Texas: A Brief Account of the Origin, Progress and Present State of the Colonial Settlements of Texas; Together with an Exposition of the Causes which have induced the Existing War with MexicoWharton, William H. (William Harris)
History
Texas: A Brief Account of the Origin, Progress and Present State of the Colonial Settlements of Texas; Together with an Exposition of the Causes which have induced the Existing War with Mexico
Wharton, William H. (William Harris)
Texas -- History -- Revolution, 1835-1836
The unconstitutional oppression long and unremittingly practised upon the
colonists of Texas, having at length become insupportable, and having
impelled them to take up arms in defence of their rights and liberties, it
is due to the world that their motives, conduct and causes of complaint
should be fully made known. In order to do this it will be necessary to
explain the origin, progress and present state of the colonial settlements.
Without parade or useless preliminaries, I shall proceed to the subject,
as substance and not sound--matter and not manner are the objects of the
present discussion. It is known at least to the reading and inquiring
world, that on the dissolution of the connection between Mexico and Spain
in 1822, Don Augustin Iturbide, by corruption and violence, established
a short-lived, imperial government over Mexico, with himself at the head
under the title of Augustin I. On arriving at supreme power, Iturbide or
Augustin I. found that vast portion of the Mexican government, east of the
Rio Grande, known by the name of Texas, to be occupied by various tribes of
Indians, who committed incessant depredations on the Mexican citizens West
of the Rio Grande, and prevented the population of Texas. He ascertained
that the savages could not be subdued by the arms of Mexico, nor could
their friendship be purchased. He ascertained that the Mexicans, owing to
their natural dread of Indians, could not be induced to venture into the
wilderness of Texas. In addition to the dread of Indians, Texas held out no
inducements for Mexican emigrants. They were accustomed to a lazy pastoral
or mining life, in a healthy country. Texas was emphatically a land of
agriculture--the land of cotton and of sugar cane, with the culture of
which staples they were wholly unacquainted; and moreover, it abounded in
the usual concomitants of such southern regions--fevers, mosquitoes &c.,
which the Mexicans hated with a more than natural or reasonable hatred.
Iturbide finding from those causes that Texas could not be populated with
his own subjects, and that so long as it remained in the occupancy of
the Indians, the inhabited parts of his dominions continually suffered
from their ravages and murders, undertook to expel the savages by the
introduction of foreigners. Accordingly the national institute or council,
on the 3d day of January, 1823, by his recommendation and sanction, adopted
a law of colonization, in which they invited the immigration of foreigners
to Texas on the following terms:--
1st. They promise to protect their liberty, property and civil rights.
2d. They offer to each colonist one league of land, (4,444 acres) for
coming to Texas.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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