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Single Star of the West
The Republic of Texas, 1836-1845
By Kenneth W. Howell, Charles Swanlund University of North Texas Press
Copyright © 2017 University of North Texas Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-57441-684-8
CHAPTER 1
Mexico's Federalist War and the Secession of Texas
Richard Bruce Winders
I hope they have sense enough at Monclova to take no part in the civil war that seems to be commencing.
Stephen F. Austin Mexico City April 15, 1835
Most Texans upon hearing the phrase "Texas Revolution" immediately recall other words they learned in school: Gonzales, Alamo, and San Jacinto. Students are routinely taught that the Texas Revolution began on October 2, 1835, when colonists drove away Mexican soldiers who had come to retrieve a cannon provided for protection. At the Battle of the Alamo on March 6, 1836, General Antonio López de Santa Anna sent the brutal message that rebels would receive "no quarter" from him. At San Jacinto, on April 21, 1836, the Texans dealt Mexico a stinging rebuke that guaranteed independence for the new Republic of Texas. This grouping of events neatly packages a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. However, although simple and succinct, it fails to adequately explain one of the most significant events that occurred on the North American continent during the nineteenth century. Unfortunately, what has been presented to the public over the years is more caricature than interpretation.
The missing component in the interpretation of the Texas Revolution has been context. The very name of the event — the Texas Revolution — makes it appear to have been a small regional affair. Texans throughout the ages have taken pride and ownership of the conflict. It is the story of their birth and rise to eminence. Although the subject of American history, many Americans, and almost all Mexicans, have ceded this episode to Texas, glad to separate themselves from Texas and its boastful nationalism. In doing so, however, the true regional and global importance of the event has gone largely unexplained.
So what is the missing context that places the Texas Revolution on a higher historical plateau than it currently occupies? To answer this question, one has to realize that the events occurring in Mexico prior to the Texas Revolution represented a larger struggle between two competing systems of government, one old and the other new. Across the world the institution of monarchy was under attack, an assault made possible by the Enlightenment, the rise of the United States, and the French Revolution. The foes of kings and queens were those who adhered to the new principle of republicanism. This struggle was carried out throughout North and South America as the old colonial powers lost control of their former holdings. Thus, both continents became contested fields as monarchists and centralists vied with republicans to establish new governments during the early nineteenth century.
Serious historians have long tried to establish this struggle between Mexico's competing political factions as the context for the Texas Revolution. Thus, the best evidence-based interpretation of the Texas Revolution is one that views it as an episode within the ongoing war between Mexican centralists and Mexican republicans. This simple statement automatically expands the event to a theater larger than what is traditionally considered Texas. It also involves the issue of states' rights, nullification, and secession — all concepts inherent with a federal system. On the eve of the federalist revolt against centralism, the legislature of Coahuila y Tejas lamented, "It is not conceived how a national representation, owing its origin to an existing fundamental pact, can have the power to reform or change it as it may think proper." It asked, "Upon what principal of constitutional right can it be founded?" Austin's response regarding the Decree of October 3, 1835, that officially created a central government was not that different from arguments made by delegates at the Hartford Convention or the Southern fire-eaters of 1861. The famous empresario proclaimed, "if carried into effect [the decree] evidently leaves no remedy for Texas but resistance, secession from Mexico and a resort to natural right." What is independence if not secession by another word?
In addition to the lack of context, the Texas Revolution has suffered from the amount of attention focused on its heroes. This is not said to diminish the role or the importance of heroic figures but to contend that many of the individuals most responsible for the course and conduct of the revolt remain largely unknown to the public and students. While Stephen F. Austin, James Bowie, William B. Travis, David Crockett, James W. Fannin, Sam Houston, Lorenzo de Zavala, and Juan Seguín most certainly will appear in most narratives of the Texas Revolution, the reality is that these men mainly reacted to events instead of shaping them. Ironically, the individuals whose actions and decisions were most influential during the war are fairly obscure to all but the most well-versed scholars of the Texas Revolution. Valentín Gomez Farías, José Antonio Mexía, Agustín Viesca, José Maria Tornel, José Urrea, Carlos de la Garza, Henry Smith, James W. Robinson, Francis W. Johnson, James Grant, and Mosely Baker have rarely, if ever, had even minor roles in the popular culture version of the Texas Revolution. For years the Texas Revolution has been populated by stock characters that can clearly be grouped into specific categories: principal actors, supporting actors, extras, and a villain.
