SONS OF DEWITT COLONY TEXAS
Š 2006, Wallace L. McKeehan, All Rights Reserved

The following are chapters from

Continuous Presence of Italians and Spaniards in Texas as Early as 1520,
Including the Participation and Consequence of Texas and Louisiana in the American Revolution
by Alex Loya
(Submitted to the public on The Texian Web Forum 2006/reprinted by permission of the author)

Alex Loya is a US Army Chaplain and a contributor to Somos Primos, the online magazine dedicated to Hispanic heritage and diversity issues.  Robert H. Thonhoff, author, historian, and former President of the Texas State Historical Association says concerning his work:

"We have much yet to learn in American history. With this fine book, Chaplain Alex Loya has uncovered and revealed a lode of significant gems of American history that have heretofore been buried deep in the sands of time. Imbedded within its pages are many new insights, which to my knowledge have never before been perceived by historians. A prime example is that the little place of Peņitas, Texas, subject to archeological confirmation, may well be the site of the first European settlement in what is now the continental United States of America! Moreover, his Loya ancestors were among its first settlers. Another perception revealed by author is that Texas was a veritable fourth front during the American Revolution. I think that Chaplain Loya may well be correct in these postulations and that he is on his way to being the world’s greatest authority on these subjects."

Chapter 3

SPANIARD AMERICANS

The oral inheritance my father passed down to me was that the family of Gabino Loya, my great grandfather, our family, was Spaniard. This Spaniard identity in my family was in opposition to a Mexican identity.  The Spaniards and the Loya were “us”, and the Mexicans were “them”.  The Spaniards and the Mexicans in my family’s understanding were not the same group of people, as indeed they are not.  Surely, that old Pink Floyd song I used to listen to in my youth expressed some wisdom when it said “…us and them, and after all we are only ordinary men”, but, certainly, this ethnic distinction is significant in the development of accurate history.  As I got a little older my father told me and I understood that although our family was Spaniard, we were actually of Italian origin, that is, a vicci-Italian or Italian Spaniard family, the memory and tradition of French origin in my immediate family was all but lost.  Ironically, as the research I share in chapter 21 shows, the tradition of French origin turned out to be our true lost heritage, lost in the sands of time because of our long association with Spain, and the geographical proximity of the place of Loya, the Baie de Loya, in the Province of Labourd in France to Spain.

But perhaps my father felt somewhat of a loyalty to Spain, however, because he would refer to the Celtic invaders of the Iberian Peninsula, the Visigoths, who produced the Spaniard Celt-Iberians, as “our ancestors”.  He would also sometimes refer to the King of Spain as “our majesty, the king”.  I believe he felt this way because in his family they held on strong to that identity; as a young 14 year old I witnessed the last of a dying culture when in a rural setting far from the city life and the Heavy Metal Rock and Roll I knew, I observed my relatives at a small family reunion, with full, thick beards and the Mediterranean faces of the Conquistadores, singing the songs and dancing the dance of Peninsular Spain… and my uncle Antonio spoke to me about Mother Spain.  My father also felt this way because on his father’s maternal side they were new comers born in Spain (as they were on my mother’s father’s maternal side). We had close relatives come to the United States from Spain as late as the Spanish Civil War in the 1930’s.  I distinctly remember how on one occasion when we were kids my father, perhaps working through some disappointment, told my brother and I that he would rather have us feel we were Spaniards rather than Americans… well, our surname and forefathers, I found, came from France, through Spain, and our clan originated in Italy perhaps a thousand years ago, and we have been a part of this country from its beginning.  And my father did enroll me in the Boy Scouts of America, where an American Patriotism was unashamedly fostered.  I am an American.

Growing up we were members of a country club called “Centro Asturiano”, that is, “Asturian Center”, so called after Asturias, the northernmost province of Spain.  Many of the members in this country club were newly arrived Spaniards, and the feast of Covadonga, a Spaniard holiday celebrating the beginning of the reconquest of Spain from the Moors [1], was the central celebration there.  In the middle of the country club there was a huge statue of King Pelayo, first king of Asturias who, from the caverns of Covadonga in the Cantabric Mountains, had started the military campaign against the Arab invaders back in the year 722 A.D.[2]  I remember how within this country club somehow a few other kids with Italian surnames and I banded together and we were the “Italians” in that Spaniard club.

Certainly, however, the identity of Spaniard in my family was established and very strong, and my grandfather’s sister Pilar Loya Escontrias, who was born in San Elizario, Texas in 1877, confirmed the strength of this identity.  Although neither my father nor us had ever met her or her descendants, her obituary called her a pioneer woman and identified in writing her family of origin by the phrase “they were Spaniards”, an identity which was also passed down to her descendants by word of mouth.    

The identification of my great aunt in her obituary as a pioneer and a Spaniard is to be noted because that ethnic identification gives us a clue and sheds an important light on how the original colonial Tejanos saw themselves and what they understood themselves to be.    The colonial Tejanos in colonial days did not see themselves as Mexican Texans as the label is commonly imposed on them today.  How could they? As I already mentioned, Texas belonged to Mexico for only 14 years!  They saw themselves as Spaniards, and, as the evidence in the next chapter will show and as we go along in this book it will become clear, they saw themselves as Americans of Spaniard origin and were in fact Americans of Spaniard descent, like the ones in South Louisiana, a good number of who were Italian and French Spaniards.

When I say that most of the original Tejano Texians did not see themselves as Mexican Texans as the label is commonly imposed on them today, it is important to realize that I am speaking not only of families like the Loya family who specifically saw themselves as and called themselves Spaniard as opposed to Mexican, but also of those Tejano Texians as well who although in writing they referred to themselves as Mexican, in context, they clearly recognized they were criollos (cree-oh-yohs), that is, full blooded Spaniards born in the New World, and not mestizos or genizaros as the great majority of Mexicans are.   In other words, although they recognized the fact that they had been under Mexican jurisdiction for 14 years, and that most of them had come from Spain via Mexico, they understood they were different racially and distinct ethnically from the Mexican Mexicans, and they invariably spoke of their European and Mediterranean origin[3].  And it is absolutely essential to understand that even though they often referred to themselves as Mexican in writing for lack of another term to refer to those who were already in Texas when Texas became a part of Mexico and lack of association with another government, as the Anglo-Mexicans[4] were so that they could be identified as Anglo-Americans, but yet in context making it clear they were criollos, it is absolutely essential to understand that deep in their hearts many of them did not see themselves as Mexicans at all, and they resented deeply having had that identity imposed on them.  In fact, the resentment the original Spaniard Texians felt against the Mexicans because of the Mexican identity being imposed and forced upon them was so deep that that was one of the strongest motivating factors in their taking up the Texas and American cause rather than the Mexican cause[5].  This is a fact that is clearly expressed in an incident and words which were uttered in the thick of battle, when emotions run high and true feelings emerge, rather than in the thought out, controlled request for pensions not paid for military service rendered when sacrifices made in the past are carefully expressed to draw a positive response, which is the context in which often times the Spaniard Texians referred to themselves as Mexican, “hey, we fought against our own countrymen for you, if anyone deserves a pension it is us!”.  True feelings, however, are expressed when emotions run high and all guards are down. 

During the Battle of San Jacinto on April 21, 1836, even after the battle had been won and the Mexicans wanted to surrender, many among the Texians engaged in a slaughter of the defeated Mexicans in revenge of the merciless slaughters the Mexicans had perpetrated upon the Texians at the Alamo and Goliad.  While many of the Texians attempted to save the lives of Mexican soldiers and to stop their fellow Texians from committing this atrocity, emotions were running too high to be stopped until half of the Mexican force had been killed.  I suppose the surviving half of the Mexicans were grateful that the Texians got a hold of their avenging emotions, because the Mexicans had not let one Texian live at the Alamo.    Half is better than none.  At any rate, in the thick of the battle and the slaughter,

“Juan Seguin’s Tejanos were in the thick of it, shouting ‘Recuerda el Alamo!’ A Mexican officer recognized Tejano soldier Antonio Menchaca as an acquaintance and pleaded with him as a brother Mexican to interecede for his life.   Menchaca looked at him coldly,’No, damn you’, he said, ‘I’m not Mexican! I’m an American!” and turning to his Texan comrades, he said, ‘Shoot him!’” (Edwyn P. Hoyt, The Alamo: An Illustrated History, p.163).

