Spain and Mexico Face a Dilemma (Mar 10, 2024)
by Scott Sosebee
Since March 2 is Texas Independence Day and April 21 is San Jacinto Day, this space will take the next several weeks focusing on the Texas Revolution, mostly its roots, how independence developed, and what brought the war. It is a topic that contains more complexity than is often thought about and is comprised of a cross-current of events and ideologies present in both American and Mexican society and politics. This week is Part 2, a look at how the lack of a scheme to populate Texas hindered the region’s development, and the lack of a definite border in the northeast began to set the stage for Anglo entry into the province, which will eventually begin to foment revolt.
The historical narrative surrounding the lead-up to the Texas Revolution, the actual revolt, and the formation of the Republic has, for many decades, been one told and written about from the Anglo perspective and tends to concentrate on the actions of the new residents of Texas as patriotic “conquerors” spreading American-style democracy across the continent. Such a tale fits into the narrative of “Manifest Destiny,” which, when taken in a vacuum, tends to ignore vital bits of nuance and texture present in the accounts and records of the time. Recently, scholars such as Sam Haynes, Randolph Campbell, and Andrew Torget have been finding applications of that nuance and providing more robust and honest interpretations about the Texas Revolution and independence from Mexico. Looking at the implications of their research allows us to give greater context to that chronicle.
Spain claimed sovereignty over Texas from the early 1500s until Mexico became independent in 1820, but during those three hundred years of control, they were able to populate Texas with only about three thousand non-Native American residents. San Antonio was the largest “city” in the province with at best two thousand residents; that figure was gained only by counting the surrounding rural areas that could claim Bexár as an address. Nacogdoches, at that time, was the only other place that might qualify as more than a small settlement, and its population—if you include all the area that comprised the Municipality of Nacogdoches, not the Villa—was only approximately three hundred. The rest of the province was scarcely more than scattered missions that supported small numbers of friars clustered around those outposts and even more sparsely garrisoned Presidios. The remainder of the Spanish population of Texas lived on remote ranchos, farms, or as itinerant trappers or huntsmen. It was a barely “settled” province.
The situation in Texas also begged a question: Spain may have claimed dominion over Texas, but could the colonial host actually claim that they controlled the province? Even after the decimation of European diseases had weakened and reduced the Native residents, they still outnumbered the Spanish subjects in the province and, after the arrival of the Comanche in the 1730s, they had just as much—if not more—of a claim of control over large swaths of Texas than the Spanish authorities. Spain clearly had a “population problem” when it came to Texas and no clear way to solve it. The preceding three hundred years had generally proven only one thing: there was not much incentive for the residents of lower New Spain to pick up stakes and move to the Norteño Frontera.
Spain could not convince many of its colonial subjects to move north and try to make a life in Texas, but one group had proven willing and able to occupy and make Texas its home: Americans moving west, mostly out of the southern states. Because Spain exercised very little oversight in Texas, when the Mexican War for Independence began, Texas became a haven for not only rebel forces—Father Hidalgo, the man who issued the grito that started that war was fleeing to Texas when he was caught and executed—but also for nefarious American adventurers often referred to as “filibusterers.”
The boundary between what was Spanish and what was first French, then later British and U.S. territory, was vague and contentious from the beginning of the European invasion of what would become Texas. Where Texas ended and Louisiana began was a shifting line that depended on who and when you asked. Fuzzy border lines have, throughout history, attracted those who would exploit such a situation for economic or political gain, as well as just those who engaged in activities best undertaken in a place with little lawful authority. The region of what we today call West Louisiana and East Texas was just such a place. As far back as the 1680s, French explorer Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, had wandered into Spanish Texas—whether it was intentional or not is open to interpretation—which had spurred the Spanish to first place a presence in Texas, and over two hundred years later American Phillip Nolan, who had appeared in the Nacogdoches area in 1790 and held a Spanish passport, was executed after the Spanish accused him of plotting with American military leader James Wilkinson. Nolan was followed by a number of adventurers and “n’er do wells”—such as the men who proclaimed the Republic of the North in Nacogdoches in 1811, as well as James Long, an American surgeon who hoped to establish an independent nation in Texas in 1819—who had hoped to exploit the dubious nature of the border for their own gain. Thus, Spain had reason to suspect Americans who had nefarious intentions in Texas.
Spanish and American diplomats began negotiations to finally definitively decide the border between Louisiana and Texas as early as 1815. The United States, depending on the Administration and the officials, claimed land in Texas as far west as the Colorado, but at least definitely the Neches River. The Spanish Minister to the United States, Don Luis de Onís, had instructions to gain Spain as much territory as possible, but to do whatever he needed to do to get a treaty as Spain was dealing with the independence movement in the interior of New Spain. The Madison Administration—knee-deep in war with Great Britain, dithered and the U.S. did not really engage Onís seriously until the Monroe Administration came to power in 1817. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams made initial moves toward Spain, but final negotiations in the matter did not begin until January 1819.
Spain would have agreed to a border at least as far west as the Neches and possibly the Colorado, but Onís opened his negotiation by offering the Sabine as a boundary line. Adams, who had hoped to gain Texas and even claims all the way to the Pacific, was hindered by the actions of Andrew Jackson who without sanction had invaded Florida, which had flamed another diplomatic imbroglio. So, when Onís opened with the Sabine, Adams took that line and traded full Spanish recognition that Florida was now U.S. territory. The Adams-Onís Treaty was signed in February 1819, although it did not take effect until 1820.
Spain had secured a border, one that would pass to the new Mexican nation when its independence became a reality, but it still faced a problem: who was going to populate Texas? The solution came from an unlikely source, an American lead mine operator in Missouri by the name of Moses Austin.
Next week: Stephen F. Austin initiates the empresario system, and Anglo migration in Texas becomes legal
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.