Mexican Texas
Twenty-three other empresarios brought settlers to the state, the majority coming from the American South, while only one colony was settled by Mexican nationals, and two by European immigrants.
[13] In the late 18th century, Spain had stopped allocating new parcels of land in San Antonio and La Bahia, making it difficult for some families to accommodate their growth.
[16] Unlike its predecessor, the Mexican law required immigrants to practice Catholicism and stressed that foreigners needed to learn Spanish.
[17] Settlers were supposed to own property or have a craft or useful profession, and all people wishing to live in Texas were expected to report to the nearest Mexican authority for permission to settle.
[23] During his time in the capitol, Austin impressed various important people in the government by offering to draw a map of Texas, to help remove sediment obstructing navigation of the Colorado River, and by promising to carry out an Indian pacification campaign.
One month later, Agustin abdicated as emperor, and the newly created republican congress nullified all acts of his government, including Austin's colonization contract.
It relied on English common law concepts for defining criminal behavior and also established punishments for vices that Austin deemed disruptive,[29] such as gambling, profane swearing, and public drunkenness.
[25] After hearing reports of other racial issues, the Mexican government asked General Manuel Mier y Teran to investigate the outcome of the 1825 colonization law in Texas.
[25] Although many Mexicans wanted to abolish slavery, fears of an economic crisis if all of the slaves were simultaneously freed led to a gradual emancipation policy.
[36] On April 6, 1830, Mexican president Anastasio Bustamante ordered Texas to comply with the emancipation proclamation or face military intervention.
[46] The feeling was often returned; Rafael Antonio Manchola, son-in-law of empresario Martín De León, served as the commander of the presidio at La Bahia from 1828 to 1830 and then as the alcalde of Goliad.
Two years later, Andrew Jackson increased the United States' offer to $5 million; President Vicente Guerrero again declined to sell.
[48] In July 1829, Mexican authorities had other concerns, as General Isidro Barradas landed 2,700 Spanish troops to the eastern coast of Mexico, near Tampico in an attempt to reclaim the country for Spain.
[48] Yucatan governor Antonio López de Santa Anna led a force of Mexican troops to halt the invasion.
[49] Mier y Teran's 1828 report had recommended new garrisons in Texas which could oversee the Anglo colonists and encourage Mexicans to resettle in the area.
He forbade the state commissioner from granting property titles to squatters and insisted on enforcing the law freeing any slave who set foot in Mexican territory.
William H. Wharton complained that there was little support within Austin's colony to oppose Bradburn with military force; he and other advocates of armed conflict felt that their opposition from other settlers was as deep as that of the Mexican soldiers in the area.
Colonel Domingo de Ugartechea, who led the garrison at Velasco, at the mouth of the Brazos River, refused to allow the ship carrying the cannon to pass.
[54] Many of the Anglo settlers sided with Santa Anna and followed General José Antonio Mexía, who led soldiers in Texas against Bustamante.
They wished for an annulment of Article 11 of the colonization law of 1830 (which prohibited foreign settlement as well as customs reform), recognition of squatters as valid immigrants, and a separate state for Texas.
[65] It addressed such issues as improper protection against Indian attacks and poor pay for militia, insufficient local and legislative representation, forbidding of immigration from the United States, lack of schools and funding for education, and various violations of the repudiated republican style Constitution of 1824.
[69] An Anglo American, Jefferson Chambers, was appointed superior circuit judge of Texas in 1835 and extensions were granted for settlement contracts that had not met their conditions for the number of settlers.
Juan Seguin, political chief of Bexar, called for a town meeting to create a government but was forced to postpone it when news arrived of approaching Mexican troops.
Santa Anna agreed and led the reaction against liberalization, forcing Gómez Farías and his Federalist supporters, including Mexican General José Antonio Mexía, to flee into exile in the United States.
Although the United States government remained officially neutral in the Mexican struggle between Santa Anna's Centralists and Gomez Farias' Federalists, there was much political sympathy favoring the separation of Texas from Mexico.
General Mexia soon found financing in New Orleans and began raising an expedition to attack the important Mexican port of Tampico.
[76] In 1835 Juan Seguin, Plácido Benavides, Manuel Leal, and Salvador Flores began raising companies of volunteers from the San Antonio and Victoria areas to support the federalist cause.
[78] The political chief of the Nacogdoches region told the militias to take arms against the Mexican troops in July 1835 and asked the rest of the citizens to form a volunteer army.
The colonists maintained that Mexico had invited them to move to the country and they were determined "to enjoy 'the republican institutions to which they were accustomed in their native land, the United States of America.
[83] The newly appointed president of Mexico (Anastasio Bustamante) and the Mexican Congress both rejected the Treaties of Velasco, declaring that because he had signed them under duress, they were null and void.