Stop! Look. And listen!  Antonio Menchaca’s words uttered in the thick of battle, and the action by his fellow Tejanos that followed, strongly illustrate for us, authoritatively express to us the true feelings of the original Tejano Texians regarding having the Mexican identity imposed upon them. Listen carefully! He said, “No, damn you, I am not a Mexican! I’m an American!” and then he, and his Tejanos, shot the man to death.  The curse followed by the statements regarding his identity, and the bullets, reflects a very, very deep-seated resentment that went beyond that moment.  It is evident that for a long time Antonio Menchaca and his Tejano Texians had been resenting the impositions of the Mexicans, including the imposition of the Mexicans’ foreign identity upon them.  He was saying I am sick of it, I don’t want to hear this anymore, you must stop calling me what I am not!     Read his words again.  That resentment exploded in words and in a hail of bullets when the guard went down in the heat of emotion in battle, and this way back in 1836, only 15 years after Texas was dropped on the lap of Mexico by Spain, 23 years after the First Republic of Texas had been established with its government of adherents to the American government, and 70 years before the first mass migration of Mexicans to the United States.  And just as Menchaca and his fellow Tejano Texians resented the identity of the Mexicans being imposed upon them, in their heart of hearts they identified with and saw themselves as Americans, not Mexicans. “Damn you! I am not a Mexican! I am an American!”  And that it was not just words uttered in mindless emotion but the true feelings regarding their own identity is clearly seen in the way years later Antonio Menchaca expressed the same identity as Americans and not Mexicans of the Tejano Texians when he wrote his history of Texas entitled “Memoirs”, which we will study later in this book.  But we need to stop, look and listen, really listen!  Because up until now the cry of the original Tejanos regarding their identity as Spaniards and Americans has fallen on completely deaf ears, and today invariably and always the colonial Tejanos are identified as “Mexican Texans” or “Texans of Mexican heritage”. STOP! This has to stop!  If you who are historians and writers of Texas history who have failed to listen and constantly refer to the original Tejanos as “Mexican-Texans” and “Texans of Mexican heritage” had been present during the Battle of San Jacinto, you would have heard the deep, bass voice of Antonio Menchaca telling you “No, damn you! I am not a Mexican! I am an American!” and then you would have fallen under a hail of bullets from the rifles of the Tejanos whose precious identity and heritage they would have understood to have lost because of you.  Eventhough at times the original Tejanos certainly referred to themselves as Mexican and to deny so would be absurd, in context, it is abundantly clear they did not mean what it means today, and they invariably and always, and do I mean always, spoke in their own words or through those who interviewed them of their Spaniard, Canary Island and Mediterranean heritage… and American.

Judge Jose Maria Rodriguez, for example, although in his “Memoirs Of Early Texas” he refers to his father and himself as “Mexican Texans”, he is aware of the fact that they were descendants of the Canary Island families that settled San Antonio.    Jose Antonio Navarro in his “Memoirs of Jose Antonio Navarro” and his “Historical Commentaries of San Antonio de Bexar by an Eyewitness” as well as his “Commentaries of Historical Interest”, clearly identifies the “Mexicans” of Texas as descendants of the noble Canary Islander families who came from Spain and as descendants of other Spaniards and refers to their “Spanish” genius, making it abundantly clear that the ancestors of the “Mexican Texans” came from Spain.  When Narciso Leal and his friends convinced him to have his Historical Commentaries translated into Spanish back in 1869, they made sure to make it clear that Navarro’s father was from Ajaccio, in the Island of Corsica in Europe, the same island Napoleon was born in, and that his mother was a full blooded Spaniard, a criolla born in San Antonio, Texas.  They made sure to make it clear that “his appearance is of the Spanish type” (Narciso Leal, A Brief Biographical Sketch Of The Author Of These Commentaries, Historical Commentaries Spanish Translation, June 20, 1869).

Jose Cassiano is numbered among the “Mexican Texan” heroes of Texas yet it is recognized he was born Guisseppe Cassini in San Remo, Italy.   Another example would be Antonio Menchaca whose “Memoirs” we will study.    James P. Newcomb, who wrote the introduction to Menchaca’s “Memoirs” thought it worth it and was careful to protect and preserve his friend Antonio Menchaca’s true ethnic identity, and that of Menchaca’s Texian compatriots, when in his introduction he wrote,

“I knew Captain Antonio Menchaca personally, and enjoyed his friendship and confidence.  He was a distinguished man in his day and generation.  In personal appearance he was physically a large man, not overly tall, but massive, his complexion fair, his eyes blue, his countenance strong and dignified, he bore the marks of a long line of Castilian ancestors”. (James P. Newcombe Introduction to Antonio Menchaca’s Memoirs, copyright 1997-2002 Wallace L. McKeehan). 

Menchaca himself, as we will see, stressed the fact that the Texas patriots were descendants of the original families from the Canary Islands who founded San Antonio.   Then, after having consistently described the Royalist Army during the Mexican Independence as Mexicans and the Texas rebels as Americans, when the First Republic of Texas failed and Spanish rule was established once again in Texas he is careful to refer to himself, now serving in the Royalist Army, not as a Mexican but as a soldier of the King of Spain[6].  Considering what happened at San Jacinto, this was not without intent.

Another example is Don Martin De Leon, founder of Victoria Texas, whose portrait appears in the Gallery of Spaniard Founding Fathers of Texas in this book.  Described as of a full 6 feet in height, Martin De Leon was born in Nuevo Santander, New Spain, present day Tamaulipas in Northern Mexico, of parents both of whose families were from Burgos, Spain.  He married a beautiful young woman, Patricia de la Garza, who was also born of parents whose families came from Spain [7].  The De Leon family is an example of the people who settled in Texas, the American Southwest and Northern Mexico, they were criollos, Spaniards born in the New World.   Juan N. Seguin was born in San Fernando de Bejar, which is now San Antonio, Texas, in New Spain, and he was the descendant of Guillaume Seguin, who had originally come from Gevaudan, Lozere, France, and of the Canary Islanders who settled San Antonio [8].  An Anglo-American reporter for the Clarksville Standard Newspaper who interviewed Juan Seguin on March 4, 1887 described Seguin by saying, “He comes of pure Castilian descent, his ancestors being of the first colony that came from the Canaries to San Fernando, as San Antonio was first called” (Timothy M. Matovina, The Alamo Remembered, p. 48).   Actually, Seguin is a Germanic French Gascon surname, from the German Sieg, meaning victory, and win, meaning friend, Seguin [9].

Eulalia Yorba, a witness to the fall of the Alamo who was interviewed by the San Antonio Express on April 12, 1896 is described as “a poor old Spanish woman” and the priest is described as “a good old Spanish priest” (Matovina, pp. 54-56).  Andrea Castaņon Villanueva, a survivor of the massacre at the Alamo who was interviewed by the San Antonio Express on February 19, 1899 is described by the statement, “Though every ounce of her blood is Spanish blood, she has never loved Spain, from the fact that her father’s family was forcibly moved to Texas from the Canary Islands…” (Matovina, p. 58-59).    To use the word “Spanish” to describe someone’s ethnicity then was not the same thing it is now. Back then “Spanish” meant “Spaniard” specifically.  Maria de Jesus Buquor, another witness of the fall of the Alamo interviewed on July 19, 1907 by the San Antonio Express, is described as having been, at the time of the fall of the Alamo, a child “in whose veins courses the warm blood of Castile” (Matovina, p. 90).  The list goes on and on and on, of all the original Tejanos described, only two are described as being Indian or descendants of the mighty Aztecs, and both are said to have come to Texas from old Mexico, as opposed to the others who were born in Texas.   All of the rest are described as Castilians or Canary Islanders or of pure Spain Spanish blood, and that by their contemporary Anglo-American friends or interviewers, reflecting the reality of the census records and the historical facts we will study, that Texas, New Mexico, California and Northern Mexico were settled mostly by criollos, making their descendants Spaniard Americans and Spaniard Texans.  Their portraits also bear testimony to this fact.

Obviously, this is not an arbitrary assumption on my part, and at the “grassroots” level, many of the descendants of original settlers not only of Texas but also of New Mexico, who colonized Arizona, also still cling to their original identity.  In Northern New Mexico, at the starting point of the Rio Grande, people are very emotional about this issue, and to refer to one of them as other than a Spaniard is, as they say, “fightin’ words”. In fact, a fascinating thing about these Spaniards of Northern New Mexico is that to this day the Spanish language they speak is the 16^th century Spanish brought by their ancestors with Juan de Oņate!   That is absolutely fascinating!  Yet it simply reflects the reality of their true identity and of the isolation they lived under for centuries after their arrival.  When one looks at the portraits or pictures of the pioneer families of Arizona, who came from New Mexico, as well as the portraits of the pioneer families of California, the same Spaniard criollo heritage can be observed. 

