USA > Texas > Tarrant County > Fort Worth > History of Texas : Fort Worth and the Texas northwest edition, Volume I > Part 17
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of opinions. Public meetings were held and various propositions made; among which was one to raise an armed force and rescue the governor and his companions, who were known to be imprisoned. Considerable prejudice was created in the minds of the colonists in consequence of the large sales of the public domain in Texas, and but little sympathy was felt for the state authorities. The people were soon divided into two distinct and separate parties-the peace and war parties."
"Yoakum says of Governor Viesca and Vice-Governor -Ramón Mus- quiz : 'It may be stated in advance, that, however patriotic these gentlemen assumed to be, they were men of easy virtue; and, in escaping from under the ruins of a falling government, they managed to carry off more plunder than belonged to them.' This charge against Governor Viesca and Vice Governor Musquiz is gratuitous, to say the least. Without entering the lists as the defender of these gentle- men, we cannot in strictness of truth and even-handed justice permit this slander to go unnoticed. In the first place, both were regarded and known to be gentlemen; if Viesca, in leaving Monclova, 'carried off more plunder than belonged to him,' which is untrue, he would have been despoiled of his ill-gotten gains by the military who ar- rested and imprisoned him. As to his installation, it occurred a few days after the meeting of the Legislature. Of Musquiz it is sufficient to say that he did not attend the session. The writer knew both gen- tlemen, the latter for years, and was present during the session in question, and with other colonists accompanied the governor and party until it was determined to disband."
General Cos appointed José M. Falcon provisional governor, but shortly afterward replaced him with Rafael Eca y Musquiz. The Texans had no respect for the state government, but its overthrow by federal troops helped to bring home to them the danger that threat- ened from Santa Anna's machinations. In general they refused to recognize the military government established by Cos, and considered the state entirely without a civil head.
CHAPTER XI FALL OF ANAHUAC
As we have seen, one of the measures that Santa Anna proposed in both of the conferences that he held with Austin concerning Texas- in November, 1833, and October, 1834-was to send enough soldiers to Texas to protect the colonists from the Indians. At the second conference he proposed specifically to send to the province 4,000 infan- try, cavalry and artillery. The first step toward carrying out this program was the appointment of Gen. Martin Perfecto de Cos com- mander of the Eastern Internal Provinces, in October, 1834, in place of Col. Pedro Lemus. The next was the arrival of Col. Domingo de Ugartechea at Bexar, December, 1834, to become "principal military commandant of Coahuila and Texas."
Ugartechea immediately began calling on Cos for reinforcements and for money and supplies. Cos was anxious to respond, but the dis- turbed condition of Mexico, the insurrection in Zacatecas, and the threatening outlook elsewhere made it difficult to find troops for a dis- tant province like Texas. On December 28, 1834, he wrote Ugar- techea from Matamoras that Capt. Antonio Tenorio would sail in a few days with forty men to garrison the custom house at Anahuac ; and February 23, 1835, he wrote that the battalion of Morelos, 500 strong, would embark for Copano about the first of April. Tenorio duly arrived at Anahuac in January, but the Morelos battalion was delayed so that it only embarked on July 4, and it had then shrunk from 500 to a mere handful. In the meantime, however, other re- inforcements were reaching San Antonio from Lampasos, Nuevo León and Agua Verde.
Pending the actual arrival of reinforcements at San Antonio, Cos tried to encourage Ugartechea by telling him what the government intended to do in Texas as soon as conditions were more tranquil in Mexico. On May 4, he quoted a letter from the minister of war and marine, dated April 14, which said: "The supreme government is seriously occupying itself with sending a strong expedition to regu- late the affairs of Texas. This will take place as soon as the dis- tubances of Zacatecas are terminated." On May 20 he quoted an- other letter saying that at least 2,000 men would be sent "to settle the affairs of Texas."
