O. P. Q. Letters
pair of anonymous letters from 1834
The "O. P. Q. Letters" were a pair of anonymous letters (dated 28 January and 7 February 1834) which were meant to incite the people of Texas to insurrection against Mexico. The grounds for insurrection were the arrest and imprisonment of Stephen F. Austin. The letters received their name because both were signed "O. P. Q."
Origins
Although the letters were anonymous, their source is known: both were written by Anthony Butler, who was at the time the American minister to Mexico.
Butler was attempting to effect the purchase of Texas by the United States, and felt that rebellion might persuade Mexico to sell. The first of the two, addressed to "Don B.T.A", was sent to Branch Tanner Archer; whether or not the second was meant for the same address is unknown. They characterized the arrest of Austin as cowardly, and claimed it was done by "an ignorant, fanatical and arrogant race." In addition, the forthcoming inspection trip to be made by Colonel Juan Altamonte was called no more than a cynical attempt to please white Texan settlers.
Both letters soon were copied, and these copies were given to Colonel Altamonte in the summer of 1834, during his trip. Both the originals and these copies have since been lost. For his part, Altamonte forwarded translations of the letters to the Mexican government.
Effects
Their tone and the worsening of Texas politics notwithstanding, apparently the letters had little effect.
“O. P. Q. Letters” enters the record as pair of anonymous letters from 1834. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Letters, pair and anonymous can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7072156. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1834.
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This entry incorporates text from “O. P. Q. Letters” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.