“The men now in power in this state wish to tolerate slavery,” Austin observed with delight, and with the European market possibly turning from “the ‘tarriffed cotton’ of the U.S. to the fine long staple of Texas,” conditions seemed ideal for a flood of American farmers to begin pouring into northern Mexico.8 And then everything changed. On September 15, 1829, President Vicente Guerrero declared an end to slavery throughout all of Mexico, promising to “free those who until today had been considered slaves.”
