Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/20

 villages sprung up on the hunting-grounds of the savage. In nine years from the first settlement of Austin, the Americans had explored the whole southern portion of the province, and redeemed it from the wilderness of the wild beast and the Indian, and covered it with an industrious and thrifty population. The news of Austin's Colony spread rapidly over the Western States, and many adventurers sought to join him. Colonists came faster than provision could be made for their support. Besides suffering greatly from the Corankaw Indians, the first settlers were often reduced to the necessity of living entirely on wild game and clothing themselves with skins. Buckskin was the common dress. Occasionally a strolling peddler would penetrate the wilderness with a piece of domestic or calico, which was esteemed as valuable and elegant as silk and satin are with us now. Letters now extant, give harrowing pictures of the sufferings of women and children for the ordinary necessaries of life. Such was the foundation of the goodly heritage now enjoyed by the inhabitants of Texas.

Many other colonies succeeded Austin's in different parts of the country. Victoria was commenced as a new settlement, and Gonzales laid off as a town in 1825.

In 1828, Stephen F. Austin obtained another contract to colonize three hundred families more, on land near the Gulf of Mexico. Texas had now become the point of attraction to thousands of adventurers from all parts of the United States. Men of desperate fortunes and roving habits, speculators in lands, broken-down politicians, refugees from justice, as well as multitudes of a better class, desirous of finding homes for their growing families and increasing slaves, swelled the tide of Texan immigration. This tide rolling down from the Northern and Western as well as the Southern States, excited the jealousy of the Mexican Government, and finally brought on war with Mexico, which resulted in the victory of San Jacinto and secured the independence of Texas. Mexico was at that time, as unhappily has been its history from the downfall of the Montezumas to the coronation and execution of Maximilian the First, convulsed by political commotions, and harassed by most disastrous civil wars. The Texans, so long as they were unmolested in the enjoyment of their rights, took no part and but little interest in the convulsions of the Mexican Government. Their rapidly growing strength and steady adherence to republican principles began, at length, to attract the notice and arouse the jealousy of the Mexican authorities. On April 6, 1830, an arbitrary law was passed, prohibiting immigration in future, of American settlers into Texas. Military posts were