Causes of the Texas

Revolution
Due:

Project
● Students will get into groups or work individually in creating a presentation of the
4 causes of the Texas revolution.
○ The Freedonian Rebellion
○ Mier Y Teran Report
○ Law of April 6th
○ Stephen F Austin is arrested
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Parts of the Project

Essay
Choose one of the causes to make an essay about

● Everyone will need to WRITE an essay. BUT you may all work on the same
essay together. Parts of the Essay
○ Introduction: What is the cause you have chosen? Why did the event
happen? What rules were broken that lead to this cause?
○ Body 1: When did the event happen? Who was involved?
○ Body 2: What happened at the event? What is the event?
○ Conclusion: Summarize the event
● Sentence stems you can include here.
○ Introduction: The cause I have is…… The reason this cause happened is…
The original rules that the immigrants to Tejas had to follow were….
○ Body 1: This cause happened… Some of the major figures involved are…. .
Person 1 was…. Person 2 was… Person 3 was….
○ Body 2 : What happened is…. The mexicans…. The immigrants into Tejas
reacted by being….
○ Conclusion: The event ended when…. The event happened because of…..In
the end what happened is….This then because one of the many causes
that lead to the Texas Revolution.
● Make sure you read the essay out loud so that the writing makes sense.
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WeVideo Video
● You must go to https://www.wevideo.com/
● You/ Your group must create a video talking about the timeline of events
that leads to the Texas Revolution. You do not need to record yourself but
you do need audio of you/group talking. Experiment with the website.
○ Event 1- Mexican Independence:
■ Who did Mexico fight for independence?
■ What major problems did they
○ Event 2- Empresario system
■ What is an empresario?
■ Who was the one to start the system?
■ Who was the most successful empresario?
■ What basic rules did they have to follow?
○ Event 3- Freedonian rebellion
■ Who are the major people involved?What did they do?
■ What happened in the end?
○ Event 4- Mier Y Teran Report
■ Who is Mier Y teran?
■ Why was he sent to Tejas?
■ What did he report?
○ Event 5- Law of April 6th
■ What does the law say?
■ Why was it made?
○ Event 6 - Stephen F Austin is arrested.
■ Why was Stephen F Austin Arrested?
■ Where had he gone?
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■ What was his nickname?

■ How did the immigrant settlers in Tejas react?
● You can end your time line with “These causes and many more all lead to
the Texas Revolution”

Data/ Resource pages

● You may use these pages for the information and research you need
to be able to answer the questions above and do your assignment.

Mexico before the Empresario System

● Mexico fought Spain for their Independence. It was a long fought war with
many famous figures dying. With Mexico declaring its Independence they
created a constitution (a set of rules/laws that make up a country). Some
of the major laws that were made amendments include
○ Amendment #3 The religion of Mexico is Roman Catholic
○ Amendment #4 Each state can have a representative and that
representative helps each state make their own state laws.
○ Amendment #74 The person in power is the President of The United
Mexican States
● The constitution also made a decree (announcement)that said
○ Slavery is aboloshed in the Mexican republic (the people rule)
○ Mexico’s treasury (part of goverment that is incharge of money) will
compensate (pay you back) for the slaves you set free.
● With becoming independent Mexico got all of the problems that Spain had
not solved. Some of those problems include:
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○ People are still not living in Tejas which leaves it vulnerable for other
countries to claim Tejas as their own.
○ War is expensive and Mexico is in Debt (when you owe money).
● Spain had tried to get people to live in Tejas but Mexicans did not want to
move there. They tried to convert the Native Americans of Tejas but it did
not work since the missions (village made to convert natives by forcing
them to learn about judeo christian religions) were avoided by Natives.

Trying to solve the problem Mexico had and trying to make money Moses Austin
went to Mexico City and talked about his plan.

● He said he would bring people from the United States. They would start
towns in Tejas and they would then pay taxes. Mexico would get more
people in Tejas and the immigrants coming to Tejas would get cheap land.
○ Everyone wins!

