,.
SPEECH BY:
TO:
DATE:
THE INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM
Dora Guerra
The Vaqueros Society
March 16 , 1982
INTRODUCTION
Dora Guerra was formerly with the Daughters of the
Republic of Texas Library and their collection; and the
University of Texas at San Antonio , their collection,
where she is currently Special Collections' librarian.
She never stops with the nine-to-five work, she's a
member of various professional associations. She's been
appointed to the Texas Historical Records Advisory Board
by the Governor. And she is currently working as a
consultant and editor on a Historical and Cultural
Landscape Study for the San Antonio Missions.
A very , very busy active lady, and one who we are
very pleased to present this subject tonight. And the
purpose of this presentation , which Dora and I talked
about several months ago, is two-fold: to let you know
what is in the various repositories in this area; and by
doing that, to encourage you to get out and use those.
GUERRA
And each a nd e very one o f you has a book, an article, a
monograph, some thing in you. And you need to go out,
start with the rese arch material, find it where you want
to go, and if you'll just look through the various
dedicatio ns, the leaves of almost a ny book in your
library, you will find how helpful all authors say the
people in the Library Science are. And all they want is
for the patron to come in--outline what you want--and
they'll sure help you get there--find the material for
you.
So with that, we turn the program over to Dora
Guerra.
2
GUERRA
SPEECH BY DORA GUERRA:
G: Good evening. It's wonderful to be with friends.
Can you hear me?
AUDIENCE: Sure . Fine .
G: Conducting a survey of special interes t collections
in area repositories can be a very exciting thing. It
was for me.
Presenting the findings of such a survey, in a
manner not conducive to putting my audience to sleep , is
yet 3nother matter. for me to stand up here and drone
away endlessly giving you detail after detail about all
the different r e positories a nd the content and the size
of the ir holdings , their addresses, their phone numbers,
the people who run them , cou l d get to be very boring.
3
Now folks , I have transgressed in my life . But to add to
my lis t of transgressions, inflicting bor edom on my
fri e nds is not part of thi s e vening 's plans. You can
rest easy. Instead, I chose to provide you with a trusty
ha ndout. Hopefully, you will find in it info rmation that
wil l point you in the direction of that whi ch you chose
to pursue. Because after all, in the final analysis, a
quest of any kind is colored by personal interests. My
hope is to have cleared the path for you.
I do fe e l compelled to t ell you some things about
how I conducted this survey. My original intintion wa s
to have visited each r e positor y , to have interviewed the
person or persons in charge in s itu, and to have examined
s ignifi cant items of each collection to better tell you
about them.
GUERRA
G: Life being what it is, that plan did not materialize.
Instead, my survey was conducted by telephone and took
one week to complete . With very few exceptions, I spoke
to the person in charge or to the alternate, the next in
command. The survey has encompassed fifteen
4
repositories. And although they are all different from
tach other, there is a common thread that binds them all.
You will find when you leisurely examine your handout at
home that almost all repositories hold collections that
are not lendable. Almost all have a set of rules and
policy that the patron is required to read and must abide
by. Most of them require the patron to fill out a
registration form and to sign a dai l y register . Also,
you will find that two out of the fifteen have a nominal
use fee. Again , most of them encourage the patron to
call ahead of time, inquire about his subject· area, and
make an appointment. Now this is not a requirement, you
understand. It is encouraged be cause you will find , as
you leaf through these things, that most special
collections' departments are a one-person operation . And
that one person has to divide himself or herself in ten
different directions , and it helps to know when a patron
is coming in, what the subject area is, and whether you
have the material to support that .
Tom and I were talking earlier , and it occurred to
me--in the process of one of the questions that he a sked
me that I did no t cover--so I will tell you about it.
GUERRA
G: In most academic atmospheres you will find that a
University Library as opposed to a Public Library tries
to gear its service to faculty and to the student body.
They do encourage non-faculty, non-students to use the
department, but you do have to have a l egitimate research
project. once that is established , you are free to use
the collection in any way as ·long as you abide by the
rules and regulations.
