The Texas Revolution is the name given to the series of events that led to the independence of Texas from Mexico and the subsequent establishment of the Republic of Texas. Texas had long been the northern extension of the Spanish Empire in the Americas. Although sparsely settled from the opening of the 17th century, the region was an important outpost of Spanish imperial policy, at the same time forming a barrier against the French advance from Louisiana to the West and a line of defense against Indian raiders on the plains. As Spanish colonies turned toward independence at the close of the 18th century, Mexico joined those who sought independence. The success of the Mexican Revolution and the establishment of an independent republic of Mexico in 1821 began a new chapter in the history of Texas.
As part of a plan to settle its northern states, Mexico established a system of contracted immigration. MoSES Austin had first proposed the scheme in 1820 to Spanish officials in Mexico City. Upon Austin’s death the following year, his proposal was taken over by his son, Stephen F. Austin. After the establishment of Mexican independence, the younger Austin spent a year in Mexico City, lobbying officials to accept his father’s proposal. His persistence paid off when Mexico agreed to permit Austin to settle 300 families on a large tract of land in Texas. Austin eventually chose the Brazos and Colorado River valleys as the site of his settlement. Under the terms of the arrangement, Austin would receive a large land grant from Mexico, and he would choose the settler families to whom he would make substantial grants of land. He would have enormous authority not only in making land grants but also in maintaining order, establishing a court system, providing a defense against Indians, and deciding other issues that confronted every new settlement on the frontier. The Mexican government eventually passed a law embodying the outlines of Austin’s scheme, which became a national policy. Hundreds of immigrant families from the United States—Austin eventually brought in some 700 families under three contracts—settled in the Mexican state of Texas. This policy of supervised immigration appeared to be a great success. Enterprising pioneer families settled portions of coastal Texas and the river valleys under the leadership of designated “empresarios.”
But the success of the enterprise made for problems. By 1830, the American population of Texas—all arrived within the decade of the 1820s—had reached 20,000. Officials in Mexico City found themselves confronted with a numerous and increasingly unsettled population that was more American than Mexican. Under the terms of the contracted immigration, in exchange for generous land grants, Americans agreed to become citizens of the Republic of Mexico and to become Roman Catholics. That the predominantly Protestant settlers from the lower Mississippi Valley did neither was indicative of their attitudes toward their new nation. That Stephen F. Austin remained intensely loyal to the Republic of Mexico was a stabilizing influence, but the growing numbers of Americans invariably led to talk of separation from Mexico and occasional plots to foment an uprising against Mexican authority. The uneasiness of the Americans was increased by the attachment of Coahuila to Texas, creating a united state of Coahuila-Texas, which American Texans saw as a way of minimizing their political influence.
Mexican officials were aware of the difficulties posed by the preponderance of Americans in Texas, and in 1830 Mexico passed a law forbidding further immigration from the United States. For Austin, the new law threatened a successful system of contracted immigration, and it was, among other things, unenforceable. For the Americans in Texas, the 1830 law confirmed their views that Mexican officials intended to infringe on their liberties, including the right to immigrate. The Americans in Texas now organized to give voice to their grievances.
The flag of the Republic of Texas, the "Lone Star" state (Library of Congress)
Traditionally American way, by electing delegates to meet in a convention, drafting petitions to explain their views, and conveying these petitions to the proper authority. The most important Texan, Stephen F. Austin, took the petitions to Mexico City in 1833.
Changes in the political situation in Mexico City made Austin’s mission more difficult. Mexico’s political world had always been somewhat unstable, mitigated by the consistency of a federal bureaucracy. In 1832, General Antonio LoPEZ DE Santa Anna overthrew the constitutional government in Mexico. The next year, after Santa Anna won a popular mandate, he embarked on a series of military campaigns to subdue rebellions in parts of the Republic of Mexico. Texans observed Santa Anna’s campaigns throughout the southern portion of Mexico with growing uneasiness. As for Santa Anna, with the south pacified, he intended to turn his attention to Texas, long considered disloyal because of its increasingly dominant American population.
In this atmosphere of growing uneasiness on both sides, Austin appeared in Mexico City with his petitions. He found a generally cordial reception. The Santa Anna government agreed to his requests with one exception. The petition for separate statehood for Texas was denied, as Mexican authorities saw a separate state of Texas as a prelude to secession. As Austin was returning from what he regarded as a successful mission, he was arrested. Jailed in Mexico City for almost two years, his absence accelerated the increasingly radical stance of the new Texan leaders, of whom the most noteworthy newcomer was Sam Houston, who had immigrated to Texas in 1832.
As Texans began to consider their relations with the Republic of Mexico, several common issues came into focus. One faction pointed to religion and the requirements of marriage associated with the Roman Catholic Church, since only Catholics could inherit. As Anglo-Texans had more to inherit, the issue was more pressing. The question of local government and the court system was also an issue; hence the request to create a separate state of Texas that could more effectively meet the needs of the immigrants from the North. Throughout these debates, Texans clung to the traditional American frontier institution of a local armed militia for protection, especially against the Indians, and raised questions of public schools and language. In addition, they continued to insist on their rights as citizens under the constitution of 1824 at a time when it was increasingly irrelevant under the new presidency of Santa Anna.
