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Millionaire Robert Mills, erstwhile "duke of Brazoria," dies
On this day in 1888, Robert Mills, early Texas merchant and the largest
slaveholder in antebellum Texas, died at Galveston. In Brazoria, the
Kentucky native began engaging in the Mexican trade in 1830. Bars of
Mexican silver were stacked like cordwood in the Mills brothers'
counting room, and Mills became known as the "duke of Brazoria." In 1839
he built the first cotton compress in Texas. He became a shipping
magnate in the 1850s. By 1860 the Mills brothers cultivated
approximately 3,300 acres on their four Brazoria County plantations.
Mills was reputed to have been worth between $3 and $5 million before
the Civil War. He freed about 800 slaves in 1865. His firm lost heavily
when customers were unable to pay their debts, and suffered additional
postwar losses when the cotton market collapsed. He declared bankruptcy
in 1873 and was dependent on relatives in his final years.
- Links to Related Handbook of Texas Online Articles
- MILLS, ROBERT
- MILLS, DAVID GRAHAM
- SAN LUIS, TX
- ANTEBELLUM TEXAS
- Other Texas Day by Day Articles for This Date
- First Knights of Columbus council in Texas established in El Paso (1902)
- Expedition reaches future site of San Antonio (1709)
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