Texas Government Chapter 1

welcome to texas government uh i hope

you enjoy the class um

we will be covering a lot of information

from uh

texas history up through the types of uh

government and the government actions

that take place in the state of texas it

might not sound exciting but

it might be very interesting in the long

run let's hope so

this

class is broken up into four units

and unit one which is what we're going

to start now will include

chapters one two and six

one is the introduction to texas history

and politics

two the texas state constitution in the

american federal system

and six local government in texas

as you all know you probably learned

this in elementary school at least that

there have been six flags over texas

here's the list of those six flags of

course spain is one flag but it was uh

we were under their flag twice

if you'll notice it's in chronological

order

so for testing purposes you might want

to know this as a chronology i might ask

a question such as

you know

place the

the six flags of texas in the

appropriate chronological order spain

first

which

laid claim to it not long after

columbus

quote-unquote discovered america and

many of the spanish explorers

came over to texas

then france controlled it for a while

then back to spain again until 1821 when

the mexican revolution occurred and then

mexico controlled

or flagged flew over the state of texas

and then

1836 that was when the texas revolution

occurred which we'll talk about in a

moment and

texas became its own independent

republic

uh until 1845 when it was annexed into

the united states of america so it was

then under uh the united states flag

then in 1861 texas secedes from the

union

and becomes part of the confederate

states of america

and then finally after the civil war

texas re-enters the united states

in 1819 the adams onus treaty

created the boundary between mexico

which was part of spain at the time and

the united states this was important

because it was um it was a um

a way to finalize in a lot of ways uh

some borders that had been in dispute

since the revolution and since the war

of 1812.

