TEXAS DECLARES ITS INDEPENDENCE AND THE REPUBLICAN ARMY ADVANCES
When we left Texas earlier, Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla’s short lived revolt against French-Spanish rule was over with his death in 1811. Captain Juan Bautista de las Casas and his September 16th–Father Hidalgo-inspired rebels had opposed Spanish rule and demanded only Texas and Mexico be governed by leaders born in America, not Spain. All Spanish-born officials, like Texas Governor Salcedo were not wanted. However, with Captain Casas’ rebellious head firmly mounted on a pike in the Presidio de San Antonio de Béxar’s Plaza de Armas or Military Plaza, in August, 1811, Salcedo was soon restored to the Spanish Governorship of Texas and Spanish royalist rule firmly in place.
There was, however, another great plot brewing that hoped to (1) relieve Napoleonic Spain from its troublesome empire of Nueva España and (2) stop Great Britain from threatening the independence of the new United States of America. This new filibustering plot came to be called the Gutierrez-Magee Expedition.
By 1810, it became apparent that Great Britain was indeed moving to re-take their old 13 colonies, now called the United States of America. President Thomas Jefferson and Secretary of State James Monroe, conceived of a plan to out-play the British on the Caribbean chessboard. If Texas and Mexico could become independent of Spain, and perhaps even states of the USA, these British plots might be stopped. A new plan was conceived, financed, and set into motion by summer, 1812. (Remember your U.S. History: This perceived threat was real, for the young United States nation soon began its second fight for independence against Britain: the War of 1812-1815.)
There was no rest, however, for Governor Salcedo. The new plot was staging in Louisiana in summer of 1812. The four major players were (1) American Special Agent William Shaler, Secretary of State James Monroe’s “observer” for this Texas expedition, who met with (2) Cuban revolutionary José Alvarez de Toledo (who was likely receiving $$$ from the US government); (3) Mexican revolutionary and Tejano José Bernardo Maximiliano Gutiérrez de Lara; and (4) West Point graduate Lieutenant Augustus William Magee. The four met in Louisiana with their army of volunteers, and President Jefferson’s money and supplies, to complete their plans.
These adventurers, or filibusteros, were anxious to end Spanish rule in the Texas-Mexico region, save the United States from British re-conquest, then, just maybe, annex Texas, perhaps even Mexico, as the new 19th and 20th states. Number 18, Louisiana, had just been added on April 30, 1812. The pickin’s looked easy, …well, hmm, do-able.
Captain José Felix Menchaca was sent from our Presidio to east Texas to guide the four men and their army, the Republican Army of the North, back to Béxar. While they were beginning their march, on April 6, 1813, in front of Jose Menchaca’s old place, now referred to as the Spanish Governor’s Palace, a Declaration of Independence was read. The struggle was now for R E A L and in earnest. With in the next weeks Texas would also have its first Constitution. (see those documents attached to this blog.)
WHO WERE THESE “BIG 4:” TOLEDO, GUTIERREZ, MAGEE, AND SHALER?
José Alvarez de Toledo (1779-1858) had worked to bring independence to Cuba from Spain, but was exiled for his trouble by Spanish authorities in Cuba. He came to Washington D. C. where he received funding from Secretary of State James Monroe for anti-Spanish (and British) activities in Cuba. Rather than return to Cuba and be arrested, Toledo saw a new opportunity to enrage and re-engage the Spanish by turning his talents to freeing Texas from Spanish control. In Washington, D.C. he was introduced to José Gutiérrez de Lara. With United States Special Agent William Shaler, Toledo trained Gutierrez DeLara in the arts of filibustering, and became the head of the Army of the North and head of the provisional government August 1, 1813 in San Antonio, then led the army against the Spanish at the Battle of Medina, August 18, 1813.
José Bernardo Maximiliano Gutiérrez de Lara had been a part of Father Miguel Hidalgo’s recruiters along the Rio Grande border. After the Casas revolt he was sent by other rebels to the United States to seek support with men, money, and war materiel from that government. In October, 1811, he arrived in Washington, D. C., talking and planning with Secretary James Monroe to establish a republican government in Texas and use it as a base to liberate Mexico. Gutiérrez de Lara also met with ministers from Europe and revolutionaries from South America, including one Cuban, José Alvarez de Toledo. In January. 1812 the two met to begin planning the liberation of Texas and Mexico.
In March, 1812, Gutiérrez de Lara arrived in Louisiana to meet United States special agent William Shaler. With American money, a growing stack of supplies, and interested men at the ready, they planned and assembled their invasion force.
