The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 82, July 1978 - April, 1979 Page: 141
496 p. : ill. (some col.), ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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General Mexia and Texas
Texan force marched against General Martin Perfecto de C6s at San
Antonio. Mexia, who landed in Texas on December 3, 1835, soon be-
came disillusioned. Snubbed and insulted, he finally left with Father
Alpuche and other disappointed Mexican federalists. On the same ship,
with an 1824-marked Texas flag at its masthead, came Austin, William
H. Wharton, and Branch T. Archer, sent by the recently elected Texas
Consultation as commissioners to raise a million dollar loan in the
United States. According to an anonymous Mexican observer, they
reached New Orleans on January 2, 1836. Mexia wrote a friend in Mex-
ico shortly afterwards how he felt: "My object was to work there for the
same thing that the Texans had proclaimed, which was the constitution
of 1824." When the demands for independence came he decided to
leave Texas at once, "not wanting," he declared, ". .. to become in-
volved in or to witness something which is a clear loss for Mexico."52
Mexia wrote his friend Poinsett on September 28, 1836, asking wheth-
er or not he would be able to sell some "leagues of land that I have in
Texas in concessions of eleven leagues." What advice Poinsett gave him
is not known, but Mexfa did sell 12,000 acres out of his daughter Ade-
laida Matilda's eleven leagues in May, 1837, at fifty cents an acre. He
made his home in New Orleans at 62 Great Men Street during 1837 and
1838. In this period he traveled to Central America on trading missions
and became interested, along with Pierre Sould and Achille Murat, in
schemes for a Nicaraguan canal.53
At the close of 1838, a new federalist movement broke out in Tam-
pico, which was soon headed by General Jose Urrea, well known in
Texas history for his campaigns in the Texas Revolution. General Mexia
joined the new revolt on January 3, 1839. He gathered men and supplies
and sailed down to Tuxpain and then to a landing close to Veracruz.
From there he was to strike inland for Puebla and Mexico City. He got
52W. Roy Smith, "The Quarrel Between Governor Smith and the Council of the. Pro-
visional Government of the Republic," Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association,
V (Apr., 1902), 301; Houston to Smith, Jan. 17, 1836, in Amelia W. Williams and Eugene
C. Barker (eds.), The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863 (8 vols.; Austin, 1938-1943), I,
339; Unsigned letter, Jan. 2, 1836, Relaciones H/soo (72:73) (Ministerio de Relaciones);
Mexia to a friend, Jan. 13, 1836 (quotations), Diario del Gobierno (Mexico City), Feb. 21,
1836. Barker (Austin, 499), states that the commissioners landed in New Orleans on Jan.
1, 1836. Governor Smith's anti-Mexican attitude is discussed in Hutchinson, "Mexican
Federalists," 31-33.
S3Mexia to Poinsett, Sept. 28, 1836, Poinsett Correspondence (Manuscripts and Archives
Division, New York Public Library); New Orleans Bee, Jan. 11, 1837; Mexia to J. M. Cab-
allero, May 14, 1837, Mexia Family Papers, M-B i; Mexia to Rej6n, Feb. 28, 1838, Valentin
G6mez Farias Papers (BLAC); Hutchinson, "Mexican Federalists," 46; Gibson's Guide and
Directory of the State of Louisiana (New Orleans, 1838), 143.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 82, July 1978 - April, 1979, periodical, 1978/1979; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101206/m1/177/: accessed May 7, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.