Читать книгу The History of Texas - Robert A. Calvert - Страница 57

Although several prospective American empresarios had been in Mexico City at the same time as Austin was trying to secure his colonization contracts, only Austin managed to win approval from the provisional congress that succeeded the Iturbide regime. The peopling of Texas, therefore, occurred mainly under the National Colonization Law of August 18, 1824, which the Mexican congress passed while still debating the details of a new national constitution. Though establishing certain restrictions for colonization, the Colonization Law left the individual states of Mexico with complete control over immigration and the disposal of public lands. The legislation instructed the states, however, to remain within the limits of the national constitution. Even though general sentiment in Mexico scorned human bondage, the law did not directly prohibit the importation of slaves or outlaw slavery.

The National Colonization Law of 1824 emanated from a developing federalist‐liberal philosophy advanced by men who planned the creation of a republic based on the principles of the American Revolution and the Spanish Constitution of 1812. The Federalists, so called because their party advocated concentrating government power in the states, included leaders such as Valentín Gómez Farías of Zacatecas and Lorenzo de Zavala of Yucatán. They were opposed by conservatives, whose support came from the clergy, major landholders, and the military, and because they favored a strong central government, were called Centralists. Using the unfulfilled dream of establishing a republic and the abdication of Iturbide to their advantage, the liberals created the Federal Constitution of the United States of Mexico on October 4, 1824. (Measures such as the National Colonization Law that the congress passed in the months preceding the constitution’s adoption were not superseded by the new document.) The republican constitution sought to satisfy regional interests by giving states control over their internal affairs and by diluting the power of the national government. As its framers had hoped, the new document resembled the US Constitution in many ways as well as borrowing items from the Spanish Constitution of 1812. Among those who signed the new constitution was a forty‐two‐year‐old Tejano ranchero, Erasmo Seguín.

In the north, the national government united the old Spanish provinces of Coahuila and Texas into one state, Coahuila y Texas. Via a decree issued in early 1825 by the state constitutional congress at Saltillo, which functioned as a legislature while it drew up a constitution for the new state, Texas from the Nueces to the Sabine River became a departamento (called the “Department of Texas”). It was to be presided over by a jefe político (political chief) appointed by the governor of the state. The jefe politico was responsible for overseeing the defense of Texas (including the command of local militias), education, taxes, censuses, and elections, as well as for enforcing the laws and supervising the ayuntamientos. When, on March 11, 1827, the congress finally promulgated the new constitution, this agreement was incorporated into the Coahuiltejano government. Furthermore, the legislature allowed two deputies for Texas, with provisions to add more as the population of the province grew.

Also decreed by the provisional state constitutional congress was the State Colonization Law of March 24, 1825. Through this measure, the legislature sought to achieve several goals, namely the peopling of Coahuila and Texas, the encouragement of farming and ranching in the state, and the stimulation there of commercial activity. The plan permitted the immigration of Anglo Americans into Coahuila and Texas, but it also sought to prod Mexicans into moving north by giving them priority in land acquisition. For modest fees, heads of families qualified to obtain a league or sitio (4428.4 acres) of grazing land and a labor (177.1 acres) of farming land. Immigrants were temporarily exempted from paying tariffs or custom duties. Provisions required all new residents of Coahuila and Texas who were not already Mexican citizens to take an oath declaring that they would abide by the federal and state constitutions and promise to observe the Christian religion. The legislature made no explicit mention of Catholicism: it was simply understood that the people of Mexico practiced no other religion. After agreeing to said conditions and establishing residence by obtaining lands, the land grantees were regarded by the government as naturalized Mexicans. The wording of the Colonization Law of 1825 was so vague that it did not immediately prohibit the importation of slaves.

The Constitution of 1827, on the other hand, more precisely addressed slavery in Texas. Abolitionists from Coahuila opposed the institution vigorously, but an alliance of Anglo slave owners, Tejano oligarchs, and entrepreneurs from Coahuila, arguing that barring slavery would stifle US immigration and destroy the labor force essential to Texas prosperity, succeeded in preserving it under the law. But the concession was temporary as the constitution nonetheless mandated that children of slave parents were to be born free and that six months following the constitution’s publication, no new slaves were to be brought into Texas.