History of Texas, Together with a Biographical History of Milam, Williamson, Bastrop, Travis, Lee and Burleson Counties. Page: 40

4H _ TEXA

become their allies, abandoned them, the
Mexican governleilt grew more violent, and
even Austin opposed any effort at revolution
at that time, and the Edwardses in a few
weeks altogether failed.
Austin's colony continued to prosper.
Austin himself, making himself a favorite of
the government, was even promoted in his
political powers. Other colonies also prospered
to some extent. After the annulment
of Edwards' contract, his territory was divided
between David G. Burnett and Joseph
Vehlein, and immigrants continued to flow
into that portion of Texas. Dewitt, although
his first settlers were temporarily driven off
by Indians, had laid out the town of Gonzatlez
in 1825, naming it after Rafael Gonzalez,
a temporary governor of the State, and during
1827-'28 he succeeded in introducing
considerable numbers of colonists. In De
Leon's grant the town of Victoria was
founded, and La Bahia del Espiritu Santo
had developed into a town of such appreciable
dimensions that in 1829 it was raised to
the rank of a villa, and the high-sounding
title of Goliad given to it. Filisola, in an
endeavor to wrench an anagram out of Hidalgo's
name, spelled the name Golhiad. On
the Brazos a flourishing settlement called
Brazoria had also sprung up.
However, the experience which the Mexican
government had with the Fredonians
(Edwards' colonists) caused them to be more
watchful of the movements of American immigrants.
Under the liberal and non-aggressive
policy of- Guerrero the colonists
were left pretty much to themselves, and he
even aided them in the abolition of slavery.
But when he was overthrown, in D/ember,
1829, and Bustamante seized the Ielm of
government, the sleeping tiger of Mexican
suspicion and belligerency arose and showed

his teeth. And at this time it required but
little foresight to see that the increasing
American element within the domain of
Texas would ere long attempt to i" slip the
leash;" for even the government of the
United States, and more especially the expressions
of many leading men within the
Union, were indicative of a general move on
our part to take a hand in the separation of
Texas from Mexico; but before the final storm
a preliminary gust made its appearance in
the form of Texan independence as a sovereign
republic. As Bancroft says:
"It was therefore natural that Mexico
should entertain fears as to the future obedience
of the Texan colonists, and it was equally
natural that the latter would not tamely submit
to the imposition of fetters similar to
those which the fathers of most of them had
helped to break. Yet in its shortsightedness
the government, under the despotic administration
of Bustamante, thought to obviate a
probable but not unavoidable contingency by
adopting the very measures which were most
calculated to provoke a spirit of antagonism."
Lucas Alaman, the minister of relations
under the new government, has the credit
(discredit) of inspiring the Mexican legislature
to make the fatal mistake of attempting
to curb the. designs of the United States by
the exercise of oppressive measures against'
the Texan colonists. On February 8, 1830,
he laid a memorial before Congress, in which
with just reason he calls attention to the
danger that Texas was exposed to of being
absorbed by the northern republic, and to
the carelessness which the government of the
State of Coahuila and Texas had shown in its
neglect to see that the colonization laws were
properly carried out. He said that the orders
providing that no more than the number of
families designated in a contract should settle

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Hr- TORY FTEA