The Anglo-Tejano alliance had thus succeeded in opening northern Mexico to American colonization, in part because people like Erasmo Seguín and Stephen F. Austin—each for his own reason—saw great value in bringing the cotton frontier into Texas. Yet much of that success hinged on how Americans imagined Mexico, and Austin and the Tejanos spent enormous amounts of time attempting to persuade leaders in Mexico City to establish policies and laws that would reassure would-be American migrants that life in northern Mexico would be as secure as life in the southern United States.
