Why Did Texans Declare Indpendence From Mexico in 1836 Reading Like a Historian
Learning Objectives
By the end of this department, yous will be able to:
- Explain why American settlers in Texas sought independence from Mexico
- Discuss early attempts to make Texas independent of Mexico
- Draw the relationship betwixt Anglo-Americans and Tejanos in Texas before and after independence
As the incursions of the earlier filibusters into Texas demonstrated, American expansionists had desired this surface area of Spain'south empire in America for many years. Later on the 1819 Adams-Onís treaty established the purlieus between Mexico and the United States, more than American expansionists began to move into the northern portion of United mexican states's province of Coahuila y Texas. Following Mexico's independence from Spain in 1821, American settlers immigrated to Texas in fifty-fifty larger numbers, intent on taking the land from the new and vulnerable Mexican nation in guild to create a new American slave land.
AMERICAN SETTLERS MOVE TO TEXAS
After the 1819 Adams-Onís Treaty defined the U.S.-United mexican states boundary, the Castilian Mexican government began actively encouraging Americans to settle their northern province. Texas was sparsely settled, and the few Mexican farmers and ranchers who lived there were under abiding threat of attack by tribes, especially the Comanche Empire, which supplemented its hunting with raids in pursuit of horses and cattle.
To increase the non-Native population in Texas, provide a buffer zone between its tribes and the balance of Mexico, and provide a bulwark against potential American expansion, Spain began to recruit empresarios. An empresario was someone who brought settlers to the region in exchange for generous grants of land. Moses Austin, a one time-prosperous entrepreneur reduced to poverty by the Panic of 1819, requested permission to settle 3 hundred English-speaking American residents in Texas. Espana agreed on the condition that the resettled people convert to Roman Catholicism.
On his deathbed in 1821, Austin asked his son Stephen to deport out his plans, and Mexico, which had won independence from Spain the same year, immune Stephen to take control of his father'due south grant. Like Kingdom of spain, Mexico also wished to encourage settlement in the state of Coahuila y Texas and passed colonization laws to encourage immigration. Thousands of Americans, primarily from slave states, flocked to Texas and quickly came to outnumber the Tejanos, the Mexican residents of the region. The soil and climate offered good opportunities to expand slavery and the cotton kingdom. State was plentiful and offered at generous terms. Unlike the U.S. regime, Mexico allowed buyers to pay for their land in installments and did not require a minimum purchase. Furthermore, to many White people, it seemed not but their God-given right but also their patriotic duty to populate the lands beyond the Mississippi River, bringing with them American slavery, civilization, laws, and political traditions (Figure 11.9).
Figure eleven.9 Past the early 1830s, all the lands e of the Mississippi River had been settled and admitted to the Union equally states. The land westward of the river, though in this contemporary map united with the settled areas in the body of an eagle symbolizing the territorial ambitions of the Usa, remained largely unsettled by White Americans. Texas (but southwest of the bird'south tail feathers) remained outside the U.S. border.
THE TEXAS State of war FOR INDEPENDENCE
Many Americans who migrated to Texas at the invitation of the Mexican regime did not completely shed their identity or loyalty to the United states. They brought American traditions and expectations with them (including, for many, the right to enslave individuals). For instance, the majority of these new settlers were Protestant, and though they were not required to nourish the Cosmic mass, Mexico's prohibition on the public practise of other religions upset them and they routinely ignored it.
Accustomed to representative democracy, jury trials, and the accused's right to appear before a gauge, the Anglo-American settlers in Texas also disliked the Mexican legal system, which provided for an initial hearing past an alcalde , an administrator who often combined the duties of mayor, gauge, and law enforcement officeholder. The alcalde sent a written record of the proceeding to a approximate in Saltillo, the state capital, who decided the issue. Settlers as well resented that at virtually 2 Texas representatives were allowed in the state legislature.
Their greatest source of discontent, though, was the Mexican government's 1829 abolitionism of slavery. Most American settlers were from southern states, and many had brought enslaved people with them. Mexico tried to adapt them by maintaining the fiction that the enslaved workers were indentured servants. But American slaveholders in Texas distrusted the Mexican government and wanted Texas to be a new U.S. slave state. The dislike of most for Roman Catholicism (the prevailing organized religion of Mexico) and a widely held belief in American racial superiority led them generally to regard Mexicans as quack, ignorant, and backward.
