The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 10, July 1906 - April, 1907 Page: 94
ix, 354 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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94 Texas Historical Association Quarterly.
proval in interested quarters, but no attention was paid to it and it
gradually subsided. The final snarl in the tangle, so far as this
paper will follow the subject, was the declaration in the first con-
stitution of Texas annulling the act of the legislature passed in
1834 "in behalf of General John T. Mason, of New York, and that
of March 14, 1835, "under which the enormous amount of eleven
hundred leagues of land has been claimed by sundry individuals,
some of whom reside in foreign countries, and are not citizens of
the Republic."
5. The Place of the Land Speculation in the Revolution.
As to the part played by the speculators in the beginning of the
revolution, contemporary opinion differs. By one we are told that
the speculators for interested reasons prevented him from stirring
the people up to their own defence. From another we have the
contrary; that the speculators stirred up all the agitation in Texas,
in order to shield themselves and save their grants. The truth
seems to be that the speculators, who had spent some time in Mex-
ico, had a keener sense of the danger from Santa Anna's plan of
Centralism than their neighbors who stayed at home. When, there-
fore, upon their return, they lost no time in sounding the alarm,
their motives were easily misunderstood. And the indifference
manifested by many Texans throughout the revolution was due, it
seems probable, to this misunderstanding. It played some part,
as we have already seen, in the cool reception of Governor Viesca's
appeal for assistance in May; it probably delayed the calling of the
general consultation, which began to be agitated in the latter part
of June; and finally it caused many to hesitate in their support
of the Texan volunteers in the fall of 1835. They believed that it
was a speculators' war.
The effect of the speculations was cumulative. A pretty brisk
business of five years' duration raised scarcely a protest against the
eleven-league grants, and Mason's large grant in 1834 attracted
surprisingly little attention, but the laws of 1835, especially that
of March 14, coming as the culmination of a wasteful agrarian
policy disgusted and alienated many of the best citizens. One
may, however, venture the opinion that neither the speculators nor
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Texas State Historical Association. The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 10, July 1906 - April, 1907, periodical, 1907; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101040/m1/102/: accessed May 1, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.