now spain

is part of this and one of the reasons

they wanted to to finalize this was to

they wanted to encourage american

settlement in the northern province

which we now know of as texas but back

then it was a tehasi coahuila

but spain recruits impresarios these are

people who in exchange for land will

recruit settlers and bring them

in to texas to settle

the first to get a major um

land grant as an impresario was moses

austin

and uh

he got a land grant and he had

recruited 300 people to bring to texas

to settle

because spain was like i said was

encouraging settlement

the only real thing that spain required

at the time was that all the settlers

convert to roman catholicism

and while

likely very few if any of these settlers

were roman catholic because of the uh

the

ability to gain inexpensive land

they chose to

pretend if you will to convert to roman

catholicism they continued to practice

their protestant religions which was

what the majority of them were

but it'll it'll set the standard for

kind of what future settlers will do

they will pretend or just kind of pay

lip service and just sign off on uh

to the spanish government or the mexican

government that they're roman catholic

uh but then continue to practice their

own uh their own religion uh now not

long after this was uh

this land grant was given to moses

austin he died in 1821

and his son stephen f austin takes over

the land grant and it just so happens

about the same time

uh mexico uh

gains its independence from spain about

the time that moses austin dies

uh mexico

after some

negotiations will honor

the spanish land grant to stephen f

austin so he brings his um

settlers in and others begin to flow in

as mexico continues to encourage

settlement from the americas

specifically one of the main reasons is

to uh kind of displace

uh native americans that were causing

some trouble for the mexican government

one of the problems uh

one of the reasons problems were created

is because texas itself

or the land area that is now texas was

so far away from the seat of government

in mexico city

now many of these americans that came

came from slave states

now most were protestant but once again

mexico was

requiring them to um

to declare as roman catholics

uh now by 1829 mexico had outlawed

slavery now that didn't stop the

settlers to continue to bring in slaves

one of the problems was it was so

difficult to

man the borders and to stop the import

of import of slaves or the import of any

immigrants into texas because of how far

away once again texas was from the uh

the seat of government the capital of

mexico mexico city

um now

you start seeing especially after uh

mexico outlaws slavery you start seeing

some unrest and people challenging

the power

of the mexican government including

hayden edwards who

actually declares his own independent

republic of fredonia

uh after a dispute with al alcade or the

leader

the governmental leader of nacogdoches

and so that's kind of the first inkling

that things are going to go bad

by 1830 mexico forbids future

immigration from the u.s because it

seemed like to them all of the um

immigrants are

just causing trouble

and stirring up trouble and of course it

did not work once again because of how

far they were

from the um

from texas and they couldn't really

enforce it

uh now the adam's onus treaty this is

the uh the red line is the new boundary

line from the adams onus treaty and as

you can see the area that is like now

texas gained some of that uh

pink area if you will i guess that's a

peach or something it's not pink it's

peach

uh and then of course in return for uh

that uh

florida is ceded

to the united states by spain

and of course it

also included the coastal gulf coast

areas of

parts of alabama and mississippi and

even into louisiana a little bit

now by 1833 uh

the

the resistance or those that were

challenging mexican rule or mexican law

began to organize

and there they sent delegates uh

to demand successions from mexico's

president now the president this time

is general santa anna as you know we

will know him in the future

of course from the

texas revolution

but uh

in order to kind of put this down and to

stop having to worry about these

problems from texas in 1834 santa ana

just dismisses the entire mexican

congress

and abolishes all existing state

governments

now prior to this mexico was a federal

system which had

a national government and state

governments that ruled somewhat

independently of the national government

much like the united states has now

but he abolishes this and creates a

unitary form of government which is just

the

mexican government and that is all

so in 1835 a declaration of causes was

sent from the texas uh delegates and

well they're not delegates anymore

because there's no official government

but they are sent from texas and

demanded a return to the federal system

uh of course

santa ana resists this uh the

texans begin to organize and take up

arms including william b travis's uh

militia taking the town of anawac

uh then they take gonzalez and then they

move on to san antonio by this point

santa ana is moving his army up into

texas

because uh he's been planning on putting

this rebellion down

now henry smith who's governor of texas

at this time uh is encouraging this and

of course

sam houston will become the early

military leader of this revolutionary

movement

now by 1836 things have gotten so

difficult and bad that texas declares

independence from mexico which of course

leads to a full

fledged military operation from mexico

now when they declare their independence

they create a constitution with three

branches of government of course uh the

legislative the executive and the

judicial

and it legalizes slavery which was the

main sticking point

uh well not the main but one of the one

of the one of the main sticking points

and issues that

caused the rebellion in the first place

mexico's

making slavery illegal

now the mexican army does eventually

attack san antonio and as those that

were defending san antonio flee to the

alamo

we know the story of how those few

texans uh fought off as long as they

could

the four thousand mexican troops that

attacked the alamo and eventually the

alamo fell

and most everybody was killed in battle

or executed after the

after the battle

now with this uh sam houston who's ahead

of the military the texas military at

this point the militia knows he's

seriously outnumbered

and he's outgunned so

as a tactic and this is a tactic that

was used by uh

uh revolutionary uh uh forces in the

american revolution is to uh extend the

supply lines of your enemy if you have

an enemy that is more powerful

and you're outnumbered and outgunned you

just make it difficult for them so sam

houston withdraws across texas moving

around forcing santa ana and his troops

to follow and in the process recruiting

more troops uh this does extend santa

ana supply lines and makes it difficult

and eventually uh he's sam houston is

just looking for a good opportunity to

uh to attack and he finds that as santa

ana's troops are camped along the san

jacinto river

near what is now present-day houston

and a battle uh

uh occurs sam houston attacks with his

uh troops and catches uh

basically catches them in a siesta when

they are resting and they luckily having

the president of mexico there

uh forces

uh santa ana to

grant texas its independence likely if

santa ana had not been at the head of

the army

there wouldn't have been any uh granting

of independence but because they

realized that they had captured the

president of mexico in the process of

attacking this

mexican

military encampment they were able to

force santa ana to recognize texas

independence

and the rio grande river as the southern

border this will come into dispute later

which we'll talk about mexico will claim

that it's the new aces river that is the

southern border but anyway so the

republic of texas is formed at this

point sam houston is elected president

in 1836 he's the first president of the

republic of texas

and in their new constitution that they

create

slavery is made legal

now immediately

texas petitions to be annexed into the

united states

this petition is denied

because of

in the in the national government in

uh congress

there is a lot of dispute and

conflict over the expansion of slavery

the northern states have been pretty

much abolishing and outlawing slavery

throughout the previous years the

southern states because of the expansion

of um

and the demand for cotton

wants to expand slavery and have more

places where

slavery can be legal and so this dispute

prevented

any new states coming in because if

texas had entered the union at the time

it would have been a slave state and the

northern states blocked it

from 1836 to about 1846 the population

nearly tripled many of these people

coming in were slaves

uh i mean the land was cheap and without

having to worry about uh

mexico

and their demands

texas was a popular destination spot for

uh all kinds of immigrants and of course

tensions continued between texas and

mexico even after

the

the revolution and the gaining

independence