THE MEXICAN TEXANS
This pamphlet is one of a. series prepared by the staff of the
University of Texas Institute of Texan Cultures at San Antonio.
This series, when completed, will tell of the contributions made
by the many ethnic groups to the history and culture of this state.
©1971:. The Institute of T'~xan Cultures 1rlJ'tr:jns DR.T. W'9'Y
R. HENDERSON SHUFFLER
Executive Director
sioner 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 field of science education, as
well as language instruction.
HEN R Y B. GO N Z ALE Z
A native of San Antonio, Texas, Henry B.
Gonzalez was elected to the city council
of his hometown 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 the father became
editor of La Prensa, a Spanish-language
newspaper. Young Henry was educated
in the public schools of San Antonio and
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. Today, in ad­dition
to wide popularity as a public
speaker, he still maintains a near perfect
attendance record in the United States
Congress and has attained national recog­nition
for his abilities in government.
31
32
AMERICO PAREDES
Already noted fo~is contribution to folk­lore
studies, Americo Paredes is now de­veloping
a new program of research and
publication as director of the Center of
Mexican American Studies at The Uni­versity
of Texas in Austin. A native of
Brownsville, Texas, he attended public
schools and graduated from Brownsville
Junior 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 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
bachelor's degree the following year, a
master's in 1953, and a doctorate in 1956.
He taught for one year at The University
of Texas at EI Paso, and then returned to
Austin, where he joined the faculty of his
alma mater. In 1967, he was visiting pro­fessor
at The University of California at
Berkeley. Presently, he also serves as edi­tor
of the Journal of American Folklore.
PORF I "'10
~IRIO SALINAS
~d has it that one day in the late
1920's artist Robert Wood decided that he
could not bear to paint another bluebon­one
of his landscapes. He hired
r;.~:l1 (E~7< :;)
young Porfirio Salinas to paint them in
for him, at five dollars a picture. Today,
Salinas has gained world renown as a
painter of the Texas hill country and its
bluebonnets.
Born near Bastrop, Texas, 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' patrons now include some
of the best known art connoisseurs in the
nation.
INTRODUCTION
Almost two million of today's Texans are
of Mexican birth or descent. Their proud
heritage is a blend of several cultures that
carved Texas from bedrock wilderness. It
is our strongest tie with the past and an
inevitably 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 the armored sol­diers
of Spain landed on the North Amer­ican
mainland, Aztecan builders were at
work on their capital. From this city,
called Mexico-Tenochtitlan, come both
the name of Mexico and its national sym­bol.
Following instructions from their
gods, the Aztecs had located on a lake
island where they 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 Mexi.co
totaled between 11 and 20 million peo­ple.
Their ranks were catastrophically
reduced by European-borne diseases, yet
by 1800 they still outnumbered Spanish­born
residents of Mexico over 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 its 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
THE FOUNDING OF TENOCHTITLAN
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 count was slightly over a million,
while European-born Spaniards totaled
70,000.
A. Caso, The Aztecs
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. Since then the Mexican Texan
has played a significant role in Lone Star
history. Some of their contributions are
outlined briefly in the following sketches
of a few notable individuals.
\
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7~1
FR. ISIDRzyELlX DE ESPINOSA
2 1/-s~
C. E. Castaneda, Our Catholic Heritage, Vol. IV
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 mission 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
named San Pedro Springs. Espinosa was
soon made father-president of the Texan
missions founded by the Queretaran 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 azonis­both
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, Cr6nica, an account of the
apostolic colleges, remains the best pri­mary
source of the early 18th century
history of Texas.
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STOBAL DE LOS
ANTOS COY
1746
Mission schools had been established at
San Francisco de los Tejas in East Texas
as early as 1690. The first non-mission
school in Texas was founded in 1746 at
San Fernando de Bexar by Don Crist6bal
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 the school
is unknown. But in 1811 Juan Zambrano
established another school in San An­tonio
designed to accommqdate 70 pupils
who would pay according to ability. The
teacher was paid 30 pesos a month and a
regidor (alderman) assumed responsibil­ity
for administering punishment. In
1818 Zambrano formed an 80-pupil
school at La Bahia. Later, the teacher, a
soldier named Jose Galan, was relieved of
his position because his school duties con­flicted
with his other responsibilities as
secretary to the ayuntamiento (municipal
council). The school closed in 1821, as the
population declined. Another school
opened at San Antonio in 1826. Two
years later the governor bought the school
7/-/J'7 From Pierpont's The Young Reader, Boston, 1831
100 charts, 36 catechisms, and other sup­plies
out of public funds. This was the
first instance in which free textbooks were
provided to school children in Texas. That
same year an ordinance was passed estab­lishing
a "public free primary school."
