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Stephen Austin Establishes a Colony in Texas
He said that everyone who wanted to live in Texas should be Roman catholics, or agree to become so before they entered the Spanish territory. He also said that that they should furnish undoubted evidence of good character and habits, and take an oath of fidelity to the king, to defend the government and political constitution of the Spanish monarchy. In addition, they were to be Louisianians. -
Mexico Places Restrictions on American Immigration
There was more territory open in Texas because there was much more unused land. There was not a defined boundary between the U.S. and Mexico to the settlers at this time. -
Stephen Austin Meets with Mexican President Santa Anna
Austin is sent to discussTexan territory with the Mexican president. He gets arrested for treason. -
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Battle of the Alimo
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Battle of the Alamo
Santa Anna's troops fought the Alamo from February 23 to March 6, 1836. The Mexican army had about 6,000 soldiers and the Texans had 189 men. The mexicans slaughtered the Texans and won the battle. -
Battle of San Jacinto
The actual battle of San Jacinto lasted less than twenty minutes, but it was in the making for six years. It had its prelude in the oppressive Mexican edict of April 6, 1830, prohibiting further emigration of Anglo-Americans from the United States to Texas; in the disturbance at Anahuac and in the battle of Velasco, in 1832; in the imprisonment of Stephen F. Austin, the "Father of Texas," in Mexico in 1834. -
Treaty of Velasco Grants Texas Independence
On May 14, Santa Anna signed two peace treaties with interim Texas president David G. Burnet. The public treaty consisted of ten articles; a second, secret treaty consisted of six additional articles. The secret agreement was to be carried out when the public treaty had been fulfilled. The public treaty provided that hostilities would cease and that Santa Anna would withdraw his forces below the Rio Grande and not take up arms again against Texas. In addition, he also pledged to restore propert -
General Taylor Marches Troops Across Rio Grande
In June 1845, Polk sent General Zachary Taylor to Texas, and by October 3,500 Americans were on the Nueces River, prepared to defend Texas from a Mexican invasion. Polk wanted to protect the border and also coveted the continent clear to the Pacific Ocean. -
U.S. Annexes Texas
In 1845, the United States of America annexed the Republic of Texas and admitted it to the Union as the 28th state. The U.S. thus inherited Texas's border dispute with Mexico. This quickly led to the Mexican-American War, during which the U.S. captured additional territory. -
U.S. Declares War On Mexico
Mexico, claiming that the boundary was the Nueces River to the northeast of the Rio Grande, considered the advance of Taylor's army an act of aggression and in April 1846 sent troops across the Rio Grande. Polk, in turn, declared the Mexican advance to be an invasion of U.S. soil, and on May 11, 1846, asked Congress to declare war on Mexico, which it did two days later. -
Slidell's Rejection
Slidell's rejection led directly to the president's order to General Zachary Taylor to march into the disputed lands south of the Nueces, which in turn led directly to the opening of armed combat. Sixteen American soldiers became casualties in the first skirmish, giving Polk the justification he had been looking for to seek funding from Congress for a war it had never formally authorized. -
Gold Discovered at Sutter's Mill, California
The California Gold Rush began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought some 300,000 people to California from the rest of the United States and abroad. Of the 300,000, approximately hal -
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo Ends War With Mexico
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the U.S.-Mexican War. Signed on 2 February 1848, it is the oldest treaty still in force between the United States and Mexico. As a result of the treaty, the United States acquired more than 500,000 square miles of valuable territory and emerged as a world power in the late nineteenth century. -
Zachary Taylor Elected President
Zachary Taylor was the 12th President of the United States. Initially uninterested in politics, Taylor nonetheless ran as a Whig in the 1848 presidential election, defeating Lewis Cass. Taylor was the last President to hold slaves while in office, and the second and also last Whig to win a presidential election. He was the second president to die in office, following William Henry Harrison, who had died nine years earlier. -
California Applies For Statehood
California adopted an antislavery state constitution, and applied for admission into the Union as a free state. California's application for admission thus signaled a change in the balance of pro and anti-slavery states, and it was formally admitted to the Union as a free state on September 9, 1850. -
Gadsden Purchase
The Gadsden Purchase was an agreement between the United States and Mexico. It was finalized in 1854, in which the United States agreed to pay Mexico $10 million for a 29,670 square mile portion of Mexico that later became part of Arizona and New Mexico.
