Mexican Texas - Rising Tensions

Rising Tensions

In 1825, Mexican authorities became concerned with the actions of empresario Haden Edwards in Nacogdoches. Edwards had threatened to confiscate the land of any Mexican already living in the area in which he planned to bring settlers unless the Mexicans could present written deeds to the property. Mexican authorities promptly told him that he did not have the authority to confiscate land and he should honor the claims of the previous settlers. After multiple confrontations, on December 16, 1826, Edwards, his brothers, and 30 settlers issued a declaration of independence and called themselves the Republic of Fredonia. Other empresarios disassociated themselves from Edwards, and Austin sent 250 militiamen to Nacogdoches to help the Mexican forces quell the revolt. Edwards was finally forced to flee Mexican territory.

After hearing reports of other racial issues, the Mexican government asked General Manuel Mier y Teran to investigate the outcome of the 1825 colonization law in Texas. In 1829, Mier y Teran issued his report, which concluded that most Anglo Americans refused to be naturalized and tried to isolate themselves from Mexicans. He also noted that slave reforms passed by the state were being ignored.

Although many Mexicans wanted to abolish slavery, fears of an economic crisis if all of the slaves were simultaneously freed led to a gradual emancipation policy. In 1823, Mexico forbade the sale or purchase of slaves and required that the children of slaves be freed when they reached fourteen. Any slave introduced into Mexico by purchase or trade would also be freed. By 1825, however, a census of Austin's Colony showed 1,347 Anglo-Americans and 443 people of African descent, including a very small number of free Negroes. Two years later the legislature of Coahuila y Tejas outlawed the introduction of additional slaves into the state and granted freedom at birth to all children born to a slave. The new laws also stated that any slave brought into Texas should be freed within six months.

In 1829, slavery was officially outlawed in Mexico. Austin feared that the edict would cause widespread discontent and tried to suppress publication of it. Rumors of the new law quickly spread throughout the area and the colonists seemed on the brink of revolt. The governor of Coahuila y Tejas, Jose Maria Viesca, wrote to the president to explain the importance of slavery to the Texas economy, and the importance of the Texas economy to the development of the state. Texas was temporarily exempted from the rule. On April 6, 1830, Mexican president Anastasio Bustamante ordered Texas to comply with the emancipation proclamation or face military intervention. To circumvent the law, many Anglo colonists converted their slaves into indentured servants for life. Others simply called their slaves indentured servants without legally changing their status. Slaveholders wishing to enter Mexico would force their slaves to sign contracts claiming that the slaves owed money and would work to pay the debt. The low wages the slave would receive made repayment impossible, and the debt would be inherited, even though no slave would receive wages until age eighteen. This tactic was outlawed by an 1832 state law which prohibited worker contracts from lasting more than ten years. A small number of slaves were imported illegally from the West Indies or Africa. The British consul estimated that in the 1830s approximately 500 slaves had been illegally imported into Texas. By 1836, there were approximately 5,000 slaves in Texas.

Exportation in the slave-owning areas of the state surpassed that of the non-slave-owning areas. A survey of Texas in 1834 found that the department of Bexar, which was mostly made up of Tejanos, had exported no goods. The Brazos department, including Austin's colonies and those of Green DeWitt, had exported 600,000 pesos worth of goods, including 5,000 bales of cotton. The department of Texas, which included the eastern settlements, expected to export 2,000 bales of cotton and 5,000 head of cattle.

Bustamante implemented other measures to make immigration less desirable for Anglo-Americans. He rescinded the property tax law, which had exempted immigrants from paying taxes for ten years. He further increased tariffs on goods entering Mexico from the United States, causing their prices to rise. The 1830s laws also brought settlement contracts under federal rather than state control. Colonies that did not have at least 150 inhabitants would be canceled. Among the affected colonies were the Nashville Company run by Sterling C. Robertson and the Galveston Bay and Texas Land Company, run by David G. Burnet, Lorenzo de Zavala and Joseph Vehlein. Finally, he prohibited further immigration to Texas from the United States, although Anglos would still be welcome in other parts of Mexico. The ban and other measures did not stop U.S. citizens from migrating to Texas by the thousands. By 1834, it was estimated that over 30,000 Anglos lived in Texas, compared to only 7,800 Mexicans.

Anglos often viewed the Mexicans as foreigners and intruders. The feeling was often returned; Rafael Antonio Manchola, son-in-law of empresario Martín De León, served as the commander of the presidio at La Bahia from 1828 to 1830 and then as the alcade of Goliad. He warned the military commander for Texas that

"'No faith can be placed in the Anglo-American colonists because they are continually demonstrating that they absolutely refuse to be subordinate, unless they find it convenient to what they want anyway, all of which I believe will be very detrimental to us for them to be our neighbors if we do not in time, clip the wings of their audacity by stationing a strong detachment in each new settlement which will enforce the laws and jurisdiction of a Mexican magistrate which should be placed in each of them, since under their own colonists as judges, they do nothing more than practice their own laws which they have practiced since they were born, forgetting the ones they have sworn to obey, these being the laws of our Supreme Government.'"