The Republic of Texas was keenly aware of the troubles of international recognition, and knew how important to its cause (independence) having support was. Accordingly, they did, indeed, send out diplomats to make contact with the most major global and regional powers of its day. While it tried to force Mexico to recognize its independence by treaty, Santa Anna (and his Centralist allies) weren't known for good behavior, diplomatic reliability, governmental accountability, or anything else that might give Texas a reason to expect them to uphold the deal. So, international recognition became even more important, because it was a vital lifeline that stopped Mexico from just trying again.

Some of the earliest ties Texas had were to its revolutionary sister-republics. During the Centralist takeover of the 1830s-40s, Texas was hardly unique in revolting and declaring independence. Many similar movements arose across Mexico in the same spirit, but most were felled by Santa Anna's army, and local populations, the men, women, and children, were brutalized as punishment. There was one other that managed to successfully establish itself as an independent state, however - the Republic of Yucatan.

The first VP of Texas, and one of its founding fathers, Lorenzo de Zavala, was himself from the Yucatan region. Like Texas, the Yucatec independence movement was driven by the old Federalist-Centralist political war that had shaken Mexico since its foundation. Federalists in control of the local military issued a call to restore the Mexican Constitution (which the Centralists had indefinitely suspended) and, in 1841, declared independence. The indigenous Maya people were also activate in this conflict, actually forming the majority of the rebels, though not the leadership. In 1843, Yucatan successfully held out against the Mexican attempt to reclaim its lands, though relations remained fraught, and internal issues were bountiful between the division between partisans and the relationship of criollos (Whites) to indios (Mayans). Add in a blockade by the US during the Mexican-American War, despite being a neutral power, to cripple its economy (as well as the economy of the only-just-recently-annexed Texas) and Yucatan fell apart and would be reabsorbed into Mexico after initial proposals to the US fell through in the Senate.

Despite Yucatan's troubled history, it was one of the closest allies of the Republic of Texas, and one of its most important trading partners. Both had trouble with economic interactions with Mexico, but they had one another right across the gulf, to bolster one another, and to protect one another. These relations were so important that demands to cease contact with Texas were among the grievances that actually initiated the Yucatec independence movement.

The rest of the history is lost in the Caste War, where the indigenous Maya fought the Mexican government for decades to come, but that's neither here nor there with regards to Texas.

Now, Yucatec may have been the earliest ally of Texas, but there are Texan legation buildings still standing in Europe today. Namely, in Paris and London, representing France and Britain as the leading global powers of the day. Both of these legations were headed by Dr. Ashbel Smith, a Yale graduate from Connecticut and a leading medical expert who helped to found the University of Texas later in his life. Despite his later tenure as a Confederate officer, Smith also supported free public education for both Black Americans and for women too.

Smith's role in London was fairly without trouble. Britain quite supported Texas in many regards. For the British interest, Texas was a stumbling block that countered the United States. It is ironic that Texas should find such an ally in Britain, since Britain had supported Mexico earlier in the revolutionary days. All the same, British trade connections helped to bolster the Texan economy, including the (admittedly limited compared to the American production) cotton industry. In 1845, when Texas was on the brink of annexation, Britain offered Texas full recognition - but this would not have curbed the many internal issues that had led to the need for annexation in the first place.

France, meanwhile, had been quite supportive of Yucatan and Texas in their revolutions. It had offered diplomatic recognition to each, and fairly early (1839) had already taken steps toward officializing this. However, relations soured in 1841 with the Pig War, when the French charge d'affaires Alphonse Dubois de Saligny fell into quarrel with the owner of the hotel he was staying at - supposedly, the pigs owned by the hotel's owner had terrorized his horses, and Saligny had allegedly ordered his servant to kill several pigs and was threatened with a beating. Saligny claimed diplomatic immunity and had asked the Lamar administration to take action on this. When it refused to do so, Saligny abandoned his post for Louisiana and spent the remainder of Lamar's tenure issuing vague threats, until Houston was reelected in the following cycle and repaired relations with France. You might ask why someone as dignified as the French representative to the whole country was in a shoddy hotel, the answer is because Lamar was trying to speedrun the construction of a capital at a site then called Waterloo because he couldn't stand that the capital was named after his political rival (that is, the city of Houston, which remains the largest and most prosperous city in Texas to date).

This is entirely my opinion, but Lamar was an absolute dirtbag. He pursued a policy of genocide against indigenous peoples (versus Houston, who himself had been 'adopted' by a Cherokee band and fought constantly for coexistence and native rights), he wished to wage an imperialist war all the way to California, he caused hyperinflation to fuel his vanity project of a national bank while utterly failing diplomatically to secure the credit for such a thing so he just printed more money because that always works so well, he violated the Texan congress to try to wage a personal war of glory in Mexico, and he was really your average plantation-owning slaveholder in everything else - pulling his money from his family connections to other Lamars like L.Q.C Lamar of Mississippi. His tenure in Texas was not only catastrophic for native peoples and relations therewith, and for international relations, but also septupled Texas's debt. Absolute failure. Supposedly, Houston's farewell address so unnerved him that he couldn't even properly deliver his own inaugural address. This is understandable, because in many ways and especially for the standards of his time, Sam Houston was a decent human being and was also basically the George Washington of Texas.

Anyway, back to the strictly factual: French relations with Texas were repaired under Houston's second term. France redirected trade from Mexico to Texas instead and was perhaps the most diplomatically active ally it had. There was a decent history of French presence in Texas as well - although the French colonization had been short-lived, Huguenot and Louisianian settlers were both common throughout Texas history. Britain directed Huguenots to establish a pirate colony right around modern day Houston once upon a time, and the Old Three Hundred who were some of the first American colonists in Texas were, in fact, from Louisiana. The strong presence of Cajun culture in Texas to this day is a sort of testament to this.

Now, with France and Britain both lending some sort of support to Texas, it happens that the United States can't just stand by and watch. Not that it wanted to, for there were many Americans in Texas, and many who fought in its revolution before returning home. In 1837, Alcee La Branche was sent as a legate to Houston, and in 1841, Texas opened its legation to Washington.

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