The demands of Ugartechea for reinforcements and the expressed intention of the government to send a large force to Texas were not lost on the colonists. They were very much opposed to having gar- risons established in Texas, and at the same time they distrusted Santa Anna's motives. They believed that his avowed purpose of protecting the settlements from the Indians was merely a pretext ; that he really wished to get possession of the province, under this benevolent excuse, to prevent opposition to his plan of establishing a centralized government in Mexico. They began defensive prepara- tions, and these naturally increased the fears of Ugartechea and
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caused him to redouble his pleas for reinforcement. Cos issued pro- clamations saying that the troops destined for Texas had no hostile object, but the colonists did not believe him. In turn, the colonists declared that they were loyal citizens of Mexico, willing and anxious to perform their duty as such, but Cos probably could not have be- lieved them if he had tried. The distrust was mutual, racial and probably inevitable and ineradicable.
As a companion measure to the establishment of the garrisons in Texas it was the plan of the government to re-establish the custom- house. Colonel Almonte estimated the value of contraband trade through Texas in 1834 at $270,000, and Ugartechea wrote Cos on December 11, 1834, that the smuggling going on through the ports of Galveston, Brazoria and the mouth of the San Bernard River was greater than the importations through Matamoras. In fact, mer- chants of Tamaulipas, Nuevo León, Coahuila and Chihuahua who ordinarily imported through Matamoras or Tampico now frequently got their goods through these Texas ports duty free.
With Tenorio, in January, 1835, came a collector and several depu- ties to resuscitate the customhouse at Galveston, or Anahuac. The collector, José Gonzalez, stopped at Brazoria, and made some effort to establish an office there, but in April he moved down the Brazos to Velasco and is said to have collected there for a time tonnage duties on vessels entering the river. Deputies Martin de Alegria and Gil Hernandez accompanied the soldiers, and established themselves at Anahuac-Tenorio explained that there were no buildings at Gal- veston, and that he thought it best to go on to Anahuac, where his detachment could find convenient quarters. At the same time it must be remembered that the customhouse at Matagorda was already in operation, its proceeds being devoted to the maintenance of the sol- diers at Goliad and San Antonio.
Anahuac was the principal port of the department of Nacogdoches, whose imports Almonte valued in 1834 at $265,000. For some time after the departure of Bradburn's garrison in 1832 the customhouse had been maintained by Sergeant Juan Cortina, but it was declared in 1835 that no duties had been collected there for several years. The settlers of that section retained unpleasant memories of Mexican sol- diery, and they further resented the re-establishment of the custom- house, so that from the beginning Tenorio's path was strewn with thorns. At first, however, his difficulties were due rather to deficient equipment than to colonial opposition. He complained that his force was too small "to compel respect for the national honor," that he could not prevent smuggling because he had no small boats, that he had no cavalry to use for couriers, and that the uncertainty of the mail service between San Antonio and Nacogdoches left him almost entirely iso- lated. By the middle of March his supplies were almost exhausted. and the merchants of Anahuac refused to make advances because, as Tenorio said, they "justly feared" that the government would not repay them. Moreover, the force that he had was only partially armed. An inventory of April 23, 1835, showed "in good condition": twenty muskets, twenty-nine bayonets, five short carbines, fifty flints
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and 300 cartridges; "semi-useless," six muskets, twenty flints and ninety cartridges; "useless," three muskets and two carbines. Finally the hardships of the garrison began to tell on the morale of the sol- diers. Two of them went into the pay of the enemy, informing them of everything that went on in the quarters and trying to induce their comrades to desert. Under their persuasions several of the soldiers did desert-five at one time, and others in smaller numbers-and Tenorio complained bitterly that not only would the civil authorities not help him to recover them, but that they actually had furnished them passports through the colonies.
On May 1 Tenorio was temporarily encouraged by the arrival of Lieut. Ignacio Duran with nine men to reinforce the garrison, some muskets and ammunition, and $2,310 to pay the troops, but his satis- faction was short-lived.
For a time the discomforts of the garrison were due mainly to the original lack of equipment and to subsequent neglect by the govern - ment ; while the semi-passive hostility of the colonists had been only a vague cause of uneasiness in the background. Some of the colonists for a time paid the duties levied on their goods; others promised to pay and often never redeemed their pledge, while still others were considerate enough to bring in their cargoes under cover of night without disturbing the officers, and thus there was no occasion for friction. But in this arrangement lay the seed of discord. Those who paid began to murmur that the illicit trade of their less conscientious neighbors should be suppressed, and the latter probably grew envious of those fortunate individuals whose credit was good at the custom- house and who were thereby enabled to introduce their merchandise free, without undergoing the inconvenience of smuggling. The result was that many soon refused openly to pay duties at all.
