USH - The Road to Texas Annexation - Church

• annex – to bring in (i.e.: territory)

• we (U.S.) were annexing land from the West to increase the size of our country

• Mexican Independence
o they gained it from Spain
o 1821

• modern-day Texas belonged to Mexico at that time

• Mexico offers land grants to Americans in the early 1820s

• Stephen Austin
o 1823
o takes about 300 American families to Texas
o Mexican government says… to live on their land grants, you must:
-- practice Catholicism
-- eventually become a Mexican citizen
-- not own slaves
o by 1830… about 20,000 people
-- they now had slave labor (land very good for growing cotton)

• friction begins to mount between Santa Anna (Mexican president) and the Texans

• the Texans declare their independence from Mexico
o 1836
o want to be known as the “Lone Star Republic”
o Jackson was still the U.S. president (about to give power to Martin van Buren)

• Texas wants to be part of the U.S.
o they petition Congress for statehood
o Congress doesn’t grant them statehood…
 if they became a state, it could cause a war with Mexico
 they would want to be a slave state (it would throw off the balance in Congress)

• Texas War for Independence
o Santa Anna and his forces wage war against Texas
o The Battle of the Alamo
-- 1836
-- 200 Texans holed up in a mission in modern-day San Antonio
-- surrounded by Santa Anna and his men
-- all Texans killed
-- including Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie
-- gives Texas the motivation to fight
-- inspired a battle cry: “Remember the Alamo!”
o Texans get a leader: Sam Houston
o The Battle of San Jancito
 last battle
 decisive battle
 San Jancito = modern-day Southeast Texas
 Santa Anna surrenders
o treaty signed
 Santa Anna gets his troops out of the territory
 Rio Grande = border between Texas and Mexico
 (will come up later, but the Necuse River was just north of the Rio Grande)

• 1836 – 1846: relations between Mexico and the U.S. very tense
o Texas a separate country at this time
o Santa Anna said he had signed the treaty “under duress” (and therefore wasn’t completely valid)
o Texas still petitioning for independence