| The Austin grant. |
The successful rebellion of Mexico against Spain made this territory a part of the new Mexican state, and before Mexico had had time to consolidate its powers or estimate the value of its northern possessions, a shrewd Yankee from Connecticut, who had removed to Missouri, and had become well skilled in the arts and practices of border life, Moses Austin, went to Mexico, and representing himself, it is said, as the leader of a company of Roman Catholics, who had suffered persecution in the United States, for their religion's sake, solicited a grant of land from the Catholic government of Mexico, and permission to make a settlement upon it. The Mexicans gave ready ear to his complaints and petition, and made him a large grant of land in the central part of Texas on the Colorado River. Mr. Austin died before effecting the settlement, and left the work to his son, S. F. Austin, who, in 1822, colonized the grant, and received a ratification of the same from the Mexican Government, the following year.
| Local government in Texas. |
At that moment, Texas and Coahuila formed a single Mexican province, and, after the establishment of the federal system of government in Mexico, the province became, in 1827, a Commonwealth. In the Coahuila part the population was Mexican, and as it was much larger than the Anglo-American population in the Texas part, the government of the Commonwealth was practically in the hands of Mexican officials. The rule of these officials was arbitrary and uncertain, and the race prejudice between Spaniard and Anglo-Saxon was immediately excited by it. It was pretty evident that the expulsion of the Americans from Texas was intended. In 1830, came at last the decree from the Mexican President, Bustamente, prohibiting further immigration into Texas from the United States.
The Texan colonists now numbered some twenty thousand, mostly bold and hardy men, and it was not to be expected that they would either give up their lands, or assist in preventing further immigration, or submit much longer to the foreign rule, as they felt it to be, of Mexico or Coahuila.
| The attempts by the United States to purchase Texas. |