The discontent of the colonists was increased, too, from the fact that the revenue laws were not enforced consistently in different parts of the same section. While Gonzales at Velasco was collecting only tonnage duties, Alegria and Hernandez at Anahuac were enforcing the tariff to its fullest extent. The opposition of the merchants of Anahuac had reached such a point by the middle of April as to induce the loyal ayuntamiento of Liberty to issue a proclamation (April 17) informing "all the good citizens of this Jurisdiction that a proper obedience to the Laws is the first duty of a good citizen," and that "the revenue laws like all other political laws are to be respected by those who come within the legitimate scope of their action." The ayuntamiento was of the opinion that the tariff was "disproportionate in some particulars and oppressive in others," and stood in "great need of modification"; but thought this modification could only be effected by the national Congress, and in the meantime urged all good citizens to observe and all military officers to enforce the revenue laws.
Whatever the discontented taxpayers may have thought of the ayuntamiento's appeal for obedience to the laws, the suggestion that the laws might be modified by a petition to the government seemed worth trying. On May 4 some twenty or twenty-five men gathered at
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the house of Benjamin Freeman and framed a memorial to the gov- ernor of the state, asking him to intercede with Congress for a remis- sion of the tariff in Texas. They gave as their reason for this request, "That for several years past no duties have been demanded in any part of these colonies, and even now none are demanded at any port but that of Galveston; that this Jurisdiction is the poorest and least improved of any in all Texas; that though any part of these colonies are too poor to pay the regular duties according to the Mexican
Tariff, this is the least able of any. * * * And though they have so patiently submitted for so long a time to this injustice, they have at length resolved to pay no more till custom houses shall be organized and duties collected throughout all the other parts of these colonies. * *
* The poverty of the citizens of these colonies, and of this Jurisdiction in particular, their increasing population, the scarcity of provisions in the country and the difficulty of securing supplies make it absolutely necessary that all kinds of provisions and groceries, and all other articles of absolute necessity, should be imported duty free, it being impossible to procure these things in a Mexican market, a sufficiency not being made in this country, and there being an insufficiency of money in the country to pay the duty on half the articles of absolute necessity to the existence of these colonies "
William Hardin was chairman of this meeting and J. N. More- land, who had signed the manifesto of the ayuntamiento of Liberty, was secretary. It is worthy of noting that while the ayuntamiento recommended non-importation until the laws were amended, the Anahuac meeting ignored this suggestion and resolved to pay no duties until collections were equally enforced throughout the country. The proceedings of this meeting are chiefly important for their ex- pression of opinion, for it seems that the documents were never forwarded to the authorities. Andrew Briscoe, a leading member of the meeting. later explained that the chairman departed for the United States imme- diately after the meeting without signing the resolutions, and that they were never sent. Nevertheless, the collector and all his deputies abandoned Anahuac on May 9, five days after the meeting.
There was a strong hint in the manifesto of the ayuntamiento of Liberty that the malcontents were foreigners, and not citizens of Texas, and a public meeting of the people of Columbia on June 28 condemned the resolutions just given as the work of foreigners. Bris- coe replied to this in The Texas Republican of August 8, 1835, by saying that all those who participated in the Anahuac meeting of May 4 were citizens except two, and that these two owned land in Texas and intended to become citizens.
After the abandonment of his post by Gonzalez, Tenorio exercised the duties of collector for a time-without authority, as he himself admitted, but he thought it would establish a disastrous precedent to allow ships to land their cargoes without any attempt to collect the duties, and felt that the end justified the means. He must have been soon relieved by an authorized collector, however, for he tells us that on the eleventh .of June the collector asked him for a guard of four soldiers and a corporal, giving as his reason for the request that Mr.
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Briscoe was going to call during the day to pay some duties he owed and might attack the office.
