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Our Catholic Heritage in Texas
and the Nashville Company, which acquired the contract of Robert Leftwitch, are the two best known. The first sold scrip at from one to ten cents an acre, calling for a total of seven and one-half million acres. The company was selling only its permit to acquire a given amount of land in Texas, but since an empresario contract was non-transferrable, the scrip was, in fact, worthless. Extent of col.onizatim1, by I835. In spite of all obstacles and hardships, fifteen years had seen scattered settlements spring up from the Sabine to the Nueces. The bulk of the colonists were located east of the Guadalupe and south of the old Camino Real (the royal highway running from San Antonio to Nacogdoches). Estimates of population vary. A Mexican agent sent in 1834 to report on conditions, Juan N. Almonte, placed the total population-including slaves-at 24,700, of whom almost 4,700 were Mexicans; the rest were Anglo- Americans and their slaves. 70 About 3,500 land titles had been issued through various empresarios, besides a few which were granted directly to individual settlers. In the main they were farmers-thrifty, industrious and determined. That many had left debts behind was true, but their general moral character was high. The empresarios appear to have been honest in attempting to keep undesirables out, in accordance with the terms of their contracts. Austin's colonies could boast thirty cotton gins, two steam sawmills, and two gristmills, six water-power mills, and many others powered by horses or oxen; there was a water-power sawmill at Gonzalez; and the East Texas settlements were also well supplied with gins and mills. The colonies produced 7,000 bales of cotton and large numbers of cattle and hogs that season which found the raising of horses and mules likewise well advanced. 11 Once the floodgates were thrown open (r82r), settlers from the United States overflowed the whole country. The Law of April 6, r830, attempted in vain to check the irresistible stream. It was temporarily slowed, but when the bars were let down again in r834 with the repeal of Article XI, the dammed flood swept over Texas again with increased momentum. An observer estimated that at its peak in January and February of 1835, as many as two thousand persons arrived at the mouth of the Brazos alone, while hundreds rolled over the vast expanse from the Sabine to the Nueces. 70Juan N. Almonte, "Statistical Report on Texas in 1834," translated by C. E. Castaneda, The Quarterly, XXVIII. 71 Barker, Life of Stephen F. Austin, 431-432.
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