I
THE TEXIANS
AND THE TEXANS
THE UNIVERSITY
OF TEXAS
INSTITUTE OF
TEXAN CULTURES
THE
MEXICAN
TEXANS
AT SAN ANTONIO .. _______________________ ..
THE MEXICAN
TEXANS
..
~ The Unive rsity of Texas
Institute of Texan Cultures
a t San Antonio
1986
THE TEXIANS AND THE TEXANS
A series dealing with the many peoples who have contributed to the history
and heritage of Texas. Now in print:
Pamphlets - The Afro-American Texans, The Anglo-American Texans, The Belgian
Texans, The Chinese Texans, The Czech Texans, The German Texans,
The Greek Texans, The Indian Texans, The Italian Texans, TheJ ewish
Texans, The L ebanese Texans and the $yrian Texans, The Mexican Texans,
Los Tejanos Mexicanos (in Spanish), The Norwegian Texans, The
Spanish Texans, and The Swiss Texans.
Books - The Danish Texans, The English Texans, The German Texans, The Irish
Texans, The Japanese Texans, The Polish Texans, and The Wendish Texans.
The Mexican Texans
Principal researcher: Samuel P. Nesmith
©1975: The University of Texas
Institute of Texan Cultures at San Antonio
John R . McGiffert, Executive Director
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 72-611950
International Standard Book Number 0-86701-030-4
Second revised edition, 1986; second printing, 1989
This publication was made possible, in part, by a grant from
Houston Endowment, Inc.
Printed in the United States of America
Cover: Unknown candle vendor
Back Cover: Judge j.M. Rodriguez and family
THE MEXICAN TEXANS
About three million of today's
Texans are of Mexican birth
or descent. Their proud heri­tage
is a blend of several cultures
which carved Texas from bedrock
wilderness. It is our strongest tie with
the past and a significant influence
on our future. In the emergence of
the Mexican people as a nationality,
various types and combinations of
Indians and Spaniards united under
a single banner in 1821. Their story
begins much earlier, however.
Two centuries before soldiers of
Spain landed on the North American
mainland, Aztecan builders were at
work on their capital. From this city,
called Mexico-Tenochtitliin, come
both the name of Mexico and its
national symbol. Following instruc­tions
from their gods, the Aztecs had
settled on a lake island where they
had found an eagle with a snake in
his beak perched on a cactus. Mexico
City stands on that site today. When
Cortes landed in 1519 with 500 men,
the many native tribes of Mexico
..
totaled between 11 and 20 million
people. Their ranks were catastroph­ically
reduced by European-borne
diseases, yet by 1800 they still out­numbered
Spanish-born residents of
Mexico more than 40 to 1.
Despite Spain's enormous legacy
to Mexico - including language and
religion - Old World Spaniards (pen­insulares)
never constituted more than
a fraction of Mexico's total popula­tion.
About a thousand of these
Europeans, mostly male, arrived
annually during the first 125 years
after the conquest of Mexico. Immi­gration
played only a minor role in
population growth after the first half
century. Thereafter, American-born
Spaniards, the criollos (or creoles),
exceeded the Spanish-born peninsu­lares
in ever-increasing ratios. The
union of Spaniards and Indians gave
rise to a new group, the mestizos, who,
with the Indian population, made up
83 percent of the people in New
Spain. By the time of Mexican inde­pendence
from Spain, the creole
The founding of Tenochtitldn
count was slightly over a million,
while European-born Spaniards to­taled
only about 70,000.
Strangely, it was the creole - the
Spaniard born on this continent of
Spanish parents-who spearheaded
the 1810 revolt against Spain. And
Mexico became a nation in 1821
through the combined efforts of In­dians,
mestizos and creoles - all chil­dren
of the New World. Texas history
until 1836 was simply a part of Mexi­can
history. To the present day Mexi­can
Texans have played a significant
role in local history. Some of their
contributions - examples only-are
outlined in the following sketches of
a few notable individuals.
FRAY ISIDRO FELIX
DE ESPINOSA
1709-1716
Fray Isidro Felix de Espinosa was
ordained in 1697 at the College of
Santa Cruz in Queretaro, the city of
his birth. He was assigned to the mis-
:3
Fr. Isidro Felix de Espinosa
sion of San Juan Bautista del Rio
Grande, located at what is now the
town of Guerrero in the Mexican
state of Coahuila, about 35 miles
southeast of present-day Eagle Pass.
In 1709 he accompanied soldiers to
the present site of San Antonio,
where an abundant water source was
discovered and subsequently named
San Pedro Springs.
Espinosa was soon made father­president
of the Texan missions
founded by the Queretarian college.
In 1716 he accompanied the East
Texas expedition of Domingo Ra­mon
and established the missions of
Nuestra Senora de la Purisima Con­cepcion
de los Hainai and San Jose
de los N azonis - both in what is now
Nacogdoches County-and reestab­lished
San Francisco de los Tejas one
and a half miles north of the present
Houston County community of
Weches. As a member of Martin de
Alarcon's 1718 inspection tour, and
again in 1721 as a member of the
Marques de Aguayo's expedition,
Espinosa increased his knowledge of
the Texas mission field. His 1746
book Cronica, an account of the
apostolic colleges, remains the best
primary source of the early 18th cen-
CRISTOBAL DE LOS
SANTOS COY
1746
Mission schools had been established
at San Francisco de los Tejas in East
Texas as early as 1690. The first non­mission
school in Texas was founded
in 1746 at San Fernando de Bexar by
Don Cristobal de los Santos Coy. It
was a joint project in which govern­ment
lands were donated, and build­ings
furnished by the church were
maintained by the people. In 1789
another school was organized in San
Antonio by Don Jose Francisco de la
Mata, a native of Saltillo. The fate
of that school is unknown. But in
1811 Juan Zambrano established a
school in San Antonio designed to
accommodate 70 pupils who would
pay according to ability. The teacher
was paid 30 pesos a month, and a
regidor (alderman) assumed responsi­bilit'}'
for administering punishment.
In 1818 Zambrano formed an
80-pupil school at La Bahia. Later
"the teacher, a soldier named Jose
Gabin, was relieved of his position
because his school duties conflicted
with his responsibilities as secretary
to the ayuntamiento (municipal coun­cil).
The school closed in 1821 when
the population dwindled. Another
school opened at San Antonio in
1826. Two years later the governor
bought the school 100 charts, 36
catechisms and other supplies out of
tury history of Texas. 19th century schoolroom
4
public funds. This was the first in­stance
in which free textbooks were
provided to schoolchildren in Texas.
That same year an ordinance was
passed establishing a "public free
primary school;'
Despite this activity, financial
support was the crucial problem. The
central government shifted responsi­bility
for education to the states; the
states, having no money, shifted the
burden to the ayuntamientos; the ayun­tamientos,
also without funds, did not
know what to do. Where schools were
opened, attendance was often diffi­cult
to maintain.
JOSE VAsQUEZ BORREGO
1750
Jose Vasquez Borrego was a wealthy
cattleman, who owned ranches on
both sides of the Rio Grande. In 1750
he secured additional lands from
Nuevo Santander's governor, Jose de
Escandon, in order to establish the
settlement of Dolores, situated north
of the river between present Laredo
and Brownsville. Within four years
this villa had 123 inhabitants brought
in by Borrego and his son-in-law,
Juan Antonio Vidaurri. Supporters
of Mexican independence, the found­ing
families of Dolores were driven
from their homes by Spanish royal­ists,
but they returned in 1828.
Vidaurri heirs still live on the land,
although Dolores was destroyed by
Indians in 1850. Ruins of the original
settlement include a church, fort,
school and several houses.
