USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Stephen Austin’s contract to bring settlers to Texas, June 4, 1825 (Gilder Lehrman Collection) In order to settle Texas in the 1820s, the Mexican government allowed speculators, called empresarios, to acquire large tracts of land if they promised to bring in settlers to populate the region and make it profitable.

Detailed explanation-2: -Answer and Explanation: The government of Mexico offered Americans land in Texas because few Mexicans wanted to settle there. The northern regions of Mexico and the southern regions of Texas were (and still are) very sparsely populated due to lack of water and poor farmland.

Detailed explanation-3: -In 1825, Mexico passed the Coahuila-Texas colonization law, which offered men at the head of households 177 acres of farming land, grazing rights, and tax breaks in order to settle the region.

Detailed explanation-4: -Moses Austin (1821). Image available on the Internet and included in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107. Against this background, Moses Austin traveled from Missouri to Spanish San Antonio in 1820 to apply for an empresario grant to bring Anglo-American families to Texas.

Detailed explanation-5: -In 1820, Moses Austin, a U.S. citizen, asked the Spanish government in Mexico for permission to settle in sparsely populated Texas. Land was granted, but Austin died soon thereafter, so his son, Stephen F. Austin, took over the project.