Matthew Gaines: From Slavery to the Senate
Texas is the proud home to countless trailblazers. Many of these brave individuals sacrificed their personal well-being for the benefit of their fellow man. Matthew Gaines was one such individual, who nearly a century before the modern civil rights movement, risked his life to overcome tremendous obstacles and fight systemic oppression. A formerly enslaved person, who fought adversity all his life, Gaines eventually served as a state senator during the Reconstruction era (1865–1877). During this crucial time, he helped initiate a series of reforms, considered in post-Civil War Texas to be quite radical, that greatly benefitted the lives of millions in the years to come and that later civil rights activists would build upon in the twentieth century.
Gaines was born into chattel slavery around 1840 on a plantation in Pineville, Louisiana, which was owned by Madame Candida Grande Despallier. At great danger, he educated himself by reading books smuggled by a white boy living on the plantation. After Despallier’s death, Gaines was sold as part of the estate and was subsequently auctioned off at a New Orleans market. Determined to obtain his freedom, he twice escaped enslavement and found refuge near Fredericksburg, Texas for the remainder of the war.
Following the Confederacy’s defeat, Gaines settled in Washington County. There, he married Fanny Sutton in 1867, although the couple separated shortly after. In 1869, a visiting bishop proclaimed that all baptisms and marriages performed by lay preachers before ordination were considered illegal, requiring all ceremonies to be repeated by an ordained minister. Consequently, Gaines did not file for divorce from Sutton as he believed their union was never valid. He later married Elizabeth Harrison in 1870.[1] This convoluted situation, thought to be trivial at the time, became a serious issue years later and would ultimately become his political undoing.
Gaines’ ascension to state political office was a direct result of the deteriorating relationship between Democratic President Andrew Johnson and the Republican-controlled U.S. Congress. The latter grew alarmed by white southerners’ resistance to Black suffrage and Johnson’s unwillingness to ensure compliance from the former Confederate states as a condition of re-entry into the Union. In 1868, Congress impeached him and initiated a period known as Congressional Reconstruction, or “Radical Reconstruction.” At the state and local level, most Southern Democratic whites were sidelined and a Republican alliance of white Unionists, derisively known as “scalawags,” and newly enfranchised African Americans took their place in government. In Texas, two African American state senators were sworn in: Matthew Gaines and George T. Ruby, a free “light-skinned mulatto born in New York City…and educated in Maine.”[2]
Once in office, Senator Gaines’ leadership and oratory skills, drawn from his experience as a lay preacher, were put to good use. At a time when African Americans were expected to be deferential and not challenge white supremacy, Gaines persevered even in the face of death threats. Time and time again, Gaines proved to be a passionate advocate in the state Capitol for people of color as they endured harassment, intimidation, and violence.[3]
He was also a staunch proponent of free public education for all Texas children and for integrated education. By 1872, over 2,000 free schools provided many Blacks and economically disadvantaged whites their first public educational opportunities. This achievement was initially met with widespread resistance, including the burning of Black schools and intimidation and violence against teachers and African American children. Constant, rancorous media assaults fanned the flames of fear and anger among the outspoken white majority.[4]
By 1871, state politics began to shift. Democrats were growing in power and Texas Republicans struggled to keep their fragile coalition together and retain office. Reform policies and Republican politicians were targeted.[5] In December 1871, political opponents brought about the indictment of Senator Matthew Gaines on the charge of bigamy. He was released on bail and continued to fulfill his senatorial responsibilities while awaiting trial in 1873. Although the minister who officiated Gaines’ first marriage testified that it was “illegally performed,” a grand jury in La Grange found Gaines guilty. The Texas Supreme Court overruled the verdict later that year; however, the damage was irreversible. Although voters reelected Senator Gaines to the Thirteenth Texas Legislature, his political enemies claimed he was a convicted felon, refused to seat him, and denied him any opportunity to defend himself.[6]
After his removal from the Texas Senate, he largely disappeared from the public eye. He returned to his work as a preacher and died in poverty on June 11, 1900. Members of his congregation remembered Gaines as a man who “constantly reminded them of their worth and dignity as a people…[and] made no exceptions when he spoke about people’s rights.”[7]
In 2020, Texas A&M University (TAMU) secured the funds to place a statue on campus to commemorate Matthew Gaines and his role in improving access to education within the state. His advocacy in the state legislature contributed to the creation of Texas’s first state-funded institutions of higher education in 1876: the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas (now TAMU), and Alta Vista Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas for Colored Youth (the historical black college today known as Prairie View A&M University). Both were made possible by the Morrill Act of 1862, which provided federal support for the creation of land-grant colleges across the United States.[8]
Matthew Gaines is a pivotal figure, not only in Texas history, but in the history of the United States. His legislative career may have been cut short by political adversaries, but his legacy will live on in Texas schools. Texans should be honored knowing the history of Gaines and find comfort that their lives are a little better today because of his work a century and a half ago.
[1] Rasmus Dahlqvist, From Martin to Despallier: The Story of a French Colonial Family, United States: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2013; Alwyn Barr & Robert A. Calvert, Black Leaders: Texans for Their Times, book, 2007; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth296839/: accessed July 22, 2020), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.
[2] Rasmus Dahlqvist, From Martin to Despallier.
[3] Alwyn Barr & Robert A. Calvert, Black Leaders: Texans for Their Times.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Carl H. Moneyhon, Texas After the Civil War: The Struggle of Reconstruction.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] “Division of Student Affairs,” Division of Student Affairs, 2020, https://studentaffairs.tamu.edu/matthew-gaines-statue/; Slattery, Patrick. “Deconstructing Racism One Statue at a Time: Visual Culture Wars at Texas A&M University and the University of Texas at Austin.” Visual Arts Research 32, no. 2 (2006): 28–31. Accessed October 4, 2020; Rasmus Dahlqvist, From Martin to Despallier: The Story of a French Colonial Family, United States: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2013.
