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Santa Ana then returned himself to power and was quickly hailed as the nations savior.
The church hailed him. The military toasted him. He was the nation’s greatest hero
and people were calling him “El Napoleon del Oeste”, the Napoleon of the West.

In 1832 some Texas settlers called a convention. The convention elected Stephen
Austin its president and drafted several resolutions to be presented to the government
of Mexico. They wanted to be able to function as a state, to elect their own
government, to be exempt from customs duties, to set aside land for schools, to
organize their own militia to fight the Indians. They wanted to repeal the 1830 edict
prohibiting immigration. They claimed that if the Mexicans would allow all that they
would be loyal to Mexico, its government and its constitution.

The Mexicans did not believe that and did not trust the Anglos. They told the Anglos
their convention was a violation of the law and to forget it.

The next year the Anglos held another convention. They drafted a state constitution on
the American pattern and passed several other resolutions. Stephen Austin was to take
their resolutions to Mexico City and present them to the Mexican government. He left
to do that on April 22, 1833.

There are many versions of what happened after that but the basics are that Austin
finally met with Santa Anna November 5, 1833. Santa Anna said he would never allow
Texas to become a separate state but he agreed to all the other resolutions, insisting,
however, that he needed to station four thousand Mexican soldiers in Texas to”protect
the country.” Austin said Texans did not need Mexican help but were well able to
protect themselves and headed home.

On his way home Austin was arrested on a presidential order, takn back to Mexico City
and placed in prison in solitary confinement. He demanded a trial but none was held.
Finally on Christmas day 1834 he was released.

Meanwhile in Texas, even though most of the resolutions had been granted, life was
troublesome. Mexican soldiers arrested people for no reason. Many in Texas began
to feel life under Mexican rule was intolerable; it was impossible to operate under
Mexican law.

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