Texas and the Mexican War (eBook)

Nathaniel Stephenson (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2017 | 1. Auflage
132 Seiten
Merkaba Press (Verlag)
978-0-00-001975-2 (ISBN)

Infos

            THAT American diplomat known to his contemporaries as 'the eel-like Monroe' gave Manifest Destiny a deep offense which popular memory has let slip. He bartered away, as his enemies said, our claim to the country between the Sabine and the Rio Grande. However shadowy that claim was, there were patriotic Americans in the year 1819 who wanted the country. The shadowiness of the claim was not worth mentioning, they thought. Napoleon sold us something in the Southwest and surely we, with Manifest Destiny on our side, were the best judges of what old Louisiana included. Monroe took a narrower view; and when he acquired Florida from Spain and rounded out the eastern coast line, but stopped at the Sabine on the west, there was wrath in many American hearts, and some bold Americans were ready to stake their heads for the rectification of their government's error.

            One of these was James Long, who led a filibustering expedition across the Mexican line in 1819. Long's exploit was the outcome of a public meeting of the citizens of Natchez, inspired by indignation over Monroe's policy. The little army of adventurers who followed Long and captured the Mexican frontier town of Nacogdoches was strangely composed and acted from a variety of motives. A noted Mexican refugee, Bernardo Gutiérrez de Lara, was associated with Long in setting up a ready-made government on the American model to preside over the new 'Republic of Texas' which the invaders proclaimed at Nacogdoches. This Gutiérrez had been involved in earlier attempts to overthrow the kingdom of New Spain. Doubtless to some of Long's followers the invasion was but a detail in the revolution against Spain of which they dreamed in their vision of a new and greater Mexico. Thus, it may be, starts a delusion which we shall find all through Texan history  -  the delusion that a genuine republican inspiration was struggling in Mexico with reactionary monarchism. Long's republic was short-lived. During its few months, its founder revealed that deadly serious naïveté which appeared so often in Americans of that time. Looking about for an ally, Long bethought himself of the last great pirate of American waters, Jean Lafitte, who flew the Jolly Roger over Galveston Island. Lafitte had a pirate town there, and for a while was a sovereign over the freebooters of the sea. To him Long appealed. It was while Long was absent negotiating with Lafitte that the soldiers of New Spain fell upon Nacogdoches, abolished the infant republic, and drove its survivors, whether American adventurers or Mexican dreamers, helter-skelter across the border...

Textauszug

CHAPTER I. THE EMPRESARIOS

 

 

      THAT American diplomat known to his contemporaries as "the eel-like Monroe" gave Manifest Destiny a deep offense which popular memory has let slip. He bartered away, as his enemies said, our claim to the country between the Sabine and the Rio Grande. However shadowy that claim was, there were patriotic Americans in the year 1819 who wanted the country. The shadowiness of the claim was not worth mentioning, they thought. Napoleon sold us something in the Southwest and surely we, with Manifest Destiny on our side, were the best judges of what old Louisiana included. Monroe took a narrower view; and when he acquired Florida from Spain and rounded out the eastern coast line, but stopped at the Sabine on the west, there was wrath in many American hearts, and some bold Americans were ready to stake their heads for the rectification of their government's error.

      One of these was James Long, who led a filibustering expedition across the Mexican line in 1819. Long's exploit was the outcome of a public meeting of the citizens of Natchez, inspired by indignation over Monroe's policy. The little army of adventurers who followed Long and captured the Mexican frontier town of Nacogdoches was strangely composed and acted from a variety of motives. A noted Mexican refugee, Bernardo Gutiérrez de Lara, was associated with Long in setting up a ready-made government on the American model to preside over the new "Republic of Texas" which the invaders proclaimed at Nacogdoches. This Gutiérrez had been involved in earlier attempts to overthrow the kingdom of New Spain. Doubtless to some of Long's followers the invasion was but a detail in the revolution against Spain of which they dreamed in their vision of a new and greater Mexico. Thus, it may be, starts a delusion which we shall find all through Texan history  –  the delusion that a genuine republican inspiration was struggling in Mexico with reactionary monarchism. Long's republic was short-lived. During its few months, its founder revealed that deadly serious naïveté which appeared so often in Americans of that time. Looking about for an ally, Long bethought himself of the last great pirate of American waters, Jean Lafitte, who flew the Jolly Roger over Galveston Island. Lafitte had a pirate town there, and for a while was a sovereign over the freebooters of the sea. To him Long appealed. It was while Long was absent negotiating with Lafitte that the soldiers of New Spain fell upon Nacogdoches, abolished the infant republic, and drove its survivors, whether American adventurers or Mexican dreamers, helter-skelter across the border.

