Seeds of Empire: Cotton, Slavery, and the Transformation of the Texas Borderlands, 1800-1850 (The David J. Weber Series in the New Borderlands History)

by Andrew J. Torget

But as they looked back on the 1836 secession of Texas and read wild accusations made over slavery and Texas in American newspapers, most Mexicans came to believe that powerful slaveholding forces within the United States were colluding to tear away Texas.18 Such fears added tremendous urgency within Mexico to reclaim Texas and helped produce the Vasquez raid in March 1842. Mexico then launched a second invasion in September 1842, when an army of twelve hundred under the command of General Adrian Woll captured and occupied San Antonio for nine days. Among the invaders was Juan Seguín, who had been offered a chance to escape prison in Mexico if he would agree to join Woll’s expedition. Seguín accepted the proposal—earning him the enduring hatred of many Anglo-Texans—and forcing such a prominent Tejano to participate in the second invasion of San Antonio appears to have been another effort by Mexico to persuade Tejanos to abandon their support of the Texas Republic.