355
PAPER OF )IJR.\BEAU BUONAP.\f<TE L.ULl.R
pro pect . It is 11'!.y intention to address your under tandin<>s, and not your sympathic . It will be my earnest endeavour, to convince you that the people of Texa , have been most reluctantly forced into the pre.sent conte:t on account of the violent, illegal and total de truction of that Constitution under the guarantees of which they left the firesides of their Fathers in this happy land. and penetrated a wildernes trod only by savage . So conscious am I of the truth of thi position, that I boldly throw down the gauntlet to all the world, and here in your presence, and in the pre ence of my God, pledge my;self to e. tahli h beyond refutation, that before we truck a blow in Texa , we had no alternatiYe but slavery or resistance. A charge of ingratitude to 1exico on the part of the Texians has been made by a few who are either 1rrnorant of the true state of facts; or intere ted in misrepresenting them. In order to refute this foul . slander upon our character it will be necessary to unfold to you the origin of the Colonial settlements. It is lmown to many of you that on the di.s olution of the connexion between Texico, and pain in 1822, Don Augustin Iturbide, by corruption and violence, e.~lal;li-shed a l1ort lived Im,perial Governnient in :Mexico, with himself at the head,' under the title of Augustin the 1st. On arriving at supreme power, he found that va t portion of the Mexican Territory ea t of the Rio Grande, known by the name of Texas in the po e - sion of variou trf.bes of Indians who not only prevented the popu- lating of Texas, but committed inu ant depredation on the llexi- an frontier. He a certained that the e savage could neither be uhdued by the .arms, nor purchased by the gold of Mexico: and that owing to their natural dr ad of Indian , the fexicans could not be induced to venture into the wildernes of Texas. In additi9n to this dread of Indians, Texas held out no inducements for 1\Iexi- can immigrants. They were accu tomed to a lazy pa toral or min- ing life, in a healthy country. Texa wa emphatically a land of agriculture- the land of cotton and of sugar cane, with the cultnre of which they were gen rally unacquainted; moreover, they had· not that energy and perseverance nece ary to combat the hard- ship and pri,,ation~ of a wilderne. s. Iturbide finding from these causes that Texa could not be populated with his own s·ubjects, and that o long- a it remained in the occupancy of the Indians, the inhabited part of hi dominions continually suffered from their ravages and murder , nndertook to expel the savage by the intro- duction of foreigners. Accordingly the national institute or coun- cil, on the 3d of January 1823 by bis recommendation and sanction, adopted a law of colonization, in which they invited the immigra- tion of foreigner to Texa. on the follo'wing term :- . 1st. They promi d to protect their liberty, property and civil rights. · 2tl. They offered to each coloni tone league of land (4428 acres) for coming to Texa , he paying $30 to tl1e government. 3d. They guaranteed to each colonist th privilege of leaving the emnire at any time, ,vith all hi property, and-also the privilege of rnlling the land which he may have acquired from the Mexican _government ( ee the colonization law of 1823, more especially arti- cles 1st, 8th, and 20th,) The e were the inducement , .and invita-
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