Those who composed the Know-Nothing Party were also recognized as the American Party. In the Northern United States, this political party believed that the Pope and the Slave Power were trying to extinguish the American democratic republic. They also developed a hatred toward Catholics, immigrants, and slavery-extension.

In Massachusetts and other Northern states, the Know-Nothings were able to win elections in 1854 and 1855. Because the issue of slavery and westward expansion pulled apart the members of the party, its power declined following the division. Members who lived in the South supported the Kansas-Nebraska Act. However, those opposing it had northern views that identified them with the emerging Republican Party.

Stephen F. Austin and the American empresarios in Texas:Empresarios were agents generously given land grants by the Mexican government beginning in 1824 in order to encourage peaceful American settlers to colonize Texas. Stephen F.

Austin, similar to his empresario counterparts, were satisfied with living in Texas as naturalized Mexican citizens. However, when México closed Texas to further American immigration and slave introduction in 1830, Austin secured a repeal on that prohibition in 1834. He also compared the Mexican government growing increasingly unstable to their own volcanic geography as American immigration swelled.

The rebellions of Santa Anna alarmed Austin and he had shifted from a position of only hoping to secure greater autonomy for Texas within México to siding with radical Americans who wanted independence. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna:Santa Anna served as the President of México in 1834 and instituted a policy of restricting the powers of the regimes in Coahuila-Texas and other Mexican states. What he did caused many rebellions in those regions, with the most important being the Texas Revolution. Santa Anna extinguished most rebellions that arose and had support of the Tejanos, or Mexicans living in Texas. When he invaded Texas in 1835, Stephen Austin sided with the Americans radically seeking independence. Santa Anna’s troops were successful in San Antonio and Goliad in the massacre of hundreds, and he even had Davy Crockett executed.

Santa Anna was ambushed by Sam Houston’s army which then forced him to sign a treaty that recognized the independence of Texas, but was never ratified by México. The Alamo: In February of 1836, Santa Anna led a large attack on San Antonio, when around two hundred Texan defenders and Tejanos, retreated into an abandoned mission, the Alamo. In March, four days after Texas had declared its independence, the defenders of the Alamo were ambushed by Mexican troops and most of them were killed. Once reinforced, Houston turned and surprised the complacent Mexicans in San Jacinto. Their forces shouted “Remember the Alamo,” to pay respect toward those who gave their life defending the Alamo.