Tejano Patriot: The Revolutionary Life of José Francisco Ruiz, 1783–1840 by Art Martínez de Vara (review)

Historian and attorney Art Martínez de Vara captures the essence of Tejano politics in the Texas borderlands with this powerful biography of José Francisco Ruiz. For too long, Ruiz has been "an enigmatic figure" as one of two native-born Texans who signed the Texas Declaration of Independence yet whose role in history has been made to serve nation-building within the broader ideology of manifest destiny and American westward expansion (p. 2). This book particularly challenges the traditional Anglo narrative of Texas and patriotism that simply says, "Tejanos could only identify with either Texas or Mexico, but not both" (p. 3). Martínez de Vara shows that Ruiz's life story and the Tejano experience need to be understood from a deeper "history of frontier survival" in Mexico and a tradition of "provincial autonomy," such that Ruiz became "one of the most ardent Texas revolutionaries, but his zeal for liberty developed slowly and was tempered with pragmatism and a statesmanlike sense of political timing" (p. 8). Ruiz's significance is paradoxically due not just to his role as a revolutionary, first in the Spanish and then the Mexican era, but also to a lifelong career of always working toward trade and peace, rather than violence and warfare, on the Texas frontier by developing friendships with Anglo and Comanche leaders.

Martínez de Vara utilizes a balanced mix of primary and secondary sources to situate Ruiz's life in the proper context of the times, from New Spain (colonial Mexico), through Mexican independence, the First Mexican Empire, and the First Mexican Republic, to the Republic of Texas. Readers truly get a refreshing glimpse of Ruiz's family roots, migration, and community, which began in San Luis de la Paz in the province of Querétaro (the present state of Guanajuato), founded in 1552 "along the Spanish Camino de la Plata ('Silver Road') which linked the mines near Zacatecas with Mexico City" (p. 10). During the following century, Ruiz's family became established in San Luis de la Paz with work in the merchant trade and education until the mid-eighteenth century, when they were recruited to join the José de Escandón expedition to the lower Rio Grande Valley. However, Ruiz's father, Juan Manuel Ruiz, migrated farther to San Antonio de Béxar, bringing his mother and sister with him to settle in the Barrio del Sur (Southside) of the Plaza de Armas, where he worked from home as a tailor. Ruiz's mother, Manuela de la Peña y Valdés, was born in Saltillo, Coahuila, where her grandfather had served as a captain in the Spanish army before retiring to Texas, where Manuela's father, Ignacio de la Peña, "established a successful ranch on the San Antonio River" and was among those who sent cattle to New Orleans in support of the American Revolution (p. 17). Through marriage and kinship, Ruiz's family became linked with the Navarro, Veramendi, Seguin, and Y'Barbo families. Ruiz's father died when Ruiz was fourteen, and his eldest brother, who was a presidial soldier, moved back in with the family, but Martínez de Vara explains that the Ruiz matriarchs—Manuela and eldest surviving daughter, Manuela Josefa, who married Ángel Navarro—wielded great influence on him and kept the family together, especially after the tumultuous battle of Medina (1813) and the short-lived first Republic of Texas. In 1804 at Mission Concepción, Ruiz married María Josefa Hernández, whose own family had arrived with the original Alarcón expedition that established the presidio at San Antonio de Béxar in 1718 and received a Spanish land grant.

This biography establishes a greater understanding of the importance of family and land in the Texas borderlands in Ruiz's career as an educator, military officer, rancher, diplomat, businessman...