Age of Empresarios

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Chapter 7

• Age of Empresarios
• Texas under Mexican Rule
• 1821-1836

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Reasons for migration to Texas

• Spanish, later Mexican reasons
• Needed land to be populated
• Wanted more agriculture, towns, trade and the
  arts
• Set up system of empresarios (Contractors) to
  encourage settlement

• American reasons
• Land cheaper in Texas
• Got more land, better opportunity for prospering
• good land available
• Crop practices exhausted soil

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Requirements for immigration to Texas

• Good moral character
• Become Catholic
• Settlers formed militia
• Payment for the land

G.T.T.
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What did the settlers receive?

• An amount of land Amounts varied livestock
  raising allowed more land than farming

• Land was surveyed at the expense of the
  empresario (Measured in varas and leagues)
• title or a legal document giving them proof of
  ownership to the land

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Who were the Empresarios?

• Moses Austin1821
• Spain gave him contract to settle a Colony of 300
  families
• Died shortly after contract established
• Spain became Mexico

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Stephen F. Austin

• Travelled to Mexico City
• Mexico was now independent.
• Spent a year in Mexico City waiting for
  confirmation
• Mexican Colonization laws had to be written by
  the Mexican Congress
• Mexico was still in turmoil over what kind of
  government it would have Centralized or Federal

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Stephen F. Austin

• Moses Austins son
• Came to Tx to settle fathers affairs
• Decided to continue Austin Colony
• Question would Mexico honor his fathers
  contract with Spain?

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Austin Colony

• Located between the Brazos and Colorado Rivers
• Included Gulf Coast land
• Rich soil for crops
• Water sources available
• Timber for building
• Moderate climate
• Settled the Old Three Hundred Texas first
  Anglo settlers allowed by Mexico.

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Map of Coahuila y Texas
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Map of Mexico
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Map with Mexican States 1825
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Other Empresarios

• Green DeWitt 2nd most successful empresario
• Settled 400 families in his colony, west of
  Austins colony