Efforts by the Mexican government to attract Americans to relocate to the region of Tejas (Texas) in the mid-1820s, to counterbalance the largely Indigenous population, proved too successful. The General Colonization Law of 1824 enabled white southerners seeking to acquire land to do so with minimal difficulty. They flocked to areas where ranches founded by American settlers, most notably Stephen F. Austin, already existed. The escalating number of relocating Americans raised alarms among Mexican leaders, who feared the new arrivals’ general unwillingness to acclimate to Mexican culture would lead to rebellion and Texas’s possible secession from Mexico.