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By Root 369 0

Many of the new arrivals disregarded the laws, refused to pay customs fees, and took part in illegal smuggling activities. This provoked a great outcry from Mexican newspapers and political leaders fearful that the white colonists would attempt a revolution. During a speech to a secret session of the Mexican congress in 1830, one political leader warned: “Mexicans! Watch closely, for you know all too well the Anglo-Saxon greed for territory. We have generously granted land to these Nordics; they have made their homes with us, but their hearts are with their native land. We are continually in civil wars and revolutions; we are weak, and know it—and they know it also. They may conspire with the United States to take Texas from us. From this time, be on your guard!”11

The situation only worsened for the Mexican government. By 1835, the population had ballooned to 35,000, including 3,000 black slaves. All of this changed the very nature of the province. Most of the newcomers spoke only English, pretended to practice Catholicism, and “true to their manly Southern roots, kept slaves at a time when the peculiar institution had been abandoned by the rest of Mexico.”12

That August, as Crockett was reeling from his election loss in Tennessee, Austin continued to press for not only a continuation of slavery but also for independence from Mexico. In a letter to his cousin, Mary Austin Holley, he wrote:

The situation of Texas is daily becoming more and more interesting, so much so that I doubt whether the Government of the United States or that of Mexico can much longer look on with indifference, or inaction. It is very evident that Texas should be effectually, and fully, Americanized,—that is—settled by a population that will harmonize with their neighbors on the East, in language, political principles, common origin, sympathy, and even interest. Texas must be a slave country. It is no longer a matter of doubt. The interest of Louisiana requires that it should be. A population of fanatical abolitionists in Texas would have a very dangerous and pernicious influence on the overgrown slave population of that state. Texas must and ought to become an outwork on the west, as Alabama and Florida are on the east, to defend the key of the western world—the mouths of the Mississippi. Being fully Americanized under the Mexican flag would be the same thing in effect and ultimate result as coming under the United States flag. A gentle breeze shakes off a ripe peach. Can it be supposed that the violent political convulsions of Mexico will not shake off Texas as soon as it is ripe enough to fall? All that is now wanting is a great immigration of good and efficient families this fall and winter. Should we get such an immigration, especially from the Western States—all is done; the peach will be ripe.13

The mostly southern-born white settlers of Texas were on a collision course with the Mexican government. The two sides could no longer avoid the slavery issue. Mexico now fully supported equality for its entire population, while many of the white immigrants wanted Texas to become an empire for slavery.

Gen. Antonio López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón, president of Mexico and commander of the Mexican army, puzzled as to why a province in his republic still allowed slaves, asked: “Shall we permit those wretches to moan in chains any longer in a country whose kind laws protect the liberty of man without distinction of cast or color?”14 Santa Anna posed the rhetorical question in early 1836, just as Crockett was making his way to Texas.

Crockett himself was not opposed to slavery, having bought and sold slaves over the years, though never on a large scale. But he was not so passionate about slavery that he went to Texas to take part in a revolt. He was more interested in shooting the bison on the Texas prairie than killing “yaller niggers,” as Mexicans were sometimes called.15 Crockett’s only concern with the war that raged between transplanted Americans and the forces of Gen. Santa Anna was whether its outcome would help him get some land sooner