Additionally, you will find that the days and the
hours of service to the public differ greatly, not only
with service between the repositories but even within a
repository in its institution, as is the case at UTSA.
5
My department follows a completely different time
schedule than the academic library. So in choosing to
visit a repository, I caution you to inform yourselves on
the days and hours that each place is open.
One f i nal comment about the survey . It is far from
be ing the definitive work. It was not my intent to have
it be the definitive work. To have done so would have
been to have included detailed information about every
single collection included in the f i fteen repositories.
Given the time and purpose of this evening's
presentation, it was just unreasonable. Therefore, I
hope to have listed the information that is most
necessary so that you can have an idea: what you can
find, where. And then we can only stand back and let
each person ' s interest and initiative burn a trail. So I
wish you "Happy Chase ."
GUERRA
G: Through my work as curator of original source
material, which has in the course of time afforded me
exposure to more than one of the collections included in
the survey, and t o various and sundry material within
each of these collections, one theme keeps coming through
time and time again: The more things change, the more
they stay the same.
It has been my experience to find, in sorting
6
through sheafs and sheafs of 16th, 17th, and 18th century
Spanish Ecclesiastical, Regal, and Municipal documents,
to say the least ; of going through book after book after
book; dealing with the Spanish Exploration of the New
World; and then later North American settlement in Texas;
that in all these materials one keeps finding nothing
more than the embodiment of the human condition. All
those intricate , complex nuances tha t every single one of
us carries with one, by virtue of one's humanity,
anywhere and everywhere we go; the issues seem to remain
the same. The changing elements are geography, time
frame, and the attitude of a population toward an issue.
Several years ago, when I was organizing the Spanish
Manuscript Collection at the D.R.T. library at the Alamo,
I was struck by a series of municipal and ecclesiastic
manuscripts written in the 1500's in Mexico. The subject
of which addressed the establishment at which human
beings do their drinking; and, also , human behavior after
indulgence in the drinking of alcohol. The first of
GUERRA
G: these manuscripts was issued to specify such mundane
things as when, where, and for how long, and even in
which neighborhoods the bars of Mexico City were to be
opened. Now, remember we are talking about the 1500's
not about 1980.
The second manuscript was even more specific, it
laid down to the last centimeter how far the counter of
the bar was to be placed from the front door of the
establishment. Another document forbids the drinking of
pulque and other inebriating beverages, as well as
mushrooms and cacti. Because doing so produced in the
city: disorder and too much singing in the streets.
7
In yet another document, the irate Bishop of Pachuca
dictated a letter to the Spanish Viceroy in Mexico City
beseeching His Excellency to do something about all that
heathen jubilation that the natives practiced at
Christmastime. "There should be no room for
multi-colored heathen pinatas," said the Bishop, "nor for
firecrackers, nor candy-vending, nor for all that
.boisterous noisy coming and going in the streets and at
the church door." Christmas was a solemn feast, he said,
a time for the human spirit to rise in adoration of God.
The natives should be made to learn to tone down all that
noise and all that color. Bah--Humbug.
Had the good Bishop's powers of observation not been
so obtuse, he would have, no doubt, realized that for the
native Mexican Indian, worshipping God was taking the
GUERRA
G: color in life which God placed on this earth, taking
it to the church door, attracting the attention of the
whole town with firec rackers, and offering it all to God
in song, dance and celebration. I wonder what the good
Bishop would do if he came to San Antonio during Fiesta
week? or to The Institute of Texan Cultures during the
Folklife Festival?
Three hundred and sixty years later, in an emerging
town which is no more, in the then fledgling Republic of
Texas--which someday may be again--a warning sign was
nailed to a tree at the very entrance of the town which
8
read: "Stranger, while in this town, you will indulge in
no drunkenness, no disorder and no straggling."
I guess my favorite recountal of the human condition
with regards to the imbibing of the art and spirit during
the Republic of Texas' years, is that of William Ransom
Hogan in his book , The Texas Republic, A Social and
Economic History . Hogan's book, by the way, is at the
John Peace Collection at UTSA. I am going to read you
some short excerpts because they are priceless. On page
40, he says:
"The rugged generation that maintained Texas
as a Republic drank heavily and frequently.
