unnuanced decrees in banking and monetary policy caused syncopated economic lurches that were often destructive to many, and reduced general levels of confidence in the rational administration of the country’s affairs.
Presidents (J.Q.) Adams and Jackson had both offered to buy Texas from Mexico, without success. American settlement in Texas began in earnest with Moses Austin and his son Stephen F. Austin, and was agreed by successive Mexican governments until 1830, when Mexico outlawed slavery in Texas and forbade further American settlement there. Stephen Austin went to Mexico to negotiate with the president, the charming and imperishable scoundrel General Antonio López de Santa Anna, who was nine times president of his country (though serving only seven years), and called himself “the Napoleon of the West” among other encomia. Santa Anna arrested Austin and imprisoned him for eight months. A group of Texans asserted their independence in 1835. Santa Anna set out to crush Texas militarily, and invested the San Antonio fortress, the Alamo, on February 23, 1836, with 3,000 men. The fortress was defended by only 188 men, including folkloric figures William Travis and Davy Crockett. After 10 days, Santa Anna overwhelmed the defenders and all the Americans were massacred, as were several hundred other Americans at different locations in Texas.
On April 21, Sam Houston led several hundred men stealthily across the San Jacinto River, near what is today the city of Houston, and defeated about 1,200 Mexicans at San Jacinto and captured Santa Anna, who was released to secure Mexican recognition of the independence of Texas. The Mexicans rejected this and Houston was elected president of the independent Republic of Texas. There were resolutions from both houses of the Congress for recognition of Texas, which Jackson, uncharacteristically, was hesitant to do. He wished to honor treaty obligations with Mexico and claimed not to wish a war with that country, though he would normally find such a prospect appetizing. He was more concerned with causing a split in the Democratic Party between pro- and anti-slavery forces, but on his last full day as president, March 3, 1837, Jackson did send a chargé to Texas in an act of quasi-recognition. This was another time bomb that Jackson would leave for his successors.
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