CAMERON, JOHN (?-1861). John Cameron, early settler and soldier, was a native of Scotland. On May 21, 1827, the Mexican government granted him an empresarioqv contract to introduce 100 families on the Colorado River in Texas. On September 12 the congress of Coahuila and Texasqv declared him a citizen. The contract was extended in 1832 for an additional three years. In 1828 he received a second contract to introduce 200 families on land along the Red River, an area previously contracted to Reuben Ross.qv This agreement was also extended in 1832 for an additional three years. No titles, however, were ever issued in consequence of either contract. Cameron received title to two leagues of land in the Power and Hewetson colonyqv on October 31, 1834. In 1835 he was a secretary in the executive department of the state government at Monclova, and when Martín Perfecto de Cosqv dispersed the legislature, Cameron was taken prisoner with Benjamin R. Milamqv and others. They escaped and reached Texas in safety.
Cameron assisted in the siege of Bexarqv and was commended for his conduct by Francis W. Johnson.qv As interpreter for the Texas army, he signed the capitulation entered into between Cos and Gen. Edward Burlesonqv on December 11, 1835. Cameron was issued a donation certificate for his part in the capture of Bexar and a bounty certificate for his three months' service in the army. William Fairfax Gray,qv who met Cameron at Nacogdoches on February 4, 1836, wrote in his diary that Cameron was a shrewd Scot, particularly well informed and interesting. Cameron became a resident of the Rio Grande valley and was killed in 1861 in one of the fights that took place in the contest between the "Rohos" and "Crinolinos."
BIBLIOGRAPHY: John Henry Brown, History of Texas from 1685 to 1892 (2 vols., St. Louis: Daniell, 1893). Hans Peter Nielsen Gammel, comp., Laws of Texas, 1822-1897 (10 vols., Austin: Gammel, 1898). William Fairfax Gray, From Virginia to Texas, 1835 (Houston: Fletcher Young, 1909, 1965). Mary Virginia Henderson, "Minor Empresario Contracts for the Colonization of Texas, 1825-1834," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 31, 32 (April, July 1928). Malcolm D. McLean, comp. and ed., Papers Concerning Robertson's Colony in Texas (19 vols., Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1974-76; Arlington: University of Texas at Arlington Press, 1977-92). Homer S. Thrall, A Pictorial History of Texas (St. Louis: Thompson, 1879).
L. W. Kemp
