Slavery became a major issue as increasing numbers of Anglo-American settlers moved to Mexican Texas during the 1820s. Many settlers came from the southern United States, where enslaved labor was widely used to grow cotton. Some brought enslaved African Americans with them and believed slavery was necessary for the economic success of their farms and plantations.
Mexico was moving in a different direction. Many leaders of the newly independent country opposed slavery, and Mexican laws increasingly attempted to restrict it. At the same time, Mexican officials wanted settlers to develop Texas and understood that many Anglo-American colonists expected to use enslaved labor. This led to a series of compromises and changing laws.
Early colonization policies allowed settlers to bring enslaved people who were considered members of their households. However, Mexico prohibited the international African slave trade, and later laws placed additional restrictions on slavery. The 1827 Constitution of Coahuila y Tejas prohibited settlers from bringing additional enslaved people into the state and declared that children born to enslaved mothers in the future would be free.
Some Anglo-American slaveholders tried to avoid these restrictions. They used long-term labor contracts that described enslaved people as indentured servants who supposedly owed years of labor for the cost of transportation, food, clothing, or other expenses. Some contracts lasted as long as 99 years. Mexican officials recognized that these arrangements were being used to continue forms of forced labor even as laws restricted slavery.
The conflict became more serious in 1829. Mexican President Vicente Guerrero issued a decree abolishing slavery throughout most of Mexico. Slaveholders in Texas feared that they would lose the people they held in slavery and the labor on which many cotton farms depended. Stephen F. Austin and other supporters of the Texas colonies appealed to Mexican officials.
The emancipation decree was ultimately not applied to Texas. This allowed slavery to continue there, even though Mexican policy was moving toward abolition. The compromise did not end the disagreement. Mexican efforts to restrict slavery continued to worry many Anglo-American slaveholders, while settlers continued finding ways to preserve the system.
By the end of the 1820s, slavery had become an important difference between many Anglo-American settlers and Mexican leaders. The conflict was not simply about different opinions. It involved economic interests, changing laws, and questions about whether immigrants to Texas would follow the policies of the Mexican nation in which they had chosen to settle.