Articles of the Bustamante Decree of April 1830

Article 1. Cotton goods excluded in the law of May 22, 1829, may be introduced through the ports of the Republic until January 1. 1831 and through the ports of the South Sea until June 30, 1831.

Article 2. The duties received on the above-mentioned goods shall be used to maintain the integrity of the Mexican territory to form a reserve fund against the event of Spanish invasion, and to promote the developments of national industries in the branch of cotton manufacturers.

Article 3. The government is authorized to name one or more commissioners who shall visit the colonies of the frontier states and contract with the legislatures of said states for the purchase, in behalf of the Federal government, of lands deemed suitable for the establishment of colonies of Mexicans and other nationalities; and the said commissioners shall make, with the existing colonies, whatever arrangements seem expedient for the security of the republic. The said commissioners shall supervise the introduction of new colonists and the fulfilling of their contract for settlement, and shall ascertain to what extent the existing contracts have been completed.

Article 4. The chief executive is authorized to take such lands as are deemed suitable for fortification or arsenals and for the new Colonies, indemnifying the States for same, in proportion to their assessment due the Federal government.

Article 5. The government is authorized to transport the convict soldiers destined for Vera Cruz and other points to the colonies, there to establish them as is deemed fit; the government will furnish free transportation to the families of the soldiers, should they desire to go.

Article 6. The convict soldiers shall he employed in constructing the fortifications, public works and roads which the commissioners may deem necessary, and when the time of their imprisonment is terminated, if they should desire to remain as colonists, they shall be given lands and agricultural implements, and their provisions shall be continued through the first year of their colonization.

Article 7. Mexican families who voluntarily express a desire to become colonists will be furnished transportation, maintained for one year, and assigned the best of agricultural lands.

Article 8. All the individuals above mentioned shall be subject to both the Federal and State colonization laws.

Article 9. The introduction of foreigners across the northern frontier is prohibited under any pretext whatsoever, unless the said foreigners are provided with a passport issued by the agent of the republic at the point whence the said foreigners set out.

Article 10. No change shall be made with respect to the slaves now in the states, but the Federal government and the government of each state shall most strictly enforce the colonization laws, and prevent the further introduction of slaves.

Article 11. In accordance with the right reserved by the general congress in the seventh article of the law of, August 18, 1824, it is prohibited that emigrants, from nations bordering on this republic shall settle in the states or territory adjacent to their own nation. Consequently, all contracts not already completed and not in harmony with this law are suspended.

Article 12. Coastwise trade shall be free to all foreigners for the term of four years, with the object of turning colonial trade to ports of Matamoras, Tampico and Vera Cruz.

Article 13. Frame houses and all classes of foreign food products may be introduced through the ports of Galveston and Matamoros, free of duty for a period of two years.

Article 14. The government is authorized to expend five hundred thousand dollars (pesos) in the construction of fortifications and settlements on the frontier; in the transportation of the convict-soldiers and Mexican families of same, and their maintenance for one year, on agricultural implements---on expenses of the commissioners or transportation of troops; on premises to such farmers among the colonists as may distinguish themselves in agriculture, and on all the other expedients conducive to progress and security, as set forth in the foregoing articles.

Article 15. To obtain at once one-half of the above sum, the government is authorized to negotiate a loan on the custom proceeds which will be derived from the ordinary classes of cotton goods. Said loan to pay a. premium of three per cent monthly, payable at the expiration of the periods fixed in the tariff schedule.

Article 16. One-twentieth of the said customs receipts shall be listed in the promotion of cotton manufactures, such as in the purchase of machines and looms, small sums being set aside for the installing of the machinery, and any other purpose that the government shall deem necessary; the government shall apportion these funds to the states having this form of industry. The said funds shall be tinder the control of the minister of relations for the purpose of promoting industries of such importance.

Article 17. Also three hundred thousand dollars (pesos) of the above-mentioned customs receipts shall be set aside as a reserve fund on deposit in the treasury, tinder the strict responsibility of the government, which shall have power to use same only in ease of Spanish invasion.

Article 18. The government shall regulate the establishment of the new colonies, and shall present to congress, within a year, a record of the emigrants and immigrants established under the law, with an estimate of the increase of population on the frontier.

Argument against the Law of April 6, 1830
By Stephen F. Austin

The exact date of this appeal by Austin to Mexican authorities is uncertain, but thought to be written during the summer of 1833 in Mexico when he was petitioning for the repeal of the immigration articles of the Bustamante Decree.