The villain, of course, is Antonio López de Santa Anna, the president of Mexico. Writers and the public have targeted Santa Anna for disdain and blame: Santa Anna, the self-proclaimed dictator, forced his will on both Mexico and Texas. The problem with this interpretation is that "self-proclaimed dictators" usually are institutionalized. Santa Anna had supporters (Santanists) who continually elevated and sustained him in power for nearly thirty years. Casting Santa Anna as a power-hungry politician driven by greed and family honor provides a simple story line but obviates and obfuscates the roles others had in what was truly an important event in Mexican history. Understanding the Texas Revolution depends on not allowing one man to represent an entire nation.
Independence from Spain in 1821 presented Mexicans with new challenges, including questions relating to what type of government would replace the defeated Spanish regime. The struggle to answer this question threw Mexico into a series of civil wars that lasted several decades. Collectively, these civil wars are commonly referred to as Mexico's Federalist Wars. The historic episode known as the Texas Revolution was an event that occurred within this larger Mexico conflict.
Independence failed to bring unity to Mexico. Mexicans were divided into three general political factions following independence. One faction, called monarchists, wanted to preserve the old Spanish system but with a king of their own choosing. A second faction, called centralists, opposed installing another king, wishing instead to establish a strong, centralized national government controlled by Mexico's societal elites. Another group, called federalists, wished to establish a federal republic (like the United States) in which the individual states maintained their sovereignty. Federalists were also known as republicans because of their support for republican principles. Geographically, centralists generally lived in states near Mexico City while federalists often inhabited the areas more distant from the capital. Federalism appealed to the frontier regions because it offered local control.
The form of government that the new Mexican nation would adopt was important because any substantial change threatened the existing social order. Under Spanish rule, several powerful social classes had emerged whose members tended to hold almost all important civil, military, and church offices. The groups controlling Mexico were the military, owners of large estates, and the established church. Monarchists and centralists wished to maintain the status quo they had helped to establish. Federalists, who were composed of Mexico's rising business and professional class, desired sweeping changes that would open offices and create opportunities for more Mexicans. Thus, federalists found opponents in both monarchists and centralists who feared a loss of political power and social status.
Mexico experienced rule under all three factions during its first ten years of existence. Immediately after independence, a Mexican officer named Agustín de Iturbide ruled the nation as emperor from 1822 until 1823. The overthrow of Iturbide created a vacuum in which the federalists ascended to power. Most notable of their achievements was the adoption of the Constitution of 1824, a document that established the federal relationship between the states and the national government in Mexico City. Mexico's first president of the federal republic, Guadalupe Victoria, served out his entire term without any challenge to his authority. Those who followed would not be so fortunate.
In 1829, General Anastasio Bustamante refused to accept his defeat in the race for the Mexican presidency and used his troops to force the legitimate winner into exile. By 1832, federalist revolts broke out across Mexico against Bustamante's centralist administration. Colonists in Texas (objecting to a young rabblerousing lawyer named William B. Travis's imprisonment at Anahuac by its centralist commander, Juan Davis Bradburn) participated in this revolt, explaining their action in a document known as the Turtle Bayou Resolutions. General José Antonio Mexía, a federalist supporter, investigated the incident and vouched for the colonists' actions. The guest list at a ball held at Brazoria on July 22, 1832, to celebrate their vindication included both Austin and Mexía. One Anglo colonist offered a toast that seems ironic given subsequent events: "Genl. Santa Anna — The hero of constitutional liberty, and proscribed patriot under the shackles of tyranny; may the sun of his political glory sit in the ocean of freedom, and the herald to its enemies throughout the habitable globe." Another uttered, "Genl. Santa Anna — May the close of his political existence be similar to that of the great Washington, shroaded [sic] in glory." Yet a third proclaimed, "The tree of liberty — Now under the operation of the pruning hook of Gen. Santa Anna; may it hereafter bloom more beautifully, and bear fruit more abundantly."
Antonio López de Santa Anna benefited from the federalist revolt he had orchestrated. Federalists throughout Mexico viewed him as a true defender of the republic, and therefore, a defender of their cause. Elected president of Mexico in 1833, Santa Anna retired to his estate and left governing Mexico to his vice president, Valentín Gómez Farías. With the support of Congress, Farías, an ardent federalist, began implementing policy that threatened to diminish the power and social standing of the military, land owners, and the established church as a way to achieve a society he and more radical republicans envisioned. Leaders of the threatened factions appealed to Santa Anna in the Plan de Cuernavaca (May 25, 1834) to resume his office and reverse Farías' reforms. Granted extra-legal authority to assist him during the crisis, Santa Anna returned to Mexico City. The Plan de Cuernavaca set in motion a chain of events: Vice President Farías was dismissed and his reforms revoked; Mexico's federalist congress was dissolved and replaced with one composed of centralists; Mexican states were stripped of their sovereignty and converted into districts that were to be governed from Mexico City; and the federalist Constitution of 1824 was set aside and a call made for the creation and adoption of a centralist document to replace it. By 1835, a number of Mexican states — including Yucatan, Oaxaca, Coahuila y Tejas, and parts of Tamaulipas — were in revolt against Santa Anna's centralist regime.
