EMPRESARIO SYSTEM

EMPRESARIO SYSTEM. After Mexican independence in 1821, the Mexican government contracted "empresarios" or land agents to aid the settlement of Texas. Each empresario agreed to settle a specific number of Catholic families on a defined land grant within six years. In return, the empresario received a land premium of just over 23,000 acres for every 100 families he settled. However, if the requisite number of families did not settle within six years, the contract was void. The empresario controlled the lands within his grant, but he owned only the lands he received as a premium.

The majority of the Texas empresario grants were effected under the national law of 18 August 1824 and the state law of 24 March 1825. Under the state law, a married man could receive 177 acres of farming land and 4,428 acres of grazing land. An unmarried man could receive one-quarter of this amount. The settler had to improve the land and pay a nominal fee to the state. By 1830, however, the Mexican government began to question the loyalty of American immigrants in Texas, who outnumbered Mexicans in the area by more than two to one. Thus, on 6 April 1830, Mexico passed a law prohibiting further American immigration and canceling existing empresario contracts.

Despite awarding numerous contracts, the empresario system failed to dramatically increase the population of Texas. The costs of obtaining a grant and surveying the land were high, and the wait for the land to become profitable was long. Although some empresarios, such as Stephen F. Austin, were successful, many others failed to fulfill their contracts.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cantrell, Gregg. Stephen F. Austin: Empresario of Texas. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1999.

White, Richard. "It's Your Misfortune and None of My Own:" A History of the American West. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991.

Jennifer L.Bertolet

See alsoLand Grants ; Texas .