 Following the end of the Civil War and the emancipation of the slaves (1865), a Freedmen's Bureau office opened in 1866 in Seguin to supervise work contracts between former slaves and area farmers.Together, German Americans and African Americans joined the Republican Party, leading Guadalupe County to be a reliably Republican one into the 20th century, even after the state disfranchisement of African Americans in 1901 by imposition of a poll tax.By 1876, the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway reached Seguin.