This should not come as a surprise, considering that from the beginning of colonization of Northern New Spain, as we will see, persons of mixed blood were generally excluded from participating in the process by governmental policy, by the law of “limpieza de sangre”, purity of blood [10].  At the other end of the Rio Grande, by the coast, Willacy,  Hidalgo and Cameron Counties, many people still cling to that same identity, as the public mural in Raymondville, Texas, which is on the cover of this book, reflects that sentiment.     R. H. Thonhoff also documents and testifies to this Spaniard identity of the original Texans when he writes on page 5 of his “The Vital Contribution of Texas in the Winning of the American Revolution”, “…in 1779…About three thousand Spanish citizens lived in and around the settlements at Bexar, La Bahia, and Nacogdoches”.  Indeed, Francis Bayles, an Anglo-American writer of that time, in a book written by him in 1851, described the Spaniard Texians as “… the descendants of the noble and chivalric Castilians…”, and this he does in contrast and comparison to the “aboriginal savages”. (McDonald & Matovina, Defending Mexican Valor in Texas, p. 22).

When one thinks about it, it is evident that to the original Tejano Texians whose voice has been silenced in the garble of other people’s ideas, their identity was important to them.    I am simply attempting to recover and preserve what was important to our ancestors so that we can pass it down to our descendants.   My father had told me his family were Spaniards, his aunt, Pilar Loya, whom he had never met, evidently felt so strong about it that it was written in her obituary, where last words and wishes, where how one desires to be remembered is communicated and one’s heritage is preserved.   Similarly, Antonio Menchaca, the man who felt it important to preserve an eye witness account of the history of early Texas and its people, as we will see, had made sure that when it came time to communicate who he was, and who the original Texans he loved and lived among were, he made sure to specify that he was a soldier of the King of Spain and those who led the Texans were descendants of the first families from the Canary Islands who settled San Antonio. That his friend and amanuensis James P. Newcombe thought it necessary to comment on Menchaca’s Castilian lineage only shows that Menchaca’s identity as a Spaniard was precious to Menchaca, a fact that becomes more significant when one remembers he felt the sting of the criollo as opposed to the Peninsular, and he reflects the feeling of his contemporaries who held him in very high esteem.      Exactly the same thing can be said of Jose Antonio Navarro and of the way he specifically described the Spaniard Texians as criollos, and how his contemporaries and friends went through the trouble of describing his European and criollo parentage and his Spaniard appearance.  It’s not so much that it is important to me, it is that it was important to them.  From Antonio Menchaca, to James P. Newcombe, from Jose Antonio Navarro, to Francis Bayles to Narciso Leal, all of them are very concerned and go through the trouble of being very clear to mention in no uncertain terms, albeit tactful, that the great majority, not all, of original Spaniard Texians, the original Tejanos, were the descendants of Canary Islanders and Castilians and not mestizos.  Like I said, it is not so much that it is important to me, it is that it was important to them.

The claim to full Spaniard blood, the claim to Canary Island or Castilian ancestry is so absolutely pervasive in the writings of the original Spaniard Texians and of their Anglo-American friends who wrote about them, it is so total and so obvious, so blatant and insistent, that I will not even say it is a wonder how historians have missed it.  They could not have missed it!  It is impossible!   Rather, I will say that it is appalling at how disrespectful historians have been of the original Spaniard Texians, completely disregarding their claim of who they were and, instead, imposing on them their own preconceived ideas of what a Tejano ought to be.  It is truly appalling!  In fact, this complete disregard of what the original Tejanos had to say about their own heritage, and of the historical facts that support that claim, is so deeply entrenched, that I will go out on a limb here and say that many of you who will read this will feel your fur is being rubbed the wrong way when I say the original Tejanos were not Mexicans but, rather, they were Spaniards, and Americans, “No, damn you! I am not a Mexican! I am an American!” (how much clearer can it get?)

When I was in BibleCollege, one of our professors, David Cook, did an excellent experiment with the class to teach us the importance of paying attention to what one reads in the Scriptures and of divesting oneself of preconceived ideas and beliefs in order to be able to grasp what the Bible actually teaches.  On the blackboard, brother Cook wrote a paragraph in which there were six letters “f”.  Amazingly, when he asked us to read the paragraph, we only saw three “f’s”.  He told us there were six, and we told him there were three, and so we went back and fourth arguing about the number of letters “f” in the paragraph he had written on the blackboard.  Finally, he told us to take a moment to copy the paragraph on a piece of paper.  To our total surprise, when we actually took the time to carefully copy the paragraph, we all saw that, indeed, there were six “f’s” in the paragraph and not three like we had been insisting!  The trouble had been that three of those letters “f” were in the word “of”, which we pronounce “ov” rather than “off”.     Professor Cook explained that because we were all used to pronounce the letter “f” in the word “of” as a “v” and not as an “f”, this created a psychological grid that literally prevented us from seeing the letters “f” in the three words “of” when we were reading the paragraph on the blackboard!  It was truly amazing!  This he taught us to teach us the reality of preconceived grids, how they affect our understanding of what we study, including the Bible, and the importance of laying aside our grids and really paying attention when we study the Bible or any other work. 

The claim to full Spanish, Canary Island and Castilian blood in the writing of the original Spaniard Texians and their Anglo-American contemporaries is so absolutely pervasive and complete, that it is abundantly evident that thus far many who study Texas history have gone into that study with a solidly well fixed psychological grid of what the words “Mexican” and “Mexico” and “Tejano” mean.     This grid is so deeply entrenched that although over and over and over the original Texians, both Anglo and Spaniard, tell us of the full Spaniard blood and heritage of the original Spaniard Texians, that claim has gone completely invisible in those scholars’ eyes, and although they read over and over and over again the claim to full Castilian and Spaniard blood, they can not see it.

Well, you need to read this chapter again, and the next chapter, and then you need to go back and read all of the writings of the original Spaniard Texians and really pay attention to what they said regarding their heritage.  And then you need to respect it and humbly accept it.  If you do this, you will be able to see clearly that the original Tejanos who pioneered Texas were a distinct crowd from the crowd that lived in Mexico, that their heritage was not the heritage of the mestizos, but, rather, their heritage was that of the criollos.    This, in turn, will give you a basic foundational understanding as to why the original Spaniard Texians did not identify with the Mexicans or their cause.  Now, if after doing what I recommend here you still just want to say the original Tejanos were all just a bunch of Mexicans like the rest ov’em, then you really need to ask yourself why you feel this way and you really need to take it up with the Lord.  You should ask yourself why when they all said they were Spaniards, in your heart you still want to say they are Mexicans.  Could it be that your heart is consumed with pride and prejudice?   I don’t know, I am asking you to ask yourself.

And we shouldn’t think it strange or awkward that many among the original Texans felt and saw themselves as Spaniards rather than Mexicans; if one thing is understood by Menchaca’s characterization of himself as a soldier of the King of Spain is that he, and he is evidently stressing this, was born a citizen of Spain, and so were his contemporaries and compatriots from Texas. Because Texas belonged to Mexico for only 14 years, Menchaca and Seguin and Ruiz and Navarro and every Texan at that time was born a citizen of Spain, was born a criollo Spaniard.  Maria Angeles O’Donell Olson, the Honorary Consul of Spain in San Diego, did an excellent job putting this reality into perspective when, in a speech delivered at the 21^st Annual San Diego Spanish Founding Families “Descendants’ Day” on June 28^th, 2003 she said:

“The news of the independence of Mexico from Spain arrived in Santa Fe (New Mexico) the 26^th of December of 1821.  In California, not until early 1822, was the Spanish flag stricken. For 309 years, from 1513 to 1822, the colors of Spain governed the territory above the Rio Grande, also for 257 years (from 1562 to 1822), the Spanish flag waved uninterrupted… How long have other flags waved in the United States?… in what it refers to Mexico, it succeeded Spain in 1821, and disappeared with the signing of the Guadalupe-Hidalgo Treaty of 1848 (27 years).”

Actually, since as Ms. O’Donell says, it was not until 1822 that the Mexican flag succeeded the Spanish flag in the United States, the Mexican flag ruled for only 26 years, and, in Texas, for only 14 years, as opposed to the 309 years the flag of Spain “governed the territory above the Rio Grande”.

