Republic of Texas

For nearly a decade, Texas was its own country. Anglo-American settlers and Tejanos in the Mexican state of Coahuila y Tejas declared independence on March 2, 1836, and won it seven weeks later when Sam Houston's army routed Mexican forces under Santa Anna at San Jacinto. The new republic wrote a constitution, elected Houston its first president, raised an army and a navy, printed its own money and sent diplomats abroad. The United States, France, Britain, the Netherlands and Belgium all recognized it.

Independence was precarious. Mexico never accepted the loss, the republic sank deep into debt, and it claimed a western boundary along the Rio Grande that took in parts of present-day New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma and Wyoming. Most Texans wanted to join the United States, but annexation stalled for years over the spread of slavery. Congress finally approved it in 1845, and Texas entered the Union as the 28th state on December 29, 1845, a step that helped set off the Mexican–American War. Its capital moved several times before settling in Austin in 1839.

• Texas
  The Lone Star State, second-largest in area and population became
• The Rio Grande
  The river border between the U.S. and Mexico bounded by
• Austin
  Capital of Texas, on the edge of the Hill Country capital
• Republic of West Florida
  A republic that lasted about 75 days, and ended up in Louisiana related
• Vermont Republic
  The independent republic that became the 14th state related