TOMAS SANCHEZ DE LA
BARRERA Y GALLARDO
1755
Tomas Sanchez was the second
ranchman from Mexico to establish
a Texas town on land granted by
Governor Escandon. In 1755 San­chez
located the Villa de Laredo on
Ruins of Villa de Dolores
the north bank of the Rio Grande,
30 miles above Dolores. Under his
leadership, the population of Laredo
increa!;ed from 85 in 1757 to 700
Spaniards, mestizos and mulatos by
1789. Sanchez was chief justice and
al~alde (mayor) almost continuously
until his death in 1796. Laredo
gained early importance, which it
still maintains, as a crossroads to and
from Mexico. No attempt was made
to extend Texas government to the
city, however, until the Texas bound­ary
question finally was resolved by
the U.S. -Mexican War. The Laredo
Archives (housed at St. Mary's Uni­versity
of San Antonio) rank with
those of Nacogdoches and Bexar as
valuable source material on Texas
under Spanish and Mexican rule.
ANTONIO GIL YBARBO
1779
Antonio Gil Ybarbo, a man of in­trigue,
was born at Los Adaes in
what is now Louisiana. His parents
had been sent there as colonists from
Spain. By 1773 Ybarbo became
spokesman for a group of discon­tented
East Texas settlers. When the
Marques de Rubi recommended
abandoning the presidios and mis­sions
of East Texas in order to con-
Historical marker at Laredo centrate the Spanish forces for a more
effective defense, the settlers were
ordered to move from the Nacogdo­ches
area to vacant farmlands near
San Antonio. Hardship and sickness
took a heavy toll of life on this jour­ney.
Ybarbo petitioned the Spanish
government, and, after an unhappy
one-year stay near San Fernando,
these people were allowed to move to
the Trinity River, where they found­ed
the town of Bucareli in what is
now Madison County. It is said that,
on this occasion, Ybarbo took to East
Texas cottonseed, sheep and a Negro
weaver who was expected to teach his
craft to the settlers. But the people
were barely able to eke out an exis­tence.
Comanche Indians began
harassing the settlement in spite of
Ybarbo's many expeditions among
the tribes to promote friendly rela­tions.
Appeals for additional arms
and ammunition went unanswered.
Finally, after a disastrous flood, the
village of Bucareli was abandoned
early in 1779. Ybarbo then helped
rebuild Nacogdoches. Later he was
accused of smuggling and, although
cleared, was forbidden to return to
Nacogdoches. Exiled to Louisiana,
he was, however, allowed by Spanish
authorities to return to Texas a few
years later. He died at his Nacog­doches
ranch in 1809.
Ybarbo leading the settlers from Los Adaes, 1773
5
ANTONIO LEAL
1790
Antonio Leal, born in San Antonio
de Bexar, led a comparatively un­eventful
life until 1790, when he
joined the first of the filibustering
schemes to wrest Texas from Spain.
With Irish adventurer Philip Nolan,
Leal apparently became involved in
capturing and selling Texas mus­tangs.
A ten-league grant, where the
town of San Augustine now stands,
was owned by Leal and his wife and
used as pasture for horses awaiting
transfer to Louisiana. The Spanish
government became suspicious of
Nolan, believing that he was selling
horses to Anglo-Americans and map­ping
Spanish territory as well. In 1801
Nolan was killed, and the Leals were
arrested as accomplices. They were
prosecuted in one of the most famous
trials in Texas history and deported
to San Antonio.
JUAN BAUTISTA DE
LAS CASAS
1811
Texas felt the first stirrings of Mexi­cds
desire for independence from
Spain in 1811. In those days the atti­tude
in Spain was that all individuals
who were born into the New World
atmosphere were naturally inferior.
Thus the American-born Spaniard
Mexican insurgents of 1810 in typical dress
6
San Fernando Church in the time of Zambrano
was not entrusted with high civil,
military and ecclesiastical offices. The
impoverished Indians and mestizos
were stratified by law at the bottom
of the social structure. By 1810 the
creoles could contain themselves no
.. longer. Meeting secretly in every city
of Mexico, they committed them­selves
to action against the peninsu­lares,
contemptuously referred to as
gachupines (the gentry who enjoyed
the privilege of wearing spurs). Lead­ership
was provided by a priest,
Father Miguel Hidalgo, whose execu­tion
in July 1811 could not stop the
movement toward independence.
Juan Bautista de las Casas plotted
the Texas phase of Hidalgds insurrec­tion.
Las Casas, born in 1775, was
a native of the northern province of
Nuevo Santander, now called Tamau­lipas.
He had spent much of his life
in the military. What is termed the
Las Casas Revolution was actually a
coup &tat: Spanish Governor Manuel
Salcedo and Lieutenant Colonel
Simon Herrera were arrested in San
Antonio, and Las Casas appointed
himself governor of the province in
the name of the Hidalgo revolt. Las
Casas, however, proved unpopular in
San Antonio, and a counter-revolu­tion
terminated his brief rule. He was
taken to Monclova, tried for treason
and executed. Independence for the
Mexican nation finally came in 1821.
JUAN MANUEL
ZAMBRANO
1811
Born at San Antonio in 1772, Juan
Manuel Zambrano was a man of
tremendous vitality with an indepen­dent,
flamboyant nature. While a
subdeacon of the San Fernando
Church, he was exiled to Mexico
City in 1807 by Governor Salcedo,
who had received complaints from
San Antonians regarding Zambrands
"aggressive acts:' In spite of vigorous
objection from Governor Salcedo,
Zambrano was allowed to return to
Texas just in time to become an
observer of the Las Casas Revolution
of 1811. With assistance from promi­nent
Hispanic Texans in San Anto­nio,
Zambrano soon organized a
successful counter-revolution and
restored royalist authority in March
1811. Apparently not one to hold a
grudge, Zambrano helped restore
Salcedo to the governorship.
Zambrands fame spread far .and
wide after the events of 1811. In 1814
he was again ordered to leave Texas,
this time because of a gambling debt.
Evidently he was slow to obey orders,
for in July 1815 he was involved in
an impromptu street duel in San
Antonio. The temperamental priest
was feared by many people. Several
complaints were filed against him for
varIOUS cruelties. But in 1818 he
demonstrated a more constructive
side of his character by establishing
a non-mission school at La Bahfa.
On January 26, 1826, Don Erasmo
SeguIn, postmaster at Bexar, wrote
his wife: "Don't be afraid of the
beating Father Zambrano threatened
you with. I've heard he died recently
in an exemplary way. May God keep
him in His heavenly kingdom!"
BERNARDO GUTIERREZ
DE LARA
1813
Jose Bernardo Maximiliano Gutier­rez
de Lara led the first successful
revolt against Spanish rule in Mexico
and in the process gave Texas its first
declaration of independence and its
first constitution. Born in Mexico on
the eve of the American Revolution,
he was inspired by this movement
and its French counterpart. When
social inequality and economic injus­tice
led Father Miguel Hidalgo and
his followers to open revolt in 1810,
Gutierrez pledged his personal for­tune
in Nuevo Santander (now Ta­maulipas)
to the independence move­ment.
When Hidalgo was executed,
Gutierrez hastened to the United
States seeking aid to continue the
revolution. Tradition says that he
became so exasperated with Wash­ington
bureaucracy that he even
learned to swear in English.
Nevertheless, by the summer of
1812, Gutierrez and Augustus
Magee, a former U.S. Army lieuten-ant,
organized a force of American
filibusters, Mexican insurgents and
Indians near Natchitoches, Louisi­ana.
They crossed the Sabine River,
took Nacogdoches, La BahIa and San
Antonio de Bexar. There, on April
6, 1813, Don Bernardo's forces pro­claimed
independence from Spain
and declared Texas a state in the yet­to-
be-established Republic of Mexi­co.
On July 4, 1813, he wrote an
appeal to the American people: "The
fertile plains of Texas will no more
be stained with the precious blood of
patriots. Here you may enjoy life
according to your wishes; here peace
and comfort will smile. . . ." The
Americans in Gutierrez's army soon
became disenchanted with the harsh
measures taken by the Mexicans
toward their enemies and returned
to the United States. Within four
months Gutierrez was forced to relin­quish
command of the filibustering
army. to Alvarez de Toledo, a Carib­bean
soldier-of-fortune and pamphle­teer.