Mexican officials were also uneasy about the situation in Texas. To begin with, they saw Texas as Mexican and the newly arrived settlers as ungrateful Norte Americanos. In exchange for generous land grants, the settlers had sworn allegiance to the Republic of Mexico, and it was to their new nation that they owed allegiance. As citizens of the
Republic of Mexico, they were bound to follow the laws of the republic, whether these laws suited them or not. If they objected to laws or officials, they should not convene conventions but instead initiate a correspondence through the hierarchy of officials, beginning with the state of Coahuila-Texas. The idea of Anglo-Texans forming an armed militia seemed little less than a prelude to armed rebellion. Loyal Texans should have recourse to the Mexican army. Above all, Texans must be taught to respect and obey Mexican laws. Mexican officials were, understandably, sensitive to what they regarded as ethnic slights and ethnic slurs. Relations between the two groups were further inflamed by two recent considerations: Santa Anna’s campaigns to reduce opposition to his rule and the presence of Mexican troops in garrisons in Texas ports, which would invariably lead to confrontations between Mexican forces intent on upholding the honor of the republic of Mexico and Anglo-Texans who saw such garrisons as an alien occupying force.
In 1835, Austin returned after two years in prison to find Texas split into two factions. One favored peace overtures to the Republic of Mexico and a continuing search for an alliance with Santa Anna’s liberal political opponents. The second supported a revolution in favor of independence. Austin soon allied himself with the first group; Houston headed the second. Military clashes between the two sides had begun to sharpen hostility between Mexicans and Anglo-Texans. When, in June 1835, some 30 Texans forced the garrison at Anahuac to surrender, many communities in Texas repudiated the action, but Mexican officials saw the confrontation as part of a Texas revolt. Although the Texan force surrendered its arms, local officials did not turn the 30 rebels over to Mexican officials to stand trial.
Santa Anna was now determined to pacify Texas by military force as he had other parts of the Republic of Mexico. In so doing, he disavowed any observance of the Constitution of 1824 so sacred to many Texans, and he also threatened to force observance of Mexico’s ban on slavery. In late 1835, as Santa Anna dispatched an army to put down what he saw as a rebellion, even Austin realized that the time for mediation had passed. Instead, he urged Texans to resist the invasion and bring Texas finally into the United States. In his own words: “War is our only recourse. There is no other remedy.” When Texas communities convened in November 1835 to consider the future, they strongly supported loyalty to Mexico under the Constitution of 1824. Deferring independence did win some Tejano support, but most Tejanos—Texans of Spanish and Mexican origin— were distant from the Anglo-Texans, whom they regarded as brash and aggressive.
Sam Houston led the movement to armed insurrection. At first, Texan attempts at military activity were uncoordinated and reflected individual leaders. In December 1835, a contingent of Texans coordinated an attack in San Antonio that laid siege to the Mexican garrison in The Alamo and eventually forced its surrender. Houston counseled the evacuation of the Alamo; he favored a retreat toward the center of Anglo-Texas settlement with a continuing guerrilla war. He therefore sent Jim Bowie to San Antonio with orders to remove the Alamo’s guns, blow up the old mission, and evacuate the Texan garrison. When Bowie arrived at the Alamo, however, he did not carry out his orders. Instead, he and others decided that the Alamo was a key position and must be defended. When Santa Anna reached San Antonio, he had some 2,000 troops ready for the field; Bowie and the garrison at the Alamo numbered 100, perhaps a quarter of them soldiers and the rest volunteers. Bowie’s appeal for reinforcements, ignored by the provisional government of Texas, was answered by Colonel William Barret Travis, a leader of the war party; and Davy Crockett, a former congressman from Tennessee. They and their companions raised the defenders of the mission to perhaps 187.
On February 25, 1836, Santa Anna and his army arrived at San Antonio. Bowie offered to surrender on condition of safe conduct for combatants; Santa Anna demanded unconditional surrender. The siege began. After a long period of Mexican bombardment that was largely ineffective, Santa Anna launched a frontal assault by 1,800 soldiers on March 6, 1836. Sheer numbers carried the day. After 90 minutes of combat, some of it hand-to-hand, Santa Anna was in control of the old mission. He had lost 600 men; most of the Texan defenders were dead. Santa Anna executed the handful of prisoners, including Davy Crockett, as a warning to others who remained in revolt against the Mexican government. Although Santa Anna had won a military victory, he had given the Texans’ cause a company of martyrs and a reason for a declaration of independence. Henceforth, the battle cry of the infant Republic of Texas would be: “Remember the Alamo!”
The disaster at the Alamo was followed by another military and human defeat. As the Texans retired north in the face of Santa Anna’s advance, Colonel James Fannin delayed his withdrawal from Goliad’s fort for so long that he and his force were captured by advance troops of the Mexican army. Santa Anna ordered the execution of the 300 prisoners. He was convinced that he had overwhelmed Texan resistance to his force, and the panicked retreat of thousands of refugees to the north, including the provisional government, seemed to confirm his view.
In the face of this hysteria mixed with a burning desire for revenge, Houston recruited and trained an army. It was not a large force, perhaps 800 men, but it had a degree of discipline and training that other Texas forces had lacked. Houston and his army met a Mexican army about twice as large under Santa Anna on a plain west of the San Jacinto River (near Galveston Bay). On April 21, 1836 Houston ordered a frontal charge, and in 20 minutes, the Texans had won the field. The slaughter of the retreating Mexican army went on for several hours, at the end of which 630 Mexican soldiers were dead.
After the battle, Santa Anna was captured while trying to escape. Many favored his execution for his crimes against prisoners, but Houston forced him to sign a treaty recognizing Texas independence. Under the terms of the Treaty of Velasco, Santa Anna ordered all Mexican soldiers to evacuate Texas and recognized the independence of the former state. Although signed under duress and later repudiated by the government of Mexico, this treaty of independence was generally recognized abroad. The revolution was over; the Republic of Texas was established.
Further reading: Paul D. Lack, The Te:xas Revolutionary Experience: A Political and Social History, 1835-1836 (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1992); David J. Weber, The Mexican Frontier, 1821-1846: The American Southwest Under Mexico (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1982).
World History