Despite this activity, financial support
was the crucial problem-then, as today.
The central government shifted responsi­bility
for education to the states; the
states, having no money, shifted the bur­den
to the ayuntamientos; the ayunta­mientos,
likewise without funds, did not
know what to do. Where schools were
opened, attendance was often difficult to
maintain.
3
JOSE VASQUEZ BORREGO
1750
J ose 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 the north bank of the Rio Grande, thir­ty
miles above Dolores. Under his leader­ship,
the populatIon ~f Laredo increased
( J
RUINS OF VII;T ,A DE DOLORES 1t31
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from 85 in 1757 to 700 Spaniards, mesti-zos,
and mulatos by 1789. Sanchez was
chief justice and alcalde (mayor) almost
continuously until his death in 1796. La-redo
gained early importance, which it
still maintains, as a crossroads to and
from Mexico. No attempt was made to ex-tend
Texas government to the city, how-ever,
until the Texas boundary question
finally was resolved by the United States­Mexican
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 concentrate the Spanish
forces for a more effective defense, the set­tlers
were ordered removed from the N ac-ogdoches
area to yacant farm lands 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
YBARBO LEADING THE SETTLERS FROM LOS ADAES, 1773 Castaneda, Our Catholic Heritage, Vol. IV
- ---- .
I
11-3,J .\
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 allowed to return by Spanish author­ities
a few years later. He died at his
Nacogdoches ranch in 1809.
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, his men were cap­tured,
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.
5
MEXICAN ANSURGENTS OF 1810 IN TYPICAL DRESS
6 71-J'I -..} Artes de Mexico, No. 102
JUAN BAUTISTA DE LAS
CASAS
1811
Texas felt the first stirrings of Mexico's
desire for independence from Spain in
1811. In those days the attitude in Spain
was that all individuals who were pro­duced
in the New World atmosphere were
naturally inferior. Thus the American­born
Spaniard 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 Hi­dalgo's
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
d'etat: Spanish Governor Manuel Salcedo
and Lieutenant Colonel Simon Herrera
were arrested at 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 sub-deacon of the San
Fernando Church, he was exiled to Mex­ico
City in 1807 by Governor Salcedo,
who had received complaints from San
Antonians regarding Zambrano's "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.
Zambrano's fame spread far and wide
after the events of 1811. In 1814 he was
again ordered to leave Texas, 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
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V(.;f\w<:.-t.,uUj - IJ A (.II more constructive side of his character by
establishing a non-mission school at La
Bahia. On January 26, 1826, Don Erasmo
Seguin, who was postmaster at Bexar,
wrote his wife as follows: "Don't be
afraid of the beating Father Zambu~no ~v:t1'-.. threatened you with. I've heard he aied ._: I'~ \1 () .' .­recently
in an exemplary way. May God
keep him in His heavenly kingdom!" /I ,. .
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7
8
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 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 lieutenant,
organized a force of American filibuster­ers,
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 yet-to-be established Republic of
Mexico. On July 4, 1813, he wrote an ap­peal
to the American people saying: "The
fertile plains of Texas will no more be
stained with the precious blood of patri­ots.
Here you may enjoy life according to
70·!MJ. ./
GUTIERREZ DE LARA'S SEAL OF TEXAS
H. Gambrell, Pictorial History of Texas
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
filibusterers 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, became the first gover­nor
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 imprisoned in Veracruz.
They remained there until Iturbide's
cause prevailed. For his service to Mexi­can
independence, Trespalacios was
made a cavalry colonel, and then ap­pointed
governor of Geahu-ila aH-fi 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.
GOVERNMENT SEAL OF COAHUILA AND TEXAS
T exas State Historical Survey Committee
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PATIO OF m;"S~ANI~i=i GOV~RNOR'S PALACE AT SAN ANTONIO Dallas Historical Society
7/-" 11/ •
J 0 SEA N TON I 0 During his tenure, Saucedo defined the
S A U C E D 0 boundaries of and approved the regula-
1824 tions for Stephen F. Austin's colony.