Royalist troops defeated the
fiJibusters on August 18, 1813, at the
battle of Medina River and restored
Spanish rule to Texas. In exile in
Louisiana, Gutierrez continued to
work with liberation movements, and
after Mexico was independent he be­came
the first governor of the state
of Tamaulipas.
JOSE FELIX
TRESPALACIOS
1822
Active in many movements for Mexi­can
independence, Jose Felix Tres­palacios
led a hectic career. He had
been imprisoned twice for rebellious
activities when he met James Long,
who also had ideas of freeing Texas
from Spanish rule. After an unsuc­cessful
invasion effort in 1819, Long
returned a year later and captured
La BahIa. When he learned of Mexi­co's
bid for independence, Long sent
Trespalacios and Ben Milam to Mex­ico
to attempt a union with Agustin
de Iturbide. Captured by Spanish
royalists, the two messengers were
Gutierrez de Lara's seal of Texas imprisoned in Veracruz. They
Government seal of Coahuila y Texas
remained there until Iturbide's cause
prevailed. For his service to Mexican
independence, Trespalacios was
made a cavalry colonel and then
appointed governor of Texas. During
his administration, from 1822 to
1823, Stephen F. Austin's colony was
divided into the Colorado and Brazos
districts. Trespalacios later served in
the Mexican National Congress.
JOSE ANTONIO SAUCEDO
1824
Jose Antonio Saucedo was active in
the political life of San Antonio as
early as 1806. In 1812 he and Erasmo
Seguin wrote the code of rules for a
school which was established at La
Villita. With the formation of the
dual state of Coahuila y Texas in
1824, he becamejife politico, the chief
political officer in Bexar. During his
tenure Saucedo defined the bound­aries
of and approved the regulations
for Stephen F. Austin's colony.
Patio of the Spanish Governor's Palace at
.san Antonio
7
MARTiN DE LEON
1824
One of the most influential men in
early Texas, Martin de Le6n came
from a wealthy creole family of Nuevo
Santander. He chose a life of ranch­ing
and adventure instead of the
European education his father
planned for him. In 1805 he made
a trip to Texas, saw its possibilities
for cattle raising and developed a
ranch on the Aransas River. De
Le6n's "EJ" brand, reputedly the
oldest in Texas, belonged to the Jesu­its
centuries before and stood for
Espiritu JesUs, Spirit of Jesus. Don
Martin de Leon's cattle brand
Martin had supported the Hidalgo
revolution, and, with the establish­ment
of the Republic of Mexico in
1824, he obtained a grant to settle
Mexican families in Texas. Victoria,
the capital of his colony, grew, even
after its founder's death in 1833, and
was incorporated by the Republic of
Texas. The people of Victoria sup­ported
the Texas Revolution and paid
heavily for their allegiance: they were
considered traitors by the Mexicans,
and after the revolution the Anglo­Americans
treated them unfairly
because they were Mexicans. The
enterprising men De Le6n brought
from Mexico, however, contributed
to the growth and development of
Victoria, as many of their descen­dants
do today. Leon County is
named for the city's founder. A num­ber
of his descendants still live in the
Victoria area.
8
RAFAEL GONZALES
1824
Born in San Fernando de Bexar in
1789, Rafael Gonzales trained for an
army career and served at various
posts in Texas and Coahuila. He
joined the forces of independence
against Spain and was promoted to
lieutenant colonel. He served as gov­ernor
of the united state of Coahuila
y Texas from 1824 to 1826. The Texas
town of Gonzales is named for him.
GASPAR FLORES
1826
Gaspar Flores Abrego y Valdes twice
served as alcalde of San Antonio. He
was appointed in 1826 to succeed the
B-aron de Bastrop as commissioner
of colonization. As such, Flores com­pleted
the land titles of Austin's first
colony and established the settlers of
the second Austin contract. With al­most
unlimited power ofland grants,
Flores resided in the colonies during
the early 1830's and signed more than
500 titles. He and Jose Francisco
Ruiz were among the few men then
in Texas equipped to treat and coun­sel
with the Comanche Indians-a
service they performed several times.
Home oj Juan Martin de Veramendi
Don Gaspar offered all of his goods
and cattle to the men in the Alamo
and was one of four Bexar delegates
elected to the Convention of 1836 at
Washington-on-the-Brazos. But for
the hand of fate, he and Erasmo
Seguin would have joined Ruiz and
Jose Antonio Navarro as the only
native Texans to sign the March 2
Declaration of Independence. Seguin
became too ill to travel, and Flores
died en route to Washington. The
Flores family had farms and ranches
below San Antonio, and the town of
Floresville is named for them.
JUAN MARTiN
DE VERAMENDI
1830
Juan Martin de Veramendi, born in
San Antonio, served for a time as col­lector
of foreign revenue. In 1824 he
was chosen mayor of his native city.
Later, in 1830, he was elected vice­governor
of Coahuila y Texas. While
en route to Mexico City to qualify,
he met Jim Bowie. The two became
friends and traveled back to Texas
together. Bowie married Veramendi's
daughter, Ursula, and the two men
went into the cotton business. The
governor of the province, Jose Maria
Letona, died, and Veramendi took
his family to Saltillo to assume the
office of acting governor. At his sum­mer
home in Monclova, Juan Vera-
mendi and most of his family-in­cluding
Bowie's wife-died during a
cholera epidemic in 1833.
PLACIDO BENAVIDES
1832
Placido Benavides, one of Martin de
Le6n's colonists, played a leading part
in the fight for Texas independence.
A native of Reynosa, Benavides came
to Texas in 1828 as secretary to Fran­cisco
de Le6n, commissioner of the
De Le6n colony. With two of his
brothers Benavides shared a land
grant on Placedo Creek. He married
Agustina de Le6n and became alcalde
of Victoria in 1832. His home,
Round Top House, served as a refuge
for colonists during Indian raids.
Always loyal to the Texan cause,
Benavides led a group of Mexican­Texan
ranchers during the 1836
Texas Revolution. Anglo antipathy
toward Mexicans in the immediate
wake of the war caused him to move
his family to Louisiana, where he
died in 1837.
Benavides and De Leon Grants
RAMON MUSQUIZ
1835
"Ram6n Musquiz is one of the best
friends to Texas and the truest that
lives in this place and he deserves the
confidence of the Colony and of all
Texas:' So wrote Stephen F. Austin
from San Antonio in December
1835. Ram6n Musquiz was the polit­ical
chief and the highest civil official
in Texas from 1827 until 1834. All
official relations of the colonists with
the state and federal governments
had to be conducted through him.
Musquiz was born of an old and dis­tinguished
family in northern Coa­huila.
His father, Captain Miguel
Musquiz, had been stationed at
Nacogdoches during the Philip
Nolan expedition. Prior to becoming
a political leader, Ram6n Musquiz
operated a mercantile business.
Upon assuming office in Bexar, he
showed an earnest desire to promote
in all legal ways the welfare of the
Texan colonists. He cooperated with
Stephen F. Austin and others who
sincerely believed that the introduc­tion
of slavery was necessary for the
rapid'development of Texas. Mus­quiz
successfully urged Mexican
authorities to exempt Texas from the
decree of 1829, which abolished slav­e~
y in Mexico. He also worked to
make Texas a separate state within
the Mexican nation. In March 1835
he replaced Juan Seguin as vice­governor
of Coahuila y Texas, and
three months later he was elevated to
the governorship. He was in San
Antonio during the battle of the
Alamo and later helped tend to the
Texan dead. Shortly thereafter Mus­quiz
left San Antonio and lived in
Monclova until 1839, when he re­turned
to San Antonio.
TEXAS'S DECLARATION
OF INDEPENDENCE
1836
On March 2, 1836 - four days before
Santa Anna's victory at the Alamo­delegates
at the town of Washington
signed Texas's Declaration of Inde­pendence.
At least seven Mexican
Texans were elected to serve in this
historic convention, but only three
were able to attend -Jose Antonio
Navarro, Jose Francisco Ruiz and
Lorenzo de Zavala.
