The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 5, July 1901 - April, 1902 Page: 44
370 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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44 Tewas Historical Association Quarterly.
river to the old mission, La Bahia del Espiritu Santo. He dis-
mantled this mission and re-established it an Santa Dorotea
(Goliad), on the San Antonio river. Accompanying his official
report was a map, entitled "Colonia de Nuevo Santander,"'
with that river as the eastern bounds of his province. From this
circumstance the San Antonio river was regarded as the boundary,
notwithstanding the fact that San Antonio, further up the same
river, was and had been the capital of Texas since 1715. This
continued to be regarded as the boundary until the Nueces was put
down upon the maps as such, it is said, about the year 1805.
In 1833, Texas, which had been attached to Coahuila since 1824,
petitioned the Mexican government for separate statehood, and now
arose the first occasion for Mexico, as a republic, to officially con-
sider the question.
Santa Anna commissioned Almonte, a man of wide learning,
and his trusted adviser, to visit Texas and acquire such informa-
tion as would enable him to intelligently consider and act upon the
petition, and among other things to thoroughly explore and mark
out a western boundary line.
The general features of Almonte's report are familiar to the
student of Texas history. In the matter of a boundary he said:
"Notwithstanding the fact that up to this time it has been believed
that the Rio Nueces is the dividing line between Texas and Coa-
huila,2 for it appears so on the maps, I am informed by the gov-
ernment that in this an error has been made by the geographers,
and that the true line ought to commence at the mouth of the
Aransas and run thence to its source; thence in a direct line to the
confluence of the San Antonio with the Medina river, continuing
thence up the left bank of the Medina to its source; thence in a
straight line to the boundaries of Chihuahua."3
Almonte, in this definition of a boundary, ignores Tamaulipas,
has Coahuila extending down to the mouth of the Aransas, makes
the Nueces appear as an old boundary between Texas and Coa-
huila, and leaves more than one-half of the western part of Texas
'Ban. Hist. Mex.; Prieto Hist. Tamaulipas, p. -
'It was not and never had been. The Nueces was supposed to be the line
between Texas and Tamaulipas.
8Documentos para la Historia de Mexico, IV, 22.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 5, July 1901 - April, 1902, periodical, 1902; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101021/m1/50/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.