Colonization and The Texas Rebellion

Anglo-American Colonization in Mexican Tejas

• Mexico courted foreign immigrants to help populate the frontier province of Tejas
  • generous land grants that were much cheaper than the United States
  • attractive, especially after the Panic of 1819
• 1821-35, 30000 immigrated from the United States
  • legally and illegally
  • mostly from the slave states
  • peaking 1830-35 (cotton boom years)
  • brought slavery and cotton with them
  • about 5000 were enslaved Black people
• Anglo-Texans saw slavery and cotton as the key to Texas’s future, but…
  • Mexico was abolishing slavery
  • compromises/loopholes were carved out for Texas
  • tensions still rose

The Texas Rebellion and Republic

• 1835, centralizing reforms to Mexico’s constitution led to a rebellion in Texas
  • rebels feared a stronger government would force Texas to end slavery
• rebels appealed to the United States for support
  • President Jackson refused
  • private United States money and manpower poured in
  • Declaration of Independence, March 1836
  • unlikely rebel victory, April 1836
• annexing Texas to the United States as another slave state was too controversial to pass in Congress
  • so, Texas stayed independent
  • Mexico refused to recognize independence
• United States immigration continues, 1836-45:
  • anglo population in Texas rises by 400%
  • the enslaved population in Texas rises 800%