At the period of Mexican independence in 1821, Texas was uninhabited by a civilized population, except the towns of Bexar and Goliad. It was infested by numerous bands of hostile Indians who sallied forth at pleasure to rob and desolate the settlements on the Rio Bravo, extending their depredations into the mountains to the neighborhood of Monclova and Monterey, and along the coast of Tamaulipas. The system of frontier defence used by the Spanish government of establishing military posts or presidios, was never an effectual barrier, for when those posts were in their best state of armament, the most that was done was to protect the immediate vicinity without being able to cover the whole country, or prevent the Indians from harassing the frontier settlements, and committing robberies on the public roads. The natural consequence was, that the civilized settlements were limited to the garrisoned towns. A few scanty villages were thus sustained like isolated specks in the midst of a wilderness at an enormous expense to the government and a great waste of men and money. A country thus situated could evidently yield no revenue in return for the millions expended in its defence; it could not advance much in population or improvement, nor add anything to the physical force of the nation, but on the contrary, weakened it. It may therefore be said with truth, that under the old system of presidial defence, the whole of that part of the Mexican territory situated north and east of a line from near Soto la Marina on the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of California was an expense and a dead weight to the government. The experience of years had already convinced the Spanish authorities of the internal provinces, of the absolute inefficacy of the old system of frontier defence, and that the only effectual and permanent barrier was population, the settlement of the frontier by a hardy and enterprising race of people before whom the savages would retire, or become submissive. The result of this new opinion was a total change of the ruinous restrictive system which had for centuries locked up the whole of the Spanish possessions from the rest of the world. The first step that was taken towards the new system of frontier defence was the grant to Moses Austin on the 17 January, 1821, to settle a colony of North Americans in the wilderness of Texas.

During that year, 1821, the independence was achieved, and the lights of liberal and republican principles shed their benign influence over the whole country. One of the first acts of the new government was to open the door to the emigration of foreigners, the colonization laws were enacted, and emigrants were expressly and earnestly invited to enter. Under the faith and operation of those laws the settlement of Texas was commenced, and its wilderness was rapidly changing its uninhabited state and wild aspect, and yielding to the progress of civilized population, led on by enterprise and perseverance. The emigrants to Texas, it is well known, have never received any succors from the government-no garrisons were sent to protect them during their infancy from the hostile Indians who then fill every part of the country. They have never cost the government a cent-all they have ever received was permission to settle in the country, and a title for the lands they redeemed from the wilderness lands that were then valueless to Mexico or to civilized man. Left to their own resources and daring enterprise, they have conquer a wilderness, and made known to Mexico and to the world the true value, and developed the resources, of a large portion of the Mexican territory which was before hid in obscurity. They have also greatly contributed to the new system of frontier defense by means of population and fully tested its efficacy, for the savages have retired befor them, as they will continue to do, if the same system is pursued, until they are reduced to full subjection or settled in villages as agriculturists. It is certainly a natural and very rational inquiry: What inducements, what incentives, what hopes, could have operated so power fully upon the minds of the emigrants to Texas, as to have give them fortitude to brave the dangers of savage foes, to despise the hardships and privations of the wilderness, to support them through trials and privations at which the stoutest hearts shrink, the cry of their little children even for bread, the well-founded fears an despondency of their wives, surrounded as they were the first year of the settlement, by Indians, famine, and sickness and by the dark gloom of moments when even hope almost recoiled from the future What impulse of freedom and deeply imbedded hope bore them u and carried them through such difficulties? Was it the bare expectation of getting a piece of land in a wild wilderness and there living on the mere products of their manual labor, and degenerating into the habits of wild Indians? No-common sense, and the characters an former habits of those settlers, unite in saying- NO. But on the contrary the great and nerving hope that bore them onward, was t redeem this country from the wilderness, and convert it into the abode of civilization, of abundance and happiness, and by that means to repay themselves, their wives and children for the hardships and sufferings of their early settlement, and also to repay the government more than thousand fold for the privilige of settling in Texas, and of making wild lands valuable, that before were valueless.

On what grounds was such a hope as this founded? It was founded on the colonization laws, on the general, liberal and broad invitation given in those laws to the whole world to come and settle in Texas, on the faith of the government that such an invitation would not be thus given merely to draw a few unsuspicious emigrants to this wilderness and then to close the door and shut them out forever from their friends and relations, and in fact from the balance of the civilized world, when years of struggling through difficulties had jus begun to realize their hopes. Could the first emigrants have suppose that they would have been deprived of the privilege of settling by their sides a son or daughter, an aged father or widowed mother, a brother or sister, an old and affectionate friend or neighbor of other days and of other countries, because they did not emigrate on this or on that particular day? Could they have supposed that the general invitations of the colonization laws were mere time serving and temporary expedients which were to be changed without any apparent reason and without any violation of duty on the part of the first emigrants; is it reasonable to suppose that they would have labored as they have done, suffered what they have suffered, to bring forward this country, and give value character, and credit to it? No-they built their hopes on the permanency of the colonizing system, on the faith of the government pledged in their colonization laws, on the broad basis of philanthropy and republican freedom which they supposed had been adopted as the foundation on which the social institutions of Mexico were erected. Those hopes were certainly not entertained without a sufficient cause, and neither are they now destroyed notwithstanding the restrictions which are imposed by the Law of 6 April, 1830, which totally interdicts the emigration of North Americans, for it is confidently believed that those restrictions grew out of peculiar circumstances, party excitements and hasty jealousies which no longer exist.

