Texas Association for Colonization

On January 20, 1843, the fourth of as many contracts between the Republic of Texas and twenty American and English investors led by William S. Peters was put into motion for the colonization of the Republic by the investors and other persons and families. These investors formed the beginnings of the association for colonization, which helped to settle North Texas. The common name for the venture was Peters Colony.

The first contract, signed in August of 1841, appropriated an insufficient amount of land for the number of families to share. The boundaries for this contract began on the Red River at the mouth of Big Mineral Creek, ran south for sixty miles, then west for twenty-two miles, north to the Red River and then east with the river. A second contract, signed November 9, 1841, extended the boundaries but was still not able to attract and keep enough colonists. Sam Houston signed a third contract, July 26, 1842, which again extended both the time of the contract and the land’s boundaries, but the concession was that every other section of land was to be appropriated to the Republic.

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