The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 71, July 1967 - April, 1968 Page: 566
686 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
on this side took great pride in preventing any marriage with mixed
races and when one did mix he lost his caste with the rest.8
One of the best houses in San Antonio was the Veramendi Palace.
It had a sagudn (or entry way) paved with flagstones, a sala (or, as a
contemporary American, Mary A. Maverick, called it, the "long
room"), where receptions were sometimes held, one aposento (room)
of brick and a living room roofed with mesquite shingles on live oak
beams. The sagudn had two large doors fitted into a carved stone
frame. There was also a patio about thirty-four by twenty-one feet,
enclosed by two stone walls beginning at the main house and ending
in the kitchen. The latter room was about twenty feet long and fifteen
feet wide, roofed with cedar, and with a door that opened to a view
of the river. The last prominent family to occupy the house was that
of Anton Lockmar and his wife Polonaria Trevifio, a descendant of
an old San Antonio family.' The Governor's Palace was another house
of the better type."o
Some of the elite families of San Antonio welcomed the foreign
arrivals. Rodriguez felt that it was providential that ". . . so many
army officers attracted by the beauty of the San Antonio girls married
them and saved the pioneer families from gradual deterioration by
continuous intermarriage."" Even though some of the old families
welcomed foreigners, there are few descriptions of their daily lives
and family ceremonies. They lived apart from the mestizo, mingling
socially and professionally with their own kind, although they took
part in public festivals.
When President Mirabeau B. Lamar visited the town in June, 1841,
lie and his party, together with the principal citizens of San An-
tonio, attended a great ball given for him in the Manuel Yturri's long
room. The President and Mrs. Juan N. Seguin, whose husband was
Mayor, opened the ball with a waltz. "Mrs. Seguin," wrote Mary
Maverick, "was so fat that the General had great difficulty in getting
a firm hold on her waist, and they cut such a figure that we were
8Jose Rodriguez, "Memoirs of Early Texas," undated (typescript; San Antonio Public
Library), 18-19. There are very few references of public record available on the Canary
Islanders and the other Spanish families.
'Chabot, With the Makers of San Antonio, 1833.
"1Mrs. S. J. Wright, Spanish Governor's Palace (San Antonio, 1934), 27-34.
"Rodriguez, "Memoirs of Early Texas," 42-43. It is evident from studying the geneal-
ogies of the old families of Spanish descent that there was much intermarriage among
them. Chabot, With the Makers of San Antonio, passim.566
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 71, July 1967 - April, 1968, periodical, 1968; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth117145/m1/632/: accessed April 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.