Belief in their own superiority inspired some Texans to try to undermine the power of the Mexican government. When empresario Haden Edwards attempted to evict people who had settled his land grant before he gained title to it, the Mexican government nullified its understanding with him. Outraged, Edwards and a small party of men took prisoner the alcalde of Nacogdoches. The Mexican army marched to the town, and Edwards and his troop then declared the formation of the Republic of Fredonia between the Sabine and Rio Grande Rivers. To demonstrate loyalty to their adopted country, a force led by Stephen Austin hastened to Nacogdoches to support the Mexican army. Edwards'due south revolt complanate, and the revolutionaries fled Texas.
The growing presence of American settlers in Texas, their reluctance to abide past Mexican law, and their desire for independence caused the Mexican government to grow wary. In 1830, information technology forbade time to come U.S. immigration and increased its military presence in Texas. Settlers continued to stream illegally beyond the long edge; by 1835, after immigration resumed, there were 20 thousand Anglo-Americans in Texas (Effigy 11.ten).
Figure eleven.ten This 1833 map shows the extent of land grants made by United mexican states to American settlers in Texas. Nearly all are in the eastern portion of the state, ane factor that led to war with United mexican states in 1846.
Fifty-5 delegates from the Anglo-American settlements gathered in 1832 to demand the suspension of customs duties, the resumption of immigration from the United States, the granting of promised land titles, and the creation of an independent land of Texas separate from Coahuila. Ordered to disband, the delegates reconvened in early April 1833 to write a constitution for an independent Texas. Surprisingly, General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, United mexican states's new president, agreed to all demands, except the call for statehood (Figure xi.11). Coahuila y Texas fabricated provisions for jury trials, increased Texas's representation in the state legislature, and removed restrictions on commerce.
Effigy 11.xi This portrait of Full general Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna depicts the Mexican president and general in total armed forces regalia.
Texans' hopes for independence were quashed in 1834, even so, when Santa Anna dismissed the Mexican Congress and abolished all state governments, including that of Coahuila y Texas. In January 1835, reneging on earlier promises, he dispatched troops to the boondocks of Anahuac to collect customs duties. Lawyer and soldier William B. Travis and a small force marched on Anahuac in June, and the fort surrendered. On October 2, Anglo-American forces met Mexican troops at the town of Gonzales; the Mexican troops fled and the Americans moved on to take San Antonio. Now more than cautious, delegates to the Consultation of 1835 at San Felipe de Austin voted against declaring independence, instead drafting a statement, which became known as the Announcement of Causes, promising continued loyalty if Mexico returned to a constitutional form of authorities. They selected Henry Smith, leader of the Independence Party, every bit governor of Texas and placed Sam Houston, a former soldier who had been a congressman and governor of Tennessee, in accuse of its minor military force.
The Consultation delegates met again in March 1836. They declared their independence from Mexico and drafted a constitution calling for an American-manner judicial organization and an elected president and legislature. Significantly, they also established that slavery would not be prohibited in Texas. Many wealthy Tejanos supported the push button for independence, hoping for liberal governmental reforms and economic benefits.
Remember THE ALAMO!
Mexico had no intention of losing its northern province. Santa Anna and his army of iv thousand had besieged San Antonio in February 1836. Hopelessly outnumbered, its two hundred defenders, under Travis, fought fiercely from their refuge in an quondam mission known equally the Alamo (Figure 11.12). After ten days, however, the mission was taken and all but a few of the defenders were expressionless, including Travis and James Bowie, the famed frontiersman who was besides a land speculator and slave trader. A few male survivors, possibly including the borderland legend and former Tennessee congressman Davy Crockett, were led exterior the walls and executed. The few women and children inside the mission were allowed to leave with the only adult male survivor, a person enslaved by Travis, who was so freed by the Mexican Army. Terrified, they fled.
Figure xi.12 The Fall of the Alamo, painted past Theodore Gentilz fewer than ten years subsequently this pivotal moment in the Texas Revolution, depicts the 1836 set on on the Alamo complex.
