The Texas War of Independence 1835–36: From Outbreak to the Alamo to San Jacinto

By Alan C Huffines

The Texas Revolution is remembered chiefly for the 13-day siege of the Alamo and its immortal heroes. This book describes the war and the preceding years that were marked by resentments and minor confrontations as the ambitions of Mexico's leaders clashed with the territorial determination of Texan settlers. When the war broke in October 1835, the invading Mexicans, under the leadership of the flamboyant President-General Santa Ana, fully expected to crush a ragged army of frontiersmen. Led by Sam Houston, the Texans rallied in defense of the new Lone Star state, defeated the Mexicans in a mere 18 minutes at the battle of San Jacinto and won their independence.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Jun 6, 2014
• ISBN: 9781472810151

Book preview

Introduction

This country should be given back to nature and the Indians.

Marqués de Rubíl (1766)

In many respects it was a European civil war: the descendants of northern European Protestants fought and defeated the offspring of southern European Catholics in a seven-month war of independence. The age-old challenges of European hegemony were exposed in the Mexican province of Texas. Removed by an ocean (and often several generations) from their ancestral homelands, each side nonetheless fought each other with a hatred and vigilance that made this war seem as feudal as the many past wars fought over similar interests, so long before and so far away. The former colonists of northern and southern Europe, each with competing political, economic, cultural and religious ideals, struggled over control of the North American continent. The land could not be shared but must be conquered by one or the other.

The Viceroyalty of New Spain

The Spanish Crown had laid claim to the North American continent north and west of the Río Grande since the 16th century, and a large portion of that area (265,000 square miles) would become Texas. The name Tejas, or Texas, came from Caddo vernacular meaning friendly. As the Aztec influence became stronger in the Viceroyalty of New Spain (especially after Mexican independence in 1821), the j would be dropped and replaced with the Aztec x.

In 1528 Spanish accountant and conquistador Álvar Núñez (Cabeza de Vaca) was shipwrecked off the coast of Texas and wandered the Great Plains for eight years, finally encountering his countrymen again in 1536. He made his way to Mexico City in that year with vastly exaggerated tales of his travels that gave rise to the legends of the Seven Golden cities of Cibola. He was soon followed by the conquistadors Francisco Vásquez de Coronado (1510–54) and Juan de Oñate (c.1550–1630), who explored the new area of the viceroyalty (just as Francisco Pizarro and Hernando Cortés did further south) for the Church, for the king, and to bring the message of Christ to the savages of the region. Despite trekking through Texas, Oklahoma, and as far north as present-day Kansas, Coronado found no gold. The Spaniards persisted in the search, however, and spared no expense in the effort to locate these great treasures – after all who could make better use of golden cities, Spain, or the aborigines who had no concept of what worth gold held? The cities certainly existed, but they were not made of gold – they were the pueblo of the Zuñi tribe (situated in present-day western New Mexico).

The Spaniards never meant to colonize the region, at least not in the same way as their northern European neighbors understood the term. They intended to incorporate Mexico as a province of Spain, to use the land and its inhabitants through a series of land ventures called encomienda and estancia de ganado (cattle ranches). Drawn by the prospect of cheap land and great wealth, Spanish adventurers continued to travel to the New World, and by 1600 there were a quarter of a million Spaniards in the Americas. The Spaniards claimed title to the land and used the indigenous population as labor. The encomienda ended in 1720 and left in its wake a peculiar caste system of landowner and laborer that would continue to haunt Mexico throughout its maturity.

The Texas mission period began in 1690 with the founding of the Mission San Francisco de los Tejas in east Texas by Franciscan monks. When compared to the Jesuits, who were attempting to accomplish the same task in Canada and Central America, the Franciscan order was possibly the more disciplined and intent of the two. Catholic missions were established in Tejas (to include five in San Antonio), and stretched from Nagodoches to San Antonio and into El Paso. One of them, the Mission San Antonio de Valero was founded in 1718 and would arguably have the most colorful history of all these institutions.

