Friendly Betrayal Read online

  Friendly Betrayal

  José Antonio López

  Copyright © 2017 by José Antonio López.

  ISBN:

  Softcover

  978-1-5434-1418-9

  eBook

  978-1-5434-1417-2

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

  Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

  Rev. date: 04/18/2017

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  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Preface

  Introduction

  Exhibit 1 Treaty of Tordesillas

  (The Evil that Befell Native Americans)

  Exhibit 2 Native Americans in Texas

  Exhibit 3 Six Grandfathers Mountain

  Exhibit 4 The Seven Sisters of Texas

  PART I

  Chapter 1 “We are all God’s Children”

  Chapter 2 “A Harsh, But Magnificent, Beautiful Land”

  Chapter 3 “Santiago Matamoros”

  Chapter 4 “One day, great cities will be built here.”

  Chapter 5 That is not the way to Zacatecas”

  Chapter 6 “Miners die young, but vaqueros live long lives”

  Chapter 7 “The Problem with the Mines is the Mines”

  Chapter 8 “In God’s Name (En el nombre de Dios)”

  Chapter 9 “Porfirio’s Lucky Day”

  Chapter 10 “Somebody lives and somebody dies”

  Chapter 11 “It is not a home, until the first fire is built.”

  Chapter 12 Las Villas del Norte

  Chapter 13 Las Porciones

  Chapter 14 “The Viceroy’s shadow”

  Chapter 15 “El Grito”

  Chapter 16 Thoughts of independence in the Villas del Norte

  Chapter 17 The Unlikely Tejano

  Chapter 18 1813 – The Birth of Texas Liberty

  Chapter 19 With friends like these…

  Chapter 20 Battle of Medina —

  Under the colonial yoke once more

  Chapter 21 1821-1824 - ¡Viva Mexico!

  Chapter 22 1829 – Mexico abolishes slavery

  Chapter 23 Centralists versus federalists

  Chapter 24 1836 - Sam Houston takes over a work in progress

  Chapter 25 Friendly Betrayal

  Chapter 26 Abrazos de Lágrimas – Abrazos de Alegría

  Epilogue

  PART II

  Appendix 1 “Tejas in the Beginning”

  Appendix 2 “What’s in a name?”

  Appendix 3 “They came, they saw, they destroyed…”

  Appendix 4 “Early Pioneers of Tejas”

  Appendix 5 “Tejas is Born”

  Appendix 6 Early Texas and today’s immigration debate

  Appendix 7 Proud to be a first American

  Appendix 8 Remembering our Earliest Texas Ancestors

  Appendix 9 The Mestizo Paradox

  (The best of all possible worlds)

  Recommended Reading

  Glossary of Spanish Words and Phrases

  Dedication

  To my wife, Cordelia Jean Dancause de López.

  oOo

  Cordy, you are my inspiration.

  Sharing early Texas history with others is made possible only through your unending enthusiasm, support, and love. Thank you.

  Preface

  (Honoring our Native American brethren of the past, present, and future)

  “Campfires in the Sky”

  Nearing their home after a long hunting trip, the young brave Rayo and his uncle camped for the night on top of a small hill. With darkness approaching, they quickly built a campfire. As Rayo warmed himself, he was spellbound by the mysterious power of the fire and its dancing flames. In this same state of awe, he gazed up at the sky.

  Marveling at the countless number of twinkling stars, he wondered if they too were on fire. In fact, they looked to him like a multitude of faraway campfires. It was then that he asked his uncle to tell him the story of the stars and how life on earth came to be.

  The wise old man was tired but could not resist his young nephew’s request. As a clan elder and healer shaman, he was happy to oblige. Reverently, he related the story he himself had heard from his elders many years before:

  “In the beginning of time, heaven was dark and the earth was a lifeless, lonely place. To create light, the all-powerful Great Spirit put the stars, the sun, and the moon in the sky. He created the seasons of heat and cold. He placed the first trees, plants, and grasses on the land and called it Mother Earth. He gave form and breath to all the animals. To make everything flourish, he tamed the winds to bring the clouds of rain. He made the water flow through streams and rivers, and gather in lakes.

  When he finished, he wanted someone to care for and enjoy his creation. One day, he took stardust from the heavens and sprinkled it on Mother Earth, sowing the seeds of mankind. Hissing down toward Mother Earth, the star fragments sank into the land. From the smoking chasms, Mother Earth gave birth to the first humans.

  To provide warmth and a place to cook their food, the Great Spirit used some of the sparks to light the first campfires. The fires gave the people a sanctuary during the part of the day when the sun leaves the sky and darkness returns for a short time.

  This is to remind mankind that everything in life has a beginning and an end. Most important, so that our people would always have a way to start campfires, the Creator left tiny sparks of the same starlight in flint stones. That is why flint is called the spark of life. Thus, as a sign of strength and unity, the campfire became the most important part of our campsite.

  All the Great Spirit asks now is that we live in peace, treat everyone with dignity and respect, and take care of Mother Earth. That is why if we do as he commands, our spirits will one day return among the shining stars to our eternal homes in heaven; to our very own campfires in the sky.”

