Pirates or Presidents?

Following Colonization, North America experienced a wave of immigration. An immigrant is a person that moves to a new country. North America became home to immigrants, both legal and illegal, for centuries to come. The reasons for immigration often include threats, whether from religious authorities, authoritarian monarchs, natural disasters, or disease. Immigrants leave their home countries to seek safety, shelter, and opportunity.  Immigrants are often identified by what country they moved from; for example, early English immigrants in this time period are generally referred to as Anglo, which literally means English. 

The economic system of seventeenth and eighteenth century European empires was called mercantilism. In this system, the colonies existed to enrich the mother country. Restrictions were placed on what the colonies could manufacture, whose ships they could use, and most importantly, with whom they could trade. A colonial merchant could only trade with the mother country of their colony. Meaning that, for example, a British merchant could not sell goods to the Native Americans, Spanish missions or French Fur traders very near to them, but had to ship their goods across the Atlantic Ocean to trade with the mother country. This trans-Atlantic trade also provided the means for immigrants to make the voyage to the New World. The British tried to make Americans pay duties (taxes) on imported goods to discourage this practice by passing laws like the Navigation Acts and the Molasses Act. The British were simply trying to pay for the French and Indian War/Seven Years War, which protected their colonists, but would eventually lead to the American Revolution. These European countries, powerhouses of their time, were rivals and actively engaged in sabotage, impressment, and competition. These aggressive trade and expansion policies that caused the Seven Years War made it expensive and dangerous to be a merchant at all. Many turned to piracy or privateering instead, as smuggling and robbing royal ships could be more lucrative than following the rules or paying taxes. Thus begins a precedent of ignoring royal laws. Smuggling and boycotting were ways the colonists ignored these restrictions in acts of civil disobedience. The relationship between the new country of the United States, Spanish Florida, and the Gulf Coast was important to many merchant and smuggling operations. Meanwhile, after 1803, American settlers were flooding into the Louisiana territory.  By the time the Adams-Onis Treaty was signed in 1819, giving control of Florida to the United States, Anglo-American colonists had developed the precedent of ignoring British regulations and encroaching on Native American lands to the west; beginning the concept of manifest destiny/westward expansion. 

 It was the golden age of pirates. After Independence, American smugglers would continue to thrive as would many other groups in American and Spanish territories. So much so that European nations, especially Great Britain, began a policy of strict enforcement of tax laws and "impressment," or forcing sailors to join the Royal Navy, which would be among the grievances that cause the American Revolution as well as the War of 1812. In Spanish Mexico, mercantilist policies caused widespread unrest as early as the early 1800s. For example, Texians and Tejanos (or Mexican born residents of the Texas territory) in Spanish territories were beginning to get restless and disobedient to the crown (monarchy) that was thousands of miles across an ocean. 

As 1776 approached, the tradition of resisting mercantilism by smuggling became vital to the Revolutionary cause in the colonies. This encouraged ignoring the Crown and their laws, particularly in the harbors of New England and along the Texas Gulf Coast. American shippers soon became quite skilled at avoiding the British navy, a practice they used extensively in the Revolutionary War. Soon England began to try offenders in admiralty courts, which had no juries or due process. All attempts to enforce mercantilism merely brought further rebellion. Great Britain was not the only European colonizing power with this problem. Jean Lafitte was one of the most famous privateers/pirates of the time, he was a celebrity in New Orleans and a menace to Spanish trade along the Gulf coast, eventually being pardoned after helping Andrew Jackson win the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812. In that same year, the Cortes of Cadiz was convened, or assembled, where the Constitution of 1812 was written, and established federalism and republicanism as principles of government for Spanish territories. These policies would be the basis for the Spanish Constitution of 1812, the Mexican War for Independence and the Constitution of 1824, and the principles of federalism and republicanism in their government, were known as federalists.

While there was piracy and impressment on the open seas of the Atlantic and the Gulf Coast, the land was full of squatters, fugitives, and mountain men looking to avoid being forced to fight or pay taxes, instead looking to the frontier to make a living. The places in North America that were unknown or unconquered by Europeans was known as the frontier. Many different types of people occupied the American Frontier. The land west of the Appalachian Mountains and North of Mexico City was sparsely populated. Native Americans, pioneers, French fur traders, Spanish vaqueros, mountain men and endless pristine land covered the territory between the borders of the continental powers. This era also saw land squatters in Texas called filibusters, as well as pirates and privateers. It was the golden age of pirates, smuggling, and lawlessness, and all of it took place with Native American removal and slave labor as prerequisites for American expansion. 

In Texas history, the pioneers were called filibusters. A filibuster, in the context of Texas history, is an Anglo-American settler, usually a republican/federalist, who flooded into an unregulated Texas territory and would cause the Texas Revolution. Anglo refers to English settlers from the newly independent United States. Texas was very sparsely populated, with fewer than 3,500 residents, and only about 200 soldiers, which made it extremely vulnerable to attacks by native tribes and American filibusters. For this reason, many territories had their own militias (military units made up of regular citizens), or juntas, to protect their land and people. Most of the immigrants came from the southern United States. Many were slave owners, and most brought with them significant prejudices against other races, attitudes often applied to the Tejanos (or Mexican born residents of the Texas territory). However, a small group of land speculators from the United States were given Empresario contracts by the Spanish crown in 1820. An Empresario, or businessman, refers to landowners granted a charter, or permission to settle land in Mexico while it was under Spanish control.