      After such an invasion one would expect the jealous and sensitive Spaniards to be intolerant of everything American. Yet the excitement of Long's adventure had hardly subsided when Moses Austin, a Connecticut Yankee, was granted permission to establish a colony of Americans inside the borders of New Spain. Why did the royal authorities thus contradict the logic of events? Their archives have not yet disclosed the answer. Guesses have been made, some of which must be considered. Did the Viceroy of New Spain think there was a population in our Southern States, royalist and Catholic, averse to becoming Americans and willing to be lured back into the monarchical fold? Did he feel that monarchical reënforcements were needed in Mexico as a bulwark against revolution? Or was there no deeper motive behind his action than mere favoritism? Was it, in the blunt modern phrase, only a case of "pull"? The fact that Austin had a powerful friend at court, a certain Baron de Bastrop, favors this unromantic suggestion. The riddle is still unread. But one fact is clear and full of significance: Mexico evidently had no intention of fostering an alien civilization; she prescribed methods of government for the newcomers and laid upon all the obligation to be, or to become, members of the national church.

      Though Moses Austin  –  citizen of Connecticut, wanderer, pioneer, subject of Spain in old Louisiana, citizen of the United States again after 1803, and promoter of many ventures  –  obtained the grant from New Spain, his death intervened soon after; and it was his son, Stephen F. Austin, who was the real founder of Anglo-American Texas. It was he who planted the first American settlement, San Felipe de Austin, in December, 1821. Meanwhile the revolution had begun which was to result in the independence of Mexico. The revolution seems to have given a new turn to the dealings of Stephen Austin with the authorities of New Spain. In the spring of 1822, Stephen Austin, while busy with his scheme of colonization, was commanded to proceed to Mexico City to negotiate direct with the Congress of independent Mexico. At the capital, Austin met other Americans seeking, like himself, concessions from the Mexican Government. Chief among them stood that shifty General Wilkinson who had drawn Spanish pay while a great official of the United States, who had left his country for his country's good, and who was now on a hazard of new fortunes beyond the Spanish line. There, too, was Hayden Edwards, destined to become the enemy of Austin and to play a strange rôle in the history of Texas, perhaps even a deeply significant one. Other adventurers surrounded these conspicuous figures. All were clamoring for grants from the new government. Among the Mexican revolutionists there was eager discussion of many things, ranging from the practicality of the schemes of the adventurers to such high subjects as the republican ideal and the merits and demerits of slavery. In the midst of this turmoil of conflicting interests Austin found no one in a hurry to translate his informal agreement with the old authorities into a formal agreement with the new.

      While Austin waited at the capital a second revolution changed the new republic into an empire, and General Itúrbide became the Emperor Agustin I. But Itúrbide's government set the example for so many later governments of Mexico by quickly collapsing. A second Mexican republic was set up and in 1824 a federal constitution was adopted. The old Spanish provinces were formed into states one of which included the three former provinces, Texas, Nuevo León, and Coahuila. Though Nuevo León was soon detached, the other two remained one state until Texas ceased to be a part of Mexico.

      One of the last acts of the reign of Itúrbide was a decree granting Austin the right to form a colony of Americans in Texas and prescribing the main lines upon which the new community was to be constructed (February 18, 1823). What is known as the Imperial Colonization Law of 1823 had been passed a few weeks before. The provisions of the law and of the decree, so far as Austin was affected, were confirmed by the Congress of the republic when Itúrbide fell.

      The imperial decree carrying out the provisions of the colonization law instructed the Governor of Texas to apportion land either directly among immigrant families or indirectly through empresarios who should agree to bring in not less than two hundred families. Each family was to adopt as its occupation either farming or grazing. Each farming family was to have 177 acres of land; each grazing family, 4428 acres. Austin, if he brought in as many as two hundred families, was to have 354 acres of farm land and about 66,000 acres of grazing land. All his immigrants were to "prove that they are Roman Apostolic Catholics, and of steady habits," and he was to found a town, organize his colonists as a militia, preserve order, and administer justice.

      The land granted to Austin, which was rapidly taken up by his colonists, lay between the San Jacinto and Lavaca rivers, on the Gulf side of the one Texan highway, the trail from Nacogdoches to San Antonio. His capital was the new town, on the Brazos River, San Felipe de Austin. For the government of his colony Austin himself drew up a code of laws almost paternal in temper, including a prohibition of gambling and imprisonment for debt.

      In 1824 the Mexican Republic enacted a colonization law similar to the former imperial law, but leaving many details to the local authorities. Between the lines of this law we glimpse a shadow of uneasiness. Mexico reserved the right to "take such precautionary measures as it may deem expedient for the security of the confederation, in respect to the foreigners who may settle within it." The question whether slavery should be continued in Mexico had already been raised. The national colonization laws were silent on the subject. A state colonization law of Coahuila and Texas, enacted in 1825, provided merely that, "in regard to the introduction of slaves, the new settlers shall subject themselves to the laws that are now, and shall be hereafter established on the subject." The newcomers did not hesitate to bring with them their slaves.

      The Texas that was the consequence of these laws was a mosaic. Theoretically a Spanish country, it was dotted with colonies of foreigners. Each colony formed a tiny state embedded in the recognized state of Coahuila and Texas. To establish the colony an empresario or contractor was empowered to bring in a stated number of families and to allot to each family a specified amount of land within a definite area. This group was given local rights similar to those of other Mexican communities, with an ayuntamiento or local council, elected by the people.

      The purpose of the Mexican republicans in permitting the creation of these colonies of foreigners has not been...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 10.7.2017
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte
• ISBN-10: 0-00-001975-5 / 0000019755
• ISBN-13: 978-0-00-001975-2 / 9780000019752