Enormous amounts of intoxicants were imbibed
in the boom towns, chief among which was
Houston. Drinking was r educed to a system
and had its own laws and regulations.
GUERRA
G: Nothing was regarded as a greater violat i on of
established etiquette than for one who was goi ng to
drink, not to invite all within a reasonable
distance to partake. So that Texians being an
entirely military people, not onl y fought but drank
in platoons."
9
In conducting his research for his book, Hogan
examined correspondence , journals, narratives of all
kinds , and , of course, diaries . In some of these diaries
of lB45 vintage, he came across an entry that made this
simple statement: "Everybody in town drank, nothing to
do." Can you imagine what it must be like to wake up to
a whole town out on its ear?
Drinking is not the only element of the human
condition one can find in early manuscripts, journals,
diaries, and such: it's only the escape. Any close
examination of narratives dealing with the settlement of
early Texas touches on every aspect of the human
condition. One comes across the narratives of Western
Europeans leaving the safety and comfort of their homes
to meet the unknown in a newborn Republic called Texas.
Reading the accounts of harried journeys across sea and
land from Cabeza La Vaca on, one cannot help but wonder
how people survived . The fact is too many didn't.
Again, one perceives the human condition. It is of
the human condition to be adventuresome , tenacious,
enterprising, courageous, heroic, generous , joyful,
GUERRA
G: inventive, weak, cruel , foo lhardy, rebellious,
fraudulent, and yes, drunk. There were equal amounts of
excellent weather and murderous storms to be faced; in
some cases within a 24-hour period. If one survived the
journey by sea and managed to dock at Indianola or
Galveston, there was still the journey by land to be made
in order to reach whatever destination he wanted.
Settlers then had to contract for transportation across
the young Republic. There were supplies and mules and
horses and ox carts to be found, purchased and prepared.
And in the process of all this, one either encountered
.the honest merchant or the dishonest one. Settlers also
had to learn a new language: first it was Spanish and
eventually they 'd learn English. Once on the road, one
either encountered a calm river or a turbulent one,
smooth terrain or difficult, attacking Indians or
attacking desperados. There was disease and famine and
hard times, but also there was the unyielding desire to
press on, to not give up, to make it all the way to San
Antonio. San Antonio was the oasis. And you know what?
I think it still is.
In 1841, an Englishman by the name of Arthur
Eichen (?) makes the following observation about San
Antonio and the life to be found there; I am going to
quote again:
"Spaniards," he says, "established the settlemen~
raising Missions which held out to settlers
10
GUERRA
G: the protection of a Fort as well as the
benefit of a Church, making it the nuclei
a round which gradually grew well- built and
considerable towns. Most of these edifices
possessed much architectural beauty and in
parts of the landscape a feature of the
picturesque unknown to the more northern
parts of America. The first settlers were
monks, soldiers , and a small group of
Canary Islanders . The cultivation of small
but fruitful fields and the tending of
large herds of cattle formed their easy
11
occupation. For enjoyment, they had their
cigarootos, their fiestas , their fandangos , and
their monte tables. Monte being a card game popular
in those days and brought over from Spain ."
And , Monte created some very, very heavy gambling. This
activity in turn generated a whole new series, or a whole
other series of documents and official manuscripts in
which the authorities kept saying: "We ' ve got to keep
these people from gambling under the pecan trees."
And just think, Lone Star beer hadn't come into its
own yet.
In its infancy, the Republic of Texas was filled
with vicissitudes. It was one thing to have declared
oneself independent and a Republic , and yet another
GUERRA
G: thing to maintain oneself free. Although the young
Republic was slowly gaining the recognition of Western
Europe, Mexico was still claiming that we belonged to
her.
