Green DeWitt, a Missouri sheriff and one of the key figures in early Anglo-American colonization of Texas, entered into an empresario contract with the Mexican government on April 15, 1825. Signed in Saltillo and written in Spanish, the agreement granted DeWitt permission to settle 400 families in a designated region in what is today southeast Texas. The contract outlined specific obligations: DeWitt was to organize a local militia, establish churches and schools, and report progress to authorities. This agreement led to the founding of Gonzales, a key settlement in colonial Texas and a future flashpoint in the Texas Revolution.
Green DeWitt’s certified empresario contract made by Juan Antonio Padilla, April, 15, 1825, from the Archives and Records Program, Texas General Land Office.
Green DeWitt was living in Missouri when Moses Austin, also a Missouri resident, received an empresario contract in 1821 from the Spanish government, shortly before Mexico’s independence—and within months of his own death. DeWitt likely heard about the contract either through local networks or directly from Moses or his son Stephen, who inherited the grant. DeWitt likely traveled to Mexico as soon as early as 1822, seeking to obtain an empresario contract similar to that had been granted to Moses Austin.1
Initially, he was unsuccessful. Little is known of DeWitt’s exact movements in these years, but it is likely that political uncertainty and administrative confusion that occurred in Mexico in the first years after its separation from Spain delayed his efforts. The first post-independence authorization of Anglo-American colonization came from Mexican Emperor Agustín de Iturbide in 1822-1823, following lobbying by Stephen F. Austin.
A more secure legal framework for colonization emerged after Iturbide’s toppling and the adoption of a federal constitution in 1824. The Mexican Congress passed a colonization law on August 18, 1824, followed by a state-level colonization law adopted by the new federal state of Coahuila y Tejas on March 24, 1825. Three weeks later, Governor Rafael Gonzales approved DeWitt’s contract.
Spanish and Mexican regional authorities, based in San Antonio and Saltillo, had similar reasons for accepting the petitions of Anglo-American empresarios like Moses Austin, Stephen Austin, and Green DeWitt. Existing Spanish-speaking settlements, established in connection with the mission-presidio system in the 1700s, were remote, small, and vulnerable. They were limited mostly to South and Central Texas, with major population centers in San Antonio and Goliad, and a more isolated outpost in Nacogdoches. The region was economically weak and under frequent threat from Comanche raids. It had also drawn the attention of American adventurers who launched private military expeditions—known as filibuster raids—in hopes of seizing land or plunder. Effectively, large parts of what is today Texas were beyond the control of regional authorities.
Spanish Governor Antonio Martínez, who approved Moses Austin’s contract, and Mexican Governor Rafael Gonzales, who approved DeWitt’s contract, viewed the American empresarios as potentially reliable businessmen who would obey the laws, collect duties and taxes from the settlers that they would bring, and help organize frontier defense.
DeWitt, soon after securing his contract, established the capital of his colony at the confluence of the Guadalupe and San Marcos rivers, and named it Gonzales, in honor of the provisional governor of Coahuila y Tejas, who had approved the colonization. In the following decade, DeWitt’s colony would become an important center of Anglo-American settlement, though it was never as large, prosperous, or organized as Austin’s colony.
DeWitt’s colony was located northeast of San Antonio de Béxar, the political and military center of Mexican Texas at the time, and southwest of Austin’s established settlements along the Brazos and Colorado Rivers. By the time DeWitt had secured his contract in 1825, Austin’s Colony had reached a population of nearly 2,000.
Translated from the original Spanish:
Conditions upon which is allowed the projected introduction by Green De Witt, a citizen of the United States of North America, of four hundred families as colonists into the department of Texas.
1st. Inasmuch as the plan presented in the preceding memorial by the person concerned conforms to the colonization law of the honorable congress of the state, adopted March 24, the government consents to it, and, therefore, in fulfillment of article 8 [of this colonization law], and in consideration of his petition, assigns to him the land for which he asks, contained within these limits: Beginning on the right bank of the Arroyo de la Vaca at a distance of the reserved ten leagues from the coast, adjoining the colony of Stephen Austin, the line shall go up this arroyo as far as the Béjar-Nacogdoches road; it shall follow this road toward the west until it reaches a point two leagues west of the Guadalupe River; from there it shall run parallel with the river south toward the coast until it reaches the ten-league coast reservation; thence it shall run along the inner edge of this reservation toward the east to the place of beginning.
2nd. The empresario [contractor] shall respect the rights of individuals legally possessed of lands within this district.
3rd. In accordance with the above-mentioned colonization law of March 24, the empresario, Green De Witt, shall be obliged under penalty of losing the rights and privileges guaranteed by article 8 of this law, to introduce the four hundred families within the term of six years beginning from to-day.
4th. The families that shall compose this colony, besides being Catholic, as the empresario promises in his petition, must also be able to prove, by certificates from the authorities of the localities from which they come, their good moral character.
5th. The empresario shall not introduce into his colony criminals, vagrants, or persons of bad morals, and if such be found there he shall cause them to leave the republic, by force of arms if necessary.
6th. To this end he shall organize, in accordance with law, the national militia, and he shall be commanding officer of it until other arrangements shall be made.
7th. When he shall have introduced at least one hundred families he must advise the government, in order that a commissioner may be sent to put the colonists in possession of their lands according to law, and to establish towns, for which he shall carry competent instructions.
8th. Official correspondence with the government or with the state authorities, legal instruments, and other public documents must be written in Spanish, and when towns shall have been formed, it shall be the duty of the empresario to establish schools in that language.
9th. It shall also be his duty to erect churches in the new towns; to provide them with ornaments, sacred vessels, and other adornments dedicated to divine worship; and to apply in due time for the priests needed for the administration of spiritual instruction.
10th. In all matters not here referred to he shall be governed by the constitution, the general laws of the nation, and the special laws of the state which he adopts as his own.
These articles having been agreed upon by his excellency, the governor, and the empresario were signed by both, in the presence of the secretary of the government. The original was placed on file in the archives, and it was ordered that a certified copy of both the contract and the petition be given to the empresario for his security.
Saltillo, April 15, 1825 — Rafael Gonzales — Green DeWitt — Juan Antonio Padilla, interim secretary.
I certify that the preceding copy is a faithful and legally made reproduction of the original file of executed in the Secretariat under my charge, to which I refer.
Saltillo, April 15, 1825. ✍ Juan Antonio Padilla
The original signed empresario contract between Green DeWitt and the Mexican government is held by the Texas General Land Office (GLO) in Austin. It is part of the DeWitt’s Colony Records, a collection that includes the contract itself, DeWitt’s earlier petition, certified copies, correspondence with Mexican officials, land survey notes, and early maps of the colony. The documents are primarily in Spanish, though later translations and indexed materials were added in the mid-to-late 19th century.
This archival collection spans the years 1825 to 1834 and provides insight into the administration of the colony, land distribution, and interactions with both settlers and the Mexican state. It is open to researchers through the GLO’s Archives and Records Program. The materials are frequently cited under the title DeWitt’s Colony Records (Spanish Collection) and are a key source for studying early Texas history.
- Ethel Zivley Rather, “De Witt’s Colony,” The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association 8, no. 2 (October 1904): 100. ↩︎
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