Battle of Velasco - Background

Background

After Mexico won independence from Spain, it legalized immigration from the United States. Empresarios were 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 began to fear the United States would want to annex Texas. On April 6, 1830 the Mexican government 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, was appointed commander of a new customs and garrison post on Galveston Bay. In October 1830 Bradburn established a post atop a 30 feet (9.1 m) bluff at the entrance to the Trinity River. The post became known as Anahuac.

In 1832, Mexican authorities established a small garrison at Velasco, a small community on the eastern bank of the Brazos River. The new post would have jurisdiction over all commerce entering the river from the Gulf of Mexico. A log stockade was built on flat ground approximately 150 yards (140 m) from the Brazos River, and an equal distance from the Gulf of Mexico. The stockade had an inner and an outer wall, with the 6 feet (1.8 m) between them filled with sand, earth, and shells. An embankment along the inner wall allowed musketeers to shoot without exposing more than their heads. In the center of the stockade, another embankment provided a mounting place for a nine-pound cannon. The cannon was on a swivel and could guard the entire mouth of the river, but was unable to point downwards to aim into the immediate vicinity. Approximately 100 troops were garrisoned at the fort, under the command of Colonel Domingo de Ugartechea.