7th Grade Texas History Practice Test

The term describes a land agent who recruited settlers for Mexican land grants. In Mexico’s colonization of Texas, an empresario was contracted by the government to bring in families and establish settlements in a granted tract of land. The empresario would secure the land grant, recruit settlers (often from the U.S. and Europe), arrange travel, and organize the colony’s development. Stephen F. Austin is the famous example of an empresario, whose contract helped create the Anglo-American colony known as the Old Three Hundred. The other roles don’t fit this task: a missionary worked with missions, a surveyor mapped land, and a cattleman focused on ranching.