Mexico won independence from Spain in 1821. At that time, Mexico’s northern provinces included California, New Mexico, and Texas.
When Mexico founded the province of Texas in 1821, the land was very sparsely populated, so Texans actively recruited settlers from the United States to help grow the region’s population. Soon, Stephen Austin—after whom Austin, Texas is named—was selling plots of land to American settlers from a large land grant his father had received from the Mexican government; meanwhile, other settlers from the United States—especially from the American South—were moving to Mexican Texas.
By 1830, there were 7,000 settlers from the United States living in Mexican Texas. But tensions between the Mexican government and settlers from the United States grew as Mexico unsuccessfully attempted to halt further immigration and settlers pushed back against Mexican legal codes. These regulatory laws required those living in Mexico—including those living in Texas—to become Mexican, convert to Roman Catholicism, file legal documents in Spanish, and (after Mexico abolished slavery in 1829) end the practice of slavery. In reality, however, Mexico continued to allow settlers from the United States to bring slaves into the territory as “indentured servants.”
In 1835, settlers from the United States who lived in Texas formed a provisional government, and in 1836 called for independence. In turn, the Mexican government deployed the Mexican leader Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna and his troops into the region in an effort to regain political control.
The settlers in Texas from the United States, together with the active support of Tejanos (Texans of Spanish origin), sought to hold their ground against Santa Anna’s advancing troops.
In March of 1836, following a thirteen day siege, Santa Anna’s 5,000 troops attacked and killed 187 American and Tejano defenders at the battle of the Alamo--a mission-fortress outside San Antonio. Among the dead were Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, and commander William Travis. “Remember the Alamo” became, thereafter, a battle cry.
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