Tejas in 1783
Tejas was an interior province of New Spain from 1690 to 1821 and a province of Mexico from 1821 to 1836. In 1690, two years after the failure of France's colonization of Texas, Spanish missionaries arrived in Texas and established their first mission in the east, but they were forced to abandon Texas for two decades after the Native Americans resisted Spain's invasion of their homeland. In 1716, the Spanish installed a presidio and several new missions, and they founded the city of San Antonio in 1718. In 1749, Spain and the Apache made peace, allowing for Spain to continue the settlement of the region. Almost all of the people of Tejas were converted to Catholicism under Spanish rule, and it was populated by both Mexicans and Native Americans during the early 19th century. In 1821, after much political upheaval, Tejas became a part of Mexico during the Mexican struggle for independence from Spain, and it was a province of Mexico for years. The Mexican government offered incentives for American settlers to move into the region to assist in farming and settling the countryside; the government recruited Stephen F. Austin to bring settlers to Texas to become new Mexican citizens. The region was developed by these "Texans" and the Mexican settlers, but Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna's seizure of power in a military coup, the forced conversion of Texan settlers to Catholicism, and growing desires for Texan autonomy led to the 1835-1836 Texas Revolution and the creation of an independent Republic of Texas north of the Nueces River. In 1845, the rest of Mexican Texas was taken over by the United States during the Mexican-American War, and the Republic of Texas and Mexican Texas were annexed into the US state of Texas.