In the late 1820s and early 1830s, hundreds of Americans and Europeans flooded into the northern province of Mexico, known as Tejas (Texas). The American-born colonists, clinging to the political beliefs they had grown up with in the United States, along with many Tejas-born Mexicans, or Tejanos, openly opposed any form of government that was not democratic in principle and application. Armed hostilities broke out in late 1835 between the people of Texas and the soldiers of the Mexican dictator, General Antonio López de Santa Anna, who were stationed throughout the province. Santa Anna began to raise a massive army in Mexico City to put down the rebellion.

A ragtag army made up of Texas colonists, volunteers from the United States, and Tejanos attacked and defeated the Mexican military garrison at San Antonio de Bexar in December 1835, expelling the soldiers from both the town and the nearby San...