MEXICAN NATIONAL UNIT 5

KEY TERMS CONSTITUTION – a written statement outlining the basic laws or principles by which a country or organization is governed. EMPRESARIO – an agent who makes all arrangements to settlers to a colony. FILIBUSTER – an adventurer who engages in a private rebellious activity in a foreign country. IMMIGRATION – people who come to a country to settle.

KEY TERMS (CONT.) REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT – a representative government is one that allows its citizens to elect other citizens to make decisions for a larger group of citizens. This allows the business of government to get done. TEJANO – a person of Mexican descent living in Texas.

IMPORTANT TIME PERIODS 1820 – Moses Austin get permission from Spanish authorities to colonize Texas with Americans but dies before he completes his plans. 1821 – Mexico is independent from Spain. 1821 – Stephen F. Austin continues his father’s dream by settling 300 families from the United States. They are know as the “Old Three Hundred”. There were three requirements for settlement (must convert to Catholicism; must become a Spanish/Mexican citizen; must be of good, moral character).

IMPORTANT TIME PERIODS (CONT) 1823-1825 – National Colonization Law 1824 – Mexican Constitution of 1824 1825-1830 – 30 Empresario Contracts

IMPORTANT INDIVIDUALS PHILIP NOLAN – a filibuster from the United States that was sent to Texas with Spanish approval but Spain was suspicious of the US taking control of Texas. JEAN LAFITTE – Galveston pirate who attacked Spanish ships. DR. JAMES LONG – led a group on a long expedition from Mississippi to Nacogdoches where he declared Texas independent from Spain. While looking for military support, he was captured, taken to Mexico city, and shot.

IMPORTANT INDIVIDUALS (CONT) JOSE GUTIERREZ DE LARA – Leader of the Mexican Republic Army of the North and opposed Spanish Rule, joined Agustus Magee and his men which became known as the Guiterrez-Magee Expedition, supported several filibuster expeditions and the first Governor of Mexican Texas.

IMPORTANT INDIVIDUALS (CONT) MOSES AUSTIN (1820) – First American to work with the Spanish government to settle Americans in Texas. STEPHEN F. AUSTIN (1821) – First American to recruit and settle Americans in Texas/Mexico. He settled three hundred families and was know as an empresario. This led to the colonization of other American settlers in Texas/Mexico. ERASMO SEGUIN – Helped Moses Austin obtain approval from Spanish officials to settle American colonist in Texas. MARTIN DELEON – A Mexican empresario who settled 200 Mexican families in South Texas. He and his wife founded the town of Victoria in 1824. GREEN DEWITT (1831) – An important American empresario who settled 166 families in the area near present-day Gonzales.

IMPORTANT BATTLE BATTLE OF MEDINA Fought August 18, 1813 along the Medina River south of San Antonio between the republican forces of the Gutierrez-Magee expedition and the Spanish royalist army. The Repulican army lost miserably but it encouraged others to participate in the revolution.

MEXICAN CONSTITUTION 1824 The constitution was written after Mexico became independent of Spain. The republic took the name of United Mexican States, and was defined as a representative federal republic, with Catholicism as the official religion. Created the state of Coahuila y Tejas merging the two provinces.

TEXAS AND COAHUILA AS A STATE Merger stated in the Mexican Federal Constitution of 1824. Texas was not organized as a separate state because of its small population.

STATE COLONIZATION LAW OF 1825 Law that set up guidelines to the colonization of Coahuila y Texas. Allowed Stephen F. Austin and others empresario to receive land grants in Texas.

SLAVERY 1821 – Colonists could bring slaves to Texas and buy land depending on the number of slaves brought. Mexico offered full citizenship to free blacks, including land ownership and other privileges. 1832 – The sale or purchase of slaves was forbidden in Texas and required that the children of slaves be freed when they reached the age of fourteen. 1827 – The legislature of Coahuila y Tejas outlawed the introduction of additional slaves and granted freedom at birth to all children born to a slave. 1829 – Mexico abolished slavery, but it granted an exception to Texas. 1830 – Importation of slaves were illegal in Texas.

SETTLEMENTS IN TEXAS SPANISH SETTLEMENT PURPOSE - Secure Spanish control in the New World / Gold, silver and resources. METHOD – A colony of Spain and resettled other Spanish colonist.

SETTLEMENTS IN TEXAS MEXICAN SETTLEMENT PURPOSE – Increase population in Northern Mexico. METHOD – Empresario grants, supporting towns already in the area and large ranches.

SETTLEMENTS IN TEXAS ANGLO SETTLEMENT PURPOSE – Increase population in Texas. METHOD – Allowed because of the National Colonization Law, Empresario Grants, settled in Northern Texas and farming / agriculture.