I had to laugh at some comments my kids have made while studying Texas. 

     One day my son chuckled and said, "Hey Mom, Stephen F. Austin was Texas' first real estate agent!"  Hmmmmm, well I never quite thought of it that way.  Stephen F. Austin was actually an empresario who contracted with the Spanish/Mexican government to bring Americans to live in Texas. 

     Then my daughter approached me another day with a laugh and this comment: "Mirabeau B. Lamar really lived up to his name when he tried to expand Texas into New Mexico!"  Mirabeau Lamar was the second president of Texas. Apparently when Texas won its independence from Mexico in 1836, they thought they had rights to land as far west as New Mexico.   Lamar put this idea into action, by sending a group of men on the ill fated Texan Santa Fe Expedition. 

     Although Texas was its own country, they were in debt and had been seeking to become part of America.  But the northern states in the US Congress did not want Texas to enter the Union, because it would be a slave state. Eventually, Texas became part of America in 1845 as the 28th state. 

     Soon after, the Mexican American War began, partly because the Mexicans continued to insist they owned the land between the Rio Grande and Nueces River. It was interesting to read a few weeks ago that President Polk, on the other hand, was anxious to enter this war to fulfill the Manifest Destiny.

     Finally Mexico lost the war and gave up much of its land in the Southwest to America.  This week we studied the Compromise of 1850, which confused my kids.  So I found some interesting sites that are included here as links.  Did you know that Texas was even bigger than it is today?  This became part of a huge debate in the US Congress over how to deal with the new land aquired from Mexico and how they would eventually enter the Union.  The North wanted the new states to enter as free, whereas the South was fighting for the admission of slave states.  I asked the kids if they had ever noticed a different map of Texas with different boundary lines.  "Oh yes, it used to be bigger!" After four different proposals to redraw the Texas borders, Texas lost some land in today's Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico.  This was part of several concessions in the Compromise of 1850, that delayed the Civil War for ten years.  In return for giving up all that land, Texas got $10,000,000!  Finally, they had a little cash to pay off their debts! All of this (partly) because of a guy who lived up to his name...Mirabeau Bonaparte Lamar.