This is one of the reasons why before Texas was wrested from Spain by Mexico, and before they began to identify themselves with the United States at the time of the American Revolution, the pioneers who colonized Northern New Spain, including Texas and the American Southwest, saw themselves completely different from how people today mistakenly think about them.  At that time, the early pioneers of Texas and of the rest of Northern New Spain, had no concept at all of a mestizo or Mexican identity as a people, eventhough there was a minority of people of mixed blood among them. Their identity was that of Spaniards.  They did not call themselves Mexican, they did not call themselves Tejanos and they did not call themselves Texians, they called themselves Spaniards.    It is important to understand that their claim to being Spaniards was not just in response to a census question, but it was the way they understood themselves in every day life, it is what they were, generally as individuals, and as a people.  

When the Spanish Inspector of the Province of Nuevo Santander, Jose Tienda de Cuervo, who was actually Dutch, conducted his inspection of the Escandon Settlements of the Rio Grande and of Northern New Spain in 1757, it is clear the colonists he interviewed had no other concept of their identity other than as Spaniards.  When he was conducting a “Review of Indians” at the town of Jaumave, an Escandon settlement, the local priest, Fray Juan Llanos, gave a report of a violent incident that had occurred between the settlers and the Indians in which a number of settlers and of Indians had been killed.  According to Fray Juan Llanos, the Indians, who had been previously living in peace, “killed Spaniards… four residents of this settlement…”.   Fray Llanos goes on to describe how the “residents” armed themselves and went in pursuit of the Indians, and how “the people of the settlement” in turn killed a number of Indians.  The important thing here is to notice how in this first hand account, Fray Llanos refers to the residents and settlers of this Escandon settlement as “Spaniards”.  Clearly, to Fray Llanos, the settlers were neither Mexicans nor mestizos, they were Spaniards, and this identification he used not in the census itself, but in relating an episode in the life of the colony (Fray Juan Llanos in response to Don Jose Tienda del Cuervo in his Review of Indians during his 1757 Inspection of the settlements established by Jose de Escandon).

Nine years later in 1766, Fray Vicente Santa Maria, a Presbyter of the Order of San Francisco, wrote an historical report of the settlements established by Escandon, the Father of South Texas.  In his historical account, Fray Santa Maria writes about how Spaniards were living in the area settled by Escandon “before the Conquest”, that is, before Escandon arrived with his settlers.  That in itself is an important fact which we will examine in another chapter, the point for the present discussion, however, is that to Fray Santa Maria, the early settlers of the area of South Texas and Northern New Spain were Spaniards and not Mexicans or mestizos.  Fray   Santa Maria relates how the Indians let the Spaniards establish themselves in the area Escandon later settled before Escandon arrived.  The Spaniards were few in number but “the number of Spanish ranchers grew”, and this before the Conquest.   As he went on writing about the history of the area, he addressed the question of:

“Whether the Indians have quarters in the settlements for their congregation and habitation separate from the Spanish settlers, at what distance they are from each other…”(Fray Vicente Santa Maria, Historical Report of the Colony of Nuevo Santander and the Gulf of Mexico)

  Obviously concerned with the law of “Limpieza de Sangre” which I will discuss in the next chapter, Fray Santa Maria clearly states that the settlers of the immediacies of the Rio Grande, were Spaniards, not Mexicans or mestizos.  Continuing with his report, Fray Santa Maria tells His Excellency the Spanish Viceroy, and his Catholic Monarch, the King of Spain, that the “movement of our people… the Spaniards” disquiets the Indians.   To Fray Santa Maria, a Spaniard, the settlers of the Rio Grande area were the same people as himself, the Viceroy and the Catholic Kings of Spain: Spaniards. The people who colonized Texas and the rest of Northern New Spain, then, did not see themselves as Mexicans or mestizos at all, like the people of central and southern Mexico saw themselves even then, rather, as a people their identity was decidedly that of Spaniards.

In a letter dated September 8, 1680 and addressed to Fray Francisco de Ayeta, Francisco de Otermin, the Spanish Governor of New Mexico, clearly and strongly underscores the aforesaid distinction in the mind of the colonial settlers of Texas and New Mexico between themselves and those they understood as Mexicans.  After stating how one of the leaders of the Pueblo Indians in the Pueblo Rebellion of 1680 had “lived all his life in the villa among the Spaniards” and how he now was leading Indians in the killing of Spaniards, clearly identifying the colonists of New Mexico who soon there after became much of the population of the El Paso area in West Texas, as Spaniards, Otermin goes on to make a statement that is crucially important in the present discussion and in the understanding of the identity of the colonial settlers of Texas and New Mexico.

“He came back from there after a short time, saying that his people asked that all classes of Indians who were in our power be given up to them, both those in the service of the Spaniards and those of the Mexican nation of that suburb of Analco.” (Antonio de Otermin, Resistance and Accommodation in New Mexico, letter addressed to Fray Francisco de Ayeta dated September 8, 1680; Digital History Source: C. W. Hackett, ed., Historical Documents relating to New Mexico, Nueva Vizcaya, and Approaches Thereto, to 1773, vol. III [Washington: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1937] pp. 327-35.  Previous quotation as well.)

This statement, and this letter, is crucially important in the understanding of the identity of the colonial settlers of Texas and New Mexico not only because, as Tienda de Cuervo and Fray Santa Maria did in their reports of the settlers of South Texas, he makes it clear that their identity was that of Spaniards, but because in this letter Otermin distinguishes between the Mexicans and the Spaniards.  Otermin tells about how during the Pueblo Rebellion the Pueblo Indians demanded of the Spaniards that they release to the Pueblos “all classes of Indians who were in our power”.     Stop.  There are a couple of things we need to notice from this statement.    First, Otermin identifies a group of people who are in “power” over “all classes of Indians”.  Second, when Otermin says these “classes of Indians” were in “our” power, Otermin places himself among the group of people in power.   Otermin goes on to identify who the people in power over “all classes of Indians” are when he continues “all classes of Indians who were in our power both those in the service of the Spaniards”.    According to Antonio de Otermin, his people, the Spaniards, are in power over a different people, “all classes of Indians”.    Now, Otermin had already stated several times that the Spaniards were those who lived in the Villa, and how it was against them that the Pueblos were rebelling and whom the Pueblos had been killing.  On the other hand, the Pueblos are demanding that “all classes of Indians” under the “power” of the Spaniards be released to them.   This is important to notice as well because in the mind of the Pueblo Indians those who were the settlers of New Mexico, the Spaniards, were distinct from the “all classes” of Indians that the Pueblos were demanding that the Spaniards release.  In other words, both the Pueblo Indians and the Spaniard settlers understood and saw as distinct the Spaniard settlers from the “all classes of Indians” who were in the “power” of the Spaniards, and the Pueblos wanted to set those “all classes” of Indians free.  The question, then, is, who were those “all classes” of Indians who were under the “power” of the Spaniard settlers, whom the Pueblos wanted to set free and who were seen and understood by both Otermin and his Spaniard settlers and the Pueblos as distinct from the Spaniard colonial settlers?  Otermin answers this question when he writes “his people (the Pueblos) asked that all classes of Indians who were in our power be given up to them, both those in the service of the Spaniards and those of the Mexican nation of that suburb of Analco.”  Clearly, in Otermin’s understanding and the Pueblo Indians’ understanding, the “all classes” of Indians were “both those in the service of the Spaniards and those of the Mexican nation”.  No question, the Spaniards and the Mexicans in both Otermin’s and the Pueblos’ understanding were two distinct peoples, and the Mexicans were among the “all classes of Indians”.    That in Otermin’s understanding the Indians of the “Mexican nation of Analco” are the Mexicans, as opposed to himself and the settlers who were Spaniards, is clearly seen in the following statement in the same letter just a couple of sentences down:

“…these parleys were intended solely to obtain his wife and children and to gain time for the arrival of the other rebellious nations to join them and besiege us, and that during this time they were robbing and sacking what was in the said hermitage and the houses of the Mexicans” (Antonio de Otermin, same letter and source as previous quote)

There are a couple of things to notice in this statement that are very important as well in the present discussion.  First, when Otermin says the Pueblos were buying time for other Indian nations to come and join them in the besieging of “us”, the Spaniards, while at the same time they were robbing and sacking “the houses of the Mexicans”, Otermin is describing how the Mexicans, who were among the “all classes” of Indians, lived in separate quarters from the Spaniards.   The Spaniards were in a physical location of the area, the Villa, waiting to come under siege, while the Pueblos were in a separate area already sacking “the houses of the Mexicans”.  The Spaniards and the Mexicans lived in segregated quarters.  Second, when Otermin says the Pueblos were about to besiege “us” while they were already sacking “the houses of the Mexicans”, he shows an “us and them” mentality, Otermin and the Spaniards were “us” the Mexicans were “them”, even as what I shared at the beginning of this chapter, that in my own family the Loya and the Spaniards were “us” and the Mexicans were “them”.    Clearly, in Otermin’s understanding and the Pueblos’ and everybody else’s understanding in the year 1680, the Spaniard settlers of New Mexico and West Texas and the Mexicans were two distinct peoples.   When the Spaniards and their Indian servants, including the Mexicans, fled from New Mexico to the El Paso del Norte area, census records of later years, which we will examine in the next chapter, clearly show that this practice of segregation of towns, between the Spaniard settlers and the Christian Indians among whom the Mexicans were, continued.  The writing of Antonio de Otermin, Jose Tienda de Cuervo and Fray Santa Maria as examples of the writing of others of their era as well, clearly shows that the colonial settlers of Texas and New Mexico saw themselves and understood themselves as Spaniards in contrast, in their understanding, to the Mexicans of central and southern Mexico, whom they saw as Indians.   

