During the time that Texas was a Spanish, then Mexican, state, the road was used as a major thoroughfare between Mexico City and East Texas. With Texas independence, however, trade between Mexico and Texas waned, while Mexico's trade with the United States began to increase. The old route from San Antonio to Louisiana, now called the "Camino Arriba", was still a vital link for Texans to the United States. During the 1860s, the old road had a brief revival as a supply line from the Texas interior to the Confederacy, and for the flow of cotton to Mexico as a means to circumvent the ever-tightening Union blockade.