Understanding Santa Anna and others like him is vital to deciphering the events unfolding in Mexico. Antonio López de Santa Anna (1794–1876) was born to a Spanish middle class merchant family in Jalapa. His family connections and his association with the port city of Veracruz factored in both his personal and public life. Although his father wanted him to enter business, Santa Anna was "drawn to a glorious career of arms." Accepting a commission as a junior officer, Santa Anna rose steadily, although not meteorically, in a Spanish Army struggling to restore order to New Spain in the wake of Father Hidalgo's 1810 call for revolt. Most notable for his service was a citation for gallantry in the 1813 Battle of Medina outside San Antonio de Béxar in the province of Texas. With that rebellion crushed, Santa Anna returned to Veracruz where he pursued Indians and rebels as well as held various administrative roles. Santa Anna had risen to the rank of lieutenant colonel by the time Iturbide proposed his Mexican coalition that ultimately resulted in independence in 1821. Iturbide had successfully brought together both Mexican royalists and rebels by presenting the real struggle to be won as one between indigenous Mexicans of all casts against the Spanish. The plan appealed to men like Santa Anna (criollos or Mexican-born Spaniards), who readily renounced their Spanish birthright for the elevation in Mexican society that came with the demise of Spanish rule. Subsequent legislation enacted by criollos decreed the expulsion of Spaniards, forcing many to return to their homeland.
Santa Anna supported the idea of a Mexican republic and even helped orchestrate the downfall of Iturbide's short-lived empire. He consistently backed federalist administrations throughout the 1820s, winning praise from federalists in places like Texas. His defeat of a Spanish invasion force at Tampico in 1829 made him a national hero and helped propel him to the office of presidency. This well-documented record as an ardent federalist made his alliance with the centralist political faction all the more baffling to former supporters who felt betrayed. The traditional theory has been that Santa Anna was an opportunist who always looked out for his own interests.
However, recent scholarship into the politics of Mexico's early national period offers another explanation for Santa Anna's political behavior. Santa Anna and others of his status were considered hombres de bien, men who held a position of stewardship for the nation owing to their upbringing, connections, wealth, history of service, and other honorable virtues. The concept of the hombre de bien held that these were responsible men who could be trusted in all matters, even the future of the nation. Frequent barrack revolts and mob actions, especially Mexico City's Parían Riot of 1827, strengthened distrust of the Mexican masses. If the masses were left unchecked, France's Reign of Terror might be replayed in Mexico. Even once ardent republicans like José Moria Tornel, a leading Santa Anna supporter, began to doubt that Mexicans were ready for the type of liberal government enjoyed by citizens of the Unites States. Santa Anna's statement that his countrymen needed a guiding hand was often dismissed by many of his contemporaries and historians, but he and others believed that Mexico and Mexicans had to change before the fruits of federalism would develop. The increasingly popular belief that Mexico's transition into a liberal republic needed more control brought the centralists to power. By 1835, however, the threat of losing Texas temporarily brought a majority of Mexico's centralists and federalists together in an effort to prevent its loss.
Located on the northeastern frontier of New Spain, the Province of Texas had served the Spanish as a buffer by keeping other colonial interests and the barbarous Indians from reaching their more prosperous settled regions. With the establishment of the United States, the role of Texas as a buffer became even more important as U.S. citizens began to spill across the Appalachians and fan out throughout the Mississippi Valley and the Gulf Coast. By 1820, however, the Spanish policy of keeping foreigners at bay changed, a shift brought on by the realization that Texas needed a large, stable population if its traditional role as a buffer was to be maintained.
The Spanish had relied on their standard triad of missions, presidios, and civil towns to extend their presence into Texas. As the nineteenth century dawned, though, Texas could count only three established communities: San Antonio de Béxar, Nacogdoches, and La Bahía (renamed Goliad in 1829). Moreover, the tumultuous years between and 1810 and 1820 actually saw Texas's population plummet. In response, Spanish officials adopted a policy of controlled immigration, a program continued by the newly independent nation of Mexico. Far from an altruistic endeavor, the plan was to allow Americans and Europeans to immigrate to Texas in exchange for their loyalty. The goal of the policy was essentially to bring in grateful immigrants who would defend the frontier, build new communities, and transform Texas from a frontier into an economically prosperous and stable region.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Single Star of the West by Kenneth W. Howell, Charles Swanlund. Copyright © 2017 University of North Texas Press. Excerpted by permission of University of North Texas Press.
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