All of the preceding historical facts are why the terms “Spaniard Texan” and “Spaniard American” more accurately describe who the original colonial Tejanos and the rest of the colonial pioneers of the American Southwest were. To use the terms “Mexican American” or “Mexican Texan”, which do apply to those who came from Mexico starting at the time of the Mexican Revolution of 1910, to describe the colonial settlers of Texas and the American Southwest is to apply a misnomer to them which denies the historical realities, the census records, the family histories, the written memoirs being discussed.  And that is putting it lightly.  If I may be bold, to call the colonial Tejanos, the Tejano Texians, “Mexican Texans” shows an appalling lack of knowledge and a complete disrespect of the founders of Texas because they insistently claimed to be criollo Spaniards.     They were Spaniard Americans, whose presence was also represented in the man who became the Father of the United States.

“George Washington, ‘The Father of Our Country,’ was abundantly endowed with some good Spanish genes that trace back to the great Spanish king and saint, San Fernando, and beyond.” (Robert H. Thonhoff, “Essay on the San Fernando-George Washington- Bernardo de Galvez Connection”).

 The descendants of the original Texans would do well to assert their true identity as Spaniards, which identity assimilated also those who were in the colonial mestizo minority.    As Luigi Enaudi said, he who does not look back to his ancestors does not look forward to his descendants.

Chapter 4

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE ONE MILLION?
(previously COLONISTS NOT CONQUISTADORS)

There is really no question, as we saw in the previous chapter, the people who pioneered Texas invariably claimed to be full-blooded Spaniards.  In reality, when writers like Weber and Tijerina claim that the colonial people of Texas were composed of deeply racially mixed individuals and Mexican Indians, they claim so in contradiction to what the pioneers claimed for themselves. Although it seems to me that that it is deeply disrespectful that they totally disregard the pioneers’ claim, I want to make it perfectly clear that I believe that as it pertains to eternity, it does not really matter, that the only pure race is the human race.

On one occasion recorded in the 8th chapter of the Gospel according to John, when Jesus Christ found Himself in an argument with some of His fellow Jews regarding His identity as the Son of God, the Pharisees, wanting to deeply insult Him told Him,

“Are we not right to say that you are a Samaritan and you have a devil?”

The Samaritans had been born as a consequence of the fall of Israel during the Babylonian invasion.  The Babylonians enforced a policy that when they conquered a land, they would take people from that land captive and leave the poorest among the conquered people in their land.  They would then bring different peoples from various different conquered nations to live in the newly conquered land so that they would intermarry with the newly conquered people.  By doing so, the Babylonians caused the conquered people to loose their identity as a people and so cause them to loose the reason to fight.  The Samaritans were born of this circumstance, being a mix of Jew with many other different peoples.     The Samaritans were deeply despised by the Jews, to the point where they would not even set their foot in the land of Samaria or have any dealings with the Samaritans.  To call a Jew a Samaritan was deeply offensive to Jews, one of the worst insults that would bring a violent response.  When His fellow Jews called Jesus a Samaritan, they were doing their best to deeply offend Jesus and hopefully cause Him to respond in a way that would discredit Him.  But listen to how Jesus responded:

“I don’t have a devil, but I honor my Father and you do dishonor me.”

Jesus addressed their accusation of Him being demon possessed because the only unpardonable sin was to blaspheme the Holy Spirit by claiming the miracles Jesus performed were done by the power of Satan, which is what these people were doing.  But let’s listen again to His answer to their intended racial insult in saying He was a Samaritan:

“I don’t have a devil, but I honor my Father and you do dishonor me.”

Did you notice?  What a mature man Jesus was! Jesus didn’t even acknowledge their intended racial insult!  Not a word about them calling Him a Samaritan.  Why? Because in the end, it doesn’t matter, God created all people, including the Samaritans, and the mestizos, and the mulattos and the coyotes and the zambos, and He loves them all, and for His lost sheep among them Jesus laid down His life.  It does not matter.

Furthermore, although Jesus was a Jew among Jews, the One God endorsed as the Jewish Messiah when the Holy Spirit landed on Him in the shape of a dove, and though King David was a Jew among Jews chosen by God to be the first divinely chosen king of the Jews, the prostitute Rahab who was a Canaanite was in their genealogical line, and Ruth who was a Moabite, yet having these non Hebrew ancestors in their genealogical line did not take away from their Jewish identity, they were still Jews among Jews.  Similarly, although some of the descendants of the Spaniards who colonized Northern New Spain, including Texas and the American Southwest, have some Indian ancestors in their line, it does not take away from their Spaniardness, as the mestizos who moved north were diluted into the majority Spaniard population.  And then again, the fact is that in Northern New Spain, the white population did not intermarry very much.

Professor Robert McCaa, Ph.D., of the University of Minnesota, historian and ethnographer expert in Mexico who has written numerous articles about the subject, attests to this trend when he writes, “The Indian base was never as dense as in the South (of Mexico) and in the North many Indian groups were annihilated by wars over the centuries... the white population did not intermarry very much (as I have shown in a couple of publications and as one can still see today in Parral)... Racial terms are rarely used, but the markers are readily understood and respected when it comes to selecting marriage partners” (Dr. Robert McCaa in a personal email to me dated November 16, 2003).   Although it is true that at the beginning of the Exploration and Conquest Period most Spaniards traveled without women and took Indian women for their wives, it is also true that the experience of Spaniards asking for wives from the Indians in the area of Northern New Spain resulted in enmity between the two [1].  The Indian and Spanish cultures did not meet in Texas (in intermarriage), as some have erroneously said. Rather, the few mestizos (mehs-tee-zohs; people of mixed racial heritage, the offspring of intermarriage between Spaniards, or any other whites, and Indians) that came with the original settlers who were mostly Spaniards had been conceived in the south of New Spain before they came north to Texas.     Consequently it was Spaniard families that settled Texas, the American Southwest and what is now Northern Mexico.  I am speaking generally, of course.  I am not saying there was not any mestizaje (racial intermarriage) in Northern New Spain, I am saying it was nowhere near to the degree that it happened in Central to Southern Mexico.  Beatriz Amberman also recognized this fact when she wrote in her book “Hispanic Folk Ballet”, “The northern region of Mexico was heavily settled by Europeans who brought their own musical instruments and traditions”.

The previous assertion is not just based on the simple observation of the faces of the descendants of the original settlers of Texas and Northern Mexico, which in itself would be sufficient evidence for scholars familiar with the science called physiognomics [2], that is, the science of determining ethnic and racial background by the observation of facial features, it is a fact that, despite its being buried and forgotten, has been preserved, as I mentioned, in old archives and census records of Colonial Texas. The list of families who came with Juan de Oņate to the area of San Elizario in West Texas shows that the great majority of those settlers were new comers born in Spain, as well as Canary Islanders, Balearic Islanders, Italians, Greeks, and Portuguese, as well as criollos, full Spaniards born in the New World, from several different Spanish colonies.  Of the approximately 600 individuals, in 200 families, that came with Oņate, only 94 were identified as mestizos, Indians, mulattos or blacks, or simply as servants [3].  This was due to a little known historical precedent set by Don Juan de Frias, the appointed inspector of the Juan de Oņate colonizing effort.  Before the expedition to colonize the northernmost frontier of New Spain set out to fulfill its purpose, and with the authoritiy of Viceroy Don Gaspar de Zuņiga y Acevedo, Count of Monterrey and Lord of Ulloa and Biedma, who himself had the authority of King Felipe II of Spain, Don Juan de Frias ordered that individuals of mixed blood were to be discharged from the colonizing expedition [4].  With the exception of Oņate’s wife, the only individuals of mixed blood, or of non-European stock, allowed to continue with the expedition, were those who were listed as servants. This decision set a precedent in policy by the Spanish government in the colonization of Northern New Spain from the very beginning of colonization.  Weddle and Thonhoff recognized this fact when they wrote,

“Prestige, position, wealth, and honors were restricted almost exclusively to Spaniards, either peninsulares or criollos.  An immense social gulf separated them from the castes created by New World miscegenation, and the distinction was recognized by law.  Discrimination aimed at maintaining blood purity, limipieza de sangre, was written into Spain’s social and religious code.” (Robert S. Weddle & Robert H. Thonhoff, “Drama & Conflict; the Texas Saga of 1776”, p.50, emphasis mine.)