  Introduction

  We Americans have yet to really learn our own antecedents…

  Thus far, impress’d by New England writers and schoolmasters, we tacitly abandon ourselves to the notion that our United States have been fashion’d from the British Islands only … which is a very great mistake.

  Walt Whitman, 1883

  (Source: David J. Weber, “The Spanish Frontier in North America, 1992, Yale University Press)

  oOo

  Note: Taking a cue from Walt Whitman, the title of this book (Friendly Betrayal) captures the reality that our Tejana and Tejano ancestors faced as they welcomed Stephen F. Austin and his 300 families to Mexico (Texas) as fellow Mexicans. Unfortunately soon after, subsequent waves of recalcitrant U.S. immigrants were unwilling to abide by their host’s laws. Betrayal by Anglo Saxon immigrants took root in Texas. Its horrid outcome is present to this day. That is,
in the disrespectful way Spanish Mexican descendants of the founders of Texas are viewed and treated.

  Thus, this book offers a different perspective than that found in mainstream U.S. and Texas history books. For example,

  (1) English and North European-descent U.S. citizens (the more vocal calling themselves “nativists”) have long based their right to be in America on symbols of their own creation: the Mayflower, Ellis Island, and the Statue of Liberty.

  What most Anglophile U.S. citizens don’t think about is that those entitlement representations were all built by their European immigrant ancestors in land they took from its rightful owners – Native Americans. That attitude is precisely the exclusivity in U.S. history that Walt Whitman warns us about above.

  On the other hand, Tejanas and Tejanos descend from both Spanish European and Native American roots. It is their founding story that is typically overlooked today in Texas and Southwest history books.

  (2) Oddly, to lay claim on Texas, they point to the heavily embellished, legend-filled 1836 Battle of the Álamo. Worse, Texas classroom students are inappropriately taught that Stephen F. Austin is the “Father of Texas”. That tribute is at best misleading, since Texas was already 130 years old when he arrived.

  For the record, Tejanos and Tejanas are the ones who welcomed and awarded U.S. immigrants to Mexico with their land grants (Dr. Andrés Tijerina). Credibly, if there be such a title, either of two men have earned it:

  - Domingo Terán de los Rios, the first Governor of Texas, 1691; or

  - Colonel José Bernardo Gutiérrez de Lara, First President of independent Texas, 1813.

  (3) Also, Sam Houston is credited in Texas classrooms as the first person to gain Texas independence in 1836. Likewise, that’s another honor rightly belonging to Colonel Gutiérrez de Lara, commander of Mexico’s Army of the North, liberators of Texas in 1813.

  Mainstream Texas historians have long written history books using one main frame: If it doesn’t fit their Sam Houston model, it’s left out of Texas history books and omitted in classroom lessons. With that mindset then, conventional historians still insist on contemptuously naming the Army of the North’s triumphant 1813 revolution as the “Gutiérrez-McGee Expedition”.

  Said another way, Colonel Gutiérrez de Lara’s credentials are solid -- first Texas Declaration of Independence and the first Texas Constitution. Thus, his 1813 success clearly earns the designation “First Texas Revolution”, a concession mainstream Texas historians are unwilling to accept (at least not yet).

  oOo

  Indeed, to follow up on Walt Whitman’s maxim, the truth is that the Spanish Mexican traits of the U.S. go back to its very beginning. Said another way, if Spanish King Carlos III (Chares III) had not taken a particularly personal interest in the Thirteen Colonies’ quest for independence from England, it is unlikely it would have occurred. Similar recognition is due France.

  Yet, those facts, including vital help from New Spain (Mexico), are regularly ignored. Closer to home here in Texas, generations of classroom students have been wrongly taught that Texas history begins in 1836 with the arrival of U.S. immigrants. As a result, mainstream classroom history lessons are devastating to Spanish-surnamed students who feel rejected by the Anglophile perspective. Truly, as descendants of the Spanish Mexican founders of Texas, they deserve better.

  Basically, most non-Hispanic, non-Native American Texans aren’t able to grasp the following idea: Pre-1836 Texas people, places, and events are as genuine Texas history as that of the mainstream post-1836 Anglophile viewpoint.

  This book attempts to show the general public that Texas has both indigenous beginnings and consequential Mestizo roots. It is this early combination of cultures that gives Texas its world famous ambience and vibrant way of life. Their importance and contributions are self-evident. After all, as the first vaqueros, Tejanas and Tejanos started the Texas cowboy mystique.

  Actually, the Spanish Mexican settlement of Texas was a slow, deliberate process. In truth, beginning in the early 1700s, settlements were established “Deep in the heart of Texas”, that is, San Fernando (San Antonio), Los Adaes (Nacogdoches), Goliad (La Bahia), and Escandón’s Las Villas del Norte along the lower Rio Grande.

  Yet, sustainability of the region was difficult due to the fact there were few families in the several population centers in Mexico’s interior willing to risk their lives by settling in the faraway province of Texas. They were living comfortably and didn’t want to make the drastic change.

