



Produced by William Flis, Stan Goodman, Charles Franks and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.












                                   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.


    Extracted from a work entitled "A Geographical, Statistical and
     Historical account of Texas," now nearly ready for the press.

      Some of these numbers have appeared in the New Orleans Bee
                               and Bulletin.

                                   1836.




PREFACE.


It will be seen that the title of this little pamphlet implies more than
it contains. As war is now the order of the day, only a small portion of
the political part of the work on "Texas" is here presented. It is hoped
and believed that enough is unfolded to convince the most incredulous that
the colonists of Texas have been _forced_ into this contest with the
mother country, by persecutions and oppressions, as unremitting as they
have been unconstitutional. That it is not a war waged by them for cupidity
or conquest, but for the establishment of the blessings of liberty and good
government, without which life itself is a curse and man degraded to the
level of the brute. If the time-hallowed principle of the Declaration of
Independence, namely, "that governments are instituted for the protection
and happiness of mankind, and that whenever they become destructive of
these ends it is the right, nay it is the duty of the people to alter or
abolish them." If this sacred principle is recognised and acted upon, all
must admit that the colonists of Texas have a clear right to burst their
_fetters_, and have also a just claim for recognition as an independent
nation, upon every government not wholly inimical to the march of light and
liberty, and to the establishment of the unalienable rights of man.

CURTIUS.




TO AN IMPARTIAL WORLD.

No. I.


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.

3d. They guarantee to each colonist the privilege of leaving the empire
at any time, with all his property, and also the privilege of selling the
land which he may have acquired from the Mexican government, (see the
colonization law of 1823, more especially articles 1st, 8th and 20th.)
These were the inducements and invitations held out to foreigners under the
imperial government of Iturbide or Augustin I. In a short time, however,
the nation deposed Iturbide, and deposited the supreme executive power in
a body of three individuals. This supreme executive power on the 10th of
August, 1824, adopted a national colonization law, in which they recognized
and confirmed the imperial colonization law with all its guarantees of
person and property. It also conceded to the different States the privilege
of colonizing the vacant lands within their respective limits. (See
national colonization law, articles 1st and 4th.) In accordance with this
law, the States of Coahuila and Texas on the 24th March, 1825, adopted
a colonization law for the purpose, as expressed in the preamble, of
protecting the frontiers, expelling the