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
and Texas in 1824, he became jefe poli­tico,
the chief political officer in Bexar.
MARTIN DE LEON
1824
One of the most influential men in early
Texas, Martin de Leon came from a
wealthy creole family of Nuevo Santan­der.
He chose a life of ranching and ad-venture
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 Leon's
"EJ" brand, reputedly the oldest in Tex­as,
belonged to the J esuits centuries be­fore
and stood for Espiritu Jesus, Spirit of
Jesus. Don Martin had supported the Hi­dalgo
revolution, and with the establish­ment
of the Republic of Mexico in 1824,
he obtained a grant to settle J\Jexican
families in Texas. Victoria, the capital of
his colony, grew, even after its founder's
neath in 1833, and was one of the first
three towns to be 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.
After the Texas Revolution, the Anglo­Americans
treated them unfairly because
they were Mexicans. The enterprising
caliber of men De Leon 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 live in the
Victoria area today.
MARTIN DE LEON'S CATTLE BRAND
I.T.C. Collection
6,- trl/r (I,)
9
10
RAFAEL GONZALES
1824
Born in San Fernando de Bexar in 1789,
Rafael Gonzales trained for an army ca­reer
and served at various posts in Coa­huila
and Texas. He joined the forces of
independence against Spain, and was pro­moted
to lieutenant colonel. He served as
governor of Coahuila and Texas from
1824 to 1826. The Texas town of Gon­zales
is named for him.
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GASP~R FLORES
1826
Gaspar Flores Abrego y Valdes twice
served as alcalde of San Antonio. He was
appointed in 1826 to succeed the Baron
de Bastrop as commissioner of coloniza­tion.
As such, Flores completed the land
titles of Austin's first colony and estab­Ii
shed the settlers of the second Austin
contract. With almost unlimited power
of land 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. 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-the­Brazos.
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 r evenue. In 1824 he was chosen
mayor of his native city. Later, in 1830,
he was elected vice-governor of Coahuila
and 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
Veramendi and most of his family-in­cluding
Bowie's wife-died during a
cholera epidemic in 1833.
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PLACIDO BENAVIDES
1832
Placido Benavides, one of Martin de Le­on's
colonists, played a leading part in
the fight for Texas independence. A na­tive
of Reynosa, Benavides came to Texas
in 18Z8 as secretary to Francisco de Leon,
commissioner of the De Leon colony.
With two of his brothers ~p~~
shared a . land gra~t o(jjlffi 0 ;;
He marrIed Agustma ~-. "" e­came
alcalde of Victoria
home, Round Top House, served~S ref­uge
for colonists during Indian ra' s. Al­ways
loyal to the Texan cause, B navides
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Victon.a Co. , 18-7-9-, Gen. L a nd Office
led a group of Mexican Texan 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.
RAMON MUSQUIZ
1835
"Ramon 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 Anto-nio
in December 1835. Ramon Musquiz
was the political chief and the highest
civil official in Texas from 18Z7 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, Ramon 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 18Z9,
abolishing slavery in Mexico. He also
worked to make Texas a separate state
within the Mexican nation. In March
1835 he replaced Juan Seguin as Vice
Governor of Coahuila and Texas, and
three months later was elevated to the
governorship. He was in San Antonio
during the battle of the Alamo, and later
helped tend the Texan dead. Shortly
thereafter Musquiz left San Antonio and
lived in Monclova until 1839, when he
returned to San Antonio.
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READING
1()~!;7S
TEXAS' DECLARATION
OF INDEPENDENCE
1836
On March 2, 1836-four days before
Santa Anna's success at the Alamo-dele­gates
at the town of Washington signed
Texas' Declaration of Independence. At
least seven Mexican Texans were elected
to serve in this convention, but only
three were able to attend-Jose Antonio
Navarro, Jose Francisco Ruiz, and Lo­renzo
de Zavala.
