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many of the cattle beyond the Nueces were rounded up by discharged soldiers, adventurers, and other enterprising Texans for private ownership, to replace losses sustained during the revolution, or to drive to markets as far east as New Orleans and Natchez.[5] The Texas "cowboys" raiding into the area west of the Nueces, drove out cattle from the Mexican ranches at Viejo,[6] Anaquitas, Las Animas, San Juan de Carricitos, Norias, San Antonio, Los Fresnos, Colorado, El Mulato, Jaboncillos, Santa Rosa, Mota, Santa Margarita, Santa Gertrudis, San Diego, Los Angeles, El Pato, La Parida, San Patricio, Salmoneño and others, some of which had been abandoned.[7] Occasionally the raiders were excused on the grounds that the Consultation at San Felipe in November 1835, had decreed that all persons leaving the country without permission from the proper authorities, to avoid participation in the "struggle" with Mexico, would "forfeit all or any lands they may hold or may have a claim to, for the benefit of this government; provided, nevertheless, that widows and minors are not included in this provision."[8] This same provision was essentially repeated in the Constitution of 1836. General Provisions, Section 8, of that document declared: "All persons who shall leave the country for will resign and retire to the walks of private life, for I will not be treated with neglect and indignity by any man, however exalted his official status may be. In the next breath, so to say, Karnes thought better of his threat and decided to quit forthwith. "Having solemnly pledged yourself," he wrote, "to accept my resignation, those pledges I now call upon you to redeem, and as I wish you to consider this communication as a tender of the same I now sir withdraw to private life." H. W. Karnes to [Sam Houston], Béxar, July 4, 1837 (Private), in Henry W. Karnes Papers, ms.; San Antonio Daily Express, March 10, 1910, p. 35, cols. 2 and 3. 5. Joseph Eve to James F. Ballinger, Galveston, April 26, 1842, in Joseph Milton Nance (ed.), "A Letter Book of Joseph Eve, United States Chargé d'Affaires to Texas," Southwestern Historical Quarterly, XLIII (1939-1940), 486-491. 6. Located three leagues north of Matamoros. 7. Many of these ranches are listed in Antonio García y Cubas, Atlas geográfico estadistico é histórico de la republica mexicana, no. 6; T. J. Rusk to A. Somervill, Head Quarters, Victoria, June 22, 1836, in Binkley, (ed.), Official Correspondence of the Texan Revolution, II, 810-811; Vicente Filisola, "Representación dirigida al supremo gobierno por el General Vicente Filisola, en defensa de su honor y declaración de sus operaciones como general en gefe del ejército sobre Tejas," reprinted and translated in Carlos E. Castañeda, The Mexican Side of the Texan Revolution, p. 187; José Urrea, "Diario de las operaciones militares de la division que al mando del General José Urrea hizo la campaña de Tejas," reprinted and translated in ibid., pp. 212-214. 8. H. P. N. Gammel (ed.), Laws of Texas, I, 542. |