1817–1821—The freebooter, Captain Jean Lafitte, Frenchman, occupies the Island of Galveston; reigns there under the title “Lord of Galveston.”
1818—Generals Lallemand and Rigault, French officers under Napoleon, establish a French colony, entitled the Champ d’Asile (Field of Refuge), twelve miles up the Trinity River. They are soon driven out by the Spanish troops.
1819–1821—Dr. James Long, an American merchant of Natchez (Mississippi), with a company of seventy-five adventurers, invades Texas, declares it an independent republic, but finally is defeated and shot.
1820—Moses Austin, from Missouri, petitions Mexico to be permitted to bring into Texas 300 colonists from the United States, but he dies before he can complete his project.
1821—Mexico separates from Spain, and Texas is now Mexican territory.
1821—Stephen Fuller Austin, son of Moses Austin, and to be known as the “Father of Texas,” brings in from New Orleans the first of the American colonists, who settle on the lower Brazos River.
1823—Mexico issues a general colonization law, encouraging the settlement of Texas by foreigners, upon tracts granted by the government.
1823—The town of San Felipe de Austin in the Austin colony on the Brazos is founded—the first American town in Texas.
1825—The State of Coahuila and Texas (as the two Mexican provinces were known) passes a more liberal colonization law, and settlement by Americans proceeds rapidly.
1827—The United States, still wishing to acquire Texas, offers Mexico $1,000,000 for the province to the Rio Grande River, or $500,000 to the Colorado River, about half-way. Mexico rejects the offers.