JOSE ANTONIO
NAVARRO
1836
For fifty 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 Gu­tierr~
z and Magee. When that uprising
failed, Navarro took refuge in Louisiana
until granted amnesty in 1816. His pleas­ant
friendship with Stephen F. Austin be­gan
in 1821, 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 and 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' 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, spoke for the
secession ordinance. Twenty-five years
before his death in 1871, Navarro County
was created and named in his honor. The
county seat, Corsicana, is so-called for his
father's birthplace on the isle ~orsica.
JOSE ANTONIO NAVARRO '1- ~-43 D.R.T. Library
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JOSE FRANCISCO RUIZ
1836
Born in San Antonio on September 1,
1780, Jose Francisco Ruiz was sent by his
family to Spain for an 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 enited
States after defeat of the Gutierrez-Magee
t'
expedition, Ruiz went to live among the
Indians and remained with them 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.
13
14
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 1822 until his election as governor of
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
scholarly 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 ad inter­im
vice-president 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.
GREGORIO ESPARZA
1836
Gregorio Esparza-one of nine known
Mexican Texans to die in the Alamo­was
its 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, Jose Maria Gregorio,
Toribio Losoya, Andres Nava, and Gua­dalupe
Rodriquez. Esparza was an excep­tion
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. Gre-gorio,
on the other hand, hp.d 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 had better take refuge
in the Alamo. The siege was beginning,
and massive doors barred tight in the be­leaguered
walls, when the Esparzas, un­der
cover of night, were raised through a
window into Alamo chapel. There Gre­gorio
was found on March 6, 1836, the
eve of his thirty-fourth birthday, slumped
over the small cannon he had manned-a
ball in his chest and a saber slash
through his side. Travis' slave, Joe, and
at least twelve women and children sur­vived
the battle inside the Alamo. Five
were Esparzas: Gregorio's wife and their
four small youngsters. Esparza was proud
of his heritage from a mestizo father and
a Spanish mother, and his offspring were
proud of him. One son, Enrique, lived to
be eighty-nine. 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." .
15
16
JOSE MIGUEL ALDRETE 11 • .u~~ (J,) /
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 mar-
Patricia De Leon Collection
ried a daughter of Mexican empresario
Martin de Leon, served on the Goliad
town council, and was several times al­calde.
A large landholder in Nueces and
Refugio Counties, Aldrete was land com­missioner
of Coahuila and Texas in 1835,
when Santa Anna did away with its gov­ernment.
JESUS CUELLAR
1836
The Mexican army's success at San Pa­tricio
and Goliad during the Texas Revo ~
lution 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. Unfortunately, Fannin
was too slow in taking 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.
ERASMO AND
JUAN SEGUIN
1836
The Seguins, Erasmo and Juan, devoted
their lives and fortunes to the growth and
development of Texas. Born at San An­tonio
in 1782, 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 rein-
force the weakening relationship between
the Texans and 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 independ­ence
declaration.
His son, Juan, was one of the most ef­fective
recruiters for the Texan forces.
More than once he rode through enemy
lines to deliver messages, and he led a
cavalry unit at San Jacinto. 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 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 Rafael Vas­quez
and his troops captured the city in
March of the following year, Vasquez
told the people that the mayor sympa­thized
with the Mexican 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 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 twenty 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 aJid homes. Se-
JUAN SEGUIN ~J'- '1'70/
guin 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 Texas. When the hands
of history were exposed, however, he was
vindicated of false accusations and recog­nized
as a true Texas patriot. In 1969
citizens of Seguin, Texas, raised funds to
restore his grave and made a pilgrimage
to the site.
Texas State Library
17
18
b8-'~
SECOND REGIMENT OF
TEXAS VOLUNTEERS­NINTH
COMPANY
1835-1836
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, where those who
did not speak English cried: "Recuerden
el Alamo!" Seven of the nine Mexican
Texans who died in the Alamo were Se­guin's
men (see section on Gregorio Es­parza).
Other members of the company
included: Antonio Cruz Arocha, Jose Ma­ria
Arocha, Manuel Arocha, Simon
Arreola, Andres Barcinas, Manuel Bueno,
Juan M. Cabrera, Gabriel Casillas, Cesa­rio
Corman, Antonio Curbier, Matias
Curbier, Alejandro de la Garza, Lucio
Enriques, Manuel Flores, Manuel Maria
Flores, N epomuceno Flores, Pedro He­rrera,
Jose Maria Jimenez, Tomas Maldo­nado,
Antonio Menchaca, Jose Maria
Mancha, N epomuceno Navarro, Jacinto
Peiia, Eduardo Ramirez, Ambrosio Rodri- ,
guez and Manuel Tarin.
