The "settled rather than conquered" comment is a phrase I've come across in one form or another quite a lot in Texas history books and articles. It's not to be taken out of context to mean that there was no warfare with the Indians.
The phrase is used to contrast the way Americans took over Texas with the way other territories were taken over. Texas was unique in that settlers preceded the Army, rather than the other way around. In all the other Western territories, the first whites were trappers and traders, mountain men; farmers & ranchers were exceptions rather than the rule. Buffalo hunters and the Army entered the picture more or less at the same time, and the Indians were fought and beaten and then herded off onto reservations before the settlers started to move in.
Texas' history was very different. The settlers moved in first, long before the Army. Austin's colony, which as previously noted was a quasi-feudal organization more Spanish in origin and nature than American. There was no Army. Austin's people found themselves in armed conflict with the Indians within the first months of crossing the Sabine. Falling back on the traditions of the frontier colonies of the eastern seaboard from 100-200 years previously, they found themselves fighting the Indians from their homes, farms, and villages. Hence the periodic raising of Ranger companies to take the fight to the Indians.
No one is saying there wasn't fighting, or that people weren't killed, raped, tortured, mutilated by the Indians (and Indians, by rangers). It was just a different pattern of conquest than other regions.
