Source 3 Annexing Texas Overview • Texas was annexed by the United States in 1845 and became the 28th state. • Until 1836, Texas had been part of Mexico, but in that year a group of settlers from the United States who lived in Mexican Texas declared independence. They called their new country the Republic of Texas, which was an independent country for nine years. • Politics in the United States fractured over the issue of whether Texas should be admitted as a slave or free state. In the end, Texas was admitted to the United States a slave state. • The annexation of Texas contributed to the coming of the Mexican- American War (1846-1848). The conflict started, in part, over a disagreement about which river was Mexico’s true northern border: the Nueces or the Rio Grande. The Republic of Texas Mexico won independence from Spain in 1821. At that time, Mexico’s northern provinces included California, New Mexico, and Texas. When Mexico founded the province of Texas in 1821, the land was very sparsely populated, so Texans actively recruited settlers from the United States to help grow the region’s population. Soon, Stephen Austin—after whom Austin, Texas is named—was selling plots of land to American settlers from a large land grant his father had received from the Mexican government; meanwhile, other settlers from the United States—especially from the American South—were moving to Mexican Texas. Source 3 Annexing Texas By 1830, there were 7,000 settlers from the United States living in Mexican Texas. But tensions between the Mexican government and settlers from the United States grew as Mexico unsuccessfully attempted to halt further immigration and settlers pushed back against Mexican legal codes. These regulatory laws required those living in Mexico—including those living in Texas—to become Mexican, convert to Roman Catholicism, file legal documents in Spanish, and (after Mexico abolished slavery in 1829) end the practice of slavery. In reality, however, Mexico continued to allow settlers from the United States to bring slaves into the territory as “indentured servants.” In 1835, settlers from the United States who lived in Texas formed a provisional government, and in 1836 called for independence. In turn, the Mexican government deployed the Mexican leader Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna and his troops into the region in an effort to regain political control. The settlers in Texas from the United States, together with the active support of Tejanos (Texans of Spanish origin), sought to hold their ground against Santa Anna’s advancing troops. In March of 1836, following a thirteen day siege, Santa Anna’s 5,000 troops attacked and killed 187 American and Tejano defenders at the battle of the Alamo--a mission-fortress outside San Antonio. Among the dead were Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, and commander William Travis. “Remember the Alamo” became, thereafter, a battle cry. battle of alamo The Battle of the Alamo. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. Source 3 Annexing Texas However, the following month, Sam Houston led his forces to defeat Santa Anna’s army at the Battle of San Jacinto, and forced Santa Anna to recognize Texan independence. Sam Houston, a previous Tennessee senator during the Jacksonian Democracy and prominent military figure, became the first president of the Republic of Texas. Citizens of the new republic were overwhelming in favor of Texas becoming a state in the United States— many motivated in part by concern that Mexico might try to re-establish its oppressive rule over Texas. Texas becomes the 28th state During the years leading up to Texas’s becoming the 28th state, pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces battled over the issue of slavery’s expansion into Texas. Indeed, the inter-party and intra-party battles between and among Whigs and Democrats in Congress—and elsewhere across the nation— highlighted divisions between pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces that would, in 1861, lead to the Civil War. republic of texas The Republic of Texas pre-annexation. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. President John Tyler made the annexation of Texas a priority, and in the closing days of his presidency, Congress voted to make Texas a state— though it was not until December 1845 that, under President James K. Polk, Texas formally achieved statehood. Source 3 Annexing Texas The Mexican-American War But the United States’ annexation of Texas was not the end of the story. In the spring of 1846, tensions mounted between the United States and Mexico, and the Mexican-American War (1846-1848) started, in part, over a border dispute between the two countries. Mexico claimed the Nueces River to be Texas’s southern border, but the United States insisted the border lay further south at the Rio Grande River. The Mexican-American War confirmed Texas’s southern border at the Rio Grande, indicating the United States victory. The United States also acquired California, New Mexico, and Arizona, as well as parts of Nevada, Utah, Colorado and Wyoming .