JOSE ANTONIO
MENCHACA
1838
Born at Bexar in 1800, Jose Antonio Men­chaca
was the grandson of Marcos Men­chaca,
who had settled on a grant from
the Spanish crown. Jose joined the Texan
forces in 1835, participated in the siege of
Bexar and served under Juan Seguin at
the battle of San Jacinto. At this battle,
Sergeant Menchaca-1_ who was fluent in
both English and Spanish, acted as in­terpreter
for Seguin and others of the
company who did not understand Eng-
lish. After the Texan army left 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 commander-in-chief that they
had joined the army to aid in the fight­ing
and wanted to die facing the enemy.
<7/ .. .a.a ~ vi
I
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 Jacinto. In 1838 Presi­dent
Lamar named Menchaca to a con­ference
commission on the Cordova r e­bellion,
and he was later mayor pro tern
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
J. 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
l\1exican occupation of San Antonio, and
was killed at the battle of Salado.
~~~~
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JOSE MARIA JESUS
CARBAJAL (CARVAJAL)
1846
At the mid-point of his career Jose Maria
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 con-
19
20
tinued to view this fateful strip as part
of the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. San
Antonio-born Carbajal was a fatherless
lad of thirteen 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 technique 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 and Texas Legislature.
When Carbajal's arrest was ordered in
1835 for rebellious activity against Mexi­co,
he fled to New Orleans with his broth­er-
in-Iaw, Fernando de Leon, to secure a
boat load of munitions for Texan volun­teers.
Captured and detained at Mata­moros,
Carbajal was prevented from at­tending
the 1836 Convention at the town
of Washington to which he had been
elected. 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 Leon 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
of Tamaulipas. President Juarez
then entrusted Carbajal with a delicate
loan mission to the United States; his
success, and his purchase of arms, made
possible Mexico's complete expulsion of
the French.
,..)
LOS KINENOS
1853
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 ranch hands
whose families have been associated with
the ranch for several generations. With
pride, they have called themselves Los
KING RANCH RIDERS 7d - .17' /'
Kinefios. Some of these people, who
worked for the ranch in the late 19th cen­tury
have achieved almost legendary
status. Ramon 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.
Tom Lea, The King Ranch
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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,
Chief Nicolas 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 man were
killed. By 1862, Musquiz had changed his
base of operations to Santa Rosa in Old
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 he 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
emigrated, at the age of 19, to Nuevo
Laredo, where he was employed by Fran­cisco
Iturria, a wealthy Spanish mer­chant.
He stayed with Iturria a year. In
1859, he crossed the Rio Grande to man­age
a ranch owned by his father. He
21
'j~S~~ •
O~~. BUILDING ~T!~:N:Gt~~~~O ~,,;,,~ ~ l :A _ ::r91 I.T.C. Collection
traveled often to San lrgnacio, where he terior of Mexico and outlets at Corpus
met and soon married Miss Maria de Je- Christi and San Antonio, In one of his
sus Uribe. Martinez had the foresight to shipments he received a consignment of
see that the Civil War, then brewing in kerosene lamps, which quickly replaced
the United States, wS)U1ld gieer~e a brisk tallow candles for home lighting in San
trade between the Confederate States and Ygnacio. He planted the first cotton, and
Mexico. He established in Laredo a gen- also introduced the first modern style
eral merchandise store which became plow and corn-planter in Zapata County.
highly successful. In 1868, he settled in Martinez died at his home in San Y gna-
San Ygnacio, where he founded a similar cio, .Texas, on February 23, 1937, at the
enterprise. He conducted a large scale age of 96.
export-import business between the in-
22
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
pistol-whipping a prisoner on the streets
of Brownsville. When the gunfire had
ceased, four men lay dead or dying. For
the next two 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 was driven
from Texas for good. In his violent and
ill-considered way, he had stirred up
more hatred and persecution than ever
before, since his raid 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 self-con­tradictory,
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.
