Introduction
The Texas region or Spanish Texas is located along the borderline of the North American Empire. The area was claimed by the Spanish regime whose state was situated East of the Medina River headwaters just above the Nueces River and stretched all the way into Louisiana. Texas was for a long time a constituent of quadruplet provinces in the jurisdiction of Colonial Mexico, which was also referred to as New Spain. These included the missions based next to La Junta de Los Rios and controlled by Nueva Vizcaya; the El Paso expanse under the legal power of New Mexico; Texas which was initially under the jurisdiction of Coahuila province; and lastly the coastal area extending from the Rio Grande to the River Nueces. Texas drew interest from both Spanish and French colonizers who had both managed to colonize significant sections of the adjacent areas.
Spanish approach to colonizing Texas and its effectiveness
Over 300 years passed from the time a Spanish explorer first viewed the Texas coastline in 1519 and 21 st, July 1821. 1 Those three centuries were comprised of three phases; the period of early exploration which mainly involved prelude land and resource evaluation; the era of cultural absorption that saw many Indian inhabitants of Texas adopt Hispanic cultural elements initially from the intermediaries and later on from the Spaniards; and lastly the period of defensive settlement. The primary approach used in the Spanish occupation of Texas was the use of Spanish missions. 2 A Spanish mission can be viewed as an institution whose purpose was to integrate indigenous Indians into the Hispanic Catholic religion, colonial empire, as well as some facets of Spanish cultural elements. The Spanish colonizers set to achieve this by establishing sedentary Indian communities which were confined to the guardianship of missionaries. The missionaries , referred to as Franciscans, in turn, were protected and controlled by the Spanish regime.
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Spanish colonial authorities acted as patrons in the region. They made decisions on the locations and time to establish missions as well as their closure. The state agents also were in charge of making and observing administrative policies, selecting the missionaries, determining the number of missionaries assigned to each mission, and deciding the number of soldiers who were to be posted at the missions. 3 The state also covered the travel expenses of the missionaries, the cost of building mission stations, military protection, as well as the annual salary of the missionaries . The missionaries were tasked to establish self-governing Christian towns that were to have communally owned property, political life, social interactions, worship, and labor . The other role of the missionaries was to isolate assimilated original Indian inhabitants from the negative influence of other Indian groups as well as the Spaniards.
Spain’s approach of using missions as a decoy in establishing colonial rule over Texas was very successful in the early stages. Many mission stations were founded in Texas such as the San Antonio mission station, San Jose y San Miguel de Aguayo and the Goliad stand. The Spaniards also introduced several crops of European origin, livestock and irrigation methods. Many Indian inhabitants adopted Christianity . They also adopted Spanish as their second language.
Causes and events that led to the Texas Revolution and is success
The Texas revolution took place between 2 nd October 1835 and 21 st April 1836. 4 The war was waged by several groups of colonialists and Anglo-American inhabitants against the colonialists from the United States (U.S) and the Texas Mexicans. The battle of the Gonzales which took place in October 1835 marked its beginning while its end in April 1836 was marked by the battle of San Jacinto . Numerous reasons spurred the revolution . These include cultural differences between the Americans and the Mexicans; religious differences that saw the Americans fail to accept Roman Catholic and language differences since the Americans were unwilling to adopt Spanish. There were also differences in judicial systems such as the notion of being guilty until proven innocent in the Mexican system as opposed to being innocent until proven guilty in the American system. Finally, the Mexicans were against slavery while most of the Americans had been raised in slave states.
The success of the Texas revolution can be attributed to the numerous infighting and chaos in Mexico City between the conservatives and the liberals over power since Mexico had just won its independence from the Spanish government in 1821. The Mexicans were therefore not able to lay powerful attacks to quell the Texas rebels. This saw Texas win and declare itself separate from Mexico in 1835. Thus, although the Spanish plan of colonizing Texas by the use of missions was successful initially, it fell short in the end after Mexico won its independence from Spain. This is because the absence of a colonial authority enabled Texas to disentangle itself from Mexico and join the U.S.
Bibliography
Calvert, Robert A., Arnoldo De León, and Gregg Cantrell. The history of Texas . John Wiley & Sons, 2013.
Chipman, Donald E., and Harriett Denise Joseph. Spanish Texas, 1519–1821: Revised Edition . University of Texas Press, 2010.
Hardin, Stephen L. Texian Iliad: A Military History of the Texas Revolution, 1835-1836 . University of Texas Press, 2010.
1 Chipman, Donald E., and Harriett Denise Joseph. Spanish Texas, 1519–1821: Revised Edition . University of Texas Press, 2010.
2 Ibid
3 Calvert, Robert A., Arnoldo De León, and Gregg Cantrell. The history of Texas . John Wiley & Sons, 2013.
4 Hardin, Stephen L. Texian Iliad: A Military History of the Texas Revolution, 1835-1836 . University of Texas Press, 2010.
