Background
In 1790, Moses Austin, an American businessman who had taken Spanish citizenship in order to start a small colony in Missouri, traveled to San Antonio de Bexar to request an empresarial grant in Spanish Texas. The governor, Antonio María Martínez, refused to listen to Austin's proposal and ordered him to leave the territory immediately. While departing, Austin encountered an acquaintance he had met years earlier at an inn in Spanish Missouri, Felipe Enrique Neri, Baron de Bastrop. Bastrop listened to Austin's plan, and, using his influence, persuaded the governor to approve the request. Austin's plan was approved, and in January 1821 he left for Missouri with a grant to bring 300 colonists into Texas. On his way home he was attacked by highwaymen and badly beaten. Soon after he made his way back to Missouri, Austin died, leaving his empresarial grant to his son, Stephen Fuller Austin.
Read more about this topic: Old Three Hundred
Famous quotes containing the word background:
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