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Position:Home>History> What did Stephen Austin and Brigham Young have in common? 1810-1853?


Question:They brought people to settle.


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: They brought people to settle.

they both brought a large number of people to settle in the West. Besides that nothing. Young was a nut case Mormon, ego maniac. Stephen was a leader and a statesman.

Well... Austin was a Texan... and following the Mexican-American war, he requested a military surveying detachment to be sent to Mexico in 1848 to map the borders between Mexico and America. NOTE: this eventually led to the Gadston Purchase which bought that most southern part of New Mexico from Mexico a few years later.

About that same time, Brigham Young was leading his people to Utah. The Mormons had been chased out of Missouri for sedition... they had attempted the ARMED OVERTHROW of the U.S. Government and crossed the Missouri river just ahead of a lynch mob, and headed to Utah.

Anyway, the Mormons were nearly broke when they happened upon the Military contingent headed by General Kearney, who was heading for Mexico and then on to the Pacific Ocean.

Young made a deal with Kearney to supply him with 300 young men who would WALK along with the army and perform all the daily chores and duties to free the soldiers for concentrating on military matters. Those 300 young Mormon men (all volunteers) were known as "The Mormon Battalion" If memory serves me correctly, Kearney paid Young about $50 for each one of the young men's services and it was that money that Brigham Young and the young church used to buy the supplies necessary to found their home in the Great Salt Lake of Utah.

So, the only thing I can imagine that Austin (who had requested the expedition) and Brigham Young had in common was that Military expedition and the hiring of the young Mormon men to be part of the expedition.

They were both Brave men, also they were not the originals. Stephen did it after his father Moses Austin was planing to bring the settlers to Texas but couldn't. And Brigham followed what Joseph Smith had asked him to do before he died. And sanjac183 There is no reason to call people names, and how could he be an ego maniac when all he wanted was to protect his fellow man from the murders who had killed their leader. Honestly you should learn to think before you speak.. or type