There existed quite a brisk trade in slave smuggling along the southwestern borderland/ gulf coast. Lots of folks (famous names) got rich or richer at that game.
That it wouldn’t have kept up with the attrition you speak of Joebob is another debate. Who knows? But it was pretty sucessful for a number of decades.
Yepper, the production of cotton soon outstripped the reproduction of American slaves, the Bowie brothers and Jean LaFitte stepped in to supply a demand; African slaves via Cuba through Galveston. Galveston was legally Mexican, and IIRC slavery illegal for at least part of that time but with no law enforcement to speak of.
Organized crime that it was, I've been curious to know who forced the Bowie brothers out of that trade. By 1835 I know McKinney and Williams, the covert front for the powers-that-be, had installed the West Point Dropout from Georgia, James W. Fannin in that capacity, Fannin smuggling in an illegal shipload of 200 souls right before the shooting started. But that still leaves about a three or four-year gap between the Bowie brothers and Fannin.
Because he worked for the bosses of course, Fannin got to be in charge of the Texian Army they paid for, tho he proved to be out of his depth in that capacity
