The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 82, July 1978 - April, 1979 Page: 119
496 p. : ill. (some col.), ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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General Mexia and Texas
ing letters of recommendation from Scottish Rite Masonic lodges to
brother Masons in the capital.' Taking advantage of the Imperial coloni-
zation law of January 4, 1823, which gave special preference in the ob-
taining of land grants to natives of Mexico and to those who had fought
in the early stages of the war for independence, Mexia, together with
William McQueen, an Irishman from New York, and Florencio Dela-
hanty, a man of Irish ancestry from the Canary Islands, suggested a col-
onization scheme. They offered to bring to Texas from Louisiana six
hundred families, some of them already prepared to come, with the
necessary implements and tools for farming and industry. They wanted a
grant of land bounded, as they put it, on the east by the Angelina and
Attoyac rivers and on the south and west by the Neches, stretching as far
north as the number of families they brought in warranted. It is doubtful
whether any decision was made on this application and Iturbide's abdi-
cation from the throne on March 19 temporarily put an end to coloniza-
tion moves.8
The downfall of the Empire saw Mexia a member of General Nicolas
Bravo's forces escorting Iturbide to the town of Antigua, near Veracruz,
where the former emperor took ship for Italy on May 1. Mexia was
commissioned a captain, without pay, for these services and returned to
Mexico City. Perhaps because of his Scottish Rite Masonic connections,
he decided to make another attempt to obtain a grant of land for coloni-
zation purposes from the new government, of which Bravo (a leading
figure in the Scottish Rite) was initially a member. On June 2, 1823,
Mexia, together with two other officers in Bravo's army, Jose Maria
Arechaga and Juan Beltrin, petitioned for land in East Texas to be
colonized by six hundred "respectable" families from Louisiana. The
petitioners stated that they would like a concession similar to the one
recently granted to Stephen F. Austin, who did not, they felt, possess any
more qualifications than did they. With this request they sent in a copy
of a map drawn by Austin, probably his 1822 rough draft, with the area
they desired colored green. No action appears to have been taken on
their petition.9
7La Lima (Mexico City), June 5, 1839.
8There is a translation of the law in Stephen F. Austin, Establishing Austin's Colony
(Austin, 1970), 35-39; Mexia et al. to Secretaria de Relaciones, Jan. 9, 1823 (Museo Nacional
de Antropologia), legajo 51-3-5-16; Colonizaci6n 1821-1834, Folder No. 304 (Bolton tran-
scripts; Archives, University of Texas Library, Austin).
9La Lima (Mexico City), June 5, 1839; Mexia et al. to Serenisimo Sefior, June 2, 1823,
legajo 51-3-5-15 (Museo Nacional de Antropologia).119
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 82, July 1978 - April, 1979, periodical, 1978/1979; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101206/m1/155/: accessed April 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.