Elias Harvey West - (1849 - Present)(Image)
Account Name: Sarderia
Occupation: 1st Viscount Galveston; Majority Shareholder of San Antonio Mineral Works and West Kerosene & Tar Co.
Motives: Retain the economic and political influence he has on Texas; expand the business under the West company.
Background:
Elias Harvey West is the son of Issachar West, a Texas mining magnate and revolutionary soldier, and Catherine Brewster, daughter of a prominent Arkansas businessman. West Sr. was a citizen of the old Republic of Texas, himself building a huge fortune in arms trade, delivering supplies after supplies of rifles to the Texas revolutionaries, earning the trust and favor of Sam Houston, famous general and President of Texas. After the Texas Revolution, Issachar West transformed his corporation from merely a shipping and trading company into a mineral and energy conglomerate throughout Texas. Due to his fortunes gained by supplying weapons throughout the Revolution, he earned a large amount of wealth and political power among the Texan aristocrats in that time. West used the connections and the wealth to buy vast tracts of land in the Texas coast, around Galveston, Houston, and Texas city, and sponsored the migration of European indentured workers from New York and Pennsylvania to the south.
Indeed, West's activities are one of the factors that enabled Texas to estabilish itself as a prominent regional power, and affirming its independence from Mexico. Sam Houston's regime was very American-friendly; there was basically no distinction between Texas citizens and United States citizens in the decades following the Rrevolution. West capitalized greatly from this. He was loath to use African slaves to work on his ranches, considering the cost and ranching itself doesn't need mass manpower like the Southern plantations did. Instead, West turned to sponsor movement of New Englanders and Europeans to the South. Mass immigrations such as these helped to distinguish Texan society from Mexico as more and more English-speaking immigrants began to move. By 1840, the West family are the owner of majority the land in Galveston and Houston. However, this fortune did not come without a cost.
Frequent raids from Comanche native Americans, Mexican bandits and incursions from the Mexican Army to the contested territory of Nuevo Mexico infuriated Sam Houston's presidency so much that the Texas aristocrats are often forced to donate their wealth and manpower to combat these problems. Issachar West was no exception; he often led parties to fend off Texan outposts along the Rio Grande, with significant losses of his own workers. In return, however, West asked greatly from the Texan administrators; he gained mining concessions of the lands bordering New Mexico and the Rio Grande Valley. When Texas was admitted into the United States in 1845, West's business wasted no time in making use of the lands he had bought from the State of Texas. He bulit mines, towns, and outposts along Galveston Bay and the interior, bought hundreds of slaves to work in the mines, as well as overseers; immigrants from other parts of the United States, lured by the promise of work, home, and dollars.
It was at this time that West met a wealthy Arkansas planter and businessmen, Saul Brewster. The two got along quite well, and quickly became business partners. West invested in Brewster's plantations and business ventures such as mines, ranches, and cutting timber in the Ozarks. Vice versa, Brewster financed West's ventures in opening more mines and clearing more land for livestock ranches. The partnership went so far as for them to become family; West married Brester's daughter Catherine on 1846. Unfortunately, their marriage is very cold; due to the fact that Catherine suffered two miscarriages during the first two years of their marriage, which deeply broke her feelings. West was frequently away for business reasons, either to manage his properties or mines, only meeting his wife once or twice a year in
When Elias was eleven years old, his father's company was in turnmoil. The news that South Carolina had seceded from the federal Union, followed closely by Texas, Alabama, and Virgina, hurted the exports from texas considerably high, as well as the other states that seceded in 1860. While other states might have an assurance in form of their "King Cotton" policy, ensuring financial and political backing from Europe, Texas was not a major plantation state, and such Texan enterpreneurs must turn to other sources to ensure their economical stability. For Issachar West, this means opening again the trade into Mexico and Spanish Carribean; he instead invited Spanish and Mexican immigrants to replace the halted wave of immigration from New England, and re-routed the sale of livestock, agriculture, and mining products to the south. In 1862, West freed half of all his slaves - one thousand and two hundred men, women, and children - and granted them a place to settle in Texas City, just over the bridge by Galveston. In turn, the freed slaves must join the Confederate Army under himself.
West marched with two hundred men, five cannons and two dozen mounted cavalry into Mississipi, alongside other Texan legions to join General Braxton Bragg in the state. Soon after, Bragg renamed the force as the Army of Tennessee and split the force into two halves; West fought with Confederate commander Leonidas Polk at the Battle of Stones River. In a daring night offensive, he commanded thirty freedmen and sneaked into the Union battery, sabotaging them so that the Confederate Army could seize the ridge of Stones River and win the battle. The Army of Tennessee continued their engagement in the Civil War, including in the Chattanooga Campaign, one of the largest and deadliest campaign in the Western Theatre. General Bragg's forces managed to hold Lookout Mountain, with West commanding the artillery division, but the battle cost him an eye and a leg; shattered by artillery sharpnel. His leg was amputated and his right eye blind and covered, and West returned to Texas with half of his contingent. By the time the train reached Houston, his amputated leg was so badly rotting and infected, and he died a week later in Galveston.
He passed on his inheritance to both his wife and son, with his wife managing the corporate business. Elias instead took several of his father's former contingent and joined the Confederate Army. He served in one of the Eastern regiments, and fell under the brigade of another Texan businessmen, Benjamin Boykin. Throughout the war, he quite liked the man, most importantly due to the fact that his regiment did not have to rely on Confederate supplies, like the Army of Tennessee which turned to be a disaster for his father. He kept a larger part of the bounties; including Union soldiers' gold, trinkets, and other valuable things the regiment can get after winning a battle, as a reminder. Upon returning, he found that the West company has been experiencing a stagnancy - and even decline. Boykin's conglomerate were increasingly expanding their reach within Texas, and Elias was more infuriated by the fact that Boykin managed to bulid the first railroad connecting Galveston and San Antonio - both headquarters of the West company. Furious of the mismanagement that led to the company's decline, he stripped his mother and her associates of the director board. For those who cannot be bought, the war plunder could always be used to hire a hitman. Eventually, as the South descended into chaos and feudalism, he reluctantly agreed along with the other Texan aristocrats to crown Boykin as King. Despite the businessmen in Texas had their economic freedom increasingly encroached by the state, West managed to save his fortunes by petitioning a noble title - even enforcing the local mayors who disagree with the appointment, in the face of a revolver. Eventually, he managed to gain the authority over San Antonio - the birthplace of Texas itself - and Galveston, both cities already being a large base of the West corporation before the war. And West certainly did not plan on surrendering it soon.
Titles/Positions: Viscount of Galveston, Duke of San Antonio
Holdings: City of Galveston (Galveston, Chambers, and Liberty counties), City of San Antonio (Bexar County), Midland, Martin, Reeves, Howard, Upton, Fort Bend, Reagan, Glasscock, Ward, Jefferson, Maverick, Webb, Bastrop, Eastland, Erath, Wood, Milam, Coleman, Cameron, Brown, Washington, Robertson, McLennan, Austin County, Limestone, Williamson, Millam, Comal, Grayson, Guadalupe, Grimes, Walker, Denton, Limestone, Collin, Hays, Lamar, Harrison, Bowie, Robertson, Hopkins, Orange, Waller, and Montgomery county, Mining sites (not cities or towns) in Live Oak, Cass, Burnet, Hardin, King, Pecos, Val Verde, Gonzales, West, and Llano Counties
Politics: Elias is quite liberal in political views. While he respected and supported the Emperor, and disagreed with the outrightly liberal nature of Union government, he also believes in limited government and free market, which is why he loathed the current regime in Texas as being too restrictive for economic growth.
Faith: Methodist Episcopal Church