12
In 1842, Santa Ana sent Ge neral Adrian Woll, who was
a Frenchman by birth but who had joined the Mexican Army
and had fought on the Mexican side at both the Battle of
the Alamo and San Jacinto; Santa Ana sent General Woll to
invade San Antonio. Santa Ana's theory was that if San
Antonio fell , the rest of the territory would be a "piece
of cake." In the Rodriguez Memoirs of early Texas, Judge
J.M. Rodriguez, who was a young man in 1842--actually, I
checked this out, he was quite a young man--he was about
thirteen in 1842; and he gives in his memoirs of early
Texas an eye-witness account of Genera l Woll's invasion
of San Antonio .
Now, let me set the scene for you. J.M. Rodriguez
later on became a judge and he eventually moved to
Laredo . His memoirs were actually written in 1913, but
they are the recollections of h i s youth in San Antonio .
And in describing the invasion of General Woll, you hear
[when I read it to you] he'll mention certain buildings
that we are familiar with now because he was--for hi s
children , he was trying to set the scene of how the
battle took place in relation to certain buildings that
are now in existence in San Antonio. So don't let that
confuse you . He's recalling 1842, the Mayor of San
Antonio was Juan Seguin, the Chie f Justice was
GUERRA 13
G: J.D. / . McLead and Jose Anton1o Navarro was Bexar
County's representative at the First Congress of the
Republic. Please bear with me. I have never been able
to tell this story with a straight face.
"In 1842 . "
And the language, of course, again , think in terms
of this gentleman, he ' s up in years, English was not his
native tongue, I am going to quote it exactly the way it
is and so the language is a little b it--ah--not all t hat
easy.
"In 1842, a report came into San Antonio that a
band of robbers from Mexico was coming to rob San
Antonio. The people then got together and organized
two companies of citizens. My father belonged to
the company with Captain Menchaca and they had their
quarters in the old Court House on the corner of
Market and Main Plaza.
On the corner of Soledad and Main Plaza, an
American named Chauncey Johnson had a company of
forty men, all Americans. And they composed the
Divisions to fight against these robbers. As soon
as they organized, they sent three San Antonio
Mexicans with an escort to meet this band. They met
with them and it turned out to be the regualr Army
of Mexico instead of robbers. And they made
prisoners of the San Antonio Mexicans.
One morning just before daybreak, I heard a gun
fired and woke up and I heard a band of music
GUERRA
G: playing an old air called "La Cacucha." It was a
dancing tune in those days. It was very fine music.
It was a band of 50 musicians.
"The firing of the gun was the warning to the
citizens of San Antonio that the Army was h~re. As
this was the regular Army of Mexico, Menchaca's
company agreed they could not stand up against a
whole Army, so they withdrew to a safe distance.
Chauncey Johnson, however, said his company should
not disband but would fight it out.
14
The Army then marched into town. The band was
in the lead coming into Main Plaza between the
Cathedral and what is now Frost Bank. Then
Johnson's men turned loose a volley on the band and
killed and wounded 15 musicians. This angered
General Wolls and he placed a small cannon where the
Southern H6tel now stands and fired on Johnson's
m·en. Johnson then raised a white flag and the
Mexicans took them all prisoners and they finally
sent them all back to Mexico. General Woll had a
fine ball given in his honor by the citizens of San
Antonio."
Has anything changed? We fired our city manager and
then gave him a farewell party. So nothing really
changes. In fact, the more things change--the more they
stay the same.
GUERRA 15
G: It's the human condition, ladies and gentlemen. Of
th us and such is history made.
Our Texas' repositories are filled to the brim with
obscure and unique fragments of human life as it was
lived in early Texas.
I hope that this evening I have brought you a
celebration of that. I'd like to close my presentation
with a poem which I selected because it exemplifies life.
I found this anonymous poem in an equal ly anonymous and
obscure little booklet which had no place of publication,
no publisher , and no date . I ran across it so many years
ago that I don't even remember where I found it, but I ,
never forgot its content. Its name is:
Thank you.
A Poem
I kiss the friendly brown- eyed cow ,
That gives us milk and cheesei
And now I 'm in the nursery ,
With Hoof and Mouth disease.