"The office received no insult" on this occasion, writes Tenorio. but on the "night of the 12th the same Mr. Briscoe took from his house a box, and went to the sea shore to embark it; but the collector and the guard also went to the sea shore, and when they tried to arrest Briscoe and two other Americans they resisted with arms, and one of them-named Smith-was shot and wounded by one of the soldiers. * *
* Mr. Briscoe was simply making fun of the collector with all this business, for when the box was opened, it was found to be full of mere rubbish." To Tenorio this seemed a maliciously planned joke. but the account of DeWitt Clinton Harris, one of the "two other Americans" with Briscoe, gives another view of it.
Harris says : * * "About 8 o'clock a young man came to the store and asked Briscoe for a box to put ballast in; this Mr. Briscoe gave him, and he placed it in a wheelbarrow filled with brick and started for the beach ; after he left the store I observed to Mr. Briscoe that we could now ascertain whether my goods would be stopped or not. Shortly after, we heard the young man calling for Mr. Smith. the interpreter. Mr. Briscoe and I then walked up to the young man. and found that he had been stopped by the guard. Mr. Smith soon came up and informed the guard of the contents of the box; this ap- peared to satisfy him, and the box was taken to the beach, Mr. Briscoc and I going with the young man. After the box was put in the boat and we were about returning, ten or twelve Mexican soldiers came on us and ordered us to stand. Mr. Briscoe and I were taken prisoners. As we were ascending the bank a young man named Wm. Smith came down the hill, and within ten feet of us was shot down. * * Mr. Briscoe and I were then put in the calaboose, where I remained until next day at 11 o'clock, when I was liberated, Briscoe still being detained." On his return to Harrisburg, Harris sent a report of this trouble to San Felipe, and his statement, together with other events which soon occurred there, hastened the climax of Tenorio's difficul- ties.
News of this affair reached San Felipe at an interesting conjunc- ture. The Texans who had been in Monclova during the session of the Legislature had just returned and reported the dispersion of the Legislature and the arrest of the governor, along with numerous rumors of the unpleasant designs that Santa Anna had upon Texas. Then, on the afternoon of June 21. a courier arrived from General Cos with a letter for the political chief. Dr. J. B. Miller. This letter. written from Matamoras on June 12 notified the political chief of the arrest of the governor and requested him, pending the appointment of new officials, to "take special care of the administration and internal order" of his department. In doing this he was to subject himself to the laws of the state "without making any innovations whatever. Nevertheless, your honor will dictate such measures as are in your power, to prevent under any circumstances a disturbance of the tran- quillity of the department, placing yourself for that purpose in com-
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munication with the nearest military chief, who will afford you every assistance."
As we have seen, the mass of the colonists felt no particular resent- ment at the dissolution of the state government, and Cos's letter was not necessarily alarming. It has long ago appeared from this narra- tive, however, that there was a small party in Texas ready to make the most of any occasion for friction with Mexico, and some members of this party now determined to search the courier who brought the letter to the political chief and see what else he had in his pack. He tried to save his dispatches by secretly passing them to a friendly American, but this movement was detected and they were soon in the possession of the enemy.
The package was found to contain several letters to Captain Tenorio at Anahuac. One from Cos, dated at Matamoras on May 26, acknowledged the receipt of letters from Tenorio of May 2 and 4 com- plaining of the "impudence" of some Texans who appeared "to have persuaded themselves that the ports of the republic were exclusively for the purpose of carrying on a criminal and clandestine commerce." Cos said that he had forwarded the letters to the government with others of his own urging strong measures to enforce upon the Texans obedience to the law. He had no doubt that the government would attend to the matter with the promptness which its importance de- manded, and in the meantime he had ordered the Morelos battalion to Copano, whence it could be distributed through the province as needed. "You will operate in every case," said Cos, "with extreme prudence, but if by any fatality the public order should be overturned, you are to proceed without any deliberation against whomsoever may occasion it ; without permitting for any cause the national arms to be tarnished." There were two letters from familiar friends assuring Tenorio that he was soon to receive strong reinforcement, and a let- ter from Ugartechea at San Antonio dated June 20. Ugartechea said : "In a very short time the affairs of Texas will be definitely settled, for which purpose the government has ordered to take up the line of march a strong division composed of the troops which were in Zacatecas, and which are now in Saltillo. *
* These revolutionists will be ground down, and it appears to me we shall soon see each other, since the government takes their matters in hand."
