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Our Catholic Heritage in Texas
Eastern Interior Provinces were given proportional representation. Among the duties of this assembly were those of promoting the prosperity of the provinces, apportioning and approving local truces, establishing oyuntamientcs, taking the census, encouraging education, and promoting agriculture, industry, and commerce. Sessions were limited to ninety days! It was to this body that Arredondo had referred the petition of Moses Austin, which had been forwarded by Governor Martinez. T e:xas under M e:xico. Governor Antonio Martinez was succeeded on August 17, 1822, by Jose Felix Trespalacios, who remained in office until his resignation on April 17, 1823. One of his first acts as governor was to divide the settlements into two districts: one on the Colorado and the other on the Brazos. Each was under an alcalde, who was to be in charge of local administration and justice. 5 Trespalacios was the last governor of Texas as a province. After his resignation Texas was joined to Coahuila, and administered by a jefe -politico (political chief).' On June 17, 1823, Congress decreed that a new constituent assembly be elected by the people for the express purpose of determining the form of government of Mexico. This was followed two days later by a resolution favoring a federal, republican system. The new Congress convened on November 5 and by January 31, 1824, had promulgated an act of confederation (Acta Constitutiva de la Federacion Mexicana), which called for the establishment of a federal system under a temporary administration. On May 5, 1824, Congress decreed the formal union of Coahuila and Texas as one state until Texas should be qualified "to figure as a state by itself." It ordered the new state to proceed immediately with the election of ten deputies for Coahuila and of one for Texas, who were to comprise the state legislature at Saltillo. Texas was at this time represented by Erasmo Seguin, from San Antonio, to whom the colonists gave 640 bushels of corn for his expenses. 1 Before the end of the month, the Baron de Bastrop was elected to represent Texas in the legislature at Saltillo. 4 Dublan y Lozano, Legisla&wn Mezicana, I, 37 5, 376. swooten, (editor) A Com-j>reltensive Histor,, of Texas, I, 458; Gammel, Lawr of Teza.s, I, I 5. 'Juan N. Almonte, "Statistical Report on Texas," translated by C. E. Castaneda, Tlte Quarterly, XXVIII, 181. 1Dublan y Lozano, Legisla&w11 Mezicana, I, 677, 706; Stephen F. Austin, TranslaJiO# of tlte L(l'UII, Orderr, and Contract, 011 ColonizaJion .•• (Columbia, 1837), 30-31; E. C. Barker, "The Government of Austin's Colony, 1821-1831," Tl,e Quartlrl'1, XXI, 242-243.
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