Constance Cortez
Texas CHRONOLOGY
1519 Spanish cartographer Alonso Alvarez de Pineda explores and maps the Texas coastline.
1528-1532 Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, the Spanish king’s treasurer, shipwrecks on Galveston Island and explores Texas’s interior.
1540-1542 The Francisco Vasquez de Coronado expedition from Spain explores the southwestern United States, the plains of the Texas panhandle, and parts of Oklahoma and Kansas.
1682 The first Franciscan mission, Corpus Christi de la Isleta, is established outside El Paso.
1685 French explorer Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, establishes Fort St. Louis in present-day Victoria County.
1718 Franciscans found Mission San Antonio de Valero, known as the Alamo, and the Spanish military establishes a presidio across the river.
1731 Fifty-five Canary Islanders establish a civilian settlement east of San Antonio’s presidio.
1749 A peace ceremony between the Spanish and the Apaches allows ranching expansion.
1755 Tomas Sanchez and other ranch owners found Laredo.
1810 Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costillo seizes the prison at Dolores, Mexico, and Mexico declares independence from Spain.
1821 Mexico wins independence from Spain. Spanish officials approve Moses Austin’s plan to bring 300 families into his colony in present-day Texas.
1823 Stephen F. Austin receives a grant from the Mexican government and continues his colonization in the Brazos River region.
1824 Mexico establishes a republican government with the Constitution of 1824.
1825 The Colonization Law for the State of Coahuila and Texas gives foreigners one-quarter league of land if they marry a Tejana. It also allows slavery in Texas.
1830 Mexico passes a law forbidding migration into Texas from the United States.
1832-1833 Texas settlers hold the Conventions of 1832 and 1833.
1834 General Lopez de Santa Anna sides with Mexican centralists who believe in a strong central government based in Mexico City.
1836 On March 6 the Alamo falls to Santa Anna’s military forces. The Battle of San Jacinto is fought on April 21, and Texas gains its independence.
1845 On December 29 Texas becomes the United States’ 28th state.
1845-1848 The Mexican-American War is fought.
1848 Mexico signs the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, ceding 51 percent of its territory to the United States.
1861 Texas secedes from the Union, and Tejanos serve in Union and Confederate armies.
1870s The first mutual-aid societies (sociedades mutualistas) in Texas appear.
1875 The U.S. Civil Rights Act allows access to all public accommodations, regardless of race.
1892 Brownsville journalist Catarino Erasmo Garza instigates the Garza War, in which raids are made against Mexico’s Diaz government.
The brothers Flores Magon publish the newspaper Regeneration in San Antonio. After fleeing San Antonio, they establish the Partido Liberal Mexicano (PLM) in St. Louis, Missouri, with chapters throughout Texas. The Alianza Hispano-Americana arrives in Texas.
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