Sam Houston
American statesman, politician, and soldier (1793-1863)
Samuel Houston ( , HEW-stən; March 2, 1793 – July 26, 1863) was an American military general and statesman who played a prominent role in the Texas Revolution in which the Republic of Texas seceded from Mexico. He served as the first and third president of the Republic of Texas and then one of the first two United States Senators from Texas after it became a U.S. state. Earlier he served as the sixth governor of Tennessee, and later as the seventh governor of Texas, the only individual to be elected governor of two different U.S. states.
Houston was born in Rockbridge County, Virginia to a slave-owning family and would own slaves throughout his life. The family relocated to Maryville, Tennessee, while he was a teenager. Houston ran away from home to live about three years in a Cherokee village, becoming known as "Raven". He served under General Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812, and was appointed as a sub-agent to oversee the removal of the Cherokee from Tennessee into Arkansas Territory in 1818. With the support of Jackson and others, Houston won election to the House of Representatives in 1823. He strongly supported Jackson's presidential candidacies and, in 1827, Houston was elected governor of Tennessee. In 1829, after divorcing his first wife, Houston resigned and moved to the Arkansas Territory to live with the Cherokee again.
“Sam Houston” enters the record as american statesman, politician, and soldier (1793-1863). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Houston, American and statesman can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Sam Houston” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Houston, American and statesman provides the most credible route into that argument.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q216547. VIAF identifies the subject as 30337897. The Library of Congress control number is n82151189. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1793, 1863, 1812 and 1818.
Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Sam Houston”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Sam Houston primary sources, Sam Houston archive and Houston research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Sam Houston”?
- Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
- Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Sam Houston” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.