By early April, 1812, this assembled expedition moved into Texas with one Lieutenant Augustus William Magee. Magee was described by Shaler as “a very tall robust Bostonian, handsome of person and countenance, commanding in appearance, and withal prepossessing manner.” He was also said to be “one of the best informed officers of his age in the U. S. Army; stood third in his class as West Point and was appointed a 2nd Lieutenant artillerist. in 1809.” Magee was in Louisiana cleaning out bandits from the “Neutral Ground.” But, he was also becoming disenchanted with that task and the same U. S. Army. Offered a new opportunity, Magee found a renewed interest in separating Texas from its Spanish overlords.
NUEVA SANTENDER GOVERNOR AND GENERAL FELIX ARREDONDO TURNS HIS ATTENTION TO TEXAS
The Empire of Spain would not begin its crumble on his watch! General Joaquín de Arredondo, a son of Spain, born in 1768 to a future Governor of Cuba, Nicolas de Arredondo y Palegri and wife Josepha Roso deMioño, would not lose one league or labor of Nueva España to unwashed revolutionaries and filibusteros. Those who sought an independent Mexico or a close connection with the upstart United States would taste Spanish lead and steel.
As military commander and governor of Nueva Santender, General Arredondo was responsible for settling the “unrest” of those Mexican-born criollos who demanded afree Mexico governed by those same criollos and not the Spanish born peninsulares who cared little for a Mexico independent of Spain.
Throughout the fall and winter of 1811, Father Miguel Hidalgo and his thousands of followers who were headed to Mexico City, were turned northward by loyal armies. Juaquín de Arredondo was charged with moving his army north to help surround and block Hidalgo’s move into northeastern New Spain and Texas where many more supporters awaited to help.
Arredondo’s counterinsurgency needed to stop Miguel Hidalgo’s insurrection was not a pretty or delicate operation.
Suffice to say, Don Juaquin’s four staff officers, Captain Francisco Antonio Cao, Captain Carlos Bilbao, Cadet Antonio Elosúa, and Lieutenant Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna were described by one author, Bradley Folsom, as being “competent, capable, and well trained.”
By the end of January, 1811, with the execution of Miguel Hidalgo and deaths of thousands of his followers, the northeastern provinces of New Spain,were firmly back in Spanish control.
Arredondo’s biographer, Folsom, writes that don Juaquín was promoted for his thorough defense of Spain by the Viceroy and was given the (1) Governorship of New Santander and (2) office of The Commandant General of the four Eastern Provinces of Nuevo Santander, Nueva Leon, Coahuila and Texas. His responsibility was for both military and civil matters in an area the size of Texas and, in this wartime situation, Arredondo could make his own laws. One important civil duty was that of protecting the residents. Many problems arose within the province, such as the frequent, hostile Indian attacks. These and other issues could not be handled efficiently by messaging back and forth to the Viceroy, the King’s appointed authority, in Mexico City. General Don Juaquín HAD to be is own authority…and was.
Furthermore, Arredondo had to oversee the church’s missionary efforts, build roads and other civic projects, make sure business prospered, and encourage settlement for the control of distant regions. He was ever cognizant, from his headquarters at Nuevo Santender, that he was on the northeastern front line of the empire and on a spot critical for protecting New Spain against a potential invasion from French-Louisiana.
With many threads in his cloth of challenges to his rule, Arredondo was still engaged in cleaning up continued rebellions of Hidalgo-supporters in Coahuila and San Luis Potosi. Throughout the fall and winter of 1812, several insurgencies gave his 650 soldiers, cavalry, and staff officers trouble. As they captured the hundreds of Hidalgo-inspired rebels, Arredondo ordered them to be hung in trees, many by their several pieces cut by cavalry swords, so all could see the results of that defiance to royal Spanish rule.
In January, 1813, Arredondo, received the worst of messages. He was furious when he learned the filibusteros, the pirates who had been organizing in Louisiana, were in Texas and had been since August, 1812! FIVE months! And, the audacity of these invaders. They so frightened the folk there that even the soldiers stationed at the Spanish fort at Nacogdoches deserted. These invaders called themselves The Army of the North! Orders were given to ready men and supplies for the march north and bring this latest insurrection to a decisive and instructive end.
Surely, General Arredondo believed he must do something exceptional to bring all these facets and forces of republican rebellions to a decisive halt. He knew if those Hidalgo-ites he’d been chasing were able to unite with the invading Army of the North, Spanish control of Nueva España would be seriously threatened, if not lost. It would not happen on his watch.
NEXT: PART 4. THE BATTLE and THE AFTERMATH
