Intensified migration to Texas after statehood raised the population to about 150,000. Societies such as the Texas Emigration and Land Company now pledged to settle colonists who would agree to constitute a militia for defense against the Indians; in return they would receive a grant of 320 acres of choice land. Most of the newcomers continued to migrate from the states of the lower South; slavery was granted legal protection by the Texas constitution of 1845. The Texas population by 1860 was quite diverse, with large elements of European whites (from the American South), African Americans (mostly slaves brought from the east), Tejanos (Hispanics with Spanish heritage), and about 20,000 recent German immigrants.