Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas Page: 138 of 894
762 p., [172] leaves of plates : ill., ports. ; 30 cm.View a full description of this book.
Extracted Text
The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
INDIAN TWARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.
125
other words, he was a Castilian of noble aspirations
and possessed of love for his fellow-beings. When
his child, Lorenzo, was but eighteen months old he
determined to quit Spain and seek a home where he
hoped for more liberty. Instead of going to the
United States and among a different race, where
liberty was a birthright, he went to Yucatan, which
was then not a part of Mexico, as now, but a distinct
Captain-Generalcy under the Spanish crown.
He settled, in the infancy of his child, Lorenzo, in
the beautiful city of Merida, and hence it is that
tlhe impression became general (including among
its believers not only enlightened Mexicans, but
also his first-born son, Lorenzo de Zavala, Jr.),
that he was born in that place; and such was my
own impression till recently furnished with data
having the sanction of his own name. The father
gave Lorenz9 every possible advantage to gain an
education, and kept him from his earliest boyhood
at a fine school in Merida. The son advanced
beyond the liberal ideas of the father and began to
grasp the Jeffersonian idea of the rights of man.
He acquired a knowledge of the English language
and eagerly read everything he could reach to
enlighten his mind. While a student, he became
an intense Jeffersonian Republican. Passing on
the street one day the Governor, he'failed to lift
his hat as an obeisance, whereupon his Excellency
struck him with his riding whip. The young Jeffersonian
thereupon jerked the Governor from his
calesa (a sort of buggy) and gave him a pounding.
For this outrage on dignity (by a compromise) he
was banished to Europe to complete his education.
He went, and studied with assiduity.
Returning in the year 1809, and in his twentieth
year, on board the good ship which bore him he fell
in love with a Castilian maiden, the (laughter of a
family on board. This maiden bore the name of
Toresa Correa. Soon after arriving in Yucatan,
Lorenzo and Toresa became husband and wife.
It was a happy union of pure hearts, and three
children were born to them.
The young Democrat arrived in Merida surcharged
with a sense of political rights, and a
reformer against the outrageous oppressions borne
by the people of Spain, and more especially by
those of Spanish America. HIe became, by the
inspiration of his own sense of true manhood,
a missionary among a down-trodden people.
Newspapers did not exist. He found a substitute.
He organized a sort of political institute, to which,
at its regular weekly meetings, he read his own
productions, the grand, all-pervading idea of which
was that, under the providence of God, all men
were born free and equal and were entitled to afair and equal participation in the blessings of
government. He rejected in toto the idea that the
accident of birth should confer upon a particular
family -regardless of sense, honesty or meritthe
power to rule over a multitude, a commonwealth
or a nation of men. On this point, without,
perhaps knowing it, he was an assimilated disciple
of Thomas Jefferson. He exerted vast inluence
in Yucatan, and became, for one so young, the idol
of the people, a fact of which I had abundant
evidence during my four months tour in Yucatan
in the winter of 1865-6, for, when it became known
in Campeachy that an American gentleman of
Texas, who was a friend of Lorenzo de Zavala was
a guest of the son of the celebrated John McGregor,
the house was visited by many, and an old lady of
benevolent face, when introduced, said to my host:
L" Will the gentleman permit one who loved Lorenzo
de Zavala to embrace him ? " Without waiting for
interpretation, as I perfectly understood lier, I
said: "Yes, dear madam, with keenest pleasure; "
and the embrace was mutual, a la exicana. My
heart yet warms to the dear old lady. I recall the
whole scene, too long to be described here, with
a pleasure which whispers to my heart that truth,
virtue, manhood, womanhood, patriotism, and all
the attributes pertaining to the highest developed
humanity, are not the peculiar and exclusive characteristics
of my own countrymen, but exist, in
some form or other, wherever the children of men
are found. "The wind bloweth where it listeth
but thou canst not tell whence it cometh nor whither
it goetll; such is the kingdom of God." So it is
in virtue, in honor, in love, in manhood and in
womanhood.
Returning to Merida with an education finished
in Europe, young Lorenzo was made secretary of
the city council of Merida (then a city of about
sixty thousand inhabitants), and he filled that
office through 1812-13, and until July, 1814, when,
in consequence of his liberal doctrines, he was
seized and imprisoned in the castle of San Juan de
Ulloa, in front of Vera Cruz. He was held in that
prison till 1817, covering three years of the Mexican
revolution (1810 to 1821). While in prison
his library and property were confscated. Liberated
in the last llalf of 1817, and going forth bankrupt,
he rallied on a previous study in medicine
and became a physician in Merida from the latter
part of 1817 to about the close of 1819.
It must be remembered that during the Mexican
revolution against Spain (1810 to 1821), Yucatan
was a separate Captain-Generalcy and took no part;
but that as soon as Mexican independence was
secured Yucatan joined the Mexican confedera
Upcoming Pages
Here’s what’s next.
Search Inside
This book can be searched. Note: Results may vary based on the legibility of text within the document.
Related Items
Other items on this site that are directly related to the current book.
Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas (Book)
A history of pioneers in Texas and their confrontations with local American Indians.
Relationship to this item: (Has Format)
Tools / Downloads
Get a copy of this page or view the extracted text.
Citing and Sharing
Basic information for referencing this web page. We also provide extended guidance on usage rights, references, copying or embedding.
Reference the current page of this Book.
Brown, John Henry. Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas, book, 1880~; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth6725/m1/138/: accessed April 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.