The Mexicans thought Texas would be a stronger part of their country if more people lived there. In 1821, an American named Stephen F. Austin got permission for 300 American families to settle in Texas. They had to promise they would be loyal to Mexico and swear that they were Catholic.

Settlers began farming and ranching along the Colorado and Brazos Rivers. The Tejanos welcomed them. They felt that having more people in the region would give Texas more power in the Mexican government.

Other people from the United States who didn’t have permission to be in Texas also began arriving. Soon there were more Americans than Tejanos.

The white settlers came to dislike some of the laws that Mexico made them follow. One was a Mexican law against slavery. Many cotton growers came from the American South. Owning slaves had not been against the law there. They depended on their slaves to work for them and didn’t want to free them.

There were other reasons that American settlers were unhappy. Most were not actually Catholic and didn’t speak Spanish. They had closer ties to the United States than to Mexico. To keep trouble from spreading, in 1830, Mexico ruled that American settlers were no longer welcome in Texas.

Stephen F. Austin Goes to Mexico

Stephen F. Austin went to Mexico in 1833 to meet with President Santa Anna. He wanted Texas to become a separate state within Mexico. Santa Anna decided that Austin was a troublemaker and put him in jail for eight months.

Texas Revolution

Texans didn’t want to be controlled by Mexico any longer. They wanted to be a separate country. They wanted a revolution! The Texas Revolution began in 1835 when Mexican soldiers went to Gonzales, Texas, to take a small cannon from the people there. The Texans refused to give up the cannon. They taunted the Mexicans by hauling up a flag with a picture of a cannon on it and the words “Come and Take It.”

A revolution happens when people fight to change their government.

There was a short fight, and two Mexican soldiers were killed. The Mexicans left Gonzales without their cannon.

Remember the Alamo!

The most famous battle in the Texas Revolution was at the Alamo in San Antonio. The Alamo was an old mission that became a Mexican fort. In December 1835, a small force of armed Texans took over the Alamo.

On February 23, 1836, General Santa Anna, the president of Mexico, arrived with more than a thousand troops. He vowed to recapture the Alamo.

William Travis and James Bowie commanded about 200 fighters inside the fort. Travis was a young lawyer and soldier. James Bowie was a skilled knife fighter and soldier.

Among the Texans at the Alamo was Juan Seguín, a Tejano soldier who later became mayor of San Antonio. Davy Crockett, a famous bear hunter, soldier, U.S. congressman, and frontiersman, also came to fight. He had only been in Texas for three months.

Frontiersmen explore or live in wilderness that borders a settled area.

Santa Anna’s soldiers surrounded the Alamo. The men inside fired down at them over the walls. The two armies fought for thirteen days. Before the end of the standoff, Juan Seguín was sent away to gather more troops.

In the early morning of March 6, Santa Anna’s army began a fierce attack on the fort. They charged at the wall three times. Finally, it was damaged enough that Santa Anna’s soldiers could climb over it. They were inside!

After a bloody fight, all the defenders in the Alamo died, including Bowie, Travis, and Crockett. News of their deaths made Texans more determined than ever to fight for freedom. The Alamo was a symbol of their struggle.

The fight lasted about ninety minutes.

The Fall of the Alamo was painted in 1903.

San Jacinto

While the battle at the Alamo was going on, General Sam Houston was building his army. A month later, he and his men joined Juan Seguín’s Tejano troops to surprise Santa Anna’s army at San Jacinto. After a fight lasting only eighteen minutes, the Texans defeated Santa Anna’s soldiers. During the fight, the Texans’ battle cry was “Remember the Alamo!” After the defeat of the Mexican army at San Jacinto, Texas became the Republic of Texas.

Sam Houston was shot in the ankle.

The republic’s flag had only one star. It stood for the country of Texas. People still call Texas the Lone Star State.

A republic is a country where people vote for their leaders.

The Twenty-Eighth State

Nine years later, Texas joined the United States. Sam Houston thought that being part of the United States would make Texas safer from Mexico. He also told his fellow Texans that being a U.S. state would help their businesses. In 1845, Texas became the twenty-eighth state.

The president of the Republic of Texas lowered the flag when Texas became a state.

The Civil War

In 1861, civil war began between Northern and Southern states. The North wanted the South to free their slaves. The South refused and broke away from the United States to form its own government. They named it the Confederate States of America.

Civil war is a war between people who belong to the same country.

Since Texans owned about 180,000 slaves in 1861, the state joined the Confederate cause.

After four years of the bloodiest fighting in U.S. history, the South lost the war. Texans had to free their slaves and take a vow to be loyal to the United States. In 1870, Texas became a state again.

Six different flags have flown over Texas, one for each nation that ruled the state. Can you remember what they were?

In case you can’t, they were: Spain, France, Mexico, the Republic of Texas, the Confederate States of America, and the United States of America.