Immigration was probably tarded because the official opposition of the Mexican government to Negro slavery. Though antislavery policy was never rigorously enforced, any southern who brought Negroes to the state ran the risk of forfeiting them. Anyway, the opposition was one of the major facts that tarded lower southern immigration, and the issue of slavery that characterized American politics in the first part of the nineteenth century.
In eastern Texas 20,000 settlers and 1,000 slaves outnumbered the 5,000 Mexicans in the area by 1830. The settlers showed little interest in Catholicism and other aspects of Mexican culture. The expansion was a quest for a better chance and more living room and in many ways the Americans kept their culture. Economic opportunities marked mainly the settlers, not cultural preferences This was perhaps one of the reasons why Texas later became choose American annexation.
Later the immigration was stopped. The Mexican government grew alarmed at the immigration threatening to engulf the province. Military troops were moved to the border to enforce the policy. Still there was illegal immigration. Immigrants crossed the border easily and by 1835 there were ten times as many Americans (30,000) as Mexicans. The settlers demanded greater representation and more power from the Mexican Government. Revolts broke out in 1832 and 1833. Instead, General Santa Anna, dissolved the national congress late in 1834, and became dictator in Mexico.
In Texas, American settlers decided to promote their own independence from Mexico. Suddenly, it seemed, that Southwest was a ripe new frontier for American exploitation and settlement. This can be explained by Americans and their concept of Manifest Destiny. Manifest Destiny was a moral justification for American expansion, or at it�s worst, a cluster of flimsy rationalizations for naked greed and imperial ambition. Manifest Destiny must be seen in context with the increase of the American population. By 1840 the total population in America had doubled since about 1800 and the pattern of population forced them to search new land.