Although hungry for revenge, the Texas forces nether Sam Houston withal withdrew across Texas, gathering recruits as they went. Coming upon Santa Anna'south encampment on the banks of San Jacinto River on Apr 21, 1836, they waited every bit the Mexican troops settled for an afternoon nap. Assured by Houston that "Victory is certain!" and told to "Trust in God and fear not!" the seven hundred men descended on a sleeping force about twice their number with cries of "Remember the Alamo!" Within fifteen minutes the Boxing of San Jacinto was over. Approximately half the Mexican troops were killed, and the survivors, including Santa Anna, taken prisoner.
Santa Anna grudgingly signed a peace treaty and was sent to Washington, where he met with President Andrew Jackson and, under force per unit area, agreed to recognize an independent Texas with the Rio Grande River equally its southwestern edge. By the time the agreement had been signed, all the same, Santa Anna had been removed from power in Mexico. For that reason, the Mexican Congress refused to be bound by Santa Anna's promises and continued to insist that the renegade territory nonetheless belonged to United mexican states.
Click and Explore
Visit the official Alamo website to larn more about the battle of the Alamo and take a virtual tour of the old mission.
THE Alone STAR Democracy
In September 1836, armed services hero Sam Houston was elected president of Texas, and, post-obit the relentless logic of U.S. expansion, Texans voted in favor of annexation to the Us. This had been the dream of many settlers in Texas all along. They wanted to expand the United States west and saw Texas as the next logical step. Slaveholders in that location, such equally Sam Houston, William B. Travis and James Bowie (the latter ii of whom died at the Alamo), believed likewise in the destiny of slavery. Mindful of the barbarous debates over Missouri that had led to talk of disunion and state of war, American politicians were reluctant to annex Texas or, indeed, fifty-fifty to recognize it as a sovereign nation. Annexation would almost certainly mean war with Mexico, and the access of a land with a large enslaved population, though permissible under the Missouri Compromise, would bring the issue of slavery in one case once more to the fore. Texas had no choice but to organize itself as the independent Lone Star Republic. To protect itself from Mexican attempts to repossess it, Texas sought and received recognition from France, Great United kingdom, Kingdom of belgium, and the netherlands. The U.s.a. did non officially recognize Texas equally an contained nation until March 1837, about a year after the final victory over the Mexican army at San Jacinto.
Uncertainty about its future did not discourage Americans committed to expansion, peculiarly slaveholders, from rushing to settle in the Alone Star Commonwealth, however. Between 1836 and 1846, its population nearly tripled. By 1840, almost twelve thousand enslaved Africans had been brought to Texas by American slaveholders. Many new settlers had suffered financial losses in the severe financial depression of 1837 and hoped for a new get-go in the new nation. According to folklore, across the United States, homes and farms were deserted overnight, and curious neighbors establish notes reading but "GTT" ("Gone to Texas"). Many Europeans, especially Germans, also immigrated to Texas during this period.
Americans in Texas generally treated both Tejano and Native American residents with utter contempt, eager to readapt and dispossess them. Anglo-American leaders failed to render the support their Tejano neighbors had extended during the rebellion and repaid them by seizing their lands. In 1839, Mireau B. Lamar, the second president of the Lone Star Republic, instituted a program of ethnic cleansing aimed at pushing all Native American tribes out of Texas.
The impulse to expand did not lay dormant, and Anglo-American settlers and leaders in the newly formed Texas republic soon bandage their gaze on the Mexican province of New United mexican states as well. Repeating the tactics of before filibusters, a Texas force set out in 1841 intent on taking Santa Iron. Its members encountered an army of New Mexicans and were taken prisoner and sent to Mexico City. On Christmas Mean solar day, 1842, Texans avenged a Mexican assail on San Antonio by attacking the Mexican town of Mier. In August, another Texas army was sent to set on Santa Fe, but Mexican troops forced them to retreat. Conspicuously, hostilities between Texas and Mexico had not concluded simply because Texas had declared its independence.
Why Did Texans Declare Indpendence From Mexico in 1836 Reading Like a Historian
Source: https://openstax.org/books/us-history/pages/11-3-independence-for-texas