Background
He attended Bacon Academy in Connecticut, and Transylvania University in Kentucky. He was a member of the territorial legislature of Missouri and a director of the Bank of St. Louis when his father, Moses Austin, lost his fortune in the 1819 panic. After the death of his father, who in January 1821 had obtained a grant of Texas land for colonization purposes from Mexico, Austin set out for Texas by way of Arkansas. There he was offered, but declined, a judgeship, but after reaching New Orleans he remained for six months, studying law and doing editorial work for the Louisiana Advertiser. Arriving in Texas about July 1821, he founded a colony of 300 families near the Gulf of Mexico between the Brazos and Colorado rivers.
During his administration of the Texas colony Austin mapped and surveyed the area, fixed the land system, and in the interest of the slaveholders of the colony prevented the abolition of slavery by the Mexican government. He was imprisoned in 1833 by Mexico for treasonable statements, but upon his release in 1835 he secured aid from private sources in the United States to carry on the Texas revolution. After the establishment of the Republic of Texas, he was defeated for the presidency by Sam Houston. He then served briefly as secretary of state.