Mier y Terán Issues a Report (Apr 21, 2024)
by Scott Sosebee
This week we continue with the series on the causes and coming of the Texas Revolution. This entry looks at how Mexico responded to the Fredonian Rebellion with an expedition and report on the conditions in Texas, a report that would lead to the first real schism between the Anglo settlers in Texas and the Mexican government.
The Fredonian Rebellion was a bust, a poorly organized and almost impulsively contested affair that had little chance of succeeding. In fact, while the majority of the Anglo residents that constituted the Fredonians had fled to Louisiana when word of Ahumada and Austin’s arrival with troops reached the villa, within a year almost all of them—including the Edwards brothers—had drifted back to the lands between the Sabine and the Neches and became part of the population in the municipality. It was almost as if the Rebellion had never occurred as far as most of the citizens in Nacogdoches were concerned.
Nacogdoches might have returned to the status quo in the year or so after the Fredonia incident and the fight may have been more of a whimper than a holler, but as far as Mexican authorities in Mexico City were concerned, they did not want it to happen again, and the first order of business should be to find exactly what was happening in their province of Texas. It did not help Mexico’s anxiousness over their far northern frontier when diplomatically at the time the adjacent United States continued, at least, to insinuate that part of Texas belonged to them, not Mexico. First the John Quincy Adams and then the new Andrew Jackson administration hinted that according to old French claims on Louisiana that the Neches, not the Sabine, was the proper border between the two nations. The presence of some potentially treasonous residents in East Texas who might side with or even instigate a fight with the United States troubled Mexican authorities.
What Mexico City needed was some insightful information on what was actually happening in Texas. President Guadalupe Victoria asked his closest advisors who he should send to Texas that would honestly report on conditions within the province. His minsters were almost unanimous in the opinion that Manuel de Mier y Terán was just that person. Mier y Terán was an army general who had been a skilled engineer and fought in the War for Independence on the side of the rebels, and then continued loyal service under Iturbide after Mexico became a nation. He had served as a minister on the “unoccupied lands” in the north and had made himself into a trusted advisor for the national government on the norteño frontera. Victoria agreed with the recommendation, and he tapped Mier y Terán to led a scientific and boundary expedition into Texas. Officially it was called the Comisión de Límites or the “Boundary Commission,” but its more important mission was to actually discover just how many Anglos were in Texas and what their attitudes toward the Mexican government really were. His subsequent report would be a turning point in relations between the Mexican government and its residents in Texas.
Mier y Terán left Mexico City in November 1827 and made it first to San Antonio (March 1, 1828), where he spent roughly three weeks, then he came to San Felipe on April 27, 1828, and then moved on to Nacogdoches, arriving there on June 3. He had to remain in Nacogdoches much longer than he had anticipated due to a serious illness he contracted, which may have affected his mood when it came to reporting on his experiences in that town. He did not leave East Texas until the middle of January 1829 and he did not arrive back in Mexico City until the spring of that year. He had kept an extensive diary during his trip, observations that became the core of his report.
What Mier y Terán found in Texas did more than alarm him. He was appalled and even saddened by the attitudes of the Anglo influence he found in Texas. He reported that while San Antonio was by all accounts a “Mexican” town, it was rustic, and the residents were crude and lacked education and “refinement.” He said that what Anglos he did encounter there treated those of Mexican descent with “disdain,” and a lack of respect, which he also said was primarily due to their—the Mexicans—condition and mode of life. What was more alarming to him was that the farther north and east he moved from Mexico City the more he found Anglos to be the leaders and—in many ways—the only residents of the towns and region. San Felipe was an Anglo town, he wrote, and while he had positive things to say about Austin, he found the Anglos in the town to be somewhat vulgar and lacked the “niceties of society.” He saved his harshest comments about the Anglo residents of Nacogdoches, which he found “obscene,” often drunk, and most scornful of Mexican society and authority. In all of Texas, he wrote, the Anglos have no desire to adopt Mexican customs or to obey Mexican laws. For all intents and purposes, Texas was an “American” province.
Mier y Terán turned his report over to Mexican foreign Minister Lucas Alamán y Escalda and he urged Alamán to act quickly because, according to him, if he did not then Mexico would lose Texas to the United States forever. He urged that the federal government immediately suspend all empresario contracts and end emigration from the United States. The nation also had to do whatever it took to end or limit American influence, primarily by encouraging greater Mexican and European immigration to Texas. Furthermore, Mexico needed to send soldiers into the province and construct forts to force the Anglos to obey Mexican trade and other laws. And, in order to end the reliance on American economic and political ideas, Mexico had to abolish slavery in Texas.
Alamán would take Mier y Terán’s report and craft it into legislation to for the Mexican Congress. The subsequent action, The Law of April 6, 1830, would, in many ways, be the opening salvo in the deterioration of relations between the Mexican government and Anglo residents in Texas.
Next week, the Law of April 6, 1830 stirs resentment in Texas
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.
