History of the United States I / Unit 11 USH1 1526 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Why Settlers Came
The idea
The pull factor was credit, not liberty. Mexico allowed buyers to pay for land in instalments and required no minimum purchase, while United States policy required cash for a minimum acreage. The men taking those terms were men ruined by the Panic of eighteen nineteen, including Moses Austin himself. Later arrivals came after the depression of eighteen thirty-seven, some leaving notes on their houses reading only GTT, for Gone to Texas.
In practice
A migration of the recently bankrupt, moving toward the only lender that would have them.
Where people slip
Settlement of Texas was an economic migration before it was anything else, and reading it as a movement of liberty-seeking Americans inverts the causation. They went because Mexico offered terms, and they later revolted in part because Mexico changed the terms.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
Builds on
Unlocks
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