It's the one constant in life. You build something worth having, someone's gonna try to take it.
This is the second and final part of our series on Richard King, a stowaway orphan who became the richest man in Texas and founded the largest ranch in America. You can find part one, which covered the formation of his vast holdings, here.
This second piece will detail lessons in the consolidation and expansion of an empire against a background of division and chaos.
Network
Richard King was one man against many. He knew that survival required allies, and he was a master at identifying and deepening key relationships.
As detailed in Part I, King ensured the complete loyalty of the men under him by inviting them to live on the land with him, tightly binding their fates together. Chosen confidantes included men like Faustino Villa, “a giant of a man who was fiercely loyal to King and would live to a vast old age and, at one hundred, would swim the swollen Santa Gertrudis to deliver the mail.”
Whenever King established a new business venture, he brought in other influential men as direct partners, aligning their interests with his own. He frequently collaborated with Charles Stillman, the founder of Brownsville and one of the wealthiest men in Texas, as well as strategically chosen individuals for particular initiatives.
When his steamboat transport business was threatened by the creation of a railroad, he bought in the judge of Cameron County as a direct partner (resulting in outrage from his competitors and the press). It is alleged that in order to establish his highly profitable monopoly on the provision of river transport to the military, he established a hidden partnership with the logistics officer who assigned the contracts.
Although this kind of corruption is distasteful, it was necessary. Local politics were completely dysfunctional:
On election day in Brownsville, according to that tireless observer Abbé Domenech, democracy smelled like cheap liquor: “Tables are placed in the streets, garnished with bottles, full of whiskey, which is liberally distributed to such as take a ticket bearing the name of a certain candidate.” Cortina hired out to the Anglos to bring Tejano peons to the polls to vote. He was always good for forty to fifty votes. The Mexicans voted by the “cross-mark” method—x’s standing in for the names of those who could not write English. Cross-mark voting became a staple of political control in south Texas. In one instance mentioned in a local newspaper in the 1850s, ninety votes were cast by eight voters.
— Don Graham, Kings of Texas
King’s domain grew so large that it became necessary for others to pass through it as they moved across the state. He ensured that significant guests - like Robert E. Lee - were left with a majestic impression: a 1878 article described King’s hosting as “eccentrically baronial and given to the wildest excesses of semi-barbaric hospitality.” His guests would encounter a seductive mixture of southern civility and constant awareness of the fortifications, armaments, and gunmen that surrounded the dwelling.
Any friendly fighters that passed through were fed, rested, and re-equipped from King’s own stock. When legendary Texas Ranger Captain Leander H. McNelly led his men through the ranch, and a particularly impressive horse caught his eye:
…that horse was worth $500 and that the state of Texas would never permit such an outlay for a mount. King told him it was his to keep: “I’d rather give him to you than have those bandits come and take him. Most of those rascals are mounted on my stock, and I at least want to do as good by you, Captain.” Fed, rested, and outfitted by King, McNelly’s Rangers were “forted and ready for anything.”
When McNelly died a few years later and the state failed to honor him, it was King who paid $3,000 for his memorial.
King never took the fighting men of Texas for granted - he won their loyalty and admiration, and once he had done so, he made them as formidable a force as he could. Without these hardy friends, he never would have survived those Texas wars. The ranch, though remote and home to as many as a hundred men, constantly faced the threat of marauding forces that struck without warning. His family’s survival required that the lands between King’s holdings and the border be well guarded.
The lesson: no matter how capable and steadfast you are, in the true chaos of civilizational collapse, the establishment of anything lasting relies on close bonds with other men of will. Start cultivating these bonds now.
Diversify & Adapt
Although primarily known for his ranch, King pursued “dozens of active schemes” throughout his career. He danced around changing laws, power dynamics, and opportunities, even after the foundation of his cattle empire was well-established.
His ventures - brilliant, creative, daring, and sometimes illegal - meant that he could exploit temporary opportunities while being less vulnerable to any one point of hostile pressure. He had interests both in town and country, and would travel frequently between them, allowing him to liaise with urban power networks while also keeping a domain totally under his control.
His smuggling activities during the Civil War demonstrate what a daring and creative entrepreneur he could be.
In 1861, the North blockaded Southern ports from which military supplies could be received or cotton could be shipped. The blockade was successful with one exception: the port of Brazos Santiago.
Brazos Santiago sits on a waterway system around the Rio Grande, close to King Ranch. This river was established as an international waterway free to the vessels of both the US and Mexico as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican War in 1848. It was too shallow for Northern warships and was protected by Confederate cannons.
King and Stillman founded a company that exploited the ‘international waterway’ loophole for all it was worth. Mexico was officially neutral during the Civil War. By cultivating relationships with significant Mexicans on the other side of the border, King and Stillman would procure boats flying the Mexican or British flags, acquire permits and papers that would reaffirm this foreign status, and stuff the boats with contraband cotton that had been smuggled over land to the port.
The con worked. The US went so far as to station the naval blockader The Portsmouth at the mouth of the river, but ultimately there was little they could do to stop ships that they had no jurisdiction over.
Once the system had been proven to work, it was expanded relentlessly.
Teamster John Warren Hunter noted: “All roads from every cotton section of the state in the direction of Brownsville converged at King’s Ranch.... and during the spring, summer, and fall seasons, this long stretch of 125 miles became a broad thoroughfare along which continuously moved two vast unending trains of wagons; the one outward bound with cotton, the other homeward bound with merchandise and army supplies.” … Kenedy, Stillman & King made money from everybody: the Confederate government, individual contractors and shippers, and anybody else who had something to offer in the lucrative business of transporting cotton, the lifeblood of the Confederacy.
After the war King successfully petitioned for clemency and was ultimately able to radically expand his business still further, as the entire nation opened up as a market for his beef.
Note the importance of geography, and of the broader question of where to focus your efforts. King - perhaps through luck - had established his resources where they were least under the control of his enemy, allowing him to creatively exploit circumstances without direct retribution.
Don’t become too comfortable and set in your ways. King’s empire was built by expanding relentlessly, even when he was exceptionally wealthy. Indeed, this wealth and the relationships that built it opened up new opportunities that would not otherwise have presented themselves. King held on to what he had by never losing his daring instincts; assume nothing is constant and always be on watch for new possibilities that the chaos brings.
It stretched wide across the landscape of our imagination, a burning brand so fixed in our minds that it was impossible to live in the state and not dream of the great ranch.
This concludes our lessons from the life of Richard King, a man that pulled himself up from nothing to true Southern nobility. Please leave a like below if you enjoyed it.
Our next tale will be that of a warrior and mystic who united the enemy mountain tribes of Daghestan and Chechnya in a desperate battle against Russian imperial expansion.
Fighting was life itself to these darkly beautiful people − the most beautiful people in the world, it was said. They lived and died by the dagger. Battle-thrusts were the pulse of the race. Vengeance was their creed, violence their climate.
His story tells us much about how to resist a faltering but aggressive empire determined to dominate local peoples. Subscribe to receive it.
Sic transit imperium,
Johann