The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 21, July 1917 - April, 1918 Page: 239
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The Government of Austin's Oolony, 1821-1881
uted to the colonists' ignorance of the Splanish language and to
the indefiniteness of certain laws. "You know," he wrote in 1825,
that it is innate in an American to suspect and abuse a public
officer whether he deserves it or not. I have had a mixed multi-
tude to deal with, collected from all quarters, strangers to, each
other, to me, and to, the laws and language of the. country. They
came here with all the ideas of Americans and expect to see and
understand the laws they are governed by, . . . Could I have
shown them a law defining positively the quantity of land they
were to get and no more and a. code of laws by which they were
to be governed I should have had no difficulty but they saw at
once that my powers were discretionary, and that a very great
augmentation to their grants could be made, and thus the coloni-
zation law itself and the authority vested in me under that law
holds me up, as a. public mark to, be shot at by every one.57
Many of the settlers offered to pay. No candid man denied the
obligation, said John P. Coles;58 but Austin, knowing that others
would refuse, and that efforts to make them pay against their
will would injure, the colony, relinquished his claims and collected
from none." Instead, Bastrop agreed to give him a third of the
commissioner's fees, which would yield him $42 a league.60 Later
both Federal" and State62 colonization laws guaranteed such con-
tracts between empresarios, and colonists, and in his subsequent
contracts Austin took advantage of this.0" In April, 1825, at the
opening of his second colony, he announced that, besides the cost
of surveying, stamped paper, and the $30 which must be paid to
"Austin to B. W. Edwards, September 15, 1825. Austin Papers.
5"Coles to Austin, July 7, 1824. Austin Papers.
"A'ustin's statement to his colonists (Novemb.er 1, 1829), in A Com-
prehensive History of Texas, I, 462.
"OAustin's "Statement . . . relative to the settlement of the busi-
ness between S. F. Austin and the late J. H. Hawkins, September 14,
1832. Austin Papers, miscellaneous. An excellent account of Austin's
difficulties over the 124 cent fee was published by Lester G. Bugbee in
April, 1899, "Some Difficulties of a Texas Empres'ario," Publications of
Southern History Association, 95-113.
"Passed August 18, 1824--Article 14. Gammel, Laws of Texas, I, 98.
" Passed March 24, 1825-Article 9. Ibid., 100.
"Erasmo Seguin, Texan deputy in the National Congress, wrote Aus-
tin on August 11, 1824, that the colonization law would 'be passed the
next day and that this was the intention of an article, which he quoted.
Austin Papers.239
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 21, July 1917 - April, 1918, periodical, 1918; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101073/m1/245/: accessed April 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.