The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 32, July 1928 - April, 1929 Page: 343
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Tadeo Ortiz and the Colonization of Texas, 1822-1833 343
discouraging. Ortiz wrote in August that he had heard through
friends that there were many poor Germans, Swiss, Dutch, and
Irish in the United States who would be glad to, move to Texas
if their expenses could be paid. But the government demanded
that all applicants must be accustomed to outdoor work such as
farming and stock raising. Besides, the impoverished govern-
ment could not at once furnish 50,000 pesos required for the ex-
penses of locating the two hundred families that Ortiz thought
absolutely essential for the establishment of a successful colony
as a make-weight against the Americans who were literally pour-
ing into Texas.
On August 14th, however, Ortiz was heartened by the issuance
of his commission as director of colonization at a salary of 5,000
pesos per annum and so sanguine was he of final success that,
before setting out on his journey to the United States to search
for immigrants and to ascertain whether or not that govern-
ment would support Austin in case he attempted to make him-
self independent, he petitioned his government to grant him ten
leagues of land along the Gulf coast as well as the island of
Bergantine, off Matagorda Bay, or San Jos6, in Aransas Bay so
that he might not be a burden upon the nation in his old age.
This done, he resolutely set forth for Vera Cruz in spite of the
fact that the epidemic was spreading rapidly along the coast
country.
But he could not collect the money appropriated for his ex-
penses until he had frantically appealed to the vice-president;
and, even then he had to be content with a hundred or so pesos
in cash and a promise that the rest would be deposited for him
at New Orleans. At last on October 12, he sailed on the steamer
"Spark" but six days later he died from the cholera, which he
had contracted while waiting for the few pesos absolutely needed
for traveling expenses. Civil war had paralyzed the entire nation.
Death had removed Ortiz. His plans were thus aptly character-
ized by Austin when he wrote to Samuel M. Williams:
"Tadeo Ortiz has been sent out to the United States by the
Government on some mysterious mission, but what it is I can-
not tell-some say it is to take Poles or Germans or somebody
else to Texas to dam out the North Americans-stop the Missis-
sippi with a dam of straw."
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 32, July 1928 - April, 1929, periodical, 1929; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101089/m1/348/: accessed March 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.