This legal discrimination was put into full effect in the colonizing of Northern New Spain from the very beginning, and people of mixed race were by this law excluded from colonizing Northern New Spain, which included Northern Mexico, Texas and the American Southwest, except as servants and only in small numbers.  This law of “Limpieza de Sangre” required that prospective pioneers of Northern New Spain prove they were of “pure Christian blood”, which translated into pure Spaniard or hispanicized European blood.  Consequently blacks, Indians, mestizos and mulattos were prevented from migrating in large numbers to Northern New Spain, including Texas and the American Southwest, since they had “pagan” blood.   The only province of Northern New Spain that did not require colonists to prove their purity of blood was Nuevo Leon.

“As far as is known, Nuevo Leon was the only grant that did not require prospective settlers to prove limpieza de sangre [purity of Christian blood]” (Charles M. Robinson III, Flour Tortillas and Other Jewish Legacies of Colonial Texas).

Consequently, Robinson writes, many Jewish families, starting with 160 men with their wives and children, migrated from Spain to Nuevo Leon becoming the founding families of Nuevo Leon and, later, of South Texas.  Those 160 pioneering families were followed by more, and soon 695 pioneer Jewish families from Spain became the ancestors of much of the population of Nuevo Leon and South Texas [5].  Jews, despite what many racists claim, are generally a white Semitic people, so whites were still the majority in South Texas.  Of course, if Nuevo Leon was the only province that did not require prospective colonists to prove purity of blood that means that all the other provinces of Northern New Spain did. The law of Limpieza de Sangre, purity of blood, was not only put in effect in the process of colonization of Northern New Spain, including Texas and the American Southwest, but it also ruled the code of conduct in the establishment and distribution of settlements:

“From the latter part of the sixteenth century the Spanish crown, in many ways and for different but mainly humanitarian motives, favored the residential separation of Indians from non-Indians… In the Spanish towns Indians were to reside in quarters of their own.” (Magnus Morner and Charles Gibson, Diego Munoz Camargo and the Segregation Policy of the Spanish Crown, Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 42, No. 4, Nov. 1962, pp. 558-568)

This is why it is a mistake to say that the Spanish and Indian cultures met in intermarriage in Texas, they could not even live in the same place, and that by royal law! The practice initiated by Don Juan de Frias during the Juan de Oņate expedition of excluding people of mixed blood from the colonization of Northern New Spain, was formally put in the books in the “Recopilacion de leyes de los reinos de las Indias”, Summary of Laws of the Kingdoms of the Indies, of 1680[6].    This legislated segregation and discrimination that resulted in the colonization of Northern New Spain, including Texas and the American Southwest, by a majority of Spaniards, criollos (full blooded Spaniards born in the New World) and hispanicized Europeans, was not a small thing:

“Although the many decrees and laws issued to these ends did not form a systematic complex, they were explicit enough to justify our understanding them in terms of a consistent policy of segregation.” (Morner and Gibson, emphasis mine)

It really is appalling how historians by and large have missed this and have falsely portrayed the colonial Spaniards of Texas and the American Southwest as the deeply racially mixed Mexican mestizos who, in reality, were consistently not allowed to colonize Northern New Spain. The following data is very elucidating and it reflects the consequence of the legal precedent set by the Spanish government during the Juan de Oņate expedition regarding this issue:

The Census of 1784 of the El Paso, Texas area lists 395 Spaniard men, that is, men of European stock, white men, living in El Paso proper as opposed to only 46 mestizos.  The town with the highest density of mestizo population in the El Paso del Norte area was the town of Socorro, with 45 mestizo men living there as opposed to 48 Spaniards, roughly 50-50.    Including the town of Socorro, and the largely Indian town of Senecu, which had only 8 white men living there, the Census of 1784 lists 516 white men living in the broader El Paso area as opposed to 117 mestizos [7].  Three years later, the Census of 1787 of the El Paso Area lists a total of 547 men 22 years old and older, 534 women, 201 boys and 142 girls of European blood, families living in the El Paso area for a total of 1424 white people, mostly Spaniards and some hispanicized Italians and French (also listed as Spaniards), as opposed to 102 mestizo men 22 years old and older, 121 women, 92 boys and 37 girls, for a total of 352 mestizos living in families in the same El Paso Area [8].

Jose de Escandon is known as the father of South Texas for 6 settlements he established (from a total of 23) along the Rio Grande; following is the data from the Escandon settlements of South Texas.  Of the 54 families which originally founded the settlement of Revilla/Guerrero, located a few miles West of McAllen on both sides of the Rio Grande, only 4 were mestizo, the remaining 50 were Spaniard, that is, of full European blood. A little less than 40 years later the 1791 Ecclesciastical Census of Revilla/Guerrero lists 706 Spaniards as opposed to only 70 mestizos. The 1750 Census of Camargo, another Escandon settlement with land on both sides of the Rio Grande, lists 312 Spaniards versus 54 mestizos.    The June 16, 1750 Census of the South Texas Escandon settlement of Reynosa lists 138 Spaniards vs. 63 mestizos and the March 1, 1750 Census of Mier lists 94 Spaniards   (58 of these have no race listed but I count them as Spaniards because of their family names which are almost always listed as Spaniards) versus only 8 mestizos. In 1787 Laredo had eleven families consisting of 85 men women and children, all Spaniards, while the Hacienda de Dolores had 122 settlers all Spaniards as well. 

The same is true deeper in the heart of Texas, with the incomplete 1783 Census of San Antonio de Bejar showing, among the heads of household of 303 individuals, 32 Spaniards and 1 Frenchman as opposed to only 5 mestizos [9], another authority reveals that the 1782 Census of San Fernando de Bexar listed 109 Spaniards as opposed to only 17 mestizos, San Fernando and San Antonio being the same place. The November 19, 1790 Census of the Mission San Jose de San Miguel de Aguallo listed 135 Spaniards and 0 mestizos while the November 22, 1790 Census of San Francisco de la Espada listed 60 Spaniards and 0 mestizos as well.  I should note that the Census of both San Jose and San Francisco de la Espada show the race of only those listed as servants, San Jose having 40 servants who were Spaniards and 0 mestizos, while San Francisco de la Espada listed 14 servants who were Spaniards, and also 0 mestizos.  The total number of Spaniards in each of these missions or settlements is discerned by the fact that the vast majority of free men were Spaniards and by the fact that people of mixed race were generally not allowed to participate in the colonization of Northern New Spain except as servants.  Servants who were Spaniard, of course, were free servants, somehow like the European indentured servants who came to the 13 British Colonies.  The 1790 Census of the jurisdiction of La Bahia del Espiritu Santo (La Bahia), listed 282 Spaniards and only 11 mestizos, the 1790 Census of Bexar listed 175 Spaniard families as opposed to only 1 mestizo family, the December 31, 1792 Census of the Capital of the Spanish Province of Texas, San Fernando de Austria, listed 615 Spaniards as opposed to 102 mestizos, finally the 1792 Census of the little mission of San Antonio Valero listed 27 Spaniards as opposed to 0 mestizos.  The documentation clearly shows that, indeed, it was European families, colonists, that settled Northern New Spain, and there were very few mestizos among them.  In fact, the documentation strongly asserts that to say that the colonial Tejanos were mestizos and not Spaniards is patently absurd! [10]

When one considers the Indian population recorded in the 1784 and 1787 Census of the El Paso Area, what Professor McCaa asserted and what is plainly visible in the faces of the descendants of original settlers of Texas and Northern Mexico becomes evident.  The Census of 1784 lists 74 Indian men, including 23 Genizaros, that is, hispanicized Indians, Indians who had lost their tribal identity and used Spanish names, 395 white men and 46 mestizos living in El Paso proper, and 267 Indian men including 42 Genizaros, 516 white men and 117 mestizos in the broader El Paso Area. The 1787 Census lists 257 Indian men, 196 women, 198 boys and 123 girls, for a total of 774 Indians living in families in the El Paso area, as opposed to 1424 whites and 352 mestizos, all living in families. When one thoughtfully considers this data, what Dr. McCaa asserted, what was encouraged by law and what is historically true becomes very evident, that the whites and Indians were not intermarrying to any significant degree in Northern New Spain.  This becomes especially evident when one observes that in the 1787 Census among the whites there were 547 men and 534 women, among the Indians there were 257 men and 196 women and among the mestizos there were 102 men and 121 women.  In other words, there were enough men and women within each racial group so that the prevailing attitude among both Indians and whites of refusing to intermarry could be perpetuated.  As I said, Dr. Robert McCaa noticed the same trend in his research:

“The white population did not inter-marry very much (as I have shown in a couple of publications and as one can see still today in Parral).” (Dr. Robert McCaa, University of Minnesota Department of History, in a personal email to me dated December 16, 2003.)

