Van Zandt County gained the pioneer nickname “The Free State of Van Zandt” because this area was associated with many freedoms, especially from want and fear: food was obtained with little effort, and although Indians fought white men here as late as 1842, settlers by 1847 slept in the open without dread of Indians or wild animals. According to tradition, the county, created in 1848, also escaped sharing the debts of its parent county, Henderson, through a legal accident and took pride in that unusual advantage. Other parts of Texas also had “Free State” traditions, including the short-lived 1826 Republic of Fredonia in Nacogdoches, the Republic of the Rio Grande along the Mexican border in 1839-1840, Hidalgo County’s self-proclaimed republic from 1852 to 1872, and the secessionist Free State of Ochiltree in the 1890s. Such movements were brief, and after Texas voted in 1845 to join the United States, though retaining the unused right to become five states, ideas such as The Free State of Van Zandt soon lost force while loyalty to Texas remained strong from its ten years as a republic.