One of the first major events to affect Texas in the nineteenth century occurred when she was still a province of Mexico, or New Spain. In September 1810, New Spain felt the first tremors of a movement for freedom when a Mexican priest named Miguel Hidalgo began a movement which would lead to independence from Spain. As a result of the independence movement, Texas obtained its own provincial deputation which governed it until the promulgation of the federal constitution of 1824. This new constitution ended Texas' experiment as a self-governed province by making it a department of the new state of Coahuila y Texas.

The theme of his paper is that there was a pattern of continuum in the government of Texas as it transitioned from the Spanish flag to its Mexican government, then to the Republic of Texas, and finally to its status under the United States. To understand Tejano origins in this period, it is necessary to review Tejano society and local government in the municipalities of Texas and the legacy of the Hispanic frontera concept. It is necessary to consider the evolution of the statehood of Texas under the Mexican republic and the legacy of Tejano statesmen. These were the people who wrote the laws which defined Tejano life and invited Anglo immigration. Tejano life under the Mexican flag is what made Texas is so uniquely a part of the Hispanic tradition and yet, so distinctly apart from the Anglo-Saxon.

When the Anglo first arrived in 1821, Tejano settlement consisted of three distinct and separate regions-the Nacogdoches region, the Béxar-Goliad region along the San Antonio River, and the Río Grande ranching frontier between the Nueces River and the Río Grande. Each of these populations fluctuated independently from the others; and yet, all of them shared certain characteristics in common.

The basic factor unifying the Tejano community was the military purpose of the settlements. All Tejanos shared a military background which had developed into a strong sense of mission to defend Mexico's northern frontera.