De León, a Tejano Family History

Notes

Notes   . Although no detailed records exist of Martín de León and his family during this period,thefamilydidliveinCruillas,northernNewSpain,atatimewhentheSpanish Empire was calling for soldiers. In a quote at the beginning of a history of Alonso deLeón,afatheraskshisbestfriend,asthefriendsetsouttoexplorethefarnorth,to takehisfourteen-year-oldson‘‘thatheshouldknowadventure.’’Throughouttherest of his life, young de León always opted for adventure. At fourteen, his age at the time ourstorybegins,hemighthavewantedtojointheexcitingworldofBernardodeGálvez ,butsomebody,perhapshisfather,preventedhimfromgoing.DavidJ.Weber,The Spanish Frontier in North America (New Haven: Yale University Press, ), –; E. A. Montemayor, Eric Beerman, and Winston De Ville, Yo Solo: The Battle Journal of Bernardo de Gálvez during the American Revolution (New Orleans: Polyanthos, ). . Weber, Spanish Frontier, –. . Ibid. . MichaelC.MeyerandWilliamL.Sherman,TheCourseofMexicanHistory(New York: Oxford University Press, ), –. . BenedictLeutenegger,TheZacatecanMissionariesinTexas,–:Excerptsfrom the Libros de los Decretos of the Missionary College of Zacatecas, – (Austin: Texas Historical Survey Committee, ), –. . Juan Rodríquez-Castellano and Caridad Rodríquez-Castellano, Historia de Espa ña:breveresumen(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,),–;PatriciaOsante, Orígenes del Nuevo Santander (–) (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas; Ciudad Victoria: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Tamaulipas, ), –; Armando Alonso, Tejano Legacy: Rancheros and Settlers in South Texas, – (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, ), –. . The people who came with Escandón were not those whom Timothy E. Anna calls the léperos, the beggar poor. Bishop-elect Manuel Abad y Queipo of Michoacan had divided Mexican society into the rich and the poor, but Escandón’s settlers did not fit this arbitrary division. On this northern frontier, these settlers were the petite bourgeoisie, defined by Mexican scholar Luis Villoro as middle-class, and they were   • N   – looking for a chance to better themselves; Luis Villoro, El proceso ideológico de la revoluci ón de independencia (Mexico City: Universidad Autónoma de México, ), –; see also Timothy E. Anna, The Fall of the Royal Government in Mexico City (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, ), , –. Among those from Nuevo Santander who went on to become leaders in the revolutionary movement of  were two of the key players in the Texas revolts, Juan Bautista de las Casas, a retired militia captain from Nuevo Santander, and José Bernardo Gutiérrez de Lara, a settler from Revilla in Nuevo Santander; Donald E. Chipman, Spanish Texas, – (Austin: University of Texas Press, ), –, –. . Osante,Orígenes,;ManuelBarrera,ThentheGringosCame:TheStoryofMartín de León and the Texas Revolution (Laredo, Tex.: Barrera Publications, ), . . Osante, Orígenes, –; Anna, Fall of the Royal Government, , –. . Osante, Orígenes, –; Villoro, El proceso ideológico, –. . Osanteliststhosewhoreceivedbothhaciendasandranchos,andalthoughthere is a Cristóbal de León listed who received a rancho at two leagues from Santander, there is no mention of Bernardo de León. For the de la Garzas, two names are listed, José and Xavier, who received haciendas near the Hacienda de Dolores, but there is no mention of any de la Garzas receiving land in or near Soto la Marina; see index in Osante, Orígenes, for names of hacienda owners. . Osante, Orígenes, . . Anna, Fall of the Royal Government, ; Charles A. Hale, Mexican Liberalism in the Age of Mora, – (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, ), –, –. . Osante,Orígenes,–;A.B.J.Hammett,TheEmpresario:DonMartindeLeón (Kerrville, TX: Braswell Printing, ) ; Barrera, Then the Gringos Came, –. . Osante, Orígenes, . . José Miguel Ramos Arizpe, quoted in Alonso, Tejano Legacy, ; Chipman, Spanish Texas, ; Osante, Orígenes, ; Hammett, Empresario, –; Barrera, Then the Gringos Came, –. Both Hammett and Barrera claim Spanish ancestry and great wealth for Bernardo de León, but there are no records of his having received any grants of a large hacienda. The lack of land would have placed Bernardo among the landless poor, which makes his son’s later success all the more interesting since it indicates that Bernardo’s ambition and desire to get ahead enabled him, and later his son, to overcome considerable obstacles. . KathrynStonerO’Connor,ThePresidioLaBahíadelEspírituSantodeZuñiga, to  (Austin: Von Boeckmann-Jones, ), –. . Captain Domingo Ramón, under the orders of the Marquis of San Miguel de Aguayo, had founded the presidio of Nuestra Señora de Loreto de la Bahía del Espíritu Santo on April , , at or near the site of La Salle’s French settlement on Matagorda Bay. A year later the mission of Nuestra Señora del Espíritu Santo de Zuñigawasfoundedthree-quartersofaleaguefromthefortonGarcitasCreek.Due to problems between Captain Ramón and the Indians, the Garcitas site was aban- Notes to pages – •  doned, and...