JUAN CORTINA I. T. Canales, Juan N. Cortina
7 tJ-/9fJ ./
SANTOS BENAVIDES
1861
Santos Benavides was a prominent Laredo
merchant who 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 of 25
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 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 Brownsville in November. 1863 Cor­tina
gave little trouble in Texas. In 1864,
Colonel Benavides commanded a force
which defeated the Federals under Colo­nel
E. J. 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.
4J iF 1 2&lJ 2 tIIJmtj 6! I adS, y ot. 11
~.rtt1 d~ /..~,." MISS P"Tf'.ICI'" DE /..EO"
I G N A C I 0 Z A RAG 0 Z A COU.&C.Tlori
DE SEGUIN
1862
General Ignacio Zaragoza, a native Tex­an,
became one of Mexico's greatest he­roes
on May 5, 1862, when he led tattered
recruits to victory over superbly equipped
French forces. This significant battle of
23
24
Puebla was the turning point in Mexico's
efforts to rid itself of French occupation,
and 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, Ignacio Zaragoza was dead of ty­phoid
at the age of 33. The h ero had in­herited
a tendency toward 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 Texan grandfather, Ig­nacio
Seguin. Subsequently, army orders
took them back to Bexar, and on to N acog­doches
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 taken by relay runners over
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 May 5, Zaragoza Societies from
several Texas cities gather at Goliad for
commemorative ceremonies. In an area
designated as Zaragoza State Park, plans
are underway to restore the house where
he was born. IGNACIO ZARAGOZA DE SEGUIN
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31'/ "j A FREIGHTING TEAM IN THE TIME OF ;::~m~ - '- - --' --· £z P~;-Public Library
"* GL 0 J 10 DAN D A Danda's caliber were much in demand
1874 because of their knowledge of Indian war-f)
lojio Danda worked for the famed fare, and because their courage was equal
wagonmaster, August Santleben, on the to any emergency.
Chihuahua Trail. Danda, however, was
celebrated, not as a trail driver, but as an
Indian fighter. He was a citizen of Presi­dio
del Norte. His reputation was ac­quired
on the trail that ran between his
hometown and Fort Davis. Marauding
bands of Mescalero Apaches used this
route in making raids into the Big Bend
country and Old Mexico. Occasionally,
the Indians fought openly, but their pre­ferred
tactic was the ambush. Men of
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PEDRO JARAMILLO
1881
As a young man, Don Pedro Jaramillo
had an infection on his nose which caused
him great pain. In desperation, he flung
himself by a pond, intending to make a
poultice of the cool mud. As the pain left
him, Don Pedrito vowed to devote his life
to healing others. He arrived in Texas in
1881, and soon located at Olmos, an old
settlement near Falfurrias. As an evange­list
and healer, he became a legendary
curandero and true folk hero, developing
a clientele from as far away as California
and New York. He carried a Bible where­ever
he went, and his clients paid what­ever
they could afford. At times there
would be as many as 500 camped at Los
Olmos Creek waiting for Don Pedrito.
Pictures of Don Pedrito are among those
of saints in many Mexican homes in
South Texas today. Wreaths, holy can­dles,
and letters are placed on his grave at
Olmos, a spot for meditation and prayer,
in the hope that Don Pedrito still will
help his followers. A Laredo firm once
supplied curative herbs, using his picture
and the trademark "Don Pedrito."
iJ- t/?1 / PEDRO JARAMILLO Brooks County Library
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A ~EXICAN JACAL ABOUT ~"8~--;-i:'-"'- t .~..l .. 11 ~ )1 9 H arper's Monthly, Vol. LXXXI
GROWING IMPORTANCE
OF THE T E X AS '
BORDERLANDS.
1876-1920
For more than 60 years after the Texas
Revolution there was little immigration
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 Diaz as­sumed
his ruthless dictatorship of Mexi­co.
He maintained it 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 totalled about 70,000 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 land and property owners were
forced to leave Mexico, and with its coun­tryside
despoiled by war, agricultural
production fell to a level of the late
1700's.
CATARINO GARZA
1891
The flashing figure of Catarino Garza­born
in Mexico, reared in Brownsville­was
the last of the line of the 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 scurcbed
from Mexico to Cuba, and on to ~t.gMBI/:\"
~, where he was killed as a filibuster
in tW. I/.
