US Migration into Texas

American expansionists had long coveted the area of Spain’s empire known as Texas. After the 1819 Adams–Onís Treaty established the boundary between Mexico and the United States, more American expansionists began to move into the northern portion of the Mexican province of Coahuila y Tejas. Following Mexico’s independence from Spain in 1821, US settlers immigrated to Texas in even larger numbers, intent on taking the land from the new and vulnerable Mexican nation in order to create a new US slave state.

Anglo-Americans, primarily from the southern United States, began emigrating to Mexican Texas in the 1820s at the request of the Mexican government, which sought to populate the sparsely inhabited lands of its northern frontier and mitigate attacks from American Indian tribes in the region. Anglo-Americans soon became a majority in Texas and quickly became dissatisfied with Mexican rule. The soil and climate were conducive to expanding slavery and the cotton kingdom. To many whites, it seemed not only their God-given right but also their patriotic duty to populate the lands beyond the Mississippi River, bringing with them American slavery, culture, laws, and political traditions.

Rising Tensions

Anglo-American settlers in Texas, who were primarily Protestant, were discontented with Mexico’s prohibition of public practice of religions other than Catholicism. They were also dissatisfied with the Mexican legal system, which was markedly different from the representative democracy and jury trials found in the United States. Of greatest concern, however, was the Mexican government’s 1829 abolition of slavery. Most US settlers were from southern states, and many had brought slaves with them. Mexico tried to accommodate them by maintaining the questionable assertion that the slaves were indentured servants. However, American slaveholders in Texas distrusted the Mexican government and wanted Texas to be a new US slave state. The great dislike for Roman Catholicism coupled with a widely held belief in American racial superiority led to a generally racist and discriminatory view toward Mexicans.

Declaring Independence 

Fifty-five delegates from the Anglo-American settlements in Texas gathered in 1831 with demands including creation of an independent state of Texas separate from Coahuila. When ordered to disband, the delegates reconvened in early April 1833 to write a constitution for an independent Texas. While Mexican President General Antonio López de Santa Anna, agreed to many of their demands, he did not grant statehood. The Consultation delegates met again in March of 1836. They declared their independence from Mexico and drafted a constitution calling for a US-style judicial system and an elected president and legislature. Notably, they also established that slavery would not be prohibited in Texas. Many wealthy Tejanos supported the push for independence, hoping for liberal governmental reforms and economic benefits.

Battle of the Alamo and the Texas Revolution

Mexico had no intention of losing its northern province. Santa Anna and his army of some 4,000 troops had besieged San Antonio in February 1836. Hopelessly outnumbered, its 200 defenders fought fiercely from their refuge in an old mission known as the Alamo.

The Battle of the Alamo, as it came to be called, lasted from February 23 to March 6, 1836. This was a pivotal event in the Texas Revolution. Following a 13-day siege, Mexican troops under Santa Anna launched an assault on the Alamo Mission, and all of the Texian defenders were killed. Santa Anna's perceived cruelty during the battle inspired many Texians—both Texas settlers and adventurers from the United States—to join the Texian Army. Buoyed by a desire for revenge, the Texians defeated the Mexican army at the Battle of San Jacinto on April 21, 1836, ending the revolution. Sam Houston became the first president of the Republic of Texas, elected on a platform that favored annexation to the United States.

Battle of the Alamo

The Fall of the Alamo, painted by Theodore Gentilz fewer than 10 years after this pivotal moment in the Texas Revolution, depicts the 1836 assault on the Alamo complex.

Lone Star Republic and the Issue of Annexation

Mindful of the vicious debates over Missouri that had led to talk of disunion and war, US politicians were reluctant to annex Texas or, indeed, even to recognize it as a sovereign nation. Annexation would almost certainly trigger war with Mexico, and admission of a state with a large slave population, though permissible under the Missouri Compromise, would once again bring the issue of slavery to the fore. Texas had no choice but to organize itself as the independent Lone Star Republic. To protect itself from Mexican attempts to reclaim it, Texas sought and received recognition from France, Great Britain, Belgium, and the Netherlands. The United States did not officially recognize Texas as an independent nation until March 1837, nearly a year after the final victory over the Mexican army at San Jacinto.

Uncertainty about its future, however, did not discourage Americans committed to expansion, especially slaveholders, from rushing to settle in the Lone Star Republic. Between 1836 and 1846, its population nearly tripled. By 1840, American slaveholders had brought nearly 12,000 enslaved Africans to Texas. In keeping with the program of ethnic cleansing and white racial domination, Americans in Texas generally treated both Mexican Tejano and American Indian residents with contempt, eager to displace and dispossess them.

In August 1837, Memucan Hunt, Jr., the Texan minister to the United States, submitted an annexation proposal to the Van Buren administration. Believing that annexation would lead to war with Mexico, the administration declined Hunt's proposal. After the election of Mirabeau B. Lamar, an opponent of annexation, as president of Texas in 1838, Texas withdrew its offer. Texas would not become annexed to the United States until 1845 in the final days of President Tyler's administration.