David Gouverneur Burnet (April 14, 1788 – December 5, 1870) was an early politician within the Republic of Texas, serving as the interim president of Texas in 1836, the second vice president of the Republic of Texas (1839–1841), and the secretary of state (1846) for the new state of Texas after it was annexed to the United States. Burnet was born in Newark, New Jersey, and attended law school in Cincinnati, Ohio. As a young man, he lived with a Comanche tribe for two years before he returned to Ohio.
In 1806, Burnet volunteered to serve the unsuccessful filibustering expeditions led by General Francisco de Miranda for the independence of Venezuela from Spain. He fought in Chile in 1807 and in Venezuela in 1808. After Miranda broke with Simon Bolivar, Burnet returned to the United States in 1812. In 1826, he moved to Stephen F. Austin's colony in Mexican Texas. He received a land grant as an empresario but was forced to sell the land after he had failed to attract enough settlers to his colony, and he later lost his right to operate a sawmill after he refused to convert to Roman Catholicism.
On hearing of William B. Travis's plea for help at the Alamo, Burnet traveled to Washington-on-the-Brazos to recruit help from the Convention of 1836. He remained at the convention and was elected interim president on March 17, 1836. On his orders, the government fled Washington-on-the-Brazos for Harrisburg, thus inspiring the Runaway Scrape. Burnet narrowly avoided capture by Mexican troops the following month. After Sam Houston's victory at the Battle of San Jacinto, Burnet took custody of Mexican General Antonio López de Santa Anna and negotiated the Treaties of Velasco. Many Texans were infuriated that the treaty allowed Santa Anna to escape execution, and some called for Burnet's arrest for treason.
Burnet declined to run for president and resigned as interim president on October 22, 1836. He served as vice president under Mirabeau B. Lamar and participated in the Battle of Neches. He was defeated by Houston in the next presidential election. Burnet served as the state's first Secretary of State when the United States annexed Texas. The first Reconstruction state legislature appointed him to the United States Senate. Still, he could not take his seat because of the Ironclad oath.
Burnet was born to Dr. William Burnet and his second wife, Gertrude Gouverneur Rutgers, widow of Anthony Rutgers (a brother of Henry Rutgers who founded Rutgers University). His father had served in the Continental Congress. David Burnet was orphaned as a child.
In 1805, Burnet became a clerk for a New York counting house, Robinson and Hartshorne. When the firm suffered financial difficulty, Burnet gave his entire personal inheritance, $1,300 (equivalent to $28,000 in 2025), to try to save the company. The firm went bankrupt, and Burnet lost all of the money.
In 1806, Burnet volunteered to serve the unsuccessful filibustering expeditions led by general Francisco de Miranda for the independence of Venezuela from Spain rule. He fought in Chile in 1807 and in Venezuela in 1808. After Miranda broke with Simon Bolivar, Burnet returned to the United States in 1812.
Upon his return Burnet moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, to study law. He lived with his two older brothers, Jacob, who later became a US Senator, and Isaac, who later served as mayor of Cincinnati.
In 1817, Burnet moved to Natchitoches, Louisiana and set up a mercantile business. After several months, he developed a bloody cough. A doctor diagnosed him with tuberculosis and suggested he move to Texas, then a part of Mexico to recuperate in the dry air. Later that year, Burnet traveled alone into Texas. A Comanche tribe came to his aid when he fell off of his horse by the Colorado River, and he lived with them for two years until he made a full recovery. Near the end of the year, he met Ben Milam, who had come to the village to trade with the tribe.
His cough improved, and Burnet returned to Cincinnati. He asked that the Mexican prisoners be released with him and allowed to return home. The Comanches agreed to this proposal, and the Mexican families were surprised that there was no ransom or other agreement to the release of these prisoners.
In Cincinnati, Burnet wrote a series of articles for the Literary Gazette detailing his time with the Native Americans. He practiced law for several years but returned to Texas after hearing of Stephen F. Austin's thriving colony for Anglos. Burnet settled in San Felipe, the headquarters of Austin's colony, in 1826. For the next 18 months, he provided law advice to the 200 settlers in the town and organized the first Presbyterian Sunday School in Texas. A profoundly religious man, Burnet neither drank nor swore and always carried a Bible in his pocket.
After a failed venture with Milam, the Western Colonization and Mining Company, in 1827, Burnet traveled with Lorenzo de Zavala and Joseph Vehlein to the Coahuila y Tejas state capitol, Saltillo. The men applied for grants as empresarios under the General Colonization Law of 1824. Burnet received authorization to settle 300 families in East Texas, northwest of Nacogdoches, an area that had already been settled by the Cherokee. Under the terms of his grant, a married settler could purchase a league of land 4,428 acres (20 km2)) for $200.
Burnet returned to Ohio to recruit settlers but could not entice the required number of families. In 1828, he sold his land grant to the Galveston Bay and Texas Land Company for $12,000. Burnet remained in the United States for several years, and on December 8, 1830, married Hannah Este of Morristown, New Jersey. At their wedding, he was 43, and she was 30 years old.
Eager to return to Texas, Burnet and his new wife chartered the ship Call and brought a steam engine to operate a sawmill. A storm grounded the ship along Bolivar Point, and, to lighten the load, they were forced to discard all of Hannah's furniture and her hope chest. The steam engine was the only piece of cargo that could be saved.
Burnet established his sawmill on 17 acres (10 ha) of land along the San Jacinto River, in an area that came to be known as Burnet's Bay. Under Mexican law, Burnet was entitled to an extra land grant because his sawmill provided a needed public service. However, the law required settlers to convert to Roman Catholicism to receive the extra land grant. The devout Burnet refused, angering the Mexican authorities to the point that they canceled his grant for operating the sawmill. The mill was finally sold to Dr. Branch T. Archer at a large loss.
Burnet was a delegate to the Convention of 1833, where he was elected the chair of a committee that created a petition arguing that the Mexican Congress approve separate statehood for Texas. Stephen F. Austin carried the petition to Mexico City and was promptly jailed.
Shortly after the Convention of 1833 disbanded, Antonio López de Santa Anna became Mexico's new president. Over the next two years, Santa Anna began consolidating his political control over the country by dissolving the Mexican Congress and disbanding state legislatures. In October 1835, Santa Anna declared himself military dictator and marched north to "reassert control over Texas".
During this time, Burnet had been appointed the first judge of the Austin district and organized a court at San Felipe. From then on, he was known as Judge Burnet. He and other Texians determined that Texas should be an independent state within Mexico. In November 1835, the Consultation of 1835 was held at San Felipe. At the consultation, Burnet formed a provisional state government based on the 1824 Constitution of Mexico, which Santa Anna had already repudiated.