University of Texas at El Paso ScholarWorks@UTEP Open Access Theses & Dissertations 2020-01-01 The Scramble for Texas: European Diplomacy and Imperial Contest in the Republic of Texas, 1835-1846 Penelope Lea Jacobus University of Texas at El Paso Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.utep.edu/open_etd Part of the History Commons, and the International Relations Commons Recommended Citation Jacobus, Penelope Lea, "The Scramble for Texas: European Diplomacy and Imperial Contest in the Republic of Texas, 1835-1846" (2020). Open Access Theses & Dissertations. 3071. https://scholarworks.utep.edu/open_etd/3071 This is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UTEP. It has been accepted for inclusion in Open Access Theses & Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UTEP. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE SCRAMBLE FOR TEXAS: EUROPEAN DIPLOMACY AND IMPERIAL CONTEST IN THE REPUBLIC OF TEXAS, 1835-1846 PENELOPE LEA JACOBUS Doctoral Program in Borderlands History APPROVED: Paul Edison, Ph.D., Chair Brad J. Cartwright, Ph.D. Samuel Brunk, Ph.D. Brian Yothers, Ph.D. Stephen L. Crites, Jr., Ph.D. Dean of the Graduate School Copyright © by Penelope L. Jacobus 2020 Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to my parents, Petra and Dirk Jacobus, who have been a source of unwavering support. Through their encouragement, I have become the first person in my family to earn a Ph.D. THE SCRAMBLE FOR TEXAS: EUROPEAN DIPLOMACY AND IMPERIAL CONTEST IN THE REPUBLIC OF TEXAS, 1835-1846 by PENELOPE LEA JACOBUS, B.A., M.A. DISSERTATION Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at El Paso in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of History THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT EL PASO May 2020 Acknowledgements I would like to extend my gratitude to my advisor and dissertation chair, Dr. Paul Edison, for his support throughout my research. His commentary, suggestions, immense knowledge, patience, and enthusiasm have vastly improved this project. I could not have wished for a better mentor during my time as a Ph.D. student in the History Department of the University of Texas at El Paso. I also want to thank Dr. Brad J. Cartwright for serving on my committee. Ultimately, the inspiration for this project was drawn from one of his courses that I had the pleasure of taking in 2015. His great enthusiasm for my idea served as a motivation to pursue European diplomacy with the Republic of Texas as my dissertation topic. My gratitude also goes to Drs. Samuel Brunk and Brian Yothers for serving on my committee and contributing to this project with their invaluable knowledge on Mexican history and the history of trans-Atlantic abolitionism, respectively. Through their commentary, I was able to enrich my study with additional insights and details. I thank Dr. Samuel Brunk in particular for providing me with a final round of comments before I submitted this dissertation. I want to thank several others who have contributed to this project: Dr. Charles Martin, who has given me valuable feedback in the early stages of writing, Dr. Jeffrey P. Shepherd, who served as Program Director for most of my time as a Ph.D. student, and Gabriel Avila, whose Spanish classes enabled me to utilise Spanish-language sources in this study. Penultimately, I thank the staff of the various archives I have consulted, as well as librarian Claudia Rivers from UTEP’s Special Collections. Lastly, I want to extend my gratitude to my parents, to whom this dissertation is also dedicated. v Table of Contents Dedication ...................................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgements ..........................................................................................................................v Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................... vi Introduction ......................................................................................................................................1 The States and Their Interests in the Texian Borderlands ......................................................6 Historiography ......................................................................................................................13 Theoretical Frameworks .......................................................................................................27 Contributions.........................................................................................................................41 Chapter Overview .................................................................................................................44 Primary Source Base .............................................................................................................47 A Note on Terminology ........................................................................................................49 Chapter One – The Most Important State of Spanish America: European Commerce with Mexico in the Early Nineteenth Century ..............................................................................51 Industry, States, and Markets in the Early Nineteenth Century ............................................53 European Relations with Spanish America...........................................................................59 European Diplomacy and Commerce with and in Mexico ...................................................65 Chapter Two – The Best Part of Mexico: The Agents of, Ambitions for, and Impact of Informal Imperialism in Texas prior to the Anglo-French Mediation of 1844 ...................106 The Texas Revolution, Texas Independence, and European Reluctance ...........................107 Europe Moves Toward Recognition ...................................................................................126 Texas, Recognition, and Treaties of Amity and Commerce ...............................................135 Informal Imperialism through Emigration ..........................................................................151 Chapter Three – ‘Part and Parcel of the Law of the Land’: European Responses to the Presence of Slavery in Texas and Informal Empire ............................................................170 Slavery and European Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century ..........................................173 The British Slave-Trade Treaties As a Tool of British Power ............................................177 Slavery in Texas: A New Slave State .................................................................................187 Continental European Views on Slavery in Texas .............................................................202 vi Chapter Four – Into the ‘Wilderness’: Native Americans in the Texas Borderlands and Their Influence on trans-Atlantic Commerce, Finance, Migration, and Conceptualisations of Race and Civilisation ..........................................................................................................218 European and North American Perceptions of and Interactions with the Comanche Empire ........................................................................................................................225 Native Americans’ Influence on European Commercial Ambitions in North America .....230 Native Americans, European Colonisation Projects, and European Conceptions of Race 239 Native Americans As a Justification for Texian Independence ..........................................252 Chapter Five – “A Protective Arm to Watch Over Them”: The Development, Discussions, and Impact of International Law, Free Trade, and Nationalism in North America ............268 German trans-Atlantic Trade and Its Role in Germany’s Growing Unification in the 1830s and 1840s .........................................................................................................271 Texas and the Development of trans-Atlantic Treaties of Commerce ................................293 Prussia’s Mediation Between the United States and Mexico in 1839: Texas and European Conceptualisations of International Law ...................................................306 Mexico and International Law ............................................................................................319 Chapter Six – Under the Wing of the American Eagle or in the Jaws of the British Lion: An Analysis of Anglophobia and Anti-British Sentiment on Both Sides of the Atlantic, and Its Role in the Annexation of Texas to the United States ...................................................330 European Agents’ Awareness of Anglo-American Anglophobia and Jealousies Toward Continental Europe ....................................................................................................343 France and U.S. Anglophobia .............................................................................................361 The Role of U.S. Anglophobia and French Perceptions of Britain’s Commercial Prowess in the 1844 Franco-British Mediation Effort Between Mexico and Texas .364 Germany and Anglophobia .................................................................................................369 Chapter Seven – Lone Star Suicide: European Perceptions of Texian Nationalism and the Search for a Texian Identity ................................................................................................376