The first fruit of these disclosures at San Felipe was a proclama- tion the same day (June 21) from the political chief. Dr. J. B. Miller, to the people of his department. It was his duty, he said, to inform the people of the critical situation in which their constitutional rights were placed by the usurpations of the military authorities; and after enumerating some of the recent encroachments upon the constitution, he asked :
"Are you prepared to receive such a government as it may please the Commandant General Cos and his masters to give you and again receive a military officer as your governor ; or will you support and maintain the officer your own voluntary vote placed in office and who now lies in prison on account of the vote made in his favor. I think by the feelings which I have that I can answer VOL. 1-8
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you will never submit tamely to such a course. The object is to establish the supreme executive authority of the state in Texas. This is highly important and it behooves every man to strain every nerve to accomplish so desired an object, and in obedience to the orders we have received, to turn out immediately, organ- ise, and march to his relief, and bring him to a place of safety in this favored Texas ; *
* You will march to this place as soon as possible and wait for further orders."
The next result of the intercepted correspondence was a public meeting at San Felipe on June 22, presided over by R. M. Williamson. who issued an address to the citizens of Coahuila and Texas rallying them to the support of "Liberty, the Constitution, and Federation." The jurisdiction of San Felipe grieved to see that "the hopes of patriots and the lively desires of a numerous people, scarcely free from the horrible bond that subjected them to the Spanish govern- ment, are frustrated so abruptly and unexpectedly, and that a system equally despotic is imposed upon them anew." For a long time the people of Texas had been convinced that the government was tending toward the destruction of the constitution; but "being such recent settlers, and citizens only by adoption, taught since childhood to reverence and respect the national legislation," they had looked in silence upon unjustifiable and dangerous aggressions, leaving it to native citizens to raise the voice of protest. Even now they would not protest but for the fact that the usurpations of the general government had reached the state of their adoption. They had always adhered religiously to the constitution as they understood it, and would continue to do so "as long as memory called to mind its excellence and worth." As they understood it, the constitution fixed the sphere of authority for the state and the general governments.
"We consider that the general government was created for objects wholly exterior, and that the regulation of their internal affairs was left to the states. An invasion of the rights of another by whatever power is uniformly dangerous, and uni- formly to be resisted. Such invasion has been committed by the general government against the State of Coahuila and Texas: (1) In the persons of the representatives in the national con- gress, when they were prevented by military force from discharg- ing the duties of their office; (2) by the decree of the president ordering a new election of officers in opposition to a regular and constitutional election previously held : (3) by the decree of the general congress disbanding the civil militia and requiring the states to surrender their arms; (4) by the decree of the general congress prohibiting the state of Coahuila and Texas from issuing letters of citizenship to its colonists ; (5) by the arrest by regular troops of Don Augustin Viesca, the constitutional governor of the state; (6) by the overthrow of the state authorities by regular troops; (7) by the recent resolution declaring that the general congress has the right to alter the constitution and form of gov- ernment at its pleasure without pursuing the mode pointed out by that sacred instrument ; (8) by the creation of a dictator with
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absolute power whose only rule of conduct is his own will and pleasure ; and (9) by numerous other acts, all manifesting a total disregard for the rights of the states, and a determination of the present ruling authorities of the nation to prostrate the republican federative principle."
Against all this the people of Texas protested. They would main- tain the federal and state constitutions as originally adopted, and they would maintain the governor and all other state officials in the dis- charge of their duties. In these two resolutions they thought were contained every obligation that could be demanded of citizens. In carrying out these obligations they pledged their "lives, fortunes and sacred honor" never to abandon the contest until the last drop of blood of the last man in Texas was spilled. Texans and Coahuilans were separately urged to stand firm in support of the constitution, and thereby stimulate into activity the liberals of Mexico. The Texans could muster 10,000 rifles for their defense, and there was not power enough in the Mexican government to drive them from the country. Whatever force might come against them would come only to meet the victorious vengeance of a people who always had been brave and always would be free; they were invincible in Texas, but desired also that the Coahuilans should be free. Moreover, the people of the United States were interested in the fortunes of the Texans and in the hour of danger thousands would flock to their aid.
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