Anglo Texas Inches Toward Revolt (May 25, 2024)

by Scott Sosebee

This week we continue with the series on the causes and coming of the Texas Revolution. This entry will look at social and economic conditions that helped spur tension between the Mexican government and the migrant Anglos in Texas

The movement toward the Texas Revolution amid the growing tensions between the Mexican government and the mostly Anglo colonists in the Texas province was largely caused by a unique collision of changing conditions in both the United States—which shaped the Anglo colonists’ ideas about economy and government—and the ongoing turmoil that swept through Mexico in the immediate years after that nation’s independence from Spain. The resulting Texas Revolution would profoundly change both nations.

Mexican independence had occurred due to the agreement between the Royalist army and supporting aristocrats with the rebel forces seeking independence. The settlement resulted in Agustín Iturbide leading the government, but his turn to authoritarianism and monarchism threw Mexican politics into even more chaos. The immediate effect was the rise of the liberal Federalists to power, while the conservative Centralists—many of whom had supported Iturbide and constituted the nation’s wealthiest citizens as well as those in the higher echelons of the Catholic Church—philosophically opposed any attempts to set up a federal system in Mexico. The liberals were able to push through the Constitution of 1824, which granted great governmental power to the newly formed Mexican states, but the Centralists would, by 1829, return to power and begin shifting the nation toward a national government that conferred the majority of governmental power to the central government in Mexico City. Santa Anna’s coup in 1833 would return power to the liberal Federalists, although the scheming Mexican general would eventually betray the Federalists and seize power for himself. The larger point, however, is that Mexican politics was anything but stable.

While the liberals and conservatives in Mexico agreed on very little, one area in which they did find common ground was in anti-slavery ideology. New Spain, when under Spanish rule, had allowed the institution legality, although its practice, especially by the dawn of the 1800s, in most of the provinces was isolated. Generally, Mexico and the Mexican people grew to vehemently oppose the enslavement of fellow human beings and, from the founding of the new nation, had pursued a policy of certainly limiting, if not outright banning, the practice. Also, enslaved labor in most of Mexico was not economically efficient since the practice of debt peonage was widespread. The first Federalist government in 1824, for example, had passed a number of anti-slavery laws but had left the enforcement of those laws—reflecting the party’s political ideology—to the states. Texas was part of the state of Coahuila, and that state, bowing to the wishes of the Anglo settlers in Texas, generally chose not to enforce such laws. Federalist policy, while seemingly anti-slavery, allowed the institution to continue within parts of the nation.

At the same time, Texas’ economic fortunes were increasingly becoming tied to the continuation of the practice of cash crop agriculture and its reliance on enslaved labor. Mexican authorities in Mexico City had conducted extensive debates on the wisdom of utilizing Anglo Americans as immigrants in order to increase the population, especially in Texas. One of the key points of the debate was that many of those migrants would come from the American South and would bring their dependence on slave labor with them. Still, the politicians in charge of the nation came to the conclusion that the Anglos were the best—and in many ways only—solution. As for the problems they had with slavery, they would deal with that as it came. Now, as Anglo immigration increased, the Federalist government had turned to whether or not to allow the enslaved to come with their owners over to the states.

That did not mean that anti-slavery sentiment within the majority of Mexico lessened. The Mexican Congress passed numerous bills that either eliminated or seriously limited the practice, but the obligation of enforcing slave policy remained with the states, and Coahuila y Tejas sanctioned it by ignoring the practice. Such a political decision, however, meant, for the Anglo residents of Texas, that the continuation of slavery depended on the perpetuation of the Mexican federal system, which also meant that the Anglos in Texas were Federalists, although their American-bred ideas about government would have led them in that direction no matter Mexican policy on slavery. The refusal to actually craft a solid policy on slavery led Texas—and its Anglo residents—to base their economy, and eventually society, upon the foundation of chattel slave-based agriculture, specifically plantations, predominantly ones that grew cotton. The need to protect their plantation economy was why Stephen F. Austin, along with others, continually lobbied the Coahuila y Tejas legislature, as well as the federal government, to exclude Texas from any restrictions on the institution.

When the Law of April 6, 1830 and the protests against it prompted clashes between the Anglo colonists and the Mexican authorities, the protection of slavery was not an explicit part of their protest. Their primary stated grievances concerned taxes and the ban on immigration from the U.S. However, the Anglos certainly understood the nature and issues within Mexican politics and how their interests—the protection of slavery being a primary one—would be best served with a federal system advocated for by the liberal faction. That likely explains why the Anglos at Anahuac and Nacogdoches declared their intentions to support Santa Anna’s coup against Bustamante. Two things seemed to be happening within Texas as part of Mexico. One was that the Anglos had very different ideas about their economy and society than the rest of Mexico, differences largely induced by the Anglo reliance on a plantation agricultural system. The other was that the province of Texas had some similar political ideas as most of the rest of northern Mexico in that they preferred a federalist system and a more symbiotic relationship with the United States. However, the fact that Texas was majority Anglo meant that Texas did not share full allegiance and similarity with the remainder of the population of Coahuila. Thus, as 1833 dawned and Santa Anna initiated the inauguration of a Federalist regime, the Anglos in Texas began to coalesce around the idea of moving Texas toward becoming a separate state in the Mexican federal system, a movement that would once again bring Texas into conflict with the national government in Mexico City.

Next week: Santa Anna leaves active governing to his vice-president, and Texas begins to plan statehood within Mexico

The East Texas Historical Association provides this column as a public service. Scott Sosebee is a Professor of History at Stephen F. Austin State University and the Executive Director of the Association. He can be contacted at sosebeem@sfasu.edu or via www.easttexashistorical.org.