On September 27, 1821, military officials in Béxar lowered the Spanish flag flying over the presidio in Béxar and raised the Mexican flag in its place.¹ The solemn and orderly transfer belied the contentious and often violent rebellion, known as the insurgency, of the preceding decade. On two separate occasions, in 1811 and 1813, insurgents and royal troops had clashed in and around Béxar, affecting the lives of people in the entire region. While the insurgency in Béxar had links and parallels to the greater independence movement in Mexico, it also took on distinctive local characteristics. Those differences stemmed from...

When prominent Bexareño Francisco Ruiz presented his report to General Manuel Mier y Terán on Indians living in the Department of Texas in 1828, his observations carried the weight of a native of the region and an individual involved in indigenous relations as an agent and soldier. His notes distinguished between dozens of indigenous groups with an eye toward the possibilities of peace and alliance or war. Of the Lipan Apache, Ruiz wrote, “In my opinion, the southern Lipans [Apache] are the most cruel of all the barbaric nations I know. . . . I have been told by some...

In 1821, Stephen F. Austin organized the first foreign land grant colonization of Texas, with the goal of emigrating 250 families from the United States. Austin’s settlement project would not have succeeded, or for that matter even started, without Tejano support and encouragement. Tejano political leaders ushered through legislation at the state level and smoothed over obstacles as they arose. Austin’s relationship with Erasmo Seguín, the patriarch of the Seguín family, symbolizes the depth and interdependence of contact between Mexicans and Anglo-Americans generally. While the details of their political contacts extended beyond the local level, their personal relations revolved around...

On April 25, 1831, Father Refugio de la Garza, Béxar’s longtime priest, wed the Anglo-American immigrant James Bowie and Ursula de Veramendi.¹ Veramendi’s parents, Juan Martín de Veramendi and María Josefa Ruiz de Navarro, each came from notable families. Josefa’s brother Francisco Ruiz had served as an important official during the Spanish and Mexican periods. Angel Navarro and Juan Francisco Bueno acted aspadrinos, or godparents, to the ceremony and thus connected the couple to the broader elite community throughcompadrazgo. While questions remain about Bowie’s truthful representation of his past, his marriage to Veramendi immediately opened doors and opportunities...

In early fall of 1835, the citizens and government officials of Béxar gathered to prepare for the upcoming Independence Day celebration. For almost a decade since independence, Mexicans marked the origins of the independence movement beginning on the evening of September 15 and continuing through the next day. The decisions to commemorate the events of 1810 rather than 1821 signaled the popular disenchantment with the memory of Agustín Iturbide’s government. A month before the celebration, fifty Bexareños gathered in the political chief’s council hall to elect thejunta patriótica, or patriotic commission, in charge of organizing the event.¹

Ramón Músquiz...

After the loss at San Jacinto, General Antonio López de Santa Anna relinquished control of Texas to the Texan secessionists. For Anglo - Texans, the end of the war ushered in the Republic of Texas era.

For Tejanos, though, the war’s end brought only more uncertainty regarding their future. Their political and ethnic relation to Mexico stood at the center of that uncertainty. Mexicans continued to call for the reconquest of Texas, leading to two brief invasions of Béxar in 1842. During the second invasion, Mexican forces required Anglo-Texan inhabitants to sign an oath promising to “recommend to all Americans,...

The morning of September 12, 1857, began like countless others for Bexareño cart driver Nicanor Valdez.¹ He and a convoy of twelve Mexican teamsters continued their haul of American military supplies on the public road between San Antonio and the port on the Gulf of Mexico at Lavaca. Only this time, the convoy encountered an attack by a group of heavily armed bandits from Helena, in Karnes County. The attackers, about forty men in masks and painted faces, leveled their shotguns and six-shooters at the Mexican cart drivers. Without warning, the men began firing at the teamsters. Valdez’s partner Antonio...