Stephen F. Austin

Governance of New Spain had been in question during much of the dispute with the United States.

Napoleon had forced the Spanish king to abdicate the throne in 1808 and appointed Joseph Bonaparte as the new monarch.

A shadow government had operated out of Cadiz during Joseph's reign.

Revolutionaries within Mexico and the United States had unsuccessfully combined to declare Texas and Mexico independent.

Spanish had troops reacted harshly, looting the province and executing any Tejanos accused of having Republican tendencies.

Moses and Stephen F. Austin, father and son, visit San Antonio in 1819 and request permission from Spanish authorities to settle Americans in Texas.

New Spain, desirous of populating its borderlands, invites Americans to settle the desolate province, traditionally shunned by the Spanish, on the condition that the settlers recognize viceregal authority.

Stephen Austin, who visits Mexico City in 1823 to confirm his late father’s land grant, agrees to settle three hundred American families in Texas in order for the Mexican authorities to grant him agents' status.

Felipe Enrique Neri, Baron de Bastrop, the Mexican government administrator in charge of Anglo-American immigration into Mexico's state of Coahuila y Tejas, allows Stephen F. Austin to put together an eleven-man police force that will later be expanded to become the Texas Ranger Division.

The Mexican War for Independence had severed the control that Spain had exercised on its North American territories in 1821 and the new country of Mexico had been formed from much of the lands that had comprised New Spain, including Spanish Texas.

The 1824 Constitution of Mexico had joined Texas with Coahuila to form the state of Coahuila y Tejas.

The Congress had allowed Texas the option of forming its own state "'as soon as it feels capable of doing so.'"

The same year, Mexico had enacted the General Colonization Law, which enabled all heads of household, regardless of race or immigrant status, to claim land in Mexico.

Mexico has neither manpower nor funds to protect settlers from near-constant Comanche raids and it hopes that settlers can control the raids.

The government has liberalized its immigration policies, allowing for settlers from the United States to immigrate to Texas.

The Tonkawa had continued their southern migration into Texas and northern Mexico, where they have allied with the Lipan Apache.

In 1824, the Tonkawa enter into a treaty with Stephen F. Austin to protect Anglo-American immigrants against the Comanche.

At this time, Austin is an agent recruiting immigrants to settle in the Mexican state of Coahuila y Texas.

Settlers have banded together to attack the Karankawa by 1825.

Stephen Austin commissions Captain Kuykendall to lead volunteers to expel them from the territory, which extends to the Lavaca river.

They chase the Karankawa to Manahila Creek, where a Spanish missionary intercedes on their behalf and makes them promise to never again go east of the Lavaca.

This promise will be broken, however, and will be met by disproportionate violence by the Texan colonists.

Several of Spain's colonies in the New World, after winning independence in 1821, had joined together to create a new country, Mexico.

The country had divided itself into several states, and the area known as Mexican Texas became part of the border state Coahuila y Tejas.

To assist in governing the large area, the state had created several departments; all of Texas was included in the Department of Béxar.

The department is further subdivided into municipalities, which are each governed by an alcalde, similar to a modern-day mayor.

A large portion of East Texas, ranging from the Sabine to the Trinity Rivers and from the Gulf Coast to the Red River, has become part of the municipality of Nacogdoches.

Most residents of the municipality are Spanish-speaking families who have occupied their land for generations.

An increasing number are English-speaking residents who had immigrated illegally during the Mexican War of Independence.

Many of the immigrants are adventurers who had arrived as part of various military filibustering groups, at least two of which which had attempted to create independent republics within Texas during Spanish rule.

For better control of the sparsely populated border region, in 1824 the Mexican federal government had passed the General Colonization Law to allow legal immigration into Texas.

Under the law, each state sets its own requirements for immigration.

After some debate, on March 24, 1825, Coahuila y Tejas had authorized a system granting land to empresarios, who would each recruit settlers for their particular colony.

In addition, for every hundred families an empresario settled in Texas, they would receive twenty-three thousand acres of land for cultivation and settlement.

During the state government's deliberations, many would-be empresarios had congregated in Mexico to lobby for land grants.

Among them was Haden Edwards, an American land speculator known for his quick temper and aggressiveness.

Despite his abrasiveness, Edwards was granted a colonization contract on April 14, allowing him to settle eight hundred families in East Texas.

The contract contains standard language requiring Edwards to recognize all pre-existing Spanish and Mexican land titles in his grant area, to raise a militia to protect the settlers in the area, and to allow the state land commissioner to certify all deeds awarded.

Edwards's colony encompasses the land from the Navasota River to twenty leagues west of the Sabine River, and from twenty leagues north of the Gulf of Mexico to fifteen leagues north of the town of Nacogdoches.

To the west and north of the colony are lands controlled by several Native tribes that had recently been driven out of the United States.

