The Greek Texans

**Faklon** · 12-05-2021, 12:24 PM

Apparently there is a notable population I had no idea about, and a lot of them seem to have been expelled Greeks from Anatolia. The article also reads very country and epic, like nothing you would read from say Boston. Drunk Pontic Greek cowboys and pirates owning ancient saloons ahahah.

Greeks and people of Greek heritage came to the Americas and Texas mostly between 1890 and 1920. Greece has been a colonizing country for some 2,500 years; thus, some Greeks came from Greece itself, others from satellite colonies in the Middle East. Many Greek colonials were expelled from Turkey during warfare. In Greece, economic depression at the turn of the century, overpopulation, and— not incidentally—social customs such as an expensive dowry system that had to accompany marriage, drove many individuals to seek fortunes elsewhere.

Most Greek emigrants to Texas went directly into cities. Here, the typical single man would work in a low-paying job until he had earned the money to open his own business. If he met with success, and most did, this prosperity led to a trip home for a marriage and a quick return to Texas.

But the first to arrive were rather different adventurers. Captain Nicholas, who never admitted another name, was a young pirate who sailed the schooner Arabella as part of Jean Laffite's buccaneer fleet. Coming into his share of luck, Nicholas tried to settle down by buying himself a Karankawa bride (for 10 pounds of sugar and an undisclosed quantity of rum), lost her in a storm, sailed with Laffite off Yucatán, survived yellow fever, escaped wrecks, and returned to Galveston on board a Texas Navy ship in 1842. The apparently indestructible captain finally did settle down in Galveston, living by his skills as fisherman and trader and by his wits as a storyteller. Just a few days before his 100th birthday, still going strong, Nicholas died in the Galveston storm of 1900.

Some individuals of Greek descent came early to Texas on very different business. Colonel Francisco Garay, with General Urrea during the Texas Revolution, managed to save a few men from the Palm Sunday massacre at Goliad. Born of Greek parents, Garay had served the Mexican Republic as consul at Gibraltar and attaché in London before joining the army and finding himself in Texas as part of a very bloody revolution.

Later Greeks, seeing Texas as a home, formed small communities. Some individuals worked their way to Galveston as seamen, leaving ship there for other lives; others abandoned railroad work for urban Texas settings. In an era when women did not travel alone, most women were brought as brides. Galveston, as Texas's leading seaport before the rise of Houston, was a lure to fishermen, sailors, and merchants. There, joining with Orthodox Syrians, Serbians, and Russians, the Greeks helped build the Constantine and Helen Orthodox Church, where the first priest, the Greek Theoclitos Triantafilides, conducted services in Greek, Russian, and Serbian.

The first Greeks to arrive in Texas were adventurers! Captain Nicholas was a young Greek pirate who sailed as a part of Jean LaFitte’s buccaneer fleet and settled on Galveston Island in 1842. Galveston became one of Texas’s leading seaports in the 19th century and attracted Greek settlers who worked as fishermen, sailors and merchants. Later, some Greeks came to Texas to escape religious persecution and warfare. In 1923, the Lausanne Treaty ended fighting between Greece and Turkey that had been going on since 1919. The treaty forced people of Greek and Turkish descent to resettle to new areas based on their religious beliefs. 1.3 million Christian Greeks were expelled from Turkey, while 500,000 Muslims were forced out of Greece. Some of the Greeks that lost their homes and property moved to Texas. Today, Greek communities can be found across Texas! Major cities, such as San Antonio, Dallas, and Houston, have large Greek populations, as well as Galveston, Waco, Austin, Wichita Falls, El Paso, Port Arthur, and San Angelo.