PART 1 of 4 parts. THREATS IMAGINED AND/OR REAL
The bloodiest battle ever fought in Texas had its origins in the American and French Revolutions, in British-Napoleonic Europe/Spain of 1808-1813 and the United States’ War of 1812.
Revolutionary ideas of liberty and equality flew across the Americas in 1810. Colonial Spanish leaders in Nueva España/New Spain, from Mexico City to Louisiana faced a revolt among their citizens for (1) ridding themselves of rule by Napoleon Bonaparte’s brother, who was now King of Spain; (2) to have leaders and officials who were born in this new world (the criollos rather than the haughty, Spain-born peninsulares); and (3) bring about freedom and a democratic republic much like the United States had.
Across the northern region this revolt was led by Father Miguel Hidalgo. Who, from September 16, 1810 until January 1811, offered leadership in this fight to achieve these goals. However, the Spanish military, with loyalty to Spain, needed to crush this first challenge to Spanish rule. In doing so, they mercilessly sought out and expunged any and all others with the same ideas.
FIRST APPARENT THREAT
In 1791, Irish-born Nolan, considered to be the first fillibustero to arrived in Texas. He was working for a Natchez merchant who wanted to open trade with folk in the San Antonio de Béxar area of Texas. Over several trips between New Orleans, Natchez, and San Antonio, Nolan sought out and maintained working relationship with local Spanish authorities.
Spanish authorities, on the other hand, were suspicious of outsiders arriving from the United States or French Louisiana. They believed Philip Nolan was a spy or a filibustero, a pirate, who was looking to destabilize, overthrow Spanish rule, and, like a pirate, steal Texas from New Spain for the new United States of America.
In March, 1801, on Nolan’s fourth horse catching expedition, General Pedro de Nava and his Spanish force was sent to Texas to stop Nolan and any threat to Spanish rule. General de Nava found Nolan and his men working mustangs in the corrals and living in buildings they constructed for protection. In the ensuing fight, Nolan was killed (his body never found) and his men taken prisoner to Chihuahua. Here they were tried and imprisoned for many years for their part of this perceived escapade to overthrow Spanish rule in Texas.
Although diaries of one of the Spanish officers sent to stop Nolan and of a memoire written by one of Nolan’s men, Peter Ellis Bean, (sometimes seen as Pedro Elias Bean) give clues to these events, there is still a mystery: was Phillip Nolan a real filibuster being paid by the United States to liberate Texas and all of New Spain as was believed by Spanish officials? Or, was he just the merchant and mustang catcher that he claimed to be?
Whatever the “truth,” Spanish authorities firmly believed that these bold mustangers carried the ideas of the American and French revolutions with them. They firmly believed that Nolan had access to American money and “volunteers” who were waiting just across the eastern border of New Spain in French Louisiana for a chance of liberating Texas. Americans would then move south into New Spain, overthrow the legal Spanish government and make the area from Louisiana to Mexico City independent and free, but, pro–American.
News reports eventually made it back east where Americans read about and heard about this attack on Nolan and his mustangers. Anger, toward this brutal response from Spanish rule in neighboring Texas, grew rapidly. Change was indeed coming to Texas.
REAL FILIBUSTEROS or REAL LAND PIRATES THREATEN NUEVA ESPAÑA
Filibusters, (from the Spanish filibustero, or pirate) gathered in Natchitoches, Louisiana and even near the Spanish fort at Nacogdoches, Texas in the early 1803 and again in 1813. Their intent was to “free” this northern corner of Coahuila y Tejas from Spanish control to their own purposes. This most recent group of determined filibusters into Spanish Texas, in 1813, was the Magee–Gutierrez Expedition, made up of the Republican Army of the North.
Spanish General Juaquín de Arredondo, newly appointed military commandant and governor of Nueva Santander, had stopped the revolt of Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla’s 1810 revolt by summer of 1811 and was sent to Texas to stop this new threat, an invasion of filibusteros.
Spanish General Juaquín de Arredondo, newly appointed military commandant and governor of Nueva Santander, had stopped the revolt of Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla’s 1810 revolt by summer of 1811 and was sent to Texas to stop this new threat, an invasion of filibusteros.
NEXT, PART 2: THE SPANISH FILIBUSTEROS