In 1727 the Spanish colony north of Mexico became the province of Texas. There were several reasons (apart from Catholicism) for the missions and colonization, the most urgent being the need to arrest growing French exploration of east Texas. Another reason was historical legacy. By the 18th century Spain was declining as a culture and as an empire, and perhaps the only way to regain power and prestige in the global community was in the Viceroyalty of New Spain. At any rate, the Spaniards’ policy of colonization became more traditional during the mission period, even more so when the first colonists arrived in 1731. Fifteen families from the Canary Islands arrived in San Antonio, chosen because of their hardiness and acclimatization to a harsh environment, and because Spaniards from the mainland did not want to colonize this particular outpost of the New World.

Early Native American disinterest in the Spaniards and their religion meant that colonization of this northern province seemed fragile. Plan after plan failed to bring in any large numbers of converts, and settlements were limited to small ecclesiastical missions, military bases (presidios), and civil outposts (pueblos). Not all the tribes were apathetic, however: the Comanche and Apache worked hard to destroy the settlements completely. Both of these nations carried on an extensive guerrilla war against Spain, and countless friars and soldados gave up.

Hostile natives were not the sole problem. The entire mission structure suffered from wholesale abuse of government finances and assets, from the challenges presented by a generally harsh climate, and from insufficient numbers of soldados and equipment. By the late 18th century, the soldado de cuera (leather-jacketed soldier) who manned the isolated stations was still wearing leather armor and carrying a shield and lance to defend himself – similar equipment to that of their enemies, but hopelessly outdated in comparison to their European contemporaries. The main difference was that the French-sponsored Comanche and Apache were more numerous, better mounted, and more motivated.

France ceded Louisiana to Spain in 1763 as a result of their alliance during the Seven Years War, which stopped French encroachment into Tejas. (Louisiana returned to French possession in 1800.) In 1766 Spain sent the Marqués de Rubíl to tour the region and make recommendations for the dispersal of the land. He recommended that all missions and presidios (garrisons), except for those in San Antonio de Béxar and La Bahía (90 miles east of Béxar) be dismantled and abandoned. He suggested that all colonists in Texas be relocated to San Antonio. Spain had conquered the Aztec, Maya, and Inca Empires, yet could not destroy or even defend its property against two relatively small nomadic bands. The Comanche and Apache had defeated Spain: Texan colonization would have to wait.

After 75 years of operation, the Mission San Antonio de Valero could only document 43 converts, and in 1793 the Church secularized it. The property was distributed to the 13 remaining convert families, descendants of the original Canary Islanders. In 1801 a presidial Flying Company, the Compañia Volante del Alamo de Parras, took over the former mission and converted the compound to a presidio (a station of the garrison). With the new occupants came a new name: Alamo.

At this time, the total population of colonists in Tejas numbered less than 3,000.

Revolution

The long struggle for the Viceroyalty’s independence from Spain began in Dolores, Mexico, in 1810. Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a Catholic priest, raised his grito (shout of revolt), Death to Spaniards! against the monarchy. The causes had little to do with liberties or republican ideals, but were more concerned with social and class divisions, as well as land redistribution.

The society of New Spain was organized around ethnic groupings. The governing and priestly classes were either native-born Spaniards or Spaniards born in Mexico (creolos). As in the United States, there was no identifiable middle class; close to the bottom of the social hierarchy were the mestizos, mixed-race descendants of Spaniards and Indians, who formed the bulk of Hidalgo’s followers and made up about 80 percent of the population. The indigenous Indian population, who frequently did not practice Catholicism or speak Spanish, were at the bottom of the social pyramid.

Hidalgo captured several cities and provinces: Guanajuato, Guadalajara, Nuevo Santander and Coahuila. Because the revolution was organized along social lines, the real power in New Spain – the landowners, Church and army – believed the revolt was aimed at them and gave