But the study of the ethnic composition of the population of colonial Texas yields some fascinating facts beyond these that, like many things mentioned in this book, have remained unnoticed or purposefully set aside by historians.     One of these fascinating facts is that this study clearly reveals that the population of colonial Texas, and of the rest of Northern New Spain, was palpably different from the population of Mexico in more than the one way we just studied.  Not only were true Spaniards in the majority and mestizos in the minority, but even the mixed population of Texas and the rest of Northern New Spain was different from the mixed mestizo population of Mexico.  While the 1790 Census of San Jose de San Miguel Mission listed 0 mestizos, 14 mulattos (and 135 Spaniards) were listed.  This same pattern can be observed in the rest of the Census records of colonial Texas; the 1792 Census of San Francisco de la Espada Mission listed 0 mestizos but 12 mulattos (60 Spaniards), the 1790 Census of la Bahia listed 11 mestizos but 71 mulattos (282 Spaniards), and the 1790 Census of Bexar listed 1 mestizo family but 26 mulatto families (175 Spaniard families).  The 1792 Census of San Antonio Valero, that is, the Alamo, reveals that the mulattos there outnumbered both the mestizos, who were 0 there, and the Spaniards, who were 29, with 41 mulattos, and the 1782 Census of San Fernando de Bexar reveals 151 mulattos versus only 17 mestizos and 109 Spaniards. On the other hand, the Escandon settlement of Reynosa on the Rio Grande lists only 13 mulattos as compared to 63 mestizos (138 Spaniards).  The 1791 Census of the Escandon settlement of Revilla listed 154 mulattos and 70 mestizos (706 Spaniards), and the 1792 Census of San Fernando de Austria, which although within present day Coahuila just south of the Rio Grande, it became a base for colonizaton of South Texas, listed 102 mestizos, 234 mulattos and 615 Spaniards, clearly showing a majority of Spaniards as in the rest of Texas.`

There are several very important facts to be gleaned by this difference: As can be plainly observed, the mixed population of Texas and the rest of Northern New Spain consisted of mulattos and not mestizos, making Northern New Spain, including Texas, completely different from Mexico.    While in Mexico it is asserted that the vast majority of its population consists of mestizos, in Texas and the rest of Northern New Spain the vast majority consisted of Spaniards and the mixed minority consisted of mulattos rather than mestizos, making the two peoples two completely different peoples.   This is crucially important to observe and understand in the historical context that I will discuss in chapters 7 and 8 dealing with the participation of Texas and Louisiana in the American Revolution because while the fact that the majority of the Tejano Texians were white Mediterraneans racially, with a minority of mulattos rather than mestizos, made them a different people from the mestizo and genizaro Mexican people, it made them the same people as the people of Louisiana who were a majority of white Mediterraneans, including Frenchmen, Spaniards, Italians, Canary Islanders etc. with a minority of mulattos rather than mestizos among them [11].  It can be observed as well, by studying the racial composition of the colonial Tejanos, that from the very beginning of colonization the immigration of people to colonial Texas was very much the same as that of the people of Louisiana rather than the people of Mexico.  Contrary to what is popularly believed it was not the poorest Mexicans who moved on north to colonize Texas and the American Southwest in colonial days, since Mexico as a modern nation and the Mexican nationality as such did not yet exist.  Rather, it was white Mediterraneans bringing their mulatto slaves with them who were the colonists, much like the population of Louisiana and much like the Anglo Americans later came with their black and mulatto slaves. Dr. Robert McCaa, author, historian and expert ethnographer from the University of Minnesota also testified to this fact when he wrote concerning Northern New Spain:

“There was quite a heavy importation of Africans, particularly in the 17th century to work…” (Dr. Robert McCaa, University of Minnesotta Department of History, in a personal email to me dated December 16, 2003)

You see, it is not as some writers have struggled with because they simply can not conceive that the colonial population of Texas was different from the Mexicans, that apparently, they write, the mestizos were referred to as mulattos for some strange reason.  That is not the case, the reality is that Africans were imported to work during the Spanish colonial period, and their mixed offspring were the mixed population of Northern New Spain including Texas.  These factors are crucial to understand because they help explain all the history that followed, how the original Tejano Texians identified more with the U.S. than with Mexico etc., that is, all the history that I will continue to study in the chapters that follow in this book.

An interesting thing to note as well is that the census records indicate that while the mulattos were the mixed population of Texas, the American Southwest and Northern Mexico rather than the mestizos, they were more highly concentrated in Central and South Texas than in West Texas where the mulatto population group was less numerous.  The higher concentration of mulattos in South and Central Texas as opposed to West Texas is directly related to the fact that the province of Nuevo Leon, as I mentioned and documented before, was the only province of Northern New Spain that did not require purity of blood. The reason the lack of requirement of purity of blood in Nuevo Leon did not result in a larger mestizo population but it did result in a higher concentration of mulattos is because, as Dr. McCaa explained, the mulattos were imported by the whites to work as servants, they did not generally migrate on their own.  It is important to keep in mind as well that a sizeable number of the mulattos did not come to Texas as part of the colonizing group, but, rather, they were the descendants of Africans who had somehow, perhaps by shipwreck of a slave trading vessel, arrived on the coast of Texas before the colonization of the Spaniards:

“On the banks of the River of the North, also found in the year ’47 by the discoverer D. Jose de Escandon and in that of ’66 by the commissioners Camara Alta y Tienda de Cuervo… a certain nation of Indians… descendants of the Africans… they were called mulattos even by the Indians… their forefathers had come to the beach, men alone, totally black, in no small number… taking women… they managed… to form a nation, not small in number…” (Fr. Vicente Santa Maria, Historical Report of the Colony of Nuevo Santander and the Coast of the Gulf of Mexico).

Evidently, and truly as a consequence of a mystery of history, a good number of those called “mulattos” in Texas were not a part of the Spanish colonization process of Texas, but were already there.  On the other hand, the Spaniards were still the vast and overwhelming majority in all of Northern New Spain, regardless.  And I am not the only historian who has noticed these facts, but many, as I mentioned in the previous chapter, are so blinded by their own modern day prejudices that they can not see the facts infront of them, or, when they do see them, they dismiss them.   Like one writer, for example, who after pushing the myth that California was colonized by deeply racially mixed Mexicans, attempts to support his bias by quoting a contemporary Peninsular Spaniard who in a letter wrote that although the colonials claim to be Spaniards they are not really Spaniards.  Well, maybe that contemporary Peninsular Spaniard had a chip on his shoulder, maybe he was like so many European born people at that time were, who thought that being born in Europe made them superior to their own ethnic and racial brethren who were born in the New World just because their racial brethren were born in the New World, like the British who believed the Anglo American colonials were just a bunch of rustics.     Maybe that Peninsular Spaniard was a bigot like Hitler who called the white people of the United States a “mongrel race” [12].   But, instead of taking the testimony of the Spaniard colonials of the American Southwest concerning their own identity and the data that supports that claim at face value, that historian chose to dismiss all of that and instead accept the statement of one man who was evidently a bigot and use it to support his own misconceived biased view that California and the American Southwest were colonized by deeply racially mixed Mexicans, in fact telling in his book blatant lies regarding this issue claiming the exact opposite of what the historical facts and data indicate.