CATARI~ARZA ~. ~ J ~ D.R.T. Library
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GREGORIO COR~EZ -A;~ RA~';;~R~ WH; ;UR~UED HIM ~,~ '173'
GREGORIO CORTEZ
1901
Gregorio Cortez, a Mexican Texan hero,
gave rise to a folk legend comparable to
those of Sam Bass, Billy the Kid, or Jesse
James. His feats became symbolic of the
struggle between the oppressed and the
oppressor. In his time, ballads were com­posed
and sung a bout 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 a fantastic ten-day flight, Cortez
walked at least 120 miles and rode more
than 400, using three horses. He killed
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T exana Collection, The University of T exas at Austin
two of his pursuers, one of whom was
Sheriff Robert M. Glover. Chased by hun­dreds
of men in parties up to 300, Cortez
outwitted the posses, until captured near
the Rio Grande border by Texas Ranger
Captain J. 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.
,/
27
28
MEXICAN TEXAN
POPULATION
1930-1970
By 1930, over 266,000 persons of Mexican
birth lived in Texas, and many hundreds
of thousands of others moved seasonally
into other states to harvest crops before
returning to their homeland. The most
significant movement of people on the
North American continent still occurs
across Texas' southern border, making
Texas the bridge-or meeting place-be­tween
English-speaking and Latin Amer­ica.
Almost two million Mexican Texans
-or some 20 percent of the state's 1970
population-exert 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 ~ergeant Luciano Adams of
Port Arthur, Sergeant Marcario Garcia
of Sugarland, Private Silvestre P. Herrera
of EI Paso, Sergeant Jose M. Lopez of
Brownsville and Sergeant Cleto Rodri­guez
of San Marcos. A cardinal example
of determined courage is a more recent
Mexican Texan to receive the Medal of
Honor-Corporal Benito Martinez of Fort
Hancock in far West Texas. The award
was made posthumously in 1952 for his
"incredible valor and supreme sacrifice"
in Korea.
"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 even list all of the
Texans of Mexican ancestry who are
making significant contributions in the
arts, the professions, and business. Nor
can anyone honestly presume to select
any reasonable numb~r as being more
worthy of mention than all pthers. 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 Castaneda's 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
and 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 considered
lost. 7 CARLOS CASTAN DA
7/- /-lS'"
Eleuterio Escobar Collection
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 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 the Republic of Mexico, he was
drawn irresistibly to the teaching and
writing of history particularly of his na­tive
Southwest and 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 William
and Mary College 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 EI 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
to Juarez in 1925. In 1934 he moved his
residence to EI Paso. He worked at such
jobs as deliveryman and window trimmer
until 1943, when he began working for
the EI Paso Transit Company.
Throughout his life, Cisneros has pur­sued
his art work in his spare time. With
little opportunity for formal education,
he is described by friends as one of the
best informed and best read men in the
EI 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
JOSE CISNEROS ?4-.!9' I
Spanish Heritage of the Southwest, and
Morelos of Mexico.
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' work has ap­peared
under the imprint of such major
publishing houses as Random House,
Funk and Wagnalls, Devin-Adair, and (
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.L1~ S~J 71..2-
In/ormation Service, The University of Texas at \austin 'I !
29
30
REYNALDO GARZA
In 1961 Reyn aldo Garza of Brownsville
became the first Mexican American ever
appointed to a federal judgeship in the
State of Texas. He is a lifelong resident of
Brownsville, attended public schools
there, and received a bachelor of arts de­gree
and law degree from The University
of Texas at Austin in 1939. He practiced
law in Brownsville until 1942, when he
began military service. He reentered law
practice in 1945, and continued until
March, 1961, when he was appointed a
federal district judge by President Ken­nedy.
During his career of public service,
Judge Garza has served on the school
board at Brownsville, and later 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
at the Knights of Columbus, the
Rotarians, and the Boy Scouts of America.
REYN ALDO GARZA 6'1-.3' /1 / I.T.C. Collection
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71-/1
SEVERO GOMEZ
Severo Gomez is Texas's first assistant
commissioner of education for interna­tional
and bilingual education, having
been appointed to this job at the time of
its creation in 1967. Gomez, 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 . s.~rvice from 1943
to 1946. He began teachihg, at Benavides,
Texas, upon his graduation from college.
He remained there until 1955, when he
transferred to the Rio 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.
Gomez's pioneering work in the field of
bilingual education culminated in his ap­pointment
as the first assistant commis-