Because of the growing uneasiness with the policies coming from Mexico City, the Texans decided that the time was ripe in mid-1832 to request reforms in government policy. Accordingly, a convention was called to meet at San Felipe on October 1, 1832.
A total of fifty-eight delegates representing sixteen settlements attended the convention. Stephen Austin served as president, with Frank W. Johnson secretary. Representation from San Antonio, the center for the Mexican colonists in Texas, was conspicuously absent.
The convention adopted resolutions requesting a range of reforms including tariff reduction, the lifting of restrictions on immigration from the United States, the funding of primary schools, and the formation of a separate state of Texas within the Mexican republic.
The resolutions failed, however, when Mexican government officials deemed the convention unauthorized and therefore illegal. In the process, though, a second convention was called to meet the following spring.