The Empresario System

● The system was started by Moses Austin but before he could start moving
people into Coahuila y Tejas he died of pneumonia (lung infection that fills
your lungs with fluid).
● His son Stephen F Austin was the one who took over the program after his
father died.
● Stephen F Austin not only did the job of moving 300 families to Tejas but
he continued to move another 500 families. He became such an important
figure in Tejas that he ended up earning the title of ‘Father of Texas’
because he started so many of the now cities in Texas.
● There were some basic rules of bringing immigrants
○ They must speak Spanish
○ Immigrants must convert (change) to catholicism.
○ No slaves- Gets changed to No Mexican Slaves
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● They did not follow the rules. Stephen F Austin encouraged his citizens to
change the term of Slaves to Worker so that they could hide keeping
slaves.

The Freedonian Rebellion

● Haden Edwards saw how much money empresarios were making in Tejas
and wanted to make some himself.
● He went to Tejas and with Stephen F Austin’s help he managed to get a
land grant from Mexico to start moving people.
● He was told to follow the rules and had a new rule he had to follow
○ Honor any land titles people already had to land that they had
claimed.
● He didn't and when Mexico found out from many, many complaints they
revoked (took away) the land grant they gave him and told him to leave.
● He did not want to leave (he had invested over 1 million dollars (today
money) at that point)
● So he and his brother decided they would declare independence from
Mexico and make their own country! The country of Freedonia- where
people are free.
○ They had also teamed up with a Cherokee tribe to fight the Mexican
government and try to get their land back. (in the end they never
showed up)
● Mexico sent 100 soldiers to deal with him and his small army.
○ Stephen F Austin wanted to show he was loyal to Mexico and also
did not want any problems with the Mexican government so he sent
an additional 287 soldiers from his colony.
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○ The freedonians failed miserably and ran away to the united states.
● While walking back the Mexican soldiers had to cross through Stephen F
Austins colony and they noticed that there were a lot more Anglos (non-
hispanic white person) than they expected and a lot of slaves.

Mier Y Teran Report

● The soldiers reported back to the government and they got suspicious of
what was going on in Tejas.
● They sent Mier Y Teran, a respected war hero to go and investigate what
was going on in Tejas.
○ While there he noticed all the rules were being broken
○ The immigrants did not speak spanish
○ No catholic churches were built
○ They had lied about freeing their slaves
○ The biggest issue of all was there were A LOT of illegal immigrants
● The illegal immigrants had not done the proper paperwork and were also
not following any of the rules that they had set up.
● Mier Y Teran warned that if they did not do something about all the
AMERINTIFICATION (people from the united states bringing their american
ideas to a new place) they could soon see another rebellion but at a much
larger scale.

The Law of April 6th

● This law was set up and it had 2 major effects
○ The law closed the border. No more anglos were allowed into Tejas.
○ Even if they had permission or paper work they were not allowed to
enter Tejas.
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● Slaves in Tejas were set free. No slaves even if they were born in the
United States, were allowed in Mexico so all slaves were free.
● As a final addition a lot of soldiers were sent to Tejas to make sure people
started to follow the rules and slaves were set free.

Stephen F Austin is Arrested

● So everyone is mad and they are all on edge with so many soldiers so they
go to their leader to sort this out.
● Stephen F Austin tells them that he will go to Mexico to talk to the
government and that all they have to do is STAY CALM!
● So he goes to Mexico City and requests an audience with Santa Anna. He
is told to wait.
● And he waits
● And waits
● And waits
● He asks if he will see Santa Anna soon and he is told to wait.
● And he waits.
● And waits.
● He ends up getting so mad he sends a letter to his colony telling them to
prepare for war and that the mexican government does not care about
them
● The next day he gets a call to go to the main government office. There he
meets Santa Anna.
○ Santa Anna tells him he was not allowed to enter the city because
there was an outbreak of Cholera (disease) and they did not want
him to get it so he could not go meet him.
○ He said he had read over Stephen F Austin’s request and he would
allow Austin to handle the situation.
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○ He told him he would remove the soldiers and they would give them
more time to release the slaves and they would be given money for
every slave they would release.
● Stepen F Austin was in a bit of a panic because he had sent such a bad
letter the day before so he had to get back as fast as possible to stop the
letter.
● But before he could go he was called again to the government building
because his letter had been intercepted and Santa Anna read it and he
found out that Stepen F Austin was encouraging the war even though he
had said he would let Austin handle it.
● So Stephen F Austin is thrown in jail .
● When The immigrants found out that Stephen F Austin was arrested, The
father of Texas, the man who was telling them to stay calm and dont go to
war. The man who said not to worry and not to start fights. Was sent to jail.
● Well they went to war.