Even as it floundered, the Republic’s existence continued to transform the region. By undercutting the American land market, the Republic remained a magnet for Americans searching for cheap cotton lands and, by the early 1840s, for southerners escaping bankruptcy in the United States after the Panic of 1837. Swarms of new settlers overwhelmed the Indian and Tejano populations in eastern Texas, producing violence that forced eastern tribes and Tejano natives from their homes and communities.