JOSE ANTONIO NAVARRO
1836
For 50 years before the American
Civil War, Jose Antonio Navarro had
a part in every major decision affect­ing
the history of Texas. Born in San
Antonio de Bexar in 1795, he was in­volved
in the first stirrings for inde­pendence
from Spain and was active
in the insurrection led by Gutierrez
and Magee. When that uprising
failed Navarro took refuge in Louisi­ana
until he was granted amnesty in
1816. His pleasant friendship with
Stephen F. Austin began in 1821,
Reading of the Texas Declaration of Independence
9
when the colonizer was locating his
settlers in Texas. Navarro was a
member of the Chamber of Deputies
in the state legislature, when, at
Austin's urging, he introduced a pru­dent
and novel piece of legislation
into the New World. Decree No. 70,
passed by the legislature of Coahuila
y Texas in 1829, was the forerunner
of the homestead law. Texas thus
became the first government in this
hemisphere to make the family se­cure
in its home. A signer of Texas's
Declaration of Independence, Navar­ro
was also a member of the commit­tee
to draft its constitution. After
serving in the Third Congress of the
Republic, he reluctantly accepted
President M.B. Lamar's appoint­ment
in 1841 as commissioner on the
ill-fated Santa Fe expedition. As a
result Navarro spent four years in a
Mexican prison. He escaped in time
to attend the Texas Convention of
1845, where he voted for annexation
to the United States and helped draw
up the new state's constitution .
Navarro was a state senator in the
first and second legislatures, and at
an Austin meeting in 1861 he spoke
for the secession ordinance. Twenty­five
years before his death in 1871,
Navarro County was created and
Jose Antonio Navarro
10
named in his honor. The county seat,
Corsicana, is so called for his father's
birthplace on the isle of Corsica.
Jose Francisco Ruiz
JOSE FRANCISCO RUIZ
1836
Bo'rn in San Antonio on September
1, 1780, Jose Francisco Ruiz was sent
.. by his family to Spain for his educa­tion.
He returned home in 1803 filled
with ideas of self-government. He
became a respected and influential
teacher and was an early supporter
of the Mexican Revolution. Unlike
others who escaped to the United
States after defeat of the Gutierrez­Magee
expedition, Ruiz went to live
among the Indians until Mexico
gained independence. He was soon
a colonel in the Mexican army, where
his knowledge of the Indians was a
great asset in military and govern­mental
affairs. After signing the
Texas Declaration of Independence,
Ruiz served as the first senator from
Bexar to the Texas Congress.
LORENZO DE ZAVALA
1836
Lorenzo de Zavala's illustrious polit­ical
career began in his native Yuca­tan
as a member of its provisional
assembly and as its representative to
the Spanish Cortes in Madrid. An
advocate of democratic reforms, he
served in the Mexican Congress from
the state of Mexico in 1827. Under
President Vicente Guerrero, De
Zavala was minister of the treasury
and received an empresario land
grant to settle families in Texas. In
1833 Santa Anna called the states­man
from the Mexican Chamber of
Deputies to be minister to France.
Giving up the post when Santa Anna
abrogated the Mexican Constitution
of 1824, De Zavala brought his
family to Texas and established a
home near present Houston in 1835.
He represented the Harrisburg mu­nicipality
in the 1835 Consultation
at San Felipe and attended the Con­vention
of 1836 at the town of Wash­ington,
where he signed the Texas
Declaration of Independence.
On March 17, 1836, De Zavala
was named vice-president ad interim
of the Republic of Texas. His health
was failing, and he resigned this office
only a month before his death on
November 15, 1836. Although deeply
involved in the struggles for Mexican
independence and later for Texas
independence, Lorenzo de Zavala
found time in his 47 years to publish
a number of important books on
Mexican politics. He was highly
esteemed by his fellow Texans, who
considered him one of the most inter­esting
and polished gentlemen of
their frontier.
1822 until his election as governor of Lorenzo de Zavala
GREGORIO ESPARZA
1836
Gregorio Esparza - one of seven
known Mexican Texans to die in the
Alamo - was the only defender
whom Santa Anna allowed to be
buried. Bodies of all the others were
burned, including Juan Abamillo,
Juan A. Badillo, Carlos Espalier,
Antonio Fuentes, Galba Fuqua and
Andres N ava. Esparza was excepted
because his brother was on call to
Santa Anna during the storming of
the Alamo and had joined General
Cos at the siege of Bexar in Decem­ber
1835. Gregorio, on the other
hand, had entered the Texan service
as a volunteer in mid-October and,
with Juan Seguin's company, helped
drive Cos from San Antonio. When
Santa Anna reoccupied the city early
in 1836, Esparza was warned that he
and his family should take refuge in
the Alamo. The siege was beginning
and the massive doors already barred
tightly in the beleaguered walls when
the Esparzas, under cover of night,
were raised through a window into
the Alamo chapel. In that chapel
Gregorio was found on March 6,
1836, the eve of his 34th birthday,
slumped over the small cannon he
had manned - a ball in his chest and
a saber slash through his side. Travis's
slave Joe and at least 12 women and
children survived the battle inside the
Alamo. Five were Esparzas: Grego­rids
wife and their children. One son,
Enrique, lived to be 89 years old, and
at his death in 1917 the family'S
printed announcement closed: "The
deceased was a son of one of the
soldiers on the side of the Americans
in the battle of the Alamo."
JOSE MIGUEL ALDRETE
1836
During the Texas Revolution Jose
Miguel Aldrete served with Captain
Philip Dimmitt's garrison at Goliad,
signed the Goliad Declaration of
Independence and helped supply the
Texan forces. Little is known of
Aldrete's youth, although he prob­ably
was born at La Bahia. He mar­ried
a daughter of Mexican empre­sario
Martin de Leon, served on the
Goliad town council and was several
times alcalde. A large landholder in
N ueces and Refugio counties, Aldre­te
was land commissioner of Coahui­la
y Texas in 1835, when Santa Anna
dissolved its government.
Fall oj the Alamo
JESUS CUELLAR
1836
The Mexican army's success at San
Patricio and Goliad during the Texas
Revolution might have been reversed
had a plan devised by Captain Jesus
Cuellar succeeded. A soldier in the
Mexican army until after the siege
of Bexar, Cuellar deserted to the
Texas side because of his personal
dislike for Santa Anna. He joined
Fannin's troops at Goliad and sug­gested
a stratagem of entrapping
Urrea's forces at a pass. U nfortu­nat
ely Fannin was too slow in taking
Jose Miguel Aldrete
11
action and soon was massacred at
Goliad along with his men. Cuellar,
in the meantime, had been sent as
a messenger to Refugio and managed
to make his way to Texan forces on
the Brazos. Some sources say he was
with General Sam Houston at San
Jacinto. Nicknamed "Comanche" for
having once been an Indian captive,
Cuellar remained a loyal Texas citi­zen
and died at Goliad in 1841.
ERASMOAND
JUAN SEGUiN
18.36
The Seguins, Erasmo and Juan, de­voted
their lives and fortunes to the
growth and development of Texas.
Born at San Antonio in 1872, Erasmo
Seguin was an early alcalde of Bexar.
He ranched south of town, experi­mented
with cotton and organized a
city-owned school. A friend of Ste­phen
F. Austin, Erasmo supported
the colonists in their dealings with
the Mexican government and tried
to reinforce the weakening relation­ship
between the Texans and the
Mexicans. In December 1835, when
General Cos and his troops occupied
San Antonio, Mexican soldiers made
the mistake of mistreating Erasmo
Seguin. He reacted by making huge
contributions of food, horses and
mules to the rebels. He was elected
a delegate to the Convention of 1836,
but illness prevented his signing the
Texas Declaration of Independence.
His son, Juan, was one of the
most effective recruiters for the Texan
forces . His company, the Second
Regiment of'Iexas Volunteers, Ninth
Company, served gallantly through­out
the Texas Revolution. Juan
missed death at the Alamo when he
and an aide were sent out with a mes­sage
requesting reinforcements. Lat­er,
as a lieutenant colonel command­ing
the military at San Antonio,
Seguin buried the ashes of the Alamo
defenders. So popular did he become
that the town of Walnut Springs
changed its name to Seguin in his
honor. Seguin served in the Texas
Senate until 1840, when he resigned
12
Juan Seguin
to help set up a northern Mexico
republic separate from Santa Anna's
regime. Uncovering a Mexican plot
to invade Texas again, he hurried
back to warn his Texas friends.
Juan Seguin became mayor of
San Antonio in 1841. When General
Rafa~l Vasquez and his troops cap­tured
the city in March of the follow­ing
year, Vasquez told the people that
die mayor sympathized with the
l'y1exican cause. Although this
seemed a deliberate attempt to dis­credit
Seguin, his enemies took ad­vantage
of the situation and incited
powerful opposition. They were so
successful that when Seguin returned
with Captain Hays after having pur­sued
Vasquez and his army to the
Rio Grande, he was met by an
aroused mob that forced him to flee
into hiding. A few days later, when
The battle of San Jacinto
General Edward Burleson arrived to
take charge of the army, Mayor
Seguin asked for a military trial to
clear his name, but Burleson refused,
saying that the charges were ridicu­lous.
Bishop Odin reported that
about 20 of the most prominent
Mexican families of San Antonio
were compelled to leave the city as
a result of their treatment by the
Texas Volunteers, who invaded their
lands and homes. Seguin resigned as
mayor and joined the march of the
refugees to Mexico. In September
1842 Santa Anna forced him to follow
General Adrian Woll in a reinvasion
attempt. Seguin died at Nuevo Lare­do,
Tamaulipas, in 1889, unappreci­ated
for his services to 'Iexas. Eventu­ally,
however, he was vindicated and
recognized as a true Texas patriot. In
1969 citizens of the town of Seguin
made a pilgrimage to Nuevo Laredo
to honor him. Then, in 1974, Juan
Seguin was reburied in Seguin,
acknowledged as a Texas hero.
SECOND REGIMENT OF
TEXAS VOLUNTEERS,
NINTH COMPANY
18.35-18.36
Captain Juan Seguin'S company
served gallantly throughout the Texas
Revolution - at the storming of
Bexar, in the Alamo, as scouts in
Houston's army and as a unit at San
Jacinto. Five of the seven Mexican
Texans who died in the Alamo were
Seguin's men (see section on Gre­gorio
Esparza). Other members of
the company included: ] ose Maria
Arocha, Manuel Arocha, Simon
Arreola, Andres Barcinas, Manuel
Bueno, Juan M. Cabrera, Gabriel
Casillas, Antonio Cruz y Arocha,
Antonio Curbier, Matias Curbier,
Alejandro de la Garza, Lucio Enri­quez,
Manuel Flores, Manuel Marfa
Flores, Nepomuceno Flores, Pedro
Herrera, Tomas Maldonado, Anto­nio
Menchaca, ] ose Maria Mancha,
Nepomuceno Navarro,]acinto Pena,
Eduardo Ramirez, Ambrosio Rodri­quez,
Manuel Tarin and] ose Marfa
Ximenez.
JOSE ANTONIO
MENCHACA
1838
Born at Bexar in 1800,] ose Antonio
Menchaca was the grandson of Mar­cos
Menchaca, who had settled on a
grant from the Spanish crown. Anto­nio
joined the Texan forces in 1835,
participated in the siege of Bexar and
served under] uan Seguin at the bat­tle
of San] acinto. In this battle Ser­geant
Menchaca, who was fluent in
both English and Spanish, acted as
interpreter for Seguin and others of
the company who did not understand
English. After the Texan army left
Antonio Menchaca
Harrisburg, General Houston had
asked the company of Mexican
Texans under Juan Seguin to stay
behind and guard the horses and
equipment. Perhaps Houston was
afraid some of these men might be
shot by mistake in the forthcoming
melee. But Seguin and his company
were insulted by Houston's sugges­tion.
Menchaca told the commander­in-
chief that they had joined the
army to aid in the fighting and
wanted to die facing the enemy. If
horse-herding was the alternative,
they would go and attend their fami­lies,
who were fleeing to the Louisi­ana
border in the "Runaway Scrape."
Houston admired this kind of cou­rage
and changed his order. The
Mexican Texans fought bravely and
well at San]acinto. In 1838 President
Lamar named Menchaca to a confer­ence
commission on the Cordova
rebellion, and he was later mayor pro
tem of San Antonio.
VICENTE CORDOVA
1838
Vicente Cordova lived In Nacog­doches,
where he served as alcalde,
judge and councilman. Cordova was
opposed to the Texas Revolution and
led a rebellion of his own. He began
in 1835 with an attack on Texans
marching to the siege of Bexar. Cor­dova
rose again against the Anglo­Texans
in 1838 but was defeated. His
forces, including 300 Indians,
camped on an island in the Angelina
River and sent a letter to President
Sam Houston disclaiming any alle­giance
to Texas. Thomas]. Rusk
pursued him with the militia, but
Cordova and many of his men es­caped
to Mexico. With General
Adrian Woll's army in 1842 Cordova
assisted in the Mexican occupation
of San Antonio and was killed at the
battle of Salado.
Jose Maria Jesus Carbajal
JOSE MARiA JESUS
CARBAJAL (CARVAJAL)
1846
At the midpoint of his career] ose
Marfa Jesus Carbajal commanded
an army division for Mexico in the
War of 1846. This war, which estab­lished
the Rio Grande as a perma­nent
international boundary, settled
officially the old Texan-Mexican dis­pute
over land stretching south from
the Nueces to the Rio Grande. But
Carbajal and many other Rio
Grande residents continued to view
this fateful strip as part of the
Mexican state of Tamaulipas. San
Antonio-born Carbajal was a father­less
lad of 13 when befriended by
Stephen F. Austin in 1823. Austin
arranged for him to study in the
United States, and on his return in
1830 he lived with Austin to learn the
techniques of surveying. He was
named surveyor for Martin de Leon's
Victoria colony, married De Leon's
daughter and served as secretary to
the Coahuila y Texas legislature.
When Carbajal's arrest was ordered
in 1835 for rebellious activity against
Mexico, he fled to New Orleans with
his brother-in-law, Fernando de
Leon, to secure a boatload of muni­tions
for Texas volunteers. Captured
and detained at Matamoros, Carba­jal
was thereby prevented from at­tending
the Convention of 1836 at
which the Texas Declaration of Inde­pendence
was framed and issued. He
did not escape until after the battle
of San Jacinto.
One of Carbajal's brothers died
for the Texas cause at Goliad; an­other
was a Texan cavalry officer. But
when the revolution was over, strong
anti-Mexican feeling swept Texas.
The De Le6n family had its posses­sions
taken and was forced into exile.
Thereafter, Carbajal never consid­ered
himself a Texan. In 1839 Don
Jose was active in the short-lived
Republic of the Rio Grande, which
was an attempt to establish a con­federation
of northern Mexican
states. He was among petitioners to
the United States in 1850 for a pro­posed
Republic of the Sierra Madre,
which would occupy the region east
of the Rio Grande, south of the line
of New Mexico and distinct from
Texas. By 1855 Carbajal had led four
expeditions of Texans and Mexicans
into Mexico, attempting to form a
free-trade zone along the Rio
Grande. He fought in the same area
during the Cortina War of 1859.
Almost single-handedly Don Jose
captured Matamoros in 1866 and
was named governor ofTamaulipas.
President Juarez then entrusted
Carbajal with a delicate loan mission
to the United States; his success, and
his purchase of arms, made possible
the complete expulsion of the French
from Mexico.
King Ranch Riders
14
- . I . ~ ~ __ "",.
Old Building at San Ygnacio
LOS KlNENOS
The widely known King Ranch of
South Texas has taken well over a
century to build. Much of the labor
involved has been provided by Mexi­can
ranchhands whose families have
been associated with the ranch for
several generations. With pride they
have called themselves Los Kineiios.
"Some of the people who worked for
. the ranch in the late 19th . century
have achieved almost legendary sta­tus.
Ram6n Alvarado was a famed
cow boss, while Luis Robles and
Julian Cantu were expert horse
bosses. Jose Maria Alegria had
charge of the sheep. Today kineiios
say they work "with" the ranch own­ers,
not "for" them.
DON MANUEL MUSQUIZ
1854
In 1854 a political refugee from
Mexico named Manuel Musquiz set­tled
in a canyon six miles southeast
of Fort Davis. He established the first
great cattle ranch in the Davis Moun­tain
country. About 1861 ChiefNico­las
and 250 Apache warriors attacked
the ranch while Musquiz was in
Presidio. Three people were killed,
and all the cattle were driven away.
Lieutenant Mayes and a company of
troops from Fort Davis started to the
rescue, but they were ambushed, and
all but one were killed. By 1862 Mus­quiz
had changed his base of opera-tions
to Santa Rosa in Mexico. It was
here that he was reunited with his
brother, Miguel, who had been an
Indian captive since early boyhood.
Miguel was the father of Alsate,
noted chief of the Chisos Apaches.
Today the ruins of the Musquiz
ranch house may be seen on the road
between Fort Davis and Alpine. The
great cottonwoods Don Manuel
planted still stand .
PROCESO MARTiNEZ
1859
Don Proceso Martinez was a pioneer
merchant and office holder of Zapata
County, Texas. A native of Guerrero,
Mexico, he moved at the age of 19
to Nuevo Laredo, where he was em­ployed
by Francisco Iturria, a wealthy
Spanish merchant. H e stayed with
Iturria a year. In 1859 he crossed the
Rio Grande to manage a ranch
owned by his father. He traveled
often to San Ygnacio, where he met
and soon married Maria de Jesus
Uribe. Martinez had the foresight to
see that the Civil War, then brewing
in the United States, would generate
a brisk trade between the Confeder­ate
States and Mexico. He estab­lished
a general merchandise store,
which became highly successful. In
1868 he settled in San Ygnacio, where
he founded a similar enterprise. He
conducted a large-scale export­import
business between the interior
I
of Mexico and outlets at Corpus
Christi and San Antonio. In one of
his shipments he received a consign­ment
of kerosene lamps, which
quickly replaced tallow candles for
home lighting in San Ygnacio. He
planted the first cotton and also in­troduced
the first modem-style plow
and corn-planter in Zapata County.
Martinez died at his home in San
Ygnacio, Texas, on February 23,
1937, at the age of 96.
JUAN NEPOMUCENO
CORTINA
1859
Born in Tamaulipas of wealthy par­ents,
Juan Cortina fumed against
injustices done to many South Texas
Mexicans in the wake of the 1846
war. He witnessed his people being
victimized by dubious land transac­tions
and subjected to discrimination
and abuse. In September 1859 he
shot a deputy sheriff who was pistol­whipping
a prisoner on the streets of
Brownsville. When the gunfire had
ceased four men lay dead or dying.
For the next several months Cortina
completely dominated the region
with a series of raids on the border
towns. When federal troops under
Colonel Robert E. Lee arrived on the
scene, Cortina stopped troubling
Texas for a time.
Juan Cortina
In his violent and ill-considered
way, he had stirred up more hatred
and persecution than ever before,
since his raids resulted in strength­ening
the very forces that were work­ing
against just treatment for the
Mexicans. In Mexico he joined the
cause of Benito Juarez, who was
trying to drive out the French. He
also lent support to the Union army,
which was trying to eliminate slavery
in Texas. Later, when he was about
to receive a pardon from the governor
of Texas, his old enemies began cir­culating
rumors that he was a cattle
thief. Many of the charges were self­contradictory,
but they eliminated his
chance for a pardon. Cortina also
opposed the dictatorship of Porfirio
Diaz, whose forces subsequently took
him in custody. The old firebrand
spent the rest of his life on parole in
Mexico City, where he died in 1892.
SANTOS BENAVIDES
1861
A prominent Laredo merchant,
~ntos Benavides was also an effective
military leader. He was a grandson
of Tomas Sanchez, who had founded
the city in 1767. Benavides himself
was born at Laredo in 1827. He was
mayor of the town in 1857, when an
Indian band came raiding. The pur­suing
forces consisted of25 civilians
led by Benavides and a detachment
of soldiers. The Indians were de­feated
at the end of a 350-mile chase.
Early in 1861 Benavides was commis­sioned
captain of a ranger company
organized at Laredo. When the Civil
War came he volunteered his services
to Colonel John S. Ford, who was
commander of the Rio Grande Mili­tary
District. The companies of
Benavides and Captain Donaldson
were stationed at Carrizo to protect
the country between Rio Grande
City and Fort Ewell. In May 1861
Juan Nepomuceno Cortina and his
band crossed the river. Benavides
gave chase. With 36 men he defeated
Cortina's 70 in a bloody fight near
Carrizo. From that time until the
Confederate withdrawal from
Santos Benavides
Brownsville in November 1863, Cor­tina
gave little trouble in Texas.
In 1864 Colonel Benavides com­manded
a force which defeated the
federal troops under Colonel EJ.
Davis. Promoted to brigadier gen­eral,
Benavides also distinguished
himself at the battle of Palmito
Ranch. After the war he was an
alderman in Laredo and a member
of the 16th, 17th and 18th state legis­latures.
He was appointed Texas
Commissioner to the World's Cotton
Exposition in 1884.
IGNACIO ZARAGOZA
DE SEGUIN
1862
General Ignacio Zaragoza, a native
Texan, became one of Mexicds great­est
heroes on May 5, 1862, when he
led his recruits to victory over
superbly equipped French forces.
This significant battle ofPuebla was
the turning point in Mexicds efforts
to rid itself of French occupation, and ·
it so inspired the country that Cinco
de Mayo (May 5) became a national
holiday. By order of President Juarez,
Zaragoza was made military gover­nor
of Veracruz. His name was in­scribed
in letters of gold in the halls
of Congress, and the city of Puebla's
name was changed officially to Pueb­la
de Zaragosa. But four months later
15
Ignacio Zaragoza was dead of ty­phoid
at the age of 33.
The hero had inherited his apti­tude
for military life. His father,
Miguel, was a young lieutenant sta­tioned
at Bexar when he met and
married Maria de Jesus Seguin,
member of a prominent San Antonio
family. Her cousin Juan Seguin be­came
a colonel in the Texas army.
The Zaragozas were transferred to
Presidio La Bahia, near Goliad,
where Ignacio was born in 1829 and
named for his Texas grandfather,
Ignacio Seguin. Subsequently, army
orders took them back to Bexar and
on to Nacogdoches and Anahuac
before 1834, when Miguel Zaragoza
was assigned south of the Rio
Grande. In 1962 Texas joined with
Mexico in centennial celebrations of
the battle of Cinco de Mayo. Soil
from Goliad was carried by relay
runners more than a thousand miles
to Puebla, and that city in turn
presented the town of Zaragoza's
birth with a bronze bust of him. Each
year on the fifth of May Zaragoza
Societies from several Texas cities
gather at Goliad for commemorative
ceremonies. In an area designated as
Zaragoza State Park, plans are under
way to restore the house where he
was born.
Ignacio Zaragoza de Seguin
16
A freighting team in the time of Danda
OLOJIO DANDA
1874
Olojio Danda worked for the famed
wagonmaster, August Santleben, on
the Ehihuahua Trail. Danda, how­ever,
was celebrated, not as a trail
driver, but as an Indian fighter. He
;"as a citizen of Presidio del Norte ,
~nd his reputation was acquired on
the trail that ran between his home
town and Fort Davis. Marauding
bands of Mescalero Apaches used
this route when making raids into the
Big Bend country and Mexico. Occa­sionally
the Indians fought openly,
but their preferred tactic was the
ambush. Men of Danda's caliber
were much in demand because of
their knowledge of Indian warfare
and because their courage was equal
to any emergency.
PEDRO JARAMILLO
1881
As a young man Pedro Jaramillo had
an infection of his nose which caused
him great pain. In desperation he
flung himself down by a pond and
made a poultice of the cool mud. As
the pain left him Pedro vowed to
devote his life to healing others. He
arrived in Texas in 1881 and soon
settled at Olmos, an old settlement
near Falfurrias. As an evangelist and
dero and true folk hero, developing a
clientele from as far away as Califor­nia
and New York. He carried a
Bible wherever he went, and his
clients paid whatever they could
afford. At times there would be as
many as 500 people camped at Los
Olmos Creek waiting for Don Pedri­tds
attentions. Pictures of Don Pedri­to
are displayed among those of
saints in many Mexican homes in
South Texas today. Wreaths, candles
and letters are placed on his grave at
Olmos, a popular spot for meditation
and prayer, in the hope that Don
Pedrito still will help his followers. At
one time a Laredo firm supplied
curative herbs, using his picture and
the trademark "Don Pedrito?'
healer he became a legendary curan- Don Pedrito Jaramillo
GROWING IMPORTANCE
OF THE TEXAS
BORDERLANDS
1876-1920
I
~
For more than 60 years after the
Texas Revolution there was little
emigration from Mexico to Texas. By
1876, however, events vital to Mexico
began taking shape on the Texas side
of the Rio Grande. That was the year
in which Porfirio Dfaz began his
ruthless dictatorship of Mexico,
which he maintained for nearly 35
years. Periodic efforts were made to
overthrow Diaz, but none were suc­cessful
until the Madero revolution
of 1910. The turmoil which followed
caused a great movement of the Mex­ican
people into this state. In 1900,
prior to the revolution, Mexican­born
Texans totaled about 70,000,
Catarino Garza
A Mexican j!1£al about 1890
and their numbers were increased by
an average of only 100 immigrants
per year. This pattern changed dras­tically
with the events of 1910 and the
years thereafter. Many landowners
were forced to leave Mexico, and with
the countryside despoiled by war,
agricultural production fell to the
level of the late 1700's.
CATARINO GARZA
1'891
~he flashing figure of Catarino
Garza - born in Mexico, reared in
Brownsville -was the last of the line
of minor marauders to plague Diaz.
In 1891 Garza recruited a small army
in South Texas and captured the
Mexican village of Guerrero, believ­ing
that local support would rally to
his cause. When support failed to
materialize, his men were forced
north of the Rio Grande, where they
scattered in small bands and taunted
the law for two years. Garza, mean­while,
had scurried from Mexico to
Cuba and on to Colombia, where he
was killed as a filibuster in 1895.
GREGORIO CORTEZ
1901
Gregorio Cortez, a Mexican-Texan
hero, inspired a folk legend com­parable
to those of Sam Bass, Billy
the Kid and Jesse James. His feats
became symbolic of the struggle
between the oppressed and the op­pressor.
In his time, ballads were
composed and sung about Cortez
from San Antonio to Mexico City.
Born in Mexico in 1875, Cortez
moved with his family to Manor,
Texas, in 1887. His exploits began
with the killing of Sheriff Harper
Morris on June 12, 1901. The dispute
came about as a result of misunder­standing
between the two men, nei­ther
of whom could speak the other's
language. During an incredible ten­day
flight, Cortez walked at least 120
miles and rode more than 400 miles,
using three horses. He killed two of
his pursuers, one of whom was Sher­iff
Robert M. Glover. Chased by men
in parties of up to 300, Cortez out­witted
the posses until he was cap­tured
near the Rio Grande border by
Texas Ranger CaptainJ.H. Rogers.
Gregorio Cortez was tried for three
murders, acquitted of two and con­victed
on the third. Sentenced to life
imprisonment, he was pardoned by
Governor o.B. Colquitt in July 1913.
Gregorio Cortez and Rangers who pursued him
17
MEXICAN-TEXAN
POPULATION
1930-1970
By 1930 more than 266,000 persons
of Mexican heritage lived in Texas,
and hundreds of thousands of others
moved seasonally into other states to
harvest crops before returning to
their homeland. The most significant
movement of people in this hemi­sphere
still occurs across Texas's
southern border, making Texas the
bridge - or meeting place - between
English-speaking North America and
Latin America. Almost two million
Mexican Texans - or some 21 per­cent
of the state's 1980 population­exert
the rich cultural influences of
their forebears on Texas life: in archi­tecture,
food, dress, music, language,
ranching traditions and other cus­toms.
And many Mexican Texans of
today, as in the past, occupy places
of business, professional, military
and political distinction. Perhaps the
first among them who should be cited
are the Medal of Honor winners, as
listed in the records available to
November 1970. During World War
II the nation's highest honor was
awarded to Sergeant Luciano Adams
of Port Arthur, Sergeant Marcario
Garcia of Sugarland, Private Silvestre
p. Herrera ofEl Paso, Sergeant Jose
M. L6pez of Brownsville and Ser­geant
Cleto Rodriguez of San Mar­cos.
In the Korean conflict, Corporal
Benito Martinez of Fort Hancock in
West Texas was an outstanding
example of determined courage. The
Medal of Honor was awarded post­humously
in 1952 for his "incredible
valor and supreme sacrifice:'
"It is perhaps a sound conclu­sion;'
wrote Raymond Brooks of the
Austin American in 1966, "that the
Mexican contribution to citizenship,
at least in Texas and other border
states, is taking care of itself to a
degree and in a manner comparable
with the highest achievements of
other groups of similar dimensions:'
It is impossible to list all of the
Texans of Mexican ancestry who are
making significant contributions in
18
the arts, the professions and business.
Nor can anyone honestly presume to
select any reasonable number as
being more worthy of mention than
all others. We have chosen a few out­standing
individuals, whose accom­plishments
are representative of the
contributions being made in many
areas by Mexican Texans today.
CARLOS E. CASTANEDA
In a lifetime devoted to the study of
borderland history, Carlos Castane­d<
is total literary output included 78
articles and a dozen books. His most
distinguished contribution was a
work entitled Our Catholic Heritage in
Texas. For many years he was engaged
by The University of Texas to search
the principal archives of Mexico City
and Saltillo, colonial capital of Coa­huila
y Texas, for documentary
sources relating to early Texas. In the
course of this work, he discovered
and edited Fray Agustin Morfi's
.. History of Texas, 1673-1779, a work
which had been thought to be lost.
Castaneda was born on.Novem­ber
11, 1896, at Camargo, Mexico, a
small town on the Rio Grande. He
came with his family to the United
Carlos Castaneda
States in 1908. His struggle to obtain
an education began at Brownsville,
where he attended high school, and
concluded with a doctorate of philos­ophy
from The University of Texas
in 1932. Though he qualified as a
graduate engineer and spent a year
in field work in Mexico, he was
drawn irresistibly to the teaching and
writing of history, particularly of his
native Southwest and of Latin Amer­ica.
His knowledge of languages, his
great intellectual energy and his
native culture made him admirably
qualified for this work.
His teaching career began in the
public schools of Beaumont, then San
Antonio. For four years, 1923-1927,
he was associate professor of Spanish
at the College of William and Mary
in Virginia. He returned to his alma
mater, The University of Texas, in
1927, where he remained until his
death in 1958.
JOSE CISNEROS
From his home at El Paso, Jose
Cisneros has devoted a lifetime to
studying and portraying the histori­cal
record of the borderland and its
people. His skillful pen-and-ink
drawings have made him one of the
nation's foremost illustrators.
Born in 1910 in the Mexican
state of Durango, Cisneros came with
his family toJuarez in 1925. In 1934
he moved his residence to El Paso.
He worked at such jobs as delivery­man
and window trimmer until
1943, when he began working for the
El Paso Transit Company.
Throughout his life Cisneros
has pursued his art in his spare time.
Though he had little opportunity for
formal education, he is described by
friends as one of the best-informed
and best-read men in the El Paso
Southwest. Although he has never
had an art lesson, he has produced
striking illustrations for such volumes
as The Journey of Fray Marcos de Niza,
The Spanish Heritage if the Southwest
and Morelos of Mexico.
