The Texas Gulf Historical and Biographical Record, Volume 21, Number 1, November 1985 Page: 21
106 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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LORENZO DE ZAVALA: MEXICAN TRAITOR OR TEXAS IDEALIST?
From 1827 to 1829 and again from 1832 to 1834, Zavala was governor
of the State of Mexico. He exerted a tremendous influence as a liberal, pro-
posing legislation in the areas of human rights, taxation, and fiscal respon-
sibility. Unfortunately, these reforms were beyond the comprehension of
the Mexican governments.
Vincente Ramon Guerrero, who may have been a mulatto, with
assistance from Zavala and Santa Anna, seized power in Mexico for a brief
period in 1829. As Secretary of Finance of the Republic of Mexico he ap-
pointed Zavala, who received authority to serve simultaneously as gover-
nor of the State of Mexico and in the national cabinet. Unsuccessfully, he
attempted to effect agrarian reforms and impose economic controls, point-
ing out the precarious financial condition of Mexico and proposing a revolu-
tionary concept - an income tax of five percent of income over 1,000 pesos
and ten percent of income over 10,000 pesos.
When the attempted Spanish invasion of Mexico in 1829 failed, Zavala
drafted a decree directing the seizure of property of non-residents (prin-
cipally the gachupines who had favored the invasion), taking into the public
treasury half of their income, expropriating certain Church property, and
instituting a national lottery. The Guerrero government revoked some of
these decrees and a great deal of opposition resulted from those who were
taxed. A public out-cry against Zavala achieved his resignation as Secretary
of Finance in 1829; additionally, the State of Mexico refused to permit his
resumption of the governorship of that state.
Empresario
Stephen F. Austin had been able to fulfill his first Texas colony re-
quirements and had been given additional authority. Other would-be em-
presarios had undertaken Texas colonization, but in the face of Mexican
suspicion that they were sympathetic to the American dreams of empire,
they incurred opposition from the Mexican authorities.
Beginning in 1828, Zavala, as a Mexican, sought to become a Texas
empresario in order to have authority to sponsor and supervise settlement
in Mexico's rich unpopulated empire of its northeast. On April 2, 1828,
he requested the grant which had been set aside previously for Hayden
Edwards and later for Peter Ellis Bean. Bean's application for this same
area had been forwarded to the federal government and seemingly was in
the process of being approved when Bean was charged with bigamy, hav-
ing both a Mexican wife and an Anglo wife; summarily his grant was can-
celled, February 10, 1829.Nov. 1985]
21
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Texas Gulf Historical Society. The Texas Gulf Historical and Biographical Record, Volume 21, Number 1, November 1985, periodical, November 1985; Beaumont, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1433656/m1/23/: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas Gulf Historical Society.