In February 1836 Edwards landed 170 black people in Texas, taking advantage of the confusion surrounding the end of the Texas Revolution and the establishment of the independent Republic of Texas, which had not yet outlawed the importation of slaves [REF].
As part of a plot to discredit both Dart and the government of Texas, Edwards persuaded some abolitionists in Cincinnati to give him money with which he would supposedly liberate the slaves on his plantation in Texas, which he no longer owned.