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Federalists Seek Support in Texas

Reuben Ross camped at the mission of Espada. However, it was reported on the Río Grande that some of the Mexicans were deserting for lack of supplies -- corn and other items. Others drifting into San Antonio included an old familiar face -- Ramón Músquiz -- former political chief of Texas, stationed at Béxar from 1827 to 1835, who had returned to San Antonio with the invading army of '36.[58]  Now, on August 29, 1839, he again appeared, this time as a refugee from Centralism.

But these were not all of the Federalist agents to enter Texas in the fall of 1839. The ablest and best known of them all, Juan Pablo de Anaya, or simply Juan Pablo Anaya,[59]  crossed the Río Grande at Laredo, leaving his four hundred men there under the command of Colonel Macedonio Capistrán.[60]  He reached San Antonio August 26, and like those whom he had been commissioned to represent, but who



58. Erasmo Seguin al Secrta de Estado, Béxar, 6 Septiembre de 1839, in Domestic Correspondence (Texas), 1836-1846, ms., Spanish; Telegraph and Texas Register, Sept. 11, 1839.

59. Juan Pablo Anaya was born June 24, 1792, in Lagos in the present state of Jalisco. He attended the College of Guadalajara; studied law; fought in the revolution with Hidalgo; and was sent to the United States in August 1814 to seek aid in men, arms, and munitions in behalf of the independence movement in Mexico. He reached New Orleans on September 6, 1814, where he connived with pirates and adventurers to get aid for Mexico. While in the vicinity of New Orleans, Anaya fought with Andrew Jackson in 1814 in the battles of December 23 and 28, and of January 8, 1815. Anaya represented Guadalajara in the First Congress of the Mexican Republic, and was one of the principal leaders in an effort to overthrow Iturbide in 1822, for which he suffered a short term of imprisonment. From 1825 to 1828 he was commandant general of Chiapas with the rank of brigadier general. For a while he was a supporter of Santa Anna; served as ad interim Secretary of War, Jan. 7-Jan. 26, 1833; later supported Vice-President Valentín Gómez Farías, the Federalist; was imprisoned for desertion from the army about April 1835-Sept. 1836 for opposing Santa Anna's Plan of Cuernavaca; became one of the outstanding leaders of Mexican federalism; was defeated in Chiapas in May 1841; was exiled to Cuba, 1842-1844; but upon being pardoned by Santa Anna, returned to Mexico; fought against the United States in the Mexican War; and died rather unexpectedly at Lagos, August 24, 1850, of cholera. Horace V. Harrison, "Juan Pablo Anaya: Champion of Mexican Federalism," Ph.D. dissertation, passim; Telegraph and Texas Register, Sept. 11, 1839.

60. Erasmo Seguin al Secretario de Estado [de Téjas], Béjar, Agosto 30 de 1839, in Domestic Correspondence (Texas), 1836-1846, ms., Spanish; Same to Same, Béjar, Aug. 8, 1839, in Lamar Papers, ms. Spanish; Alessio Robles, Coahuila y Texas, II, 206; La Concordia (Ciudad Victoria), April 27, 1839, El Ancla, Dec. 27, 1839.

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AFTER SAN JACINTO: The Texas-Mexican Frontier, 1836-1841
Joseph Milton Nance, 1963