Green Dewitt

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Green Dewitt was born on February 12, 1787, in Lincoln Country, Kentucky. Green Dewitt served in the 1812 war and achieved the rank of a captain. He was inspired by Moses Austin and the success he had, and tried to get a grant from Mexico to make a colony in Texas. His first petition to the Mexican authorities in 1822 for a contract was turned down. After a visit to Texas in 1824, Dewitt went to the capital Saltillo of Coahuila and Texas and was awarded a grant on April 15, 1825 to settle 400 colonists on the Guadalupe River. Peter Ellis Bean accused Dewitt of misappropriation of public funds back in Missouri that would disqualify him from an empresario grant, but Stephen F. Austin investigated the claims and proved it wrong. He lived out the rest of his life trying to make his colony better. He caught a fatal illness, most likely cholera, and died on May 18, 1835.



Martin De Leon

Martin De Leon was born in 1765, in Burgos Spain. In 1805 Leon went on an exploratory trip to Texas and started wanting to settle it. He then established a ranch. in 1807 he requested to settle land around San Antonio ,but was denied by the governor of San Antonio. Then on April 6, 1824 Leon requested to settle 41 family's around  San Fernando De Béxar. The grant was then approved on April 13. He then died on 1833 from the cholera disease. He was the only Spanish empresario in Texas.

Moses Austin

Moses Austin, the father of Stephen F. Austin, was born in Durham, Connecticut on October 4, 1761.  Moses was founder of the American lead industry and the first man to obtain permission to bring Anglo-American settlers into Spanish Texas.  At age 21, he entered the dry-goods business in Connecticut and then moved to Philadelphia in 1783 to join his brother in a similar job.  He also got married in Philadelphia in 1835.  Moses continued his business in Richmond, Virginia and established a company.  He soon got control of Virginia's richest lead deposit.  Later on he established The American lead industry.  Moses also founded Austinville in 1792.  In 1798, he established the first Anglo-American settlement by the Mississippi River in Missouri.  He soon amassed a wealth of $190,000.  His bank failed in 1819 and Moses started trying to escape debt.  He made a plan for an American colony in Spanish Texas.  on December 6, 1820, Governor Martinez approved his plan.  On his trip out of Texas, Moses got pneumonia.  When he got home and died there on June 10, 1821.

Juan Erasmo Seguin

Juan Jose Maria Erasmo de Jesus Seguin was born in San Antonio on May 26, 1782.  He was the father of Juan N. Seguin.  in 1807 he became a San Antonio postmaster and held that position until 1835, because the interruption of the Texas Revolution.  In 1821, Governor Antonio Martinez appointed him to tell Moses Austin that the petition to start a colony in Texas had been approved.  From 1823-1824 He worked in Mexico to promote the interests of settlers.  The convention of 1833 appointed Seguin as one of the three representatives to present Texas's grievances to the national government, but he declined the job.  From 1823-1824 He worked in Mexico to promote the interests of settlers.  He died on October 30, 1857.