Conflict over Texas began in 1803, when the United States bought the Louisiana Territory from France. Americans claimed that the land in present-day Texas was part of the purchase. Spain protested. In 1819, in the Adams-Onís Treaty, the United States agreed to drop any further claim to the region. At the time, few people lived in Texas. Most residents, about 3,000, were Tejanos, or Mexicans who claimed Texas as their home. Native Americans, including Comanches, Apaches, and Kiowas, also lived in the area. Because the Spanish wanted to promote the growth of Texas, they offered large tracts of land to people who agreed to bring families to settle on the land. The people who obtained these grants from the government and recruited the settlers were called empresarios.

Moses Austin, a businessman who had developed a mining operation in Missouri, applied for and received the first land grant in 1821. Before he could establish his colony, however, Moses contracted pneumonia and died. After Mexico declared independence from Spain, Austin’s son, Stephen F. Austin, asked the Mexican government to confirm his father’s land grant. Once he received confirmation, he began to organize the colony. Austin recruited 300 American families to settle the fertile land along the Brazos River and the Colorado River of Texas. The first settlers came to be called the Old Three Hundred. Many received 960 acres, with additional acres for each child. Others received larger ranches. Austin’s success made him a leader among the American settlers in Texas.

From 1823 to 1825, Mexico passed three colonization laws. All these laws offered new settlers large tracts of land at extremely low prices and reduced or no taxes for several years. In return the colonists agreed to learn Spanish, become Mexican citizens, convert to Catholicism, and obey Mexican law. Mexican leaders hoped to attract settlers from all over, including other parts of Mexico. Most Texas settlers, however, came from the United States.

By 1830, Americans in Texas far outnumbered Mexicans and had not adopted Mexican ways. In the meantime, the United States had twice offered to buy Texas from Mexico. The Mexican government viewed growing American influence in Texas with alarm. In 1830, the Mexican government issued a decree, or official order, that stopped all immigration from the United States. At the same time, the decree encouraged immigration of Mexican and European families with generous land grants. Trade between Texas and the United States was discouraged by placing a tax on goods imported from the United States. These new policies angered the Texans. The prosperity of many citizens depended on trade with the United States. Many had friends and relatives who wanted to come to Texas. In addition, those colonists who held slaves were uneasy about the Mexican government’s plans to end slavery.

Some of the American settlers called for independence. Others hoped to stay within Mexico but on better terms. In 1833, General Antonio López de Santa Anna became president of Mexico. Austin traveled to Mexico City with the Texans’ demands, which were to remove the ban on American settlers and to make Texas a separate state. Santa Anna agreed to the first request but refused the second. Austin sent a letter back to Texas, suggesting that plans for independence get underway. The Mexican government intercepted the letter and arrested Austin. While Austin was in jail, Santa Anna named himself dictator and overthrew Mexico’s constitution of 1824. Without a constitution to protect their rights, Texans felt betrayed. Santa Anna reorganized the government, placing greater central control over Texas. This loss of local power worried many people.

During 1835, unrest grew among Texans and occasionally resulted in open conflict. Santa Anna sent an army into Texas to punish the Texans for criticizing him. In October, some Mexican troops tried to seize a cannon held by Texans at the town of Gonzales. After a brief struggle, Texans drove back the Mexican troops. Texans consider this to be the first fight of the Texan Revolution. The Texans called on volunteers to join their fight. They offered free land to anyone who would help. Davy Crockett and many others, including a number of African Americans and Tejanos, answered that call. In December 1835, the Texans scored an important victory. They liberated San Antonio from the control of a larger Mexican force. The Texas army at San Antonio included more than 100 Tejanos. Many of them served in a scouting company commanded by Captain Juan Seguín. Born in San Antonio, Seguín was an outspoken champion of the Texans’ demand for independence.

Despite these victories, the Texans encountered problems. With the Mexican withdrawal, some Texans left San Antonio, thinking the war was won. Various groups argued over who was in charge and what course of action to follow. In early 1836, when Texas should have been preparing to face Santa Anna, nothing was being done.

Santa Anna marched north, furious at the loss of San Antonio. When his army reached San Antonio in late February 1836, it found a small Texan force barricaded inside a nearby mission called the Alamo. Although the Texans had cannons, they lacked gunpowder. Worse, they had only about 180 soldiers to face Santa Anna’s army of several thousand. The Texans did have brave leaders, though, including Crockett, who had arrived with a band of sharpshooters from Tennessee, and a tough Texan named Jim Bowie. The commander, William B. Travis, was only 26 years old, but he was determined to hold his position. Travis managed to send messages out through Mexican lines. He wrote several messages to the people of Texas and the United States, asking them for assistance.

For 12 long days, the defenders of the Alamo kept Santa Anna’s army at bay with rifle fire. The Mexicans launched two assaults but had to break them off. During the siege, 32 volunteers from Gonzales slipped through the Mexican lines to join the Alamo’s defenders. On March 6, 1836, Mexican cannon fire smashed the Alamo’s walls, and the Mexicans launched an all-out attack. The Alamo defenders killed many Mexican soldiers as they crossed open land and tried to mount the Alamo’s walls. The Mexicans were too numerous to hold back, however, and they finally entered the fortress, killing Travis, Crockett, Bowie, and all the other defenders. Only a few women and children and some servants survived to tell of the battle. The defenders of the Alamo had killed hundreds of Mexican soldiers. But more important, they had bought Texans some much needed time.

During the siege of the Alamo, Texan leaders were meeting at Washington-on-the-Brazos, where they were drawing up a new constitution. There, on March 2, 1836, four days before the fall of the Alamo, American settlers and Tejanos firmly declared independence from Mexico and established the Republic of Texas.

The Texas Declaration of Independence was like the Declaration of the United States, which had been written 60 years earlier. The Texas Declaration stated that the government of Santa Anna had violated the liberties guaranteed under the Mexican Constitution. The declaration charged that Texans had been deprived of freedom of religion, the right to trial by jury, the right to bear arms, and the right to petition. It noted that the Texans’ protests against these policies were met with force. The Mexican government had sent a large army to drive Texans from their homes.

With Mexican troops in Texas, it was not possible to hold a general election to ratify the constitution and vote for leaders of the new republic. Texas leaders set up a temporary government. The government of the new republic named Sam Houston as commander in chief of the Texas forces. Houston had come to Texas in 1832. Raised among the Cherokee people, he became a soldier, fighting with Andrew Jackson against the Creek people. A politician as well, Houston had served in Congress and as governor of Tennessee.

Houston moved his small army eastward about 100 miles, watching the movements of Santa Anna and waiting for a chance to strike. Six weeks after the Alamo, he found the opportunity. After adding some new troops, Houston gathered an army of about 900 at San Jacinto, near the site of present-day Houston. Santa Anna was camped nearby with an army of more than 1,300. On April 21, the Texans launched a surprise attack on the Mexican camp, shouting, “Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad!” They killed more than 600 soldiers and captured about 700 more, including Santa Anna, who had tried to escape dressed as a native woman. He was found out when one of his soldiers recognized him and saluted. On May 14, 1836, Santa Anna signed a treaty that recognized the independence of Texas.

Texans elected Houston as their president in September 1836. Mirabeau Lamar, who had built a fort at Velasco and had fought bravely at the Battle of San Jacinto, served as vice president. Houston sent a delegation to Washington, D.C., asking the United States to annex, or take control of, Texas. The nation’s president Andrew Jackson refused, however, because the addition of another slave state would upset the balance of slave and free states in Congress. For the moment Texas would remain an independent country.