Texas history does not begin with its declaration of independence from Mexico 1836. Long before this revolt, indigenous people and Hispanic settlers lived in the vast region called New Spain. Spain’s conquest of Mexico in 1519 continued until Mexico declared independence from Spain in 1810. Then, what was known as Tejas to the inhabitants, became part of Mexico.

Spain’s European blood was not only spilled in the bloody conquest of Mexico but mixed with Mexico’s indigenous tribes, resulting in a people called mestizos. Mexicans are inheritors of this extraordinary human fusion.