  (By the way, the Villas were actually established in Nuevo Santander (Tamaulipas), making South Texas a part of that province. South Texas was sliced off the state of Tamaulipas and added to Texas in 1848 when the U.S. conquered and took the land from its neighbor, Mexico.

  To attract settlers, Mexico officials extensively advertised in U.S. news sources to attract settlers from the United States in concerted efforts to stabilize the sparsely populated territory. Stephen F. Austin symbolizes the first trickle of U.S. immigrants (generally of Anglo Saxon-descent). By way of background, his father (Moses Austin) was already a Spanish subject and had accepted Mexico’s invitation to become an empresario (land agent) in 1820. When Moses died in 1821, his son inherited the relocation of the first 300 families from the U.S. to Mexico.

  It must be noted that the U.S. families that came with Austin asked to become Mexicans in all manner of speaking. That’s because in order to accept their free land (grants) they (l) gave up U.S. citizenship; (2) agreed to swear allegiance to Mexico, their new home; (3) join the Roman Catholic Church; and (4) learn Spanish. To be sure, Austin and his family totally absorbed the Mexican persona.

  For example, Mr. Austin’s legal name became “Estéban” Austin, adopted the Mexican persona, and made himself at home in a country that he considered as “the most munificent (generous) place for immigrants in the world”. That happy medium did not last long.

  As more U.S. expatriates arrived in the early 1830s, problems developed because the “illegal” immigrants from the U.S. began arriving unannounced, uninvited, and unwilling to abide by the rules. Sadly, they quickly outnumbered the first wave of law abiding U.S. immigrants. Thence, additional undocumented hordes over-powered customs and law enforcement field officers on the Louisiana-Texas border. Worse, when the recalcitrant arrivals were told to free their Black slaves in accordance with Mexico’s 1829 emancipation law, the U.S. slave owners refused.

  Plenty has been written about the 1836 Texas independence and so it’s not this book’s intent to add to the debate from a scholarly historical perspective. I will leave that to present and future pre-1836 Texas history university students who hopefully will devote deliberate time to re-discover seamless Texas history by publishing formal elucidations through masters’ theses and doctoral dissertations. Optimistically, they will publish their papers as books to fill shelves in bookstores and libraries, ensuring a fair and balanced rendering of Texas history for future generations.

  oOo

  Sufficient to say that the region we call Texas has a seamless story that goes beyond the arrival of Europeans (pre-Columbian). To be sure, there is nothing I can write (or anyone else for that matter) to alleviate the long list of wrong-doings toward Native Americans by white Europeans of all background. Sadly, they endure with stoicism willful isolation through this day.

  This novel is about the dynamic multi-dimensional interaction between our First American and those intrepid European ancestors who sailed into New Spain ports beginning in the 1500s. Those relationships are what made us who we are today. In writing this story, I am extremely proud that I am a creation of their union.

  oOo

  Walt Whitman had it right in 1883 and his words still ring true today. Regrettably, we have all been taught as if New Spain’s 400-year old history in the U.S. is not important. Mainstream historians with a persistent Anglophile point of view long have skewed the pages of U.S. hi
story toward a New England perspective. Never mind that the first Europeans that explored, mapped, and settled the east coast were the Spanish. The truth is that Spanish Mexicans have played key roles in U.S. history since the very founding of our country. Clearly, in mainstream U.S. history, the Anglophile perspective reigns, with an equally strong Hispanophobia emphasizing most history events.

  That it’s time to set the record straight is not a Tejano’s idea; it was Poet Whitman who proposed it in 1883. Many modern day Hispanic and non-Hispanic historians are doing their part to make it so. Our ancestors’ contributions in founding this great place we call Texas must finally be given the dignity and respect that they deserve. This has nothing to do about rewriting history. Rather, it’s about filling in the missing pieces.

  By the time Anglo Saxon immigrants arrived in Texas, Tejanos had established vibrant communities “deep in the heart of Texas” that acted as regional hubs, all along the Camino Real and beyond. Sam Houston and the Anglos did not have to teach Tejanos about liberty.

  Tejanos had already done the heavy lifting, sacrificing, and dying in the name of Texas independence before Sam Houston reached the Texas border as an immigrant from the U.S. Lt. Colonel José Bernardo Gutiérrez de Lara is the first to have a vision of an independent Texas and who was the first president of Texas in 1813.

  In other words, Sam Houston took over a work in progress. Why is it that mainstream historians do not accept those facts? Equally important, the 1836 Battles of the Alamo, Goliad, and San Jacinto are part of a chronological chapter of Mexico’s history, not the U.S. Texas did not join the U.S. until 1845 as a slave state.

  In 2010, the Texas State Board of Education finally had to agree to add a few Spanish Mexican people and events in the school curriculum. It’s not much, but it’s a start. The question is, why did it take over 150 years for the board to do the right thing? Could the answer be that mainstream historians have had a free hand in writing Texas history without regard to its founding roots? Why are those same historians so reluctant to admit that Texas and the Southwest are in New Spain and not New England?