Jail for Austin Leads to a Change in Heart (Jun 9, 2024)
by Scott Sosebee
When Stephen F. Austin arrived in Mexico City in the summer of 1833, he found a Mexican government that was trying to figure out its directions. The political fight between the Centralists and Federalists continued unabated, and while Santa Anna’s victory in ousting Anastacio Bustamante from the presidency seemingly initiated a Federalist regime, Santa Anna complicated things when he essentially abdicated his position and elevated Valentín Farías to the top of the government. Farías was not Santa Anna; for one thing, he was a committed Federalist but also a fervent Mexican patriot dedicated to, yes, making Mexico a federal republic but also a viable, stable state. At the same time, he did not possess the charisma nor the adulation that the military hero Santa Anna commanded with both most of the people and the surrounding political leadership of the Mexican government. That meant that Farías had to actually be a politician and maneuver and negotiate with the pathways of power on both sides of the political spectrum in order to accomplish what he hoped to do, which was to solve the myriad of problems that his nation faced.
One of the difficulties Farías hoped to resolve was Texas. Mexico had achieved what it had to do after independence in finding a mechanism to populate its far northern province, but the Anglos who had taken up residence in Texas presented unique challenges for the national government. They were not assimilating to Mexican society and culture, and, given that the bulk of those in the region migrated from not only the American South but were of frontier stock, people who came to Texas committed to finding not just opportunity and economic advancement but to establish a society parallel to the one they left. That meant that they were fully supportive of continuing slavery, were mostly fervent Jacksonians who believed in the sanguinity of mass democracy and investing power in the appeal of mass politics, and also, despite a nod to Catholicism in order to obtain land titles in Mexico, the majority practiced evangelical Protestantism along the doctrinal lines that had developed during the Second Great Awakening revival movement of the early nineteenth century. That made Texas a delicate handle for the Mexican government, and while so far Texas’ discontent with Mexican policies had been tactfully negotiated between the two sides, Farías and his fellow Federalists recognized the potential powder keg that they faced in the north.
Farías thus welcomed Austin when he arrived in the capital, and when the two met, the acting President assured Austin that they could find common ground. They worked out a framework that would allow Texas to continue to practice slavery—even if it might technically take a different rhetorical term—and that immigration from the United States would once again become legal. More problematic, in the negotiations between the two, was the request for separate statehood; Farías was publicly non-committal with Austin but hinted that perhaps some sort of accommodation could be worked out with the legislation in Congress. Austin took that to mean that Texas becoming a Mexican state was perhaps a foregone conclusion but at least a distinct possibility.
When Congress took up the package, it quickly bogged down. The Centralist representatives were not amenable to any of the reforms, and even the Federalist legislators balked at giving Texas statehood. While the body debated the measures—along with other state business creating unrest in the Yucatan and along the western seaboard—Mexico City was hit with a debilitating cholera epidemic. As the illness spread through the city, it also struck Austin, who spent weeks suffering, often under a fever that left him delusional. Austin’s political acumen had long rested on his even temperament and his tendency toward caution, but suffering from illness and frustrated by the lack of progress on the reforms, he made a costly and uncharacteristic mistake. The request for statehood was the key and central aspect of the Texan request for reform. In their mind, their union with Coahuila was impractical, and the policy desires of the larger part of the state overwhelmed and obscured the goals of the Anglos in Texas. A huge, growing divide within the two provinces in the same state was the growing anti-slavery sentiment in greater Coahuila. Under previous state governments, the Texas desire to keep slavery legal was generally honored—and it remained so even into 1835—but there was a growing faction in the state government and among the residents more in the interior that the restrictions against slavery should be enforced. For Austin, Texas becoming a Mexican state was paramount.
Likely, such pressure is what caused Austin to write a letter to the ayuntamiento of San Antonio, telling them to proceed in writing and forming a government that would be independent of Coahuila. He admitted in the letter that Texas had not yet been granted statehood, but he also implied that it was just a matter of timing. It may have been an innocent oversight on his part; there does not seem to be evidence that Austin was doing any more than simply preparing for what he thought was an eventuality. However, to Mexican sensibilities, a people and culture in which revolution and gritos were rife, his letter read like a call to revolt. That was certainly what it seemed to the recipients in San Antonio, and they forwarded their concern to the state governor in Saltillo.
Austin gained some results in Mexico City. While the Mexican Congress failed to grant Texas statehood, they did make minor concessions on taxes and import duties, passed a more liberal land law, made English an official language, and, most significantly, removed the restriction on immigration from the U.S. Santa Anna himself even came back to Mexico City to sign the resulting legislation. Somewhat satisfied, Austin departed Mexico City in the late fall of 1833. He arrived in Saltillo in January 1834, and—to his great surprise—he was arrested, generally because his letter to San Antonio was “treasonous.” It’s worth noting that Austin was never officially charged, although he was confined to a small, windowless cell where he remained for three months. In April 1834, Santa Anna once again came back to his presidency, ended Austin’s solitary confinement, and moved him to a prison. Later, on Christmas Day, 1834, Austin was released from prison but remained on “house confinement.” Finally, he was allowed to return to Texas in the spring of 1835.
Stephen F. Austin, when he left for Mexico in late 1833, was a voice of moderation and cautious pragmatism when it came to relations between the Anglos in Texas and the Mexican government. He was the titular leader of the “Peace Party,” the mostly older residents of the province who advocated careful working within the Mexican system. However, his approximately year in Mexican jail and prison had changed his tune. Stephen F. Austin, now, was convinced that the only way the Anglos in Texas could live the life they wanted was if they separated from the Mexican nation. Austin’s change of heart would be a turning point.
Next Week: Santa Anna seizes dictatorial power, and the Texas Revolution begins.
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.