 For this lecture, we're going to look at the brief ten-year period that Texas was ruled by Mexico. As we talked about in the last lecture, Napoleon was in control of Spain beginning in about 1808. As Napoleon rampaged across Europe fighting wars and battles, he took control of Spain to the south. His brother Joseph bought a part on the throne. In Mexico, this had an effect, the viceroy became José de Eturigarri. And he implemented some changes, of course, and as the viceroy, that means he's in charge of Mexico. This caused problems in Mexico. And on September the 16th of 1810, Father Miguel Hidalgo issued the Grito de Dolores, and this was a call for independence in Mexico. It didn't go very far. Hidalgo was killed, and this is a picture of him here on the right. He's killed, but the revolutionary activities continue for the next several years. And in fact, in Texas, coming out of Nacodotus again, there's the Gutierrez Magui expedition, which is an attempt to gain independence, and it's built upon Hidalgo's call. Finally, independence does come from Mexico. When in Spain, King Ferdinand VII returns, he is not very popular and the Cortes, the Spanish parliament, which had been effectively running things while Bonaparte was on the throne, writes the Constitution of 1812, which is a more liberal constitution, giving the Cortes more power. In Mexico this has a similar effect. In February of 1821, several military leaders, including Augustina Torvide and Vicente Guerrero, formed the plan of Iguala, and this is a plan for Mexican independence. They take over the country, they formulate the Constitution of 1824, and Augustine, who had put himself in charge as the new emperor, Augustine I, is deposed. Spain begins allowing foreign settlement. As we looked at the last lecture about the various American filibusters who were coming in and trying to gain control of Texas, Spain saw an opportunity for settlement as a way of keeping the outside invaders from Texas at bay, because the thinking was that if we have these Americans here, and we have settlers here, who have dedicated their allegiance to Spain, then they will be keeping out the other invaders. And so Moses Austin, who had gone down to San Antonio to plead for an impresario contract, is allowed to bring in 300 settlers. On the way back to Missouri, Austin dies. He's attacked. He and his slave, who accompany him, are attacked. They're left to wander. He's in his 60s, and because of rain and the illnesses that he received, he goes back to Missouri. He's on his deathbed in 1821, and he talks to his son about taking over this contract that he had gotten from Spain. In the meantime, Mexico declares their independence. And so in 1821, when the first settlers arrived at the Brazos River, they are faced with the problem that they don't really have an impresario contract. So the 1823 imperial colonization law written by Mexico now becomes the new authority to allow these settlers to come in, and Austin is given this colony. In the Mexican Constitution of 1824 that I mentioned earlier, it's based largely upon the U.S. Constitution, and it also defines colonial activity and the national colonization law of 1824, which did restrict some foreign settlement, and it regulated it. The state of Cuea y Tejas was formed. The colonization law of 1825 that actually was written in part by Stephen of Austin said that settlers would adopt the Catholic religion. They would pay no taxes for seven years, and this increased the number of colonists ready to move to Texas from the United States. And as you recall from our last lecture, it was much easier to get more land for much, much cheaper than you could in the United States. And so it set up this series of impresarios around the state, mostly in eastern Texas, although there were some in western Texas as well, as you can see in the map here. The most successful of these contracts, these impresarios, were Martin de Leon, and his grant was here centered around the town of Victoria going down to the coast. Then there was just above that Green-DeWitts colony, and there were other grants. The most successful, as you can tell by the number of colonies that are here in Austin's colony here, here, and here. Austin succeeded in getting three grants, and together of these 30-some-odd grants, they brought in 9,000 settlers. Austin was the most successful. There were some Mexican grants, the de Zavala grant here. There was also Irish grants, the McMullan-McLowan grant, and the most successful impresario was Stephen F. Austin.