GUERRA 16
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS FOLLOWING DORA GUERRA'S SPEECH
TEXAS REPOSITORIES
SPEECH GIVEN MARCH 16, 1982
QUESTION: (Not audible on the tape)
G: Yes, the strength of the John Peace Collection is the
Republic of Texas years. But there are some materials in
the Spanish Colonial Texas, Mexican Texas; but its real
strength is the Republic of Texas years.
Just in December (1981), Mrs. Peace gave us the rest
of the material. It's still in boxes, I have not
unpacked it. But what is unpacked is available .
By the way , my--again, you ' ll find that the
information with which I have provided you gives you
times, hours, addresses, the name of the person to call;
but I don't list collection by collection because it was
just too time consuming. It really was. And as it
turned out , instead of conducting this survey in person,
I was conducting it on t he phone and it was during duty
hours and people are just busy .
Ah, the strength--John Peace is not--the John Peace
Collection is not the only collection we have (UTSA).
And the John Peace Collection also has about a foot or
maybe two feet of manuscripts in English, in Spanish , in
German, and in French . And they are bureaucratic--we
have some Milam documents , there is, and I understand
that Benjamin Rush Milam's signature is very unique .
GUERRA
G: Apparently the manuscripts that he signed and
obviously he wrote to people; he must have signed his
name to a lot of things but something happened to them
and they really haven't been found and so anything signed
by Milam is unique and rare. And we do have a few of
Milam's documents that have been signed. We have stl/en
Austin material. We have Sam Houston material. We have
a wonderful letter! We have this wonderful letter of
David Burnett, in which--and he's writing to a
friend--and he is half way through the letter--just
remembers that he had at one time in his life gotten
angry at Sam Houston. And he just carried on and calls
him the "Drunken II (Cat?) And just, you
know, carries on .
So, it's that type: they are unique manuscripts.
17
We don't have oodles and oodles of them in the John Peace
Collection.
Now the Katherine Stoner O'Connor Collection for
which we are curators , we are curators for 99 years for a
collection . The name: the name was given, Katherine
Stoner O'Connor , but it was placed with us by the Sons of
the Republic of Texas. And i t contains 60 feet of
Spanish documents. It's--there is a great deal. Miss
Carmen Perry is still spending some time identifying the
manuscripts. They are 16th, 17th, and 18th century
GUERRA
G: Spanish manuscripts. All of them done in script.
This lady is a wonderful paleographer. And she is
still being paid by the Sons of the Republic to come to
the University and identify these manuscripts. There is
a lot of material there on the English Mining interests
in Mexico--very early Mexico--as well as the
establishment of the railroads.
And we were talking earlier about the human
condition. Today, she comes in--we have this little
office--and she sits there in this office--and she comes
in today. She says, "My God, my God, oh, oh. Have you
ever heard of this word?" And the word was "struple."
And "no" I had never heard of the word "struple." Well,
all it is is "rape." And--ah--why in a little set of
manuscripts, these were dated about 1680, three people
were being--had been taken to Court because they had
abused young children.
18
So, you see, what changes? Only geography, only the
time frame, and the town was going to hang these men, you
know. They had been caught. One child was twelve years
old, the othei child was a male child and had been abused
by an adult male; so you think, "What has changed?" We
are still human beings no matter where we go.
Also, there is a research project going on, we have
a very, very creative faculty member at UTSA who is in
the field of education. And she teaches graduate
students; and she wanted this group of thirty students
GUERRA
G: to be exposed to primary material. She wanted them
to do research with primary material , so she asked me if
I would select some manuscripts, and she specified the
John Peace Collection.
And since the strength there is the Republic of
Texas years, we selected a set of manuscripts and these
students were to take the manuscripts, look at them, we
xeroxed those that were not very fragile--I selected
those that were xeroxable--and each student was to give
his own perspective of what was there.
And we selected Land Grants, we selected Army
Orders--one of the Army Orders was signed by Sam
Houston--we selected an Adoption , a manuscript in which
these two children--the parents had been killed by
Indians--there were two children that had no parents and
so this was a Legal Document making a couple , a man and
his wife , guardians of these two children.
