The Alamo

Abstract

Abstract After Mexico finally acquired its independence from Spain in 1821, a rapid succession of governments sat in Mexico City. Unsure for a time just what government the country wanted, the rulers called themselves emperor, president, or dictator. In 1823, Emperor Iturbide agreed to commission an American, Moses Austin, to bring settlers from the United States into the northern Mexican province of Texas. Three hundred years of Spanish rule in Mexico had made barely a dent on the Texas landscape, for the Comanche Indians were masters of the southern Great Plains and any attempt to settle immigrants or establish missions in land under their sway proved futile. Thus, Moses Austin’s Americans were seen as a tool, a population that could serve as a buffer to the 4,000 Mexican citizens of the province of Texas. Little did Iturbide realize that in Moses Austin’s project lay the foundation of events that would deprive Mexico of half its land within a generation. The only two settlements of any size that existed in Texas in 1823 were San Antonio and Nacogdoches. Rather than place the 300 families that he brought to Texas in the path of the Comanches, Moses Austin’s son Stephen F. Austin (who took up his father’s tide of empresario upon the former’s untimely death in 1823) instead chose a point midway between the two Mexican towns to establish his colony between the Colorado and Brazos rivers. The “Old 300” were carefully chosen to be thrifty, hard-working farmers and ranchers whose dedication to property would guarantee their passivity, for Iturbide knew that no man of property willingly risked it by engaging in anti-government activities. He did not have to worry about it in the long run, however, for he was soon removed from office and replaced by a government dedicated to more liberal views. That government adopted a constitution in 1824 closely based on that of the United States, and the new immigrants gladly swore to uphold it as the price of the free 4,400 acres granted them for settling in Mexico. Uphold the constitution and become Catholics: those were the two conditions asked of them, with a tacit understanding that the latter would not be enforced.