Stephen F. Austin was known as the "Father of Texas."

Austin was born in southwestern Virginia in 1793. His family moved to the Missouri territory when young Stephen was 5. He later went to school at Yale College and then returned to Missouri, finding a variety of jobs, including managing a mining business and running a bank. He was a member of the territorial militia and the territorial legislature; he was also a circuit judge.

Austin's father, Moses Austin, traveled to San Antonio in 1820 to apply for a land grant; he received it the following year and with it, approval to settle 300 American families on 200,000 acres. Moses Austin died before he could see it through, and Stephen took up the cause.

The colonists, who came to be known as the Old Three Hundred, settled along the Brazos River in January 1822. They ran into trouble right away because the land grant had been negotiated with the Spanish government and, since 1821, Mexico was its own country, having won its independence from Spain. Austin went to the Mexican capital, Mexico City, to negotiate a settlement. He was successful, and the settlement continued.

Also during this time, Austin spent long hours creating a detailed map of Texas, showing settlements, roads, and settlement boundaries. His map served as a template for later cartographers and served to accelerate desire in Americans to see this new land of opportunity.

More settlers from American came to Texas. An 1830 Mexican law forbidding further American immigration into Texas stirred resentment in those living in Austin's settlement (even though Austin had negotiated an exception for his people). After two conventions that produced a set of demands, the Texians, as they came to be known, in 1833 had Austin deliver the demands personally to the Mexican president, Antonio LŖpez de Santa Anna.

Santa Anna agreed to repeal the 1830 anti-immigration law but did not agree to grant Texas independence. Further, Santa Anna had Austin imprisoned, on suspicion of inciting a revolt.

Santa Anna released Austin in July 1835. The start of the Texas Revolution later that year put an end to any further negotiation attempts by Austin. He then took command of a group of Texian troops in an attack on San Antonio and embarked on a series of trips to Washington, D.C., to convince the United States to annex Texas.

Annexation did not come right away, even as Texas won its independence, in 1836. Austin ran for the presidency of the republic but lost to Sam Houston. Austin served as Secretary of State of the Republic of Texas until his death, on Dec. 27, 1836.

The capital of Texas was named for him.