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Introduction to the Independence of Texas

Module by: David Messmer

This document represents one of the earliest in a progression of events that would eventually lead to the Mexican American War. The Louisiana Purchase had raised the question of whether the United States or Mexico could claim Texas. The Adams-Onís treaty of 1819 settled this dispute by granting control of the Floridas to the United States and control of Texas to Mexico. However, as early as 1825 the United States began to make attempts to purchase Texas from the Mexican government and these attempts would continue until Texas declared its independence in 1836 (Tutorow 17) 1.

This declaration came about as a result of the Mexican Congress making substantial changes to its constitution in January of 1835. These changes consolidated power in the central government and weakened the state governments of Mexico. Texas debated what course of action to take: whether they would push for political change or declare their independence from the Mexican government. When Mexican troops marched into Texas in January of 1836, the local Texas government saw no choice but to declare independence from Mexico (Tutorow 18).

Since the United States had been making efforts to acquire Texas for more than a decade, it is no surprise that Texas’s separation from Mexico would lead to a new push within the U.S. to acquire it. The document presented here is one of the first signs of that push, as it calls for the U.S. House of Representatives to create a salary for a minister to Texas, a move that was followed just three days later by the Senate declaring official recognition of Texas as an independent nation. This, in turn, led to a decade long debate within the United States regarding the possible annexation of Texas – a debate that hinged largely on the concerns of many in the northern U.S. who feared that annexation would lead to the further spread of slavery (Price 25) 2.

As much as this debate raised tensions between northerners and southerners in the United States, it created an even more tense political situation between the United States and Mexico. While Mexico “made no serious effort to reconquer Texas, she stubbornly refused to acknowledge the independence of the territory” (Price 24). The United States’ recognition of Texas and the subsequent debate over its annexation, then, did not sit well with Mexican leaders. The document presented here represents the first step in that recognition, and thus also represent a key first step in the developing tensions between the U.S. and Mexico – tensions that would, ten years later, result in open war.

Footnotes

  1. 1Tutorow, Norman E. Texas Annexation and the Mexican War. Chadwick House Publishers, LTD: Palo Alto, 1978.
  2. 2Price, Glenn W. Origins of the War with Mexico: The Polk-Stockton Intrigue. University of Texas Press: Austin, 1967.

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