It seems to have been received as a correct opinion that the inhabitants of Texas wished to separate from Mexico and unite with the United States of the North. It seems that the virulence of party feelings even went so far as to suspect that a friendly and republican government whose territory is already too great for its population, wished to seize upon Texas. Such opinions and suspicions are evidently at variance with the conduct and avowed wishes of those emigrants, and with the true and substantial interests of Texas, on the one hand; and with the good faith and established policy and principles of the government of the United States on the other. Texas could gain nothing by a separation from Mexico, except a removal of the ruinous restrictions that now impede its progress in population and wealth, and if those restrictions were taken off, there is not a rational man in the country who would not oppose a separation. The true interests of Texas are to become a State of the Mexican confederation, and this is the desire of its inhabitants. By the law of 7 of May, 1824, forming the State of Coahuila and Texas, the latter was only provisionally annexed to the former, until it possessed the necessary elements to form a state of itself and this very law was another inducement to the emigrants to persevere, for it held out the inducement, amounting even to certainty, that Texas would be a State so soon as its population and resources were sufficient. Moral obligation, and interests are the two great cords that bind communities, states and nations together. In no instance can the principle of interest be stronger than in the present one, supposing the restriction against emigrants to be taken off. Texas must be an agricultural country, and the most of its agricultural productions will find a much better market in the Mexican ports than in those of any part of the world. The interior trade by land will also be very important. At this time, this trade is principally carried on through Missouri to New Mexico and Chihuahua but the geographical situation of the country and the practicability of roads from the harbors of Texas, evidently indicate that the natural channel of that trade is from those ports, in preference to the circuitous route by Missouri through a foreign country, subjecting merchandise to a double duty which they would be exempt from if taken from the ports of this nation. The manufactures of Texas, abounding as this country does in facilities for their establishment, would evidently lose by a separation from Mexico. In fact there is not one interest in Texas that would not be injured by a separation, not one that would not be materially benefited by the erection of this country into a state of Mexico. This being the case, why drive the people of Texas to desperation by a system of restriction, that is at variance with the inducement and well founded hopes first held out to the emigrants, and with the true interests of the country? The 11th article of the Law of 6 April, 1830, totally prohibits the immigration of North Americans and suspends contracts previously entered into by the government thereby depriving the present settlers of the consolation of settling their relatives and friends alongside of them. It also cuts off all hope of future advancements for years to come and condemns this country to a wilderness. The hope of bringing out emigrants from Europe is a faint and distant one, and will require many years and vast amount of capital to accomplish it. And, besides, what security or guarantee have they, in coming here, that they will not also be deprived of the privilege of bringing out their relations and friend after they have suffered years of hardships in preparing a home for them, as the settlers from the United States have been by the Law of April 6, 1830?

Under this view of the subject, it certainly appears evident that that part of the Law of 6 April, 1830, prohibiting the immigration o North Americans is unjust and at variance with the faith and pledge of the government and with the true and substantial interests of Texas. That law will not, and cannot prevent the introduction of hundreds and thousands into Texas, who, if they do not receive the sanction of the government to remain and acquire real estate, will as a matter of course, become restive and perhaps, jeopardize the public tranquillity. But, on the other hand, by opening the door for admission of honest and honorable men of high character and property, the moral influence of such men will correct and direct public opinion, and make the moral tie, as well as that of interest, which does and ought to bind Texas to Mexico indissolubly.

First: By their repeated violations of the constitution and laws and the total disregard of the civil and political rights of the people.
Second: By their fixing and establishing among us, in the time of peace, military posts, the officers of which, totally disregarding the local civil authorities of the State, have committed various acts evincing opposition to the true interest of the people in the enjoyment of civil liberty.
Third: By arresting the commissioners, especially Juan Francisco Madero, who, on the part of the State government, was to put the inhabitants east of Trinity River in possession of other lands, in conformity with the laws of colonization.
Fourth: By the imposition of military force, preventing the Alcalde of the jurisdiction of Liberty from the exercise of his constitutional functions.
Fifth: By the appointing to the revenue department men whose principles are avowedly to the true interest of the people of Texas; and that, too, when their character for infamy had been repeatedly established.
Sixth: By the military commandant of Anahuac advising and procuring servants to quit the service of their masters, and offering them protection; causing them to labor for his benefits, and refusing to compensate them for the same.
Seventh: By imprisonment of our citizens without lawful cause; and claiming the right of trying said citizens by a military court for offense of a character cognizable by the civil authority alone.

Resolved: That we view with feelings of the deepest regret, the manner in which the government of the Republic of Mexico is administered by the present dynasty. The repeated violation of the constitution; the total disregard of the laws; the entire prostration of the civil power, are grievances of such character as to arouse the feelings of every freeman, and impel him to resistance.
Resolved: That we view with feelings of deepest interest and solicitude, the firm and manly resistance which is made by those patriots under the highly and distinguished chieftain Santa Anna, to the numerous encroachments and infractions which have been made by the present administration upon the laws and constitution of our beloved and adopted country.
Resolved: That as freemen devoted to a correct interpretation and enforcement of the constitution and laws, according to their true spirit, we pledge our lives and fortunes in support of the same, and of those distinguished leaders who are gallantly fighting in defense of civil liberty.
Resolved: That all the people of Texas be united to co-operate with us, in support of the principles incorporated in the foregoing resolutions."