The Republic of the Rio Grande
10/25/21 • 3 min
From 1838 to 1840, the people of Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, and Tamaulipas fought against the Mexican central government for their independence. They fought under the battlefield leadership of one of the most remarkable men in Texas history and – as best I can tell – the only Afro-Tejano to have a Texas county named after him: Antonio Zapata. For the better part of a year, Zapata reigned supreme as the military leader of the region and as the avatar of his people. With his army of Rio Grande vaqueros, Carrizo Indians, and Anglo-Texian volunteers, he held as many as three Mexican centralist armies at bay, and won the respect of his enemies and the love of his men.
In following Antonio Zapata’s fight for Federalism, we also get a sort of second run at the war of Texas independence. It serves as a sort of control case to help us understand what it was that Tejanos – like Juan Seguin, who will actually later joined the Rio Grande independence movement –meant when they signed on to fight and die for their “independence.” In this light, Tejano independence comes to look like something very different than the classic, Anglo-American notion of independence as a “fresh start.” In fact, I’ll argue that it starts to look like something much more recognizably Texan. It’s looks like a fight for autonomy within a tradition, rather than independence from tradition.
Join us for Season 4 of A New History of Old Texas: The Republic of the Rio Grande.
Selected Bibliography
Anna, Timothy E. Forging Mexico: 1821-1835 (1998).
Casa Blanca Articles of Convention
De la Garza, Lorenzo. Dos Hermanos Heroes (1939).
Gallegos, Juan José. “Last Drop of My Blood: Col. Antonio Zapata: A Life and Times on México’s Río Grande Frontier, 1797-1840.”
Lack, Paul D. Searching for the Republic of the Rio Grande (2022).
Lott, Virgil N. and Mercurio Martinez. The Kingdom of Zapata (1953).
Nance, Joseph. After San Jacinto: The Texas Mexican Frontier, 1836-1841 (1970).
Plan del Rancho de Puntiagudo. University of St. Andrews.
Vázquez, Josefina Zoraida. La Supuesta República del Río Grande (1995).
www.BrandonSeale.com
From 1838 to 1840, the people of Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, and Tamaulipas fought against the Mexican central government for their independence. They fought under the battlefield leadership of one of the most remarkable men in Texas history and – as best I can tell – the only Afro-Tejano to have a Texas county named after him: Antonio Zapata. For the better part of a year, Zapata reigned supreme as the military leader of the region and as the avatar of his people. With his army of Rio Grande vaqueros, Carrizo Indians, and Anglo-Texian volunteers, he held as many as three Mexican centralist armies at bay, and won the respect of his enemies and the love of his men.
In following Antonio Zapata’s fight for Federalism, we also get a sort of second run at the war of Texas independence. It serves as a sort of control case to help us understand what it was that Tejanos – like Juan Seguin, who will actually later joined the Rio Grande independence movement –meant when they signed on to fight and die for their “independence.” In this light, Tejano independence comes to look like something very different than the classic, Anglo-American notion of independence as a “fresh start.” In fact, I’ll argue that it starts to look like something much more recognizably Texan. It’s looks like a fight for autonomy within a tradition, rather than independence from tradition.
Join us for Season 4 of A New History of Old Texas: The Republic of the Rio Grande.
Selected Bibliography
Anna, Timothy E. Forging Mexico: 1821-1835 (1998).
Casa Blanca Articles of Convention
De la Garza, Lorenzo. Dos Hermanos Heroes (1939).
Gallegos, Juan José. “Last Drop of My Blood: Col. Antonio Zapata: A Life and Times on México’s Río Grande Frontier, 1797-1840.”
Lack, Paul D. Searching for the Republic of the Rio Grande (2022).
Lott, Virgil N. and Mercurio Martinez. The Kingdom of Zapata (1953).
Nance, Joseph. After San Jacinto: The Texas Mexican Frontier, 1836-1841 (1970).
Plan del Rancho de Puntiagudo. University of St. Andrews.
Vázquez, Josefina Zoraida. La Supuesta República del Río Grande (1995).
www.BrandonSeale.com
Previous Episode
The Gospel According to Cabeza de Vaca
Episode 25 of Brandon Seale's podcast on Álvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca.
What the legacy of the four old Narváez expeditionaries in the New World amounted to. How their legacy back in the Old World may have been more meaningful. How Cabeza de Vaca saw his legacy. And how we might think of it as well.
Pages: f63v-67r in Zamora (1542) Edition as published by Adorno and Pautz (1999).
Cover art: "La Relación Cover," by unknown, Wikipedia, Public Domain.
Selected Bibliography
Adorno, Rolena and Patrick Charles Pautz. Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca (1999)
Boyd Carolyn. Rock Art of the Lower Pecos (2013)
Krieger, Alex. We Came Naked and Barefoot (2002)
Reséndez, Andrés. A Land So Strange: The Epic Journey of Cabeza de Vaca (2007)
Stockdale, James Bond. “Courage Under Fire: Testing Epictetus’s Doctrines in a Laboratory of Human Behavior” (1993)
“Through the Eyes of the Explorer: Cabeza de Vaca on the South Texas Plains.” TexasBeyondHistory.Net (viewed July 6, 2020)
Wittliff Collections (Texas State University) exhibition on Cabeza de Vaca (including a digitized copy of an original 1555 edition of La Relación)
www.BrandonSeale.com
Next Episode
Young Zapata
Episode 2 of Brandon Seale's podcast on the Republic of the Rio Grande.
Young Antonio Zapata is born in Revilla, Nuevo Santander, the son of a domestic servant and a cow hand. The same town from which our old friend, José Bernardo Gutiérrez de Lara (go listen to our "Finding Medina" series) was just getting his start as a revolutionary.
Photo: Plains Warrior in Blue, Friedrich Richard Petri, artist, circa 1850 Texas Memorial Museum, Austin, accession #2197. Courtesy Republic of the Rio Grande Museum, Laredo, TX.
Selected Bibliography
Anna, Timothy E. Forging Mexico: 1821-1835 (1998).
Casa Blanca Articles of Convention
De la Garza, Lorenzo. Dos Hermanos Heroes (1939).
Gallegos, Juan José. “Last Drop of My Blood: Col. Antonio Zapata: A Life and Times on México’s Río Grande Frontier, 1797-1840.”
Lack, Paul D. Searching for the Republic of the Rio Grande (2022).
Lott, Virgil N. and Mercurio Martinez. The Kingdom of Zapata (1953).
Nance, Joseph. After San Jacinto: The Texas Mexican Frontier, 1836-1841 (1970).
Plan del Rancho de Puntiagudo. University of St. Andrews.
Vázquez, Josefina Zoraida. La Supuesta República del Río Grande (1995).
www.BrandonSeale.com
If you like this episode you’ll love
Episode Comments
Generate a badge
Get a badge for your website that links back to this episode
<a href="https://goodpods.com/podcasts/a-new-history-of-old-texas-6078/the-republic-of-the-rio-grande-18022428"> <img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/goodpods-images-bucket/badges/generic-badge-1.svg" alt="listen to the republic of the rio grande on goodpods" style="width: 225px" /> </a>
Copy