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.