I
Jose Cisneros
Today his drawings are found in
more than 30 books and countless
pamphlets, greeting cards, program
covers and the like. He has also
designed emblems and medallions
for a number of organizations and
institutions. Cisneros's work has ap­peared
under the imprint of such
major publishing houses as Random
House, Funk and Wagnalls, Devin­Adair
and Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
REYNALOO GARZA
In 1961 Reynaldo Garza of Browns­ville
became the first Mexican Amer­ican
ever appointed to a federal
judgeship in Texas. He is a lifelong
resident of Brownsville. He attended
public schools there and received a
bachelor of arts degree and a law
degree from The University of Texas
at Austin in 1939. He practiced law
in Brownsville until 1942, when he
began his military service. He reen­tered
the field of law in 1945 and
continued practicing until March
1961, when he was appointed as a
federal district judge by President
John F. Kennedy.
Judge Garza has served on the
school board at Brownsville and as
a member of the city commission.
He was an original member of the
International Good Neighbor Coun­cil.
He has also served with distinc­tion
in such organizations as the
Knights of Columbus, the Rotarians
and the Boy Scouts of America.
Severo Gomez
SEVERO GOMEZ
Severo G6mez is Texas's first assistant
commissioner of education for inter­national
and bilingual education,
appointed to this position at the time
of its creation in 1967. G6mez, born
in 1924, was educated in the public
schools of Woodsboro, Texas. He
graduated from Texas A&I College
in 1948, with an interruption for
military service from 1943 to 1946.
He began teaching at Benavides,
Texas, upon his graduation from col­lege.
He remained there until 1955,
when he transferred to the Rio
Reynaldo Garza Grande City school system, where he
was supervisor of science education.
In 1960 he received his doctorate
from The University of Texas at
Austin and joined the staff of the
Texas Education Agency.
G6mez's pioneering work in the
field of bilingual education culmi­nated
in his appointment as the first
assistant commissioner for interna­tional
and bilingual education. He is
a member of the Texas Academy of
Science and the International Good
Neighbor Council, among other
organizations, and is known for his
writings in the fields of science edu­cation
and language instruction.
HENRY B. GONZALEZ
A native of San Antonio, Texas,
Henry B. Gonzalez was elected to the
city council of his home town in
1953. Three years later he became
the first Texas citizen of Mexican
descent to be elected to the state
senate since 1846. Then in 1961 he
again shattered tradition with his
election to the United States House
of Representatives, the first of his
ethnic group ever elected from the
state of Texas.
The parents of Congressman
Gonzalez emigrated from the state of
Durango during the Mexican Revo­lution.
They settled in San Antonio,
where his father became managing
editor of La Prensa, a Spanish-lan-
Henry B. Gonzalez
19
guage newspaper. Young Henry was
educated in the public schools of San
Antonio and at San Antonio College.
He later attended The University of
Texas at Austin. He received a law
degree from St. Mary's University in
1943. After service in World War II,
he became chief probation officer of
Bexar County until the beginning of
his political career in 1953. Through­out
his long tenure in the U.S. House
of Representatives Gonzalez has
played an active role in legislation
dealing with public housing, urban
and rural development, education,
military family benefits, equal rights
for women and other vital subjects.
AMERICO PAREDES
Already noted for his contributions
to folklore studies, Americo Paredes
developed a new program of research
and publication as director of the
Center of Mexican American Studies
at The University of Texas at Austin
in the 1970's. A native of Brownsville,
he attended public schools and grad­uated
from BrownsvilleJunior Col­lege
in 1936. He worked until 1943
as a newspaperman and freelance
writer. He served in the army from
1944 to 1946, the last year in Tokyo
as political editor for the Pacific edi­tion
of Stars and Stripes. He remained
in Tokyo through 1950, spending two
Americo Paredes
20
years as a public relations officer for
the American Red Cross and two
years with the Department of the
Army as a magazine editor.
Paredes came to The University
of Texas at Austin in 1950 and re­ceived
a B.A. degree the following
year, a M.A. in 1953 and a Ph.D. in
1956. He taught for one year at The
University of Texas at El Paso and
then returned to Austin to join the
faculty. In 1967 he was visiting pro­fessor
at the University of California
at Berkeley. He also served as editor
of the Journal oj American Folklore.
PORFIRIO SALINAS
Legend has it that, one day in the late
1920's, artist Robert Wood decided
Porfirio Salinas
that he simply could not bear to paint
another bluebonnet on one of his
landscapes, so he hired young Por­firio
Salinas to paint them in for him,
at five dollars a picture. Since that
day Salinas has gained world renown
as a painter of the Texas Hill Country
and its bluebonnets.
Born near Bastrop, Porfirio
Salinas moved to San Antonio as a
young boy and began haunting the
galleries of the Witte Museum. He
received lessons from Jose Arpa, a
well-known regional artist. An early
admirer of his work was then-Senator
Lyndon B. Johnson, who bought his
first Salinas painting in 1949.
Salinas's patrons have since included
some of the best-known art con­noisseurs
in the nation.
..
PHOTO CREDITS
All photos are from the collec tion of The University of Texas Institute of Texan Cultures
at San Antonio, courtesy of the following lenders. Credits from left to right are separated
by semicolons and from top to bottom by dashes.
Cover Library of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas a t the
Alamo.
Page 3 Alfonso Caso, The Aztecs (Norman, Okla.: University of
Oklahoma Press, 1967).
Page 4 Carlos E. Castaneda, Our Catholic Heritage in Texas, 1519-1936
(Austin: Von Boeckmann:Jones Co., 1936)-___ Pierpont,
The Young Reader (Boston, Mass., 1831).
Page 5 The Institute of Texan Cultures-The Institute of Texan
Page 6
Page 7
Page 8
Page 9
Page 10
Page 11
Page 12
Page 13
Page 14
Page 15
Page 16
Page 17
Page 18
Page 19
Page 20
Page 22
Cultures; Carlos E. Castaneda, Our Catholic Heritage in Texas,
1519-1936 (Austin: Von Boeckmann:Jones Co. , 1936).
"Cronica del Traje Militar en Mexico de Siglo XVI al XX;'
Artes de Mexico, no. 102, ano XV 1968; Carlos E. Castaneda,
Our Catholic Heritage in Texas, 1519-1936 (Austin: Von
Boeckmann:J ones Co., 1936).
Herbert Gambrell and Virginia Gambrell, Pictorial History of
Texas (New York: Dutton & Co. , 1960); Archives Division,
Texas State Library, Austin - Herbert Gambrell and Virginia
Gambrell, Pictorial History of Texas (New York: Dutton & Co.,
1960).
The Institute of Texan Cultures; Thomas W. Cutrer, Austin.
Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, The
University of Texas at Austin; Mrs. Artie Fultz Davis,
Navasota.
Library of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas at the
Alamo; Mrs. Ruby Hermes, San Antonio-Texas State
Capitol, Austin.
Library of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas at the
Alamo-De Leon Fa mil y, Victoria.
Archives Division, Texas State Library-Texas State Capitol,
Austin.
Library of t4e Daughters of the Republic of Texas at the
Alamo; Leopold Morris, Pictorial H istory of Victoria and Victoria
County (San Antonio: Clemens Printing Co. , 1953).
Tom Lea, The King Ranch (Boston: Little, Brown & Co.,
1957)-The Institute of Texan C ultures.
Jose T. Canales, Juan N. Cortina: Bandit or Patriot? (San
Antonio: Artes Graficas, 1951); De Leon Family, Victoria.
The Bishop's Palace at Monterrey; El Paso Public Library­The
Heritage Museum, Falfurrias.
Harper's New Monthly Magazine vol. LXXXI (n.d.) - Library of
the Daughters of the Republic of Texas at the Alamo; Barker
Texas History Center, The University of Texas at Austin.
The Institute of Texan Cultures.
Information Service, The University of Texas at Austin­Library
of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas at the
Alamo; Dr. Felix Almaraz Jr.; The Institute of Texan
Cultures.
Information Service, The University of Texas at Austin; The
Institute of Texan Cultures.
Library of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas at the
Alamo.
Back Cover Library of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas at the
Alamo.
21
One oj a series
prepared by the staff oj
THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS
INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
AT SAN ANTONIO