The Law of April 6, 1830 (Apr 28, 2024)

By Scott Sosebee

This week we continue with the series on the causes and coming of the Texas Revolution. This entry looks at the Mexican Congress’ passage of The Law of April 6, 1830, which codified the findings of Mier y Terán’s report on Texas.

       When Manuel de Mier y Terán issued his report to Lucas Alamán y Escalda, the Mexican Foreign Minister crafted the missive into legislation that was to be introduced in the Mexican Congress. The proposed law came into the congress at a propitious time; Guadalupe Victoria’s term as president was ending and he would be replaced by a new Centralist chief executive, Anastacio Bustamante, another former general who had previously served as Provincias Internas, which meant that he was the chief administrator of the unorganized lands in the north and thus it was he who had recommended that Stephen F. Austin’s grant he situated between the Brazos and Colorado Rivers, which allowed for a “buffer” between the proposed American colonists and the interior of Mexico. Bustamante understood the importance of populating Texas, but he also recognized the need to keep the aggressively expansionist Americans away from the bulk of the Mexican population. He supported the introduction of the law and saw it as a reasonable—even a moderate—political reform that would not only help to regularize the colonies in Texas but also allow Mexico to regulate the procession of settlement on its northern frontier.

       Alamán’s legislation took Mier y Terán’s recommendations and incorporated them into what became the Ley del 6 de abril de 1830 or “The Law of April 6, 1830.” The new law first offered financing and national governmental support for encouraging colonists from the interior of Mexico and—most significantly—European immigrants to come and settle in Texas. It also opened the coastal trade to foreigners along the Texas coastline and called for the building of custom’s houses to collect duties from that trade. All empresario contracts would come under the auspices of a federal commissioner, who would also take on the responsibility of approving any new contracts for colonists. Furthermore, it called for Mexico to build forts and garrison troops in Texas in order to uphold Mexican law. Most significantly, the new law severely limited—and in practice essentially ended—American immigration to Texas and—alarmingly to the Anglo residents—it outlawed the further introduction of slaves into Texas.

       When word of the new law reached the Texas settlements there was an immediate outcry from the Anglos. The new laws strictures caused Mexico to suspend two ongoing empresario operations, those of Robertson’s Colony and the efforts of the Galveston Bay and Texas Land Company (of which Sam Houston would become an agent). Stephen F. Austin quickly realized the potential ramifications of the new law and he began to work his political contacts in Mexico City to, at least, soften the impact of the law. He was successful—selfishly—in making sure his unfulfilled empresario contracts and those of his ally Green Dewitt were allowed to continue. Austin had indicated to Sterling Roberston, the executive partner of the Nashville Company that had applied for what would be called Roberton’s Colony, that he would intervene on his behalf with the Mexican government. Instead, Austin applied for and received the grant that was supposed to go to Robertson and his partners. Robertson would eventually regain control of the huge tract of Central Texas, but he carried a deep-seated enmity for Austin into the revolutionary years.

       Austin’s other objective was to somehow gain a suspension of the restriction on slavery in Texas. He explicitly understood that effective emigration from the United States—and the success of his and other empresario contracts—depended on the continued legality of chattel slavery. However, the issue was complicated. Mexico, as a nation, was overwhelmingly anti-slavery, and in fact President Victoria had already, in a way, outlawed slavery in Mexico. In that instance, Austin had secured a waiver for Texas, one that allowed enslaved people in Texas to become “permanent indentured servants,” but now the Law of April 6, 1830 threatened to undo that agreement. Austin was also aware that the outlawing of slavery very well may trigger open rebellion among the Anglo settlers, a rebellion that would have seriously threatened his economic interests in fulfilling his contracts. Although it took all of Austin’s political skills to do so, he was successful in securing the suspension of the article in the law that outlawed slavery; in Texas, the enslavement of human beings would continue unabated. However, the Anglos in the province were now aware of the precarious nature of the continuance of the institution and their sensibilities concerning its legality would remain something that they were keenly attuned to in the future.

       While Austin was able to moderate some limited aspects of the Law of April 6, he could not secure its repeal, and its presence would continue to be a source of tension between the Anglo residents of Texas and their Mexican hosts. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the passage of the legislation placed Anglo Texans on a collision course with the federal government of Mexico. The law made the Texan residents keenly aware that much of their livelihood and economic and social progress greatly depended on the whims and often mercurial direction of Mexican politics, a process that the Anglos did not—and did not try to—understand. It would also mean that they would soon see an actual presence of Mexican federal authority, in the form of garrisoned soldiers and duty-collecting custom’s houses, that they had not witnessed before. Those new presences would lead to the first outward Anglo resistance to Mexican federal authority in the Anahuac Disturbances and the Battles of Velasco and Nacogdoches in 1832.

Next week, this space will examine those conflicts as well as the Conventions of 1832 and 1833 and an unlikely “savior” of the Anglos in the form of new president Antonio López de Santa Anna.

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.