Why is the Rubi report evidence that Spain was discouraged about to developing Texas?

Answer 1

The Marques de Rubi (full name: Cayetano María Pignatelli Rubí Corbera y Saint Climent, Barón de Llinas) traveled to the northern territories of the New Spain in 1767, mapping part of Texas and inspecting the presidios (fortresses built to protect against pirates, hostile native Americans, and colonists from enemy nations) along the frontier, traveling to San Saba, San Antonio de Bexar, Los Adaes, and La Bahia to finally leave Texas through Laredo in November of that year.

He recommended that Spain should reorganize its frontier along a series of fifteen presidios, that would stretch from the Gulf of California to the mouth of the Guadalupe River in Texas -- mimicking the present-day U.S.-Mexico border. Above this frontier, Rubi advised that only San Antonio and Santa Fe would be maintained, and he urged the complete abandonment of East Texas.

Rubi's recommendations were enacted in 1773 but were partially nullified by the return of settlers to the region and the founding of Nacogdoches (TX) in 1779. These recommendations proved to be fundamental to the rise of the United States as a world power, as Texas' lack of development forced the newly independent Mexico (1821) to open its borders to American settlers, who eventually revolted and created the Texas Republic in 1836. When Texas joined the U.S. in 1848, border conflicts quickly escalated to the Mexican-American War (1846-1848) which allowed the U.S. to acquire the whole states of California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, as well as parts of Wyoming, Colorado, Oklahoma and Kansas. Nowadays, without Texas and California, the United States would be a mediocre power at best.