealers in Houston. Thousands of enslaved African-Americans lived near the city before the Civil War. Many of them near the city worked on sugar and cotton plantations, while most of those in the city limits had domestic and artisan jobs. In 1860 forty-nine percent of the city's population was enslaved. A few slaves, perhaps as many as 2,000 between 1835 and 1865, came through the illegal African trade. Post-war Texas grew rapidly as migrants poured into the cotton lands of the state. They also brought or purchased enslaved African Americans, whose numbers nearly tripled in the state from 1850 to 1860, from 58,000 to 182,566.
Where were Augustus Chapman Allen and John Kirby Allen from? How many acres of land did Augustus Chapman Allen and John Kirby Allen purchase in 1836? What was the reason the Allen brothers purchased land in 1836? Who did the Allen brothers name the city they founded after? In what year was Sam Houston elected President of Texas? Who bought land along Buffalo Bayou to build a city? How much land did the Allen brothers buy? After which famous general was the city named? In 1860 what percentage of the city's population was slaves? How much did the slave population of Houston increase from 1850 to 1860?