Empresario

An empresario (Spanish pronunciation: [em.pɾe.ˈsaɾ.jo]) was a person who had been granted the right to settle on land in exchange for recruiting and taking responsibility for settling the eastern areas of Coahuila y Tejas in the early nineteenth century. The word in Spanish for entrepreneur is emprendedor (from empresa, "company").^[1]

Since empresarios attracted immigrants mostly from the Southern United States, they encouraged the spread of slavery into Texas. Although Mexico banned slavery in 1829, the settlers in Texas revolted in 1835 and continued to develop the economy, dominated by slavery, in the eastern part of the territory.