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It was illegal for slaves to be owned in Mexico, so while Texas was in Mexico,. they “freed” their slaves but said that they had to pay for their own food and clothes, etc. Because the slaves had no money they would have to work for their owners for pay, becoming permanent servants. The were also whipped if they ever went out of line. The Slaves clothing was cheap and rough. Their shoes often didn't fit.

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Moses Austin wanted permission to settle in an Anglo-American settlement, which was eventually granted by the Mexican government. He wanted to try to colonize Texas, but the trip to San Antonio de Bexar was difficult to get to, even for southerners, and most of the time it resulted in death.  Soon the same happened to Moses, so he passed it on to his son: Stephen Fuller Austin. Because he was the heir of Moses Austin, he received government approval of the plan for land. This plan had eighty acres of land for each slave belonging to the land. The government of Mexico, through its representative in Texas encouraged slavery into the land, which started in small numbers, but grew later on.

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This is an image of slavery being spread throughout Texas in the late 1800's

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This is an image of slave trade in the 1860's

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Slavery only had a few positives for the state

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Slavery only had a few positives for the state

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Slavery certainly promoted development of the agricultural economy; it provided the labor for a 600 percent increase in cotton production during the 1850s.-Texas State Historical Association.

Slave labor produced cotton (and sugar on the lower Brazos River) for profit and also cultivated the foodstuffs necessary for self-sufficiency.- Texas State Historical Association.

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By 1845, Texas had at least 30,000 slaves. The rate of growth accelerated rapidly during the 1840s and 1850s.  The census of 1850 reported 58,161 slaves, 27.4 percent of the 212,592 people in Texas, and the census of 1860 enumerated 182,566 slaves, 30.2 percent of the total population. -Texas State Historical Association