Manuel Santa María, in favor of the revolution,[1] and the whole of that province acquiesced in his action. In Texas, also, the royalist party for a time succumbed to the independents. On the 22d of January, Juan Bautista Casas made himself master of San Antonio de Bejar, the capital, capturing the governor, Manuel de Salcedo, the lieutenant-colonel, Simon Herrera, commander of the frontier militia, and a number of officers and Europeans.[2] Thus without much bloodshed the whole of that portion of New Spain which extends from San Luis Potosí to the borders of United States declared for independence. The sufferings and indignities, however, to which the fallen Spaniards were subjected were in many cases very great, not even priests[3] escaping by reason of their cloth.[4]
Shortly after the grito de Dolores, Villagran, as the reader will recollect, established himself at Huichapan, and proved extremely troublesome to the royalists by interrupting their communication between the capital and Querétaro. With him two others later associated,
- ↑ Santa María was a native of Seville, but having arrived in New Spain when quite a child, was regarded as a Mexican. Id., 96.
- ↑ Gaz. de Mex., 1812, iii. 1087-8. Western Florida, the present state of Louisiana, had declared its independence on the 26th of Sept. previously, and Salcedo informed the viceroy of this event on the 21st of Nov., at the same time begging for reënforcements, since he feared to be invaded from the revolted province. Salcedo considered the movement at Baton Rouge, where the insurrection broke out as a sequence to the conspiracy of Burr, and the effect of French emissaries acting upon his suggestions