Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/19

Rh a confirmation at the City of Mexico, after the declaration of Mexican independence, of his authority to locate a colony, until he had, with two or three companions, made the perilous journey of 1,200 miles, on horseback, to the capital of Mexico, and had been detained there one year during the repeated changes of government, by which all supreme authority in Mexico was agitated and disturbed. From this time settlements began to be made, as fast as lands were designated by the surveyors appointed.

Col. Jared E. Groce and Judge John P. Cole were the first to come to the east side of the Brazos in the winter of 1821-1822. Sam Gates, William Gates, Amos Gates (living August, 1881), James Whitesides and Josiah H. Bell came to the Brazos in the year 1822-1823. The first Mexican Civil Government was organized by Don Juan Antonio Sancedo, Political Chief of the Province of Texas. His proclamation, May 20, 1824, issued at San Felipe de Austin, assuming command of the colony is brief and sensible. His duty would be to appoint as many Alcaldes (Justices of the Peace) as may be necessary for the accommodation of the people and to command the militia. He appointed Stephen F. Austin, Political Chief and Judge, until the Ayuntamiento should be organized. The first land titles were issued in July, 1824. The first surveyor was Baron de Bastrop, appointed commissioner to issue land titles by Governor Luciano Garcia, in the summer of 1823. The first settlements in Austin's Colony were made in different places simultaneously, dispersed over a large area, from Burleson County as now laid down upon the map to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the La Vaca to the San Jacinto.

From this period may date the American history of Texas. The Mexican Government passed colonization laws and held out other inducements to citizens of the United States, to settle within the limits of Texas, guaranteeing all rights, liberties, and immunities of Mexican citizens for protection of person and property.

On the 2d of February, 1824, the Federal Constitution of Mexico, similar to that of the United States, was proclaimed as the established policy of the nation, and by a decree of May 7th of the same year, the provinces of Texas and Cochinla were provisionally united to form one of the constituent and sovereign States of the Mexican Confederacy. Under these enactments immigration began to flow and spread itself over the fertile domain of the province of Texas. The forest gave way to the axe of the hardy pioneer; the wild prairie to the plowshare of the husbandman; plantations were opened and