The origins of today's Texas Ranger Division trace back to the first days of Anglo-American settlement of what is today the State of Texas, when it was part of the belonging to the newly independent country of Mexico. The unique characteristics that the Rangers adopted during the force's formative years and that give the division its heritage today—characteristics for which the Texas Rangers would become world-renowned—have been accounted for by the nature of the Rangers' duties, which was to protect a thinly populated frontier against protracted hostilities, first with Plains Indian tribes, and after the Texas Revolution, hostilities with Mexico.
Texas historian T.R. Fehrenbach explains the Rangers' uniqueness:
The Rangers were to be described many times, at first as state troops, later as a police force or constabulary. During most of the 19th century, they were neither. They were apart from the regular army, the militia or national guard, and were never a true police force. They were instead one of the most colorful, efficient, and deadly band of irregular partisans on the side of law and order the world has seen. They were called into being by the needs of a war frontier, by a society that could not afford a regular army. Texans passed in and out of the Rangers regularly; in the early years, a very high proportion of all west Texans served from time to time. If they bore certain similarities to Mamelukes and Cossacks, they were never quite the same.
Creation and early days
By the early 1830s, the Mexican War of Independence had subsided, and some 60 to 70 families had settled in Texas—most of them from the United States. Because there was no regular army to protect the citizens against attacks by native tribes and bandits, in 1823, Stephen F. Austin organized small, informal armed groups whose duties required them to range over the countryside, and who thus came to be known as "rangers". Around August 4, 1823, Austin wrote that he would " ... employ ten men ... to act as rangers for the common defense ... the wages I will give said ten men is fifteen dollars a month payable in property ... " John Jackson Tumlinson Sr., the first alcalde of the Colorado district, is considered by many historians of the Texas Rangers to be the first killed in the line of duty. While there is some discussion as to when Austin actually employed men as "rangers", Texas Ranger lore dates the anniversary year of their organization to this event.
However, the Texas Rangers were not formally constituted until 1835. Austin returned to Texas after having been imprisoned in Mexico City and helped organize a council to govern the group. On October 17, at a consultation of the Provisional Government of Texas, Daniel Parker proposed a resolution to establish the Texas Rangers. He proposed creating three companies that would total some 60 men and would be known by "uniforms" consisting of a light duster and an identification badge made from a Mexican peso. They were instituted by Texan lawmakers on November 24. On November 28, 1835, Robert McAlpin Williamson was chosen to be the first Major of the Texas Rangers. Within two years the Rangers grew to more than 300 men.
In their early days, Rangers performed tasks of protecting the Texas frontier against Indian attacks on the settlers. During the Texas Revolution, they served mainly as scouts, spies, couriers, and guides for the settlers fleeing before the Mexican Army and performed rear guard during the Runaway Scrape and general support duties. These minor roles continued after independence, when the region became the Republic of Texas under President Sam Houston. Houston, who had lived with the Cherokee for many years (and who had taken a Cherokee wife), favored peaceful coexistence with Indians, a policy that left little space for a force with the Rangers' characteristics.
This situation changed radically when Mirabeau B. Lamar became president of the Republic of Texas in December 1838. Lamar had participated in skirmishes with the Cherokee in his home state of Georgia; like most Texians, he had not forgotten the support the Cherokee had given the Mexicans in the Córdova Rebellion against the Republic. He favored the eradication of Indians in Texas—a view that he shared with Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Thomas Rusk. Lamar saw in the Rangers the perfect tool for the task, and he obtained permission from the Texas Legislature to raise a force of 56 Rangers, along with other volunteer companies. During the following three years, he engaged the Rangers in a war against the Cherokee and the Comanche and succeeded in weakening their territorial control.