A smaller number of enslaved people were brought via the international slave trade, though this had been illegal since 1806. Some enslaved people came through the domestic slave trade, which was centered in New Orleans.
Most enslaved people in Texas were brought by white families from the southern United States. The number had increased to 182,566 by 1860. Texas's enslaved population grew rapidly: while there were 30,000 enslaved people in Texas in 1845, the census lists 58,161 enslaved African Americans in 1850. The Texas Legislature passed increasingly restrictive laws governing the lives of free blacks, including a law banishing all free black people from the Republic of Texas. The Texas Constitution of 1836 gave more protection to slaveholders while further controlling the lives of enslaved people through new slave codes. Free blacks struggled with new laws banning them from residence in the state, while the majority of black Texans remained enslaved. African American life after Texas Independence was shaped by new and existing legal constraints, enslavement, and violence.