Report on Conditions in Mexican Texas (1828)

Just after achieving its independence from Spain in 1821, the government of Mexico began to encourage legal immigration from the United States to its province of
Texas in an effort to better populate and therefore stabilize that part of its northern frontier. L red by cheap land prices and sponsored by empresarios lihe Stephen F. stin, Anglo-Americans began to stream into Mexican Texas. Given the
· arity that quicldy developed between the sizes of the Anglo and the Spanishspeahing populations, this wave of immigration soon became a source of considerable concern to the Mexican government.
For this reason, Mexican president Guadalupe Victoria dispatched General
Manuel de Mier y Teran (1789-1832) on an inspection tour of Texas in 1828. What
Mier y Teran saw on his travels to San Antonio and Nacogdoches (the largest settlement in East Texas) de_
eply disturbed him. He reported his findings and recommendations in a long letter to the president on June 30, 1828. Mier y Teran’s report
resulted in the passage of the Law of April 6, 1830. which placed severe restrictions
on further Anglo immigration to Mexico. Despondent over continuing political
turmoil in Texas and other parts of the Mexican republic and depressed over his
own declining health, Mier y Teran committed suicide by falling on his sword in
1832. As you read his report of 1828, looli for the long-term causes of the Texas
Revolution that would erupt in 1835-1836.
From Texas by Teran: The Diary Kept by General Manuel de Mier y Teran on His
1828 Inspection of Texas edited by Jack Jackson, translated by John Wheat.
Copyright© 2.000. By permission of the University of Texas Press.
Nacodoches, June 30, 1828.
Friend and Senor of my greatest esteem and respect.
* * *
As o ravels from Bejar to this town [Nacogdoches], Mexican
1 ence diminishes, so much so that it becomes clear that in this town
that influence is almost nonexistent. But where could such influence
come from? Not from the population, because the ratio of the Mexican
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MANUEL DE MIER Y TERAN
populati n’to the foreign is one to ten, nor from its quality, because the
po ation is precisely the contrary: the Mexicans of this town consist what people everywhere call the abject class [la clase infima], the
poorest and most ignorant. The North Americans residing in the town
run an English school and send their children north for their education. The poor Mexicans neither have the resources to create schools, nor is
there anyone to think about improving their institutions and their abject condition.
Authorities and magistrates are also lacking. A poor little man, to put it mildly, who calls himself an alcalde,1 and an ayuntamiento2 that has
never met in its life are what we have in the most important post on our frontier, where-from what I have seen in the short time I have been here-grave incidents of a political and judicial nature are taking place.
Therefore, Senor President, I must disturb you in the same wa s disturbed to see the foreign colonists’ attitude toward our ation. Most
of them, with the exception of a few who have travele to our capital­ knowing no Mexicans other than those who live here and lacking the
authorities that are necessary in every society-think that [Mexico] consists of nothing more than blacks and Indians, all of them ignoran n
some homes, where they have done me the favor of considerin an
educated man, they have told me to my face that it could not be so unless I were French or Spanish.
From this state of affairs an antipathy has emerged between Mexicans and foreigners that is not the least of the volatile elements I have found to
make me tell
_
you that, i
_
f timely �asures are not taken, Tejas wjll pull down the entu.:e federat100 3 +he foreigners grumble about the political
disorganization on the frontier, and the Mexicans complain about the adva�
t
�
ges and better education that the former [enjoy]. The foreigners find 1t mtolerable to have to travel 200 leagues
4 to complain about the
petty vexations that a corrupt and ignorant a/ca/de causes them, and the Mexicans-who, having no notion of the laws of their country or even of the laws of c�
Ion_
cr
ization, feel themselves pushed aside for the foreigners­ eate comphcat.ions on their part in order to deprive [the foreigners] of the
_
right to vote and to exclude them from the ayuntamiento. Mean­ while, the
,-
new settlers contjrme ta arrive =
* * *
1. A local official equivalent to a mayor.
2. Equivalent to a town or city council.
4
3. �
exi�
o
b
‘s Const
f
i
d · pams umt o 1stance
tution of 1824 established a
measurin
federal republic, much like that of the United States. g 2.6 miles.
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Report on Conditions in Mexican Texas (1828)
In addition to the small number of North Americans who settled
during the Spanish r�are tw� classes of settlers: one consists
of fugitives from the neighbonng republic, many of them branded on
the face with the mark they use there for thieves and scoundrels. These
people locate between Nacodoches and the Sabine River, ready to cross
and recross the river whene r they need to leave the place where they
have just committed a crime. So e of them have reformed and spend
their lives working the I
,,
. he other class is that of poor laborers
[jorna/eros] who did not have four or five thousand pesos to purchase a
plot of land in the north and who wished to become landown�s, which
is one of the virtues of our neighbors who have come to Tejas. The latter,
who compose the colony of Austin, are generally industrious and
honorab!e and respect the country. Most of them have at least one.or
two slaves. . . . __,,_
Pro;perous North Americans in Louisiana and other western states
wish to acquire lands in Tejas for large-scale speculation, but they are
restricted by the laws prohibiting slavery. If these laws were rescinded
(may God rbid), in just a few years Tejas would be a powerful state that
woul ·val Louisiana in production and wealth.
e rescinding of those [antislavery] laws is the object toward which
the colonists direct their efforts.
* * *
What I perceive in all this is that certainly in Nacodoches, at least,
more government action is needed in the town, since it is a frontier
[outpost) with which the Republic should maintain closer contact. By law,
the general government possesses vast tracts of land in this country, and
in order to distribute them wisely, it is necessary to pay attention to the
economy no less than to politics and national security. The total population is a mixture of such strange or incoherent elements that no other like
it exists in our entire federation: tribes of savages, numerous and peaceful
but armed and always ready for war, whose progress toward civilization
surely will be achieved through close vigilance by a zealous and welleducated political authority, and colonists who have come from another,
more advanced, society, better ate but also more malicious and
mistrustful than are the exicans. Among the foreigners there are all
kinds: fugitive criminals, honorable farmers, vagabonds and ne’er-dowells, laborers, etc. They all go about with their caostitntjon io rhcir
pocket, demandin&,:their rights and thi authorities and functionaries that
[thei�onstitution) provides. Most of them hold slaves who, now having
perceived the favorable intent of Mexican law wi regard to their tragic
state, are becoming restless to throw off their yoke, , hile their masters
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MANUEL DE MIER Y TERAN
believe they can keep them by making (the yoke] heavier. They commit
the barbarities on their slaves that are so common where men live in a
relationship so contradictory to their nature: they pull their teeth, they
set dogs upon them to tear them apart, and the mildest of them will
whip the slaves until they are flayed.
* * *
Forgive the amount of reading I have sent y , ut I wish to inform
you right away about this country and not ait until the day I present
my complete observations to the government, because (by then] the
time to take co�
r�
tive a�ill have passe�
Study Questions
1. According to Mier y Teran, what were the main threats to continued Mexican
rule in Texas? What ·corrective action· do you think he believed the government
should take?
2. In what respects is the writer describing a frontier society? How might this setting shape the attitude of Anglo settlers toward law and Mexican authority? What
does Mier y Teran mean in saying that the Anglos
.
carry “their constitution in
their pocket”?
3. Analyze Mier y Teran’s observations about race and class in Mexican Texas.
What are the indicators of his own social class? Compare and contrast his attitude toward slavery with that of most Anglo-Texans.
4. Based upon Mier y Teran·s letter of 1828, was the subsequent Texas revolution for
independence from Mexico inevitable? What steps might the Mexican government have taken to avert this outcome?
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