The southern boundary is a colony overseen by Stephen F. Austin, the son of the first empresario in Texas.

East of Edwards's grant is the former Sabine Free State, a neutral zone, which had been essentially lawless for several decades.

The boundaries of the new colony and the municipality of Nacogdoches partially overlap, leading to uncertainty over who has jurisdiction over which function.

The majority of the established settlers live outside the eastern boundary of the Edwards colony.

The Mexican government had made an effort to populate some of its sparsely settled northern land claims soon after achieving its independence from Spain in 1823.

On the condition that the settlers convert to Catholicism and assume Mexican citizenship, the government had awarded extensive land grants in a remote area of the state of Coahuila y Tejas to thousands of immigrant families from the United States.

It has also forbidden the importation of slaves, a condition that, like the others, has been largely ignored.

By late 1825, Stephen F. Austin, who is to be known to posterity as the "Father of Texas", had led the second and ultimately successful colonization of the region by settlers from the United States, bringing to the grant the first three hundred families (now known in Texas history as the Old Three Hundred).

Austin had obtained further contracts to settle an additional nine hundred families between 1825 and 1829.

He has effective civil and military authority over the settlers, but had been quick to introduce a semblance of American law: the Constitution of Coahuila y Tejas had been agreed on in November 1827.

In addition, to protect the colonists Austin has organized small, informal armed groups that will soon become known as the Texas Rangers.

Despite his hopes, Austin is making little money from his endeavors; the colonists are unwilling to pay for his services as empresario and most of the money gained is spent on the processes of government and other public services.

With the blessings of the Mexican government, Austin imports more settlers into Texas under an 1828 contract, the third addition to the 1824 special act.

Stephen F. Austin, seeking to establish Freemasonry in Texas, calls a meeting of Freemasons at San Felipe on February 11 for the purpose of electing officers and petitioning the Masonic Grand Lodge in Mexico City for a charter to form a lodge.

Austin is elected Worshipful Master of the new lodge.

Although the petition reaches Matamoros, and is to be forwarded to Mexico City, nothing more is heard of it.

Mexico had legalized immigration from the United States after gaining independence from Spain.

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.

Tensions escalate in Texas between the colonists and Commander Bradburn, who strongly supports the Mexican law forbidding slavery.

After he had given asylum to three men who had escaped slavery in Louisiana in August 1831, the owner had retained local lawyer William Barret Travis to represent him in trying to get the slaves returned.

Bradburn received a letter in May 1832, ostensibly from a friend, warning that one hundred armed men would come from Louisiana to reclaim the slaves.

When Bradburn realized that the letter was a hoax, he arrested Travis for questioning, intending to send Travis to Matamoros for a military trial on charges of attempted insurrection to separate the territory from Mexico.

Conviction on this charge would lead to Travis's execution.

Unfamiliar with Mexican law, the settlers were outraged that Bradburn could arrest the man without a warrant, a statement of charges, or trial by jury.

Most assumed they were still covered by the United States Bill of Rights.

Jack had threatened Bradburn, who arrested him again.

Travis and Jack then began plotting their escape.

They attempted to smuggle letters to David G. Burnet, a fellow instigator; the letters called on Texans to aid them, but stopped short of calling for armed rebellion.

Bradburn had intercepted the letters before delivery.

Although settlers at first did not get involved, they became alarmed at learning that Bradburn was taking statements from potential witnesses without allowing Travis, Patrick Jack, or their legal representation to speak with the witnesses.

Jack's brother organized a contingent of men to march from Brazoria to Anahuac.

Men began arriving from other villages as well.

One of the Brazoria councilmen, John Austin, stopped to consult Colonel Domingo Ugartechea, who commands the garrison on the Brazos.

Ugartechea had recommended that Austin request that the men be remanded into civilian custody.

Bradburn's officers explained to Austin and company that the laws prohibited turning the accused men over to civilian authorities.

The Brazoria men returned home.

After they left, the Mexican officers discovered that their horses had been stolen.

They arrested two local men on suspicion of the theft.

On hearing of the new arrests, the Brazoria contingent returned to Anahuac.

They camped with other angry civilians several miles from Anahuac and elected Frank W. Johnson as commander.

The group soon captured Bradburn's nineteen cavalry officers, who had been trying to reconnoiter the Texan position.

On June 10, the insurgents occupied buildings in northern Anahuac.

Bradburn worried that the armed men wanted to do more than free the American prisoners; he suspected a full-scale revolt.

Bradburn had Travis and Jack tied to the ground with weapons pointed at them.

Bradburn threatened to shoot both men if the Texans attacked.

Travis encouraged Johnson to lead an attack anyway.

During the ensuing negotiations, the Texans offered to exchange the cavalry officers for Travis and the other prisoners.

Mexican officers agreed to release their prisoners into civilian custody in exchange for the cavalry officers and for the withdrawal of the Texans to Turtle Bayou.