Tejano Leadership in Mexican and Revolutionary Texas

Juan N. Seguín Federalist, Rebel, Exile

213 To w h o m d i d T e x a s b e l o n g ? It is a question for which Juan Seguín would have had a clear and ready answer in January 1834, when at age twenty-seven he took the reigns of power as jefe político of the department of Béxar. Texas belonged to men like his father Erasmo and his relatives the Flores and even the rival Navarros and Veramendis. As the other essays in this anthology suggest, these men had navigated the treacherous waters of the Mexican War of Independence, had advocated the development of the province their grandparents and great grandparents had settled for a century, and had welcomed and formed alliances with the recently arrived AngloAmerican settlers. But Texas also belonged to these new Texans—the cotton farmers from the United States who had quickly carved farms and plantations out of raw land with the promise of prosperity just around the corner. And, because Mexico had at least in principle accepted the French revolutionary ideals of liberty, equality, and brotherhood , Texas might also belong to free people of African descent and to Indian peoples who had peaceably settled in Texas, opened their own farms, and seemed intent on becoming productive members of society. Texas certainly did not belong to others who laid claim to it. Texas did not belong to the Coahuila politicians who had belatedly passed some of the reforms that Texans had long demanded while conspiring to sell off the province’s lands through various schemes that profited few but themselves. The struggle between politicians in the rival would-be capitals of Saltillo and Monclova for control of the state government threatened the progress and stability that Texas enjoyed. Texas also did not belong to the national government in Mexico City, which seemed to teeter between states’ rights federalism and strong government centralism. From far off Mexico City, what could such men understand of frontier needs? Texas certainly did not belong to the United States, although it had claimed it as recently as 1819. Although the treaty of 1828 had finally been ratified by both nations in 1832 and Texas’ boundary with the United States set, the Americans ’ track record with regard to former Spanish possessions did not inspire confidence. Texas also did not belong to Indian peoples such JUAN N. SEGUÍN federalist, rebel, exile Jesús F. de la Teja 2 1 4 · j e s ú s f . d e l a t e j a as the despised Karankawas and Comanches, who refused to accept Euroamerican civilized ways. After a century of chronic warfare with the indigenous peoples, Tejanos saw the unacculturated tribes as impediments to progress. If the answer to the broad question of who had a stake in Texas’ future was clear to Juan, many other questions, small and large, required investigation, consideration, and resolution. Just how should Texas respond to the national government’s arrest for treason of Stephen F. Austin, the principal architect of Anglo-American settlement in the province? How should Texas respond to the mounting political crisis in Coahuila occasioned by the rivalry between Saltillo and Monclova politicians? Now that the state legislature had divided the province into three departments, how might Texas retain its cohesion ? Most important, in the face of the centrifugal effects exerted by Anglo-American economic and political forces on one side and Mexican cultural and political forces on the other, just what course of action should he take? For Juan Seguín, born in 1806 on the eve of Mexico’s long struggle for independence, raised in partial exile as his father fought charges of treason to the Spanish crown, and now maturing in the shadow of the political instability into which early national Mexico had descended , the choices were not simple. Juan had not been raised to avoid difficult choices, however. Through his father he could trace his family’s presence in Texas to the earliest days of the province, where a great-great-grandfather had served as a presidio soldier. His great-grandfather, the first Seguín in San Antonio, had established the tradition of public service, holding municipal office various times. Santiago Seguín, his grandfather, had established another family tradition—political activism—as he challenged successive governors before being removed to Saltillo. Juan’s father Erasmo was no stranger to controversy and political activism, and he walked a fine line between loyalties...