Seeds of Empire: Cotton, Slavery, and the Transformation of the Texas Borderlands, 1800–1850 by Andrew J. Torget (review)

This insightful volume provides a new analysis focused on the development of cotton farming by Anglo Americans using slave labor in Mexican Texas and its importance in the Texas Revolution and the Republic of Texas.

The author first explores problems of the small Spanish settlements in Texas during the early 1800s. When the British textile industry turned to cotton and Americans developed gins, cotton agriculture boomed across the Gulf South. That stimulated Comanches and other Native Americans who controlled most of Texas to increase their raids on Spanish settlements for horses and mules to trade with southerners. The Mexican war for independence in the 1810s brought harsh fighting in Texas that sharply reduced its population.

Torget then turns to the arrival of cotton and slaves in Texas and their impact. The United States recession of 1819 led Moses Austin to seek approval for Anglo settlers in Texas. The Spanish governor agreed, hoping that cotton farmers with slaves could revive the economy and Spanish control in Texas. By 1821, Stephen F. Austin and Tejano leaders successfully urged support for Anglo settlement by the new Mexican national and state governments. Then discussions by Mexican leaders about abolishing slavery raised concerns. To avoid government limitations on slavery, some Anglos declared their slaves to be indentured servants. Local conflicts with Mexican officials during the early 1830s over aspects of slavery and the cotton trade led to fighting against the central government that became an independence movement in 1836. The Texas General Council in 1835 adopted strong laws protecting slavery while raising funds and supplies through New Orleans cotton merchants. Before the defeat of Santa Anna in 1836, Anglo Texans feared slave revolts, and some slaves escaped amid the chaos.

Turning to the impact of slavery in the new Republic of Texas, the author describes increased cotton raising, but also financial and diplomatic problems. President Sam Houston sought annexation by the United States; yet growing North-South debates over slavery stymied acceptance. Texas then sought British recognition and cotton trade, which might also push the United States toward action. While Britain imported Texas cotton for its textile mills, British abolitionists opposed closer ties with the slaveholding republic. The Texas debt from its revolution left the republic financially weak; yet an economic panic in the United States in 1837 sent more settlers with slaves to Texas. New President Mirabeau B. Lamar sought with some success to expand available land by driving out Native Americans, but that increased the Texas debt. He failed to obtain a loan from the United States, France, or Britain because of slavery issues. When Houston resumed the presidency, he faced Mexican raids and nearly valueless paper money. His administration revived support for annexation by pointing to British interest in abolishing slavery in Texas. Ironically, these events led to the declining status of elite Tejanos, the original advocates of Anglo immigration to Texas.

Torget researched widely in United States and Mexican libraries and archives, newspapers, and other published sources; furthermore he is aware of recent reevaluations by historians concerning aspects of the Texas borderlands in the early nineteenth century. The result is a well-written and convincing reinterpretation that the introduction of cotton and slavery strongly influenced the Texas Revolution, but also became a major contributor to the failure of the Texas Republic.