|
Empresarios receive colonization contracts
On this day in 1825, Haden Edwards, Green DeWitt, and Robert Leftwich
received empresario contracts. The government of Mexico, which had gained
independence from Spain in 1821, issued the contracts to encourage the
settlement of Coahuila and Texas. The hopes of all three empresarios were
frustrated. The Edwards Colony, near Nacogdoches, was plagued by
conflicting land claims and other controversies which eventually caused
Edwards to depart and resulted in the Fredonian Rebellion. The DeWitt
Colony, on the Guadalupe River adjoining that of Stephen F. Austin,
enjoyed some initial success, though DeWitt was unable to fulfill the
terms of his contract by the time it expired in 1831. Leftwich's Grant,
along the Navasota River, later became known as Robertson's colony, and
was the subject of much legal disputation between Austin and Sterling C.
Robertson.
- Links to Related Handbook of Texas Online Articles
- EMPRESARIO
- MEXICAN COLONIZATION LAWS
- EDWARDS COLONY
- EDWARDS, HADEN
- DEWITT'S COLONY
- DEWITT, GREEN
- ROBERTSON'S COLONY
- LEFTWICH, ROBERT
- ANGLO-AMERICAN COLONIZATION
- Other Texas Day by Day Articles for This Date
- Austin Lyceum (1841)
- High court rules that Texas can sue in federal courts despite secession (1869)
|