This anti-Spaniard bigotry in favor of Mexican “mestizoness” among some historians who have had a strong influence in people’s understanding of the colonial population of what would be Texas and the American Southwest can be observed, it can be easily pointed out in the way they repeat the myth that the colonial population “whitened” itself.  Invariably, some writers stress as though it were a fact, which it is not, that as time went by and people became more financially affluent, they would “whiten” themselves in the way they were listed in the census.  Invariably, the case of one individual, Antonio Salazar, a colonist of San Antonio who was from Zacatecas, is used as an example.  In four different documents dated between 1789 to 1784 he is listed in incremental levels of “whiteness”, being listed in the earliest documents as “Indian”, and then as “mestizo” and finally as “Spaniard”.  Based on this one example, and several writers use this same example, they conclude that the people “whitened” themselves in the census; they were really mestizos but, so these writers erroneously assert, they said they were Spaniards (David Weber, The Spanish Frontier in North America, p.324).  This man, Antonio Salazar, is touted and showcased to, again, promote the myth that the Spaniards of Northern New Spain were really mestizos… yet nothing is ever, and I do mean ever said about a man by the name of Perez Nieto from Sinaloa who in the May 20, 1782 garrison list of San Diego, California is listed as a Spaniard, but eight years later in the San Diego Census of 1790 he is listed as a mulatto, in fact experiencing a “darkening” of his race, exactly the opposite of what some writers claimed happened.  Or nothing is ever said about Francisco Serrano, who in the 1782 garrison list and the 1790 Census of San Diego, in one he is listed as a mestizo and in the other he is listed as a European, while in both he is identified as having been born in Sastago, Aragon in Spain.  In other words, it is agreed in both listings that Francisco Serrano was a Peninsular Spaniard, yet in one he is identified as a mestizo, experiencing a “darkening” of his race in contradiction to what some influential writers argue using the example of Antonio Salazar.  Yet, Francisco Serrano and Perez Nieto are both completely ignored while Antonio Salazar is showcased!  It is evident that these writers are affected to the point of manipulating the truth by their own bias. It could be argued just as easily that the opposite of what these writers claim is what happened, maybe they were all actually Spaniards and over time these writers have made them mestizos… which claim would actually be a more accurate reflection of what has actually occurred in writing.

So what is it then, if some individuals’ race changes from census to census?   Well, one thing is certain, the fact that in a few cases some individuals’ race changed from census to census, and only the ones in which the race becomes whiter are mentioned while the ones where the race becomes darker are ignored, one thing is certain: that occasional circumstance should not be used to cast shadows on the “Spaniardness” of the colonial settlers of Northern New Spain.  Those are isolated instances and should not be used to draw conclusions about the whole.  Rather, the written testimony of who they were should be taken at face value, and that testimony says that the overwhelming majority of the colonial settlers of Northern New Spain including Texas and the American Southwest were Spaniards. Hey, Francisco Serrano was Peninsular!     As Dr.McCaa’s research showed, the white population of Northern New Spain did not intermarry very much…

It is one of the two, historians who claim that Texas and the American Southwest was colonized by Mexican mestizos and mulattos have not actually studied the documentation and write their own assumptions as history, or they have studied the documentation but they stubbornly refuse to accept the claim of the colonial Tejanos to full Spaniard ancestry and the data that overwhelmingly supports that claim, and have chosen instead to continue to stubbornly write their own bias as fact.  Now, if they have not studied the documentation which is there, and, instead, have written their own assumptions as history, the question for you to ask is, are these people then qualified to teach about the subject?  They have not studied the documentation but they write their own assumptions as history, wouldn’t this disqualify them from teaching this subject?  Think about it… you be the judge of this.  On the other hand they have studied the documentation but stubbornly refuse to accept it and instead write their own bias as history… are they qualified to teach this subject?  Think about it… you be the judge.   And, if they have studied the documentation and they know that most of the colonial Tejanos claimed to be and understood themselves as Spaniard and the census record and laws in place support this claim but yet they choose to portray the Mexicans over the Spaniards as the colonial Tejanos, knowing the opposite is the truth, wouldn’t this make them bigots and racist?    If they know, but choose the Mexicans over the Spaniards anyway? Isn’t this bigoted and racist?  Think about it… you be the judge of this.

But, the issue is here settled, there is no arguing against the truth, you may go through the census records yourself and count one by one the inhabitants as I have done, you may read their writings and interviews yourself and pay attention to their claim as I have done, you may go over their pictures and notice their faces yourself as I have done, and you will see that the conclusion I reach here is just the facts.  It was white Mediterraneans who colonized Texas, Northern Mexico and the American Southwest with their mulatto slaves (the same records reflect that the mulattos, the offspring of whites intermarrying blacks, were produced before they were brought north, since these census records clearly indicate that intermarriage was, though not non-existent, rare reflecting the fact that intermarriage was discouraged by law in Northern New Spain), and not mestizos.

The issue on hand here, however, is the colonization of Texas and the American Southwest by Spaniards and hispanicized Europeans in contrast to the falsely asserted colonization of the same area by Mexican mestizos, since it is the latter group that is commonly believed to have colonized the area.  As we saw, some settlements had 0 mestizos, but, indeed, there were a few.  Yet the mestizo population of Northern New Spain, including Texas and the American Southwest, would have been and was assimilated and diluted, by and large, into the white Mediterranean population.  By the Tables of Ethnicity set forth by the Spaniards in colonial days, the intermarriage of a white man with an Indian produced a mestizo, the intermarriage of a white man with a mestizo, produced a castizo, and the intermarriage of a white man with a castizo produced a white man[13].  By this standard, considering the information set forth above, when indeed some white men intermarried with mestizos, the mestizo population was diluted into the white population, making the descendants of the original settlers of Texas and Northern Mexico white people of Spaniard stock, white Mediterranean people, and not the other way around.  A small number of the white population that I count in this book consists of the offspring of the few marriages between Spaniards and mestizos, since that is what the Tables of Ethnicity do.  I did not count the offspring of the few marriages between Spaniards and mulattos as whites, rather, I counted them among the mulattos since these same tables indicate that sub-Saharan African blood could not be assimilated.

The wife and children of Don Juan de Oņate exemplify this process of assimilation of the few mestizo individuals who actually came with the Spaniards to colonize Texas and Northern New Spain into the white population of the same group.  Oņate’s wife, Isabel de Tolosa Cortes y Moctezuma was the grand-daughter of Hernan Cortes, the Spanish Conquistador, and his Indian woman, Isabel Moctezuma, whose birth name was Tecuichpotzin [14], daughter of the famous Aztec emperor Moctezuma.  Their daughter, Leonor Cortes y Moctezuma, of course, since Hernan Cortes was a full blooded Spaniard and his woman an Aztec Indian, was a true mestiza.  Being wealthy, however, and of the ruling class, she married a Spaniard, Juanes de Tolosa, producing Isabel de Tolosa Cortes y Moctezuma, who would then herself be not a mestiza, as she is always said to be, but a castiza.  Isabel de Tolosa Cortes y Moctezuma married Don Juan de Oņate, a criollo, that is, a full blooded Spaniard born in New Spain, so that their children, Cristobal de Oņate y Cortes Moctezuma and Maria de Oņate y Cortes Moctezuma would have been, according to the Tables of Ethnicity set forth by the Spaniards, white people of Spaniard stock. Don Juan de Oņate’s children were true representatives of what happened with most of the mestizo population of Texas, New Mexico and Northern New Spain, including northern Mexico; their mestizaje was diluted into the white Spaniard population of Northern New Spain, according to the Tables of Ethnicity of the Spaniards.

Gary Felix, Administrator of the Genealogy of Mexico DNA Surname Project also recognizes the fact, based on DNA studies, that the mestizo population in Northern New Spain was relatively small and that Northern New Spain was generally settled by families from Spain when he writes:

“It is correct that the north ended up being settled mostly by Spaniards. This is because the North of New Spain is somewhat desolate and doesn't have the Native American population the south had…  The early migrations to the north were from relatively late arrivals (early 1600's) from Spain. They were tasked with settling the North for expansion purposes. Cortes' conquistadors took most of the south by the encomieda system early after the conquest. The colonization of New Mexico was no different than Monterrey or Saltillo. All were outposts far from the populace settled by the same types of people seeking to expand the interests of New Spain.” (Gary Felix, The Genealogy of Mexico, Gateway to the Past; From Our Ancestors Forward, DNA Surname Project)

Mr. Felix also writes in another place:

“In the years just after the Conquest of Mexico, the Native-American population was decimated by disease and war leaving a relatively small gene pool of Native-American and Iberian ancestors. It is estimated that half the adult male population of Iberia set out to colonize two continents. Many of these early conquistadors set out to the Americas with relatives or sent for relatives upon settling.” (Gary Felix, The Genealogy of Mexico, Gateway to the Past; From Our Ancestors Forward, DNA Surname Project)

Dr. Robert McCaa concurs with Gary Felix’s DNA founded conclusion when he writes: