Mexico had legalized immigration from the United…
1832 CE
Empresarios have been granted contracts to settle immigrants from the United States and Europe in Mexican Texas.
As the number of Americans living in Texas increased, Mexican authorities had begun to fear the United States would want to annex Texas.
On April 6, 1830, the Mexican government had passed a series of laws restricting immigration from the United States into Texas.
The laws also canceled all unfilled empresario contracts and established customs houses in Texas to enforce the collection of customs duties.
Mexican military officer Juan Davis Bradburn, formerly an American citizen, had been appointed commander of a new customs and garrison post on Galveston Bay.
In October 1830 Bradburn established a post atop a thirty feet (nine point one meter) bluff at the entrance to the Trinity River.
The post has become known as Anahuac.
Unpopular from the beginning of his tenure, Bradburn opposes the efforts of the state land commissioner to grant titles to settlers who lived near Anahuac.
The Mexican Constitution of 1824 prohibits immigrants from settling within twenty-six miles (forty-two kilometers) of the coast, and most of these settlers live too close to the coast.
Although the commissioner is finally able to grant the titles, settlers are angry with Bradburn.
In January 1832, Bradburn receives a letter listing ten men in his jurisdiction who want to separate Texas from Mexico.
In June 1832, two of Bradburn's soldiers attack a female settler.
Angry settlers tar and feather a neighbor who had failed to aid her.
They demand that Bradburn turn over the soldiers for a similar punishment.
After Bradburn refuses, local men organize a militia, supposedly to protect the settlement from raiding by natives.
Mexican law forbids residents from creating militias, so Bradburn arrests the ringleader Patrick Jack.
After Bradburn receives death threats, he releases Jack.
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