EARLY BELGIAN COLONIAL EFFORTS - The University of Texas at ...

culprit in the colonial aspect of the Belgian project. Although Belgium was interested in
commercial as well as diplomatic ties to the Republic, Leopold seems to have increased
his interest only after Hamilton’s offer of October 21, 1841. Hamilton’s subsequent
dismissal, however, seems to have been less a response to these actions, than Houston’s
dislike of Hamilton. This seems to be verified by Anson Jones’s later offer of land,
although curiously without any loan requests, at a time when Texas was in desperate
economic straits.
It is difficult, if not impossible, to determine what, if anything, the general
population thought of the Texas project. It was given very little newspaper coverage and
was generally conducted at the diplomatic level, as opposed to Santo Tomas, which
gained widespread, mostly hostile, press coverage. There were no colonists because
there was no colony, except as noted above. The economic conditions in Belgium,
especially high unemployment, existed for both endeavors, but for the reasons already
stated, the effort in Texas never expanded beyond Pirson’s mission. It would appear that
Santo Tomas captured the public’s attention, and that there was only room for one
debate at a time.
Texas also differed in that there was no private or semiprivate company
responsible for the colonization effort. It was strictly a governmental affair. This
probably accounted for its relative simplicity of actions and swift termination. No one
had any money invested in the project that would have been lost when it ended.
transatlantic steamship line from Belgium to the United States, which in fact Belgium did not obtain.
Laurent, 561-2.
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