The Border “Dispute”
1521: Hernan Cortes violently claimed Tenochtitlan as the new capital of New Spain, (Today’s, Mexico City). Mexico City became the headquarters for colonization of more territory in modern day Mexico. The Spaniards determined territory that was of interest to them based on proximity to the capital and where they possessed precious minerals, silver or gold, that were deemed valuable to the Spanish. The area now known as the lower Rio Grande Valley Delta was too arid to be considered as desirable for settlement.
1590: Spanish interest in the lower Rio Grande Valley began to capture natives and turn them into slaves. A Spanish soldier and viceroy to the Spanish crown, Carvajal took thousands of native people and sold them to mining settlements as slaves. The natives resisted and lost trust for the Spanish. (Juan Carmona, interview, September 15, 2023)
1620: The Mayflower colonizers violently displaced and murdered native peoples and established Plymouth colony. The Wampanoag are the original peoples of that land and it had been widely known as turtle island for 15,000 years.
1700s: The British colonial settlements were formed into the 13 colonies.
1749-1750: Colonizer Jose de Escandon was sent by the Spanish crown to colonize the area now known as the Rio Grande Valley Delta, calling this land Nuevo Santader.
1750 and 1821: Spanish Crown Land Grants
Land grants were portions of land granted by the Spanish Crown to Spanish colonists after colonization.
In 1787 the Spanish surveyed the land that is now known as the south Texas border and granted, porciones, long narrow lots of land, along the Rio Grande River, which ensured water access to each.
The bourbon reforms of 1767 were aimed at profiting even more from the exploitation of land, defining land as private, and as individual property. These reforms also established ports that could only trade goods with Spain and established state monopolies and more political control of the territory. (4, Building the Borderlands)
1776: 13 colonies become independent from Britain after the U.S War of Independence
1803: The Louisiana Purchase happened, and salvation for westward expansion began. Manifest Destiny was “the idea that the United States is destined by God, to expand its dominion and spread democracy and capitalism across the entire North American continent.” Tribes across the northern United States were violently killed and pushed further west.
1820 : The Spanish government passed a policy to open Texas to outside settlers from the American frontier in order to stop Native American defenses of their own land. More anglo settlers in Texas created more racialized conflict between Mexicanos (Nuevohispanos) and Anglos.
One of the land grants was allotted to Moses Austin in 1821, father of Stephen F. Austin, in exchange for bringing 300 more U.S colonists to the area.
1821: Mexico became independent from Spain in 1821. The population of Texas was mostly Native American. Mexico began to restrict slavery until it was abolished in 1829, and Anglo Texans were not happy.
1829: Mexico abolished Slavery
1836 - 1845: Texas became an independent country, kept slavery legal, and in its Constitution, disqualified African Americans, Indians, and Mexicanos from having citizenship. Section 10 read “All persons, (Africans, the descendants of Africans, and Indians excepted,) who were residing in Texas on the day of the Declaration of Independence, shall be considered citizens of the Republic, and entitled to all the privileges of such." Dark skinned Mexicanos were excluded from citizenship and would be categorized as African or Indian. (Juan Carmona, interview, September 15, 2023)
1846: The US unofficially claims Texas. Mexico did not want to lose the southwest and so the Mexican American War happened.
1848: The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed in 1848, and Texas became a part of the US, setting the boundary and border as the Rio Grande River.
1861-1865: Civil War fought. The South fought to keep the institution of the slavery. Cotton was shipped from Mexico through Brownsville, Texas, avoiding the Union blockade of Confederate ports. Charles Stillman, owner of a steamboat company, smuggled cotton and defended the Institution of slavery. (10, Harvest of Empire)
1898: The U.S claims to ally with Cuba against the Spanish to protect its own economic investments and interests in Cuba. (10, Harvest of Empire) The Spanish American War set the ground for U.S Imperial invasion and annexation of Spanish colonies of Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Guam.
References:
4, Building the Borderlands
10, Harvest of Empire
Links:
https://tarlton.law.utexas.edu/constitutions/republic-texas-1836/general-provisions
Download:
https://decolonialatlas.wordpress.com/turtle-island-decolonized/
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