RAWLS, AMOS (?-1833). Amos Rawls, one of Stephen F. Austin's Old Three Hundred colonists, was probably from Missouri. He received title to a sitio of land in what is now Matagorda County on July 24, 1824. He was likely related to Daniel and Benjamin Rawls, as all three men's land grants adjoined on Caney Creek. He was commander of a group of colonists who reported Indian difficulties west of the Colorado River in June 1824 and late that month was captain of one of the five companies of militia formed by Austin. Rawls's company was among those participating in a campaign against the Karankawa Indians that fall. The census of 1826 classified him as a farmer and stock raiser, a widower aged between twenty-five and forty, with two children. In July 1826 the home of Amos Ralls (probably Rawls) in the Mina District was a voting place in an election on colonial judicial and tax systems. Rawls signed a declaration of loyalty to the Mexican government and protest against the Fredonian Rebellion in January 1827. In February 1828 he was elected síndico procurador for the Mina District. He had died by May 1833, when an administrator was appointed to handle his estate.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Eugene C. Barker, ed., The Austin Papers (3 vols., Washington: GPO, 1924-28). Lester G. Bugbee, "The Old Three Hundred: A List of Settlers in Austin's First Colony," Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association 1 (October 1897). Matagorda County Historical Commission, Historic Matagorda County (3 vols., Houston: Armstrong, 1986). Daniel Shipman, Frontier Life: 58 Years in Texas (1879).