So the research has begun. And so, five students
per manuscript and it was fascinating to see the
perspectives. I loved being there because each human
being , each human mind, is a world all to itself; and
it's the most awesome thing to watch these young minds
just work away .
19
With this adoption thing, they decided to start
going through the Laws of the Republic of Texas. And
come to find out, folks, that neithe r the women, children
and idiots had no rights in Texas . we have since, also
GUERRA
G: found out that neither did Blacks or Indians. So, if
not hing else, and they kept saying we are not finding
anything, we are not finding anything, the laws of the
Republic of Texas aren't making any statements about
Adoption Laws. They are not making any statements about
what was happening to women and what rights women had if
their husbands were killed. You know, to whom did this
property go?
"I don't like this project. I'm not finding
anything."
And I kept saying, "Well, wait a minute. There is
20
a thing called "negative research." In the process of
research, the fact that you are not finding what you want
to find doesn't mean that there is nothing there. It
means that the Law did not exist."
And so again, I said, "What are the Laws telling
you?" "Well, they were determining what the money was
going to be. They were trying to attract commerce, they
were trying to get recognized from Western Europe . And
they were trying to attract the cotton. We were trying
to sell cotton to England because we established a
Republic, but we had no money; we had nothing."
And we have soldiers to pay, we have a Navy, but how
I
are we going to pay the people who are running the Navy?
You can't call them sailors--it was a River Navy.
In any case, in the process of doing all this, you
are finding something. You are finding that the
GUERRA
G: concerns were not women and children. The concerns
were money, commerce, the priorities of the day:
establishing a Republic. And so, I carried on, Maggie.
Did I answer your question at all?
ANSWER INAUDIBLE. "You can carry on, Dora."
G: You know, the Republic of Texas--the years of the
~epublic is a strange affair.
21
The Katherine Stoner O'Conner Collection is all in
Spanish. There are over 2,000 items of books and
photographs--not photographs, excuse me--that collectibn
does not have photographs. It has picture books. And
the strength there are the relations between Spain,
Mexico and eventually, Texas. Anyone wanting to do
research on the various wars and revolutions that Mexico
has had, that's a wonder ..• And if you can read
Spanish--that's a wonderful collection to use. And
that's the collection that has over 60 feet of 16th, 17th
and 18th century material.
And then we have the Richard Warden Collection which
is all Northwestern Americana and Southwestern Americana
in first editions. And Mr. Warden was a journalist in
Montana. And he was collecting everything. He was
collecting literature, art--there's wonderful stuff on
Audubon--. He went out of his way to collect as much of
Audubon to be had. And there is a wonderful collection
of his prints also.
Remington: he collected--oh, the American Indian
GUERRA
G: is very, very well represented in that collection.
Then we have what we call our "Texana" collection
which is an open collection. We bought, in fact, at some
point, the University touched base with Morris Cook
because John Peace was in contact with Morris Cook. And
a lot of the material came from Morris. And it is a
collection that I guardedly say is "open." We gradually
are buying present editions and what is being published
about Texas now. It is a very slow ••• we are a very
young university and we haven't quite gotten on a roll.
Is there anything else? Yes, Hart.
H: (Question not clear.) May I ask you to explain, is
the name Manchaca of Spanish origin?
22
G: Yes, and it's E-N-C-H. You know you see it spelled
MANCHACA, and I think--I cut you off, what were you going
to say?
H: Well, I was going to say I've read somewhere and it
was related to the Cotulla name. They were Bohemian or
Polish originally and I thought it was Spanish.
G: Yes.
H: And someone said it was similar to Cotulla •••
G: A Polish name . . .
H: And .
G: We have t o consider that when the North American
settlements began into Texas, a lot of the newcomers were
pronouncing names as they thought they heard them. You
know, like the "See bo lo" (Cibolo) Creek ended up
GUERRA
G: "Sa Willa." It went from "See bo lo" to "Sa Willa"
and I think that in that part of Texas, people still call
the Cibolo Creek the "Sa Willa."
I have seen Menchaca spelled "Man-cha-ca" and what
is it about "Man--chalk? " "Man--chalk" is what?
H: It's called often, o ften you hear it. It's some
place above Austin. (Response not clear--at a great
distance.)
G: So you see, I wouldn't rule out--I wouldn't rule
out--I'd be interested in following that through. You
have given me a project. I think I'll follow that
through and see what I come up with, because Romanian is
a romance language . And it just developed when you take
the Spanish language and see its development from the
Latin. In fact, that's another exciting thing. At this
job, I am not using the paleography. My strength is
really paleography. But I'm--there are too many things
to do at UTSA and I am not doing that.
But in the process--a lot of the 15th century
manuscripts, when I first started in this, I kept
thinking, "Gosh," you know, "there's so much
misspelling." Until I took my first course in
linguistics and realized that the Spanish language
developed from Latin. And so did French and so did
Italian, so did Portuguese, etc. etc. So did Romanian,
but at some point Romanian or the other: the French,
Spanish and Italian and Portuguese, took a completely
23
GUERRA 24
G: different turn from the Romanian. But I have heard
Romanian spoken and it's incredible. I was sitting there
thinking, "Oh, I couldn't tell you the exact words, but I
thought I had a gist of what was being said ." And I
repeated it, I said, "Did you just say such and such?"
And they said, "Yes! How do you know?" Because it
sounded , it does have a sound to the .••
But anyway, in the development of the Spanish
language, these manuscripts were being written by the
scribes in the New World as the Spanish was being spoken
then . And so I get very amused at some people who .say,
"Oh well," you know, "the scribes were a bunch of idiots.
They didn 't even know how to spell Spanish."
It's not that they didn't know how to spell , it's
that they were spelling appropriate ly for their time
frame .
Are there any questions? Any more questions?
?: socrates had a question.
S? : Dora, is the
for examination?
------------------- Pena diary available
G: We--it's in a bank vault right now.
thing's going to explode . )
(Oh, this
It 's in a bank ••. we have it now, but we have it
in a vault .
S: Did • . . ----------------? (Not clear)
G: You'd have to--you know--if you are really
interested •••
GUERRA
S : You know, I wondered how he carried on his
campaign,
Mexico.
. . . -------- about his straggle to
25
G: Yeah, you've put a "bee in my bonnet." If there is
ever an exhibit and if ever we decide to exhibit it , I'll
call you.
Right now I'm not in a position to take it out and
show it just because--it is--we do have--it is now in our
possession in the bank's vault.
But, you know, there--knowing that there is
interest, someday we will have an exhibit and I ' ll let
you all know.
ANOTHER QUESTION INAUDIBLE.
G: Yes.
?: Bill.
B: A question that may arise
are in Spanish or o ther languages, are there English
translations at all?
G: Not for everything .
that
We--you know--when you think in terms of 60 feet of
manuscripts, it's hard to •.
Now, when I was at the Alamo , the Spanish--16th,
17th, and 18th century Spanish Manuscripts at the Alamo
were not so large. There were about three feet of
manuscripts, and the policy there, when they hired me,
they said , "O.K., we want you to transcribe and translate
the more salient--whatever you feel is really
GUERRA 26
G: significant--we want you to take the time to
transcribe and translate." So I did. You know, I
I
transcribed and translated things like the founding of
Mission San Antonio de Valero which eventually became the
Alamo. That is transcribed and translated.
Does everybody know what it means to transcribe? A
transcription i s the exact same spelling: it is a
replica of what the original manuscript is except that
it's typewritten. Because in the process of a scholar,
if you don't have a well-tra ined paleographer who really
knows the nuances of the language and all that--there are
some scholars that choose to work from a transcription if
they can't read the 16th century script. They want to
work with a transcription because they want to see how
the original scribe , or person who wrote it, wrote it.
They don't want to work with a tra nslator or with a
translation because if they don 't know the reputation of
the translator, they might have a "bum steer11 on their
hands. So they like working from a transcription which
is the exact replica of what you see , line by line, word
by word, you put it down in typing exactly the way you
see it in the original . And if there is a code , if you
or, you know, an ethical transcriber and translator will
not invent a letter. If I come across something and I
cannot figure out whether a little c urlicue is an "e" or
an "o" or an "r", I don't invent it. I simply leave i t
blank. And you have a little code at the beginning of
GUERRA
G: your transcription saying , "A blank bracket indicates
that that letter is unknown or unknown to the
transcriber." Because ten years from know, a scholar may
come and look at that and say, "Hell, that's not an "e",
that's an "o" and this word is such and it means such and
such." So that by assuming that a word could be this or
could be that, you might be gumming up history for, you
know, for the next scholar who really knows what he's
doing.
27
So, and that holds true of words. If you come
across a line, and have you ever seen--have you ever seen
a transcription? Have you ever seen how a transcription
is done?
You take an orginal manuscript, and most of them
have about from 27 to 30 lines, and in the process of
transcribing an original , you'll mark your lines on your
typewritten thing: you'll have line lj and if line l has
seven words, well, then you make space for the seven
words and you transcribe them.
If the fifth word in the first line is illegible,
you put it in brackets [illegible]. You don't make it
up. I mean, any time you think, "Oh, gee, this sent ence
could mean such and such; and I bet you anything that
word is such and such." But that's my feeling, it might
not really be. So you have to use the code to explain,
you simply put it in brackets and say [illegible].
And then, you know, you do line by linej line 1,
GUERRA
G: line 2, line 3; and if 30 lines, you do the 30 lines.
And you do word 1, word 2, word 3, word 4, word 5 and so
on and so forth.
Thank you.
Incidentally, Dora does on occasion do translations
tor customers and so if you run into a document that you
think has what you want, she might be able to undertake
that or put you in touch with someone, someone else who
could do it.
Dora, thanks very much for the presentation. We
certainly appreciate it. And just one additional quote.
General Harris has a comment to make about some things
that are on-going in our area that relate to our program
tonight.
General Harris.
CLOSING STATEMENT BY GENERAL HARRIS:
H: Thank you, Reilly. I am Dora's unpaid and
unsolicited assistant. I did want to tell you about
three things that are in the mill, to make sure that you
are aware of what sources you may have in the future.
First, the O'Connor Foundation which Dora referred
to, has endowed a Chair at St. Mary's Univerpity on
Spanish Colonial History. All the applications are in,
the announcement of the selection is to be made this
28
GUERRA 29
H: month. He'll be on--he or she, excuse me--will be on
board in September. This will be one source.
Second, some of us have had a goal or an aim, a
dream, I g uess you would put it, of having a scholarly
history of Bexar written. As a preliminary to that, we
have asked Katherine McDowell with all her various
assistants, to come up with a bibliography to start with.
That, we hope to be published by the Beretta Foundation
this summer. That will be available to you.
The third one is my guest that I could not have
tonight, Carmela Leal, who is with the State Library.
And we do hope to have a depository--repository--here in
Bexar County which would take care of the outdated
records of Bexar County and 18 surrounding counties.
we are having a little trouble with Judge Bustamante
who wants to make a million dollars out of the old jail.
Hopefully, we can convince him that this is not the right
solution and that this can be our repository.
G: By the way, should we at some point, need signatures,
need support for getting a building for Bexar archives,
~ could we count on you all to write and say, "Hiy, we want
a building where the Bexar Archives can be held." We ' ve
got to have it some way or another.
H: Thank you. And thank you very much.
QUESTIONS INAUDIBLE.
H: I regret to say that there are no archives, either
for the city or t he county.
GUERRA
H: The Bexar County clerk has an archivist and his stuff
is down there ready to be flooded.
The stuff from all the other offices are in the, in
sealed cages, in the old jail building. No way to
research any of them. They are just thrown in there, box
by box.
You will hear that somebody has made an inventory.
END OF TAPE I, Side 1, 45 minutes
30