Page 166 - Foy

Therefore, if to the first and principal requisite of being Catholics or agreeing
to become so, before entering Spanish territory they also add that of
accrediting their good character and habits........ and taking the necessary
oath to be obedient in all things to the government, to take up arms in its
defense against all kinds of enemies, and to be faithful to the King, and to
observe the political institution of the Spanish monarchy, the mosot flattering
hopes may be that {Texas} will receive an important augmentation in
agriculture, industry, and arts by the new immigrants, who will introduce
them.

Added to that resolution by Texas Governor Martinez was the following:
I shall also expect from the prudence which your actions demonstrate, and
for your own peace and prosperity, that all families you introduce shall be
honest and industrious, in order that idleness and vice may not pervert the
good and meritorious who are worthy of Spanish esteem and the protection
of this government, which will be extended to them in proportion to the moral
virtue displayed by them.

In 1821 Austin’s applicants for his colony began to arrive. The colony was established
in Brazos River bottomland near the areas of today’s Brenham, Navasota , and
Washington on the Brazos area which is North West of Houston, TX. A great deal of
interesting history took place during those times in that area. Families came to the
colony from Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee and Missouri. They came to
get cheap land and got some of the best farming land in Texas, even today. By 1825 the
colony had 1,347 “whites” and 443 “slaves”.

TEXANS DID MORE IN 10 YEARS THAN SPAIN DID IN 300

After his first 300 patents were used up, Austin applied for and got more. In ten years
Austin located more than 1,500 American families into Texas. These became the heart
of Anglo-Texas. In a single decade these people chopped more wood, cleared more
land, broke more soil, raised more crops, had more children, and built more towns that
the Spanish had in three hundred years.

But, things were changing in Texas while this was all going on. At first only Austin was
allowed to import people into Texas but in May 1824 that began to change as the
Spanish government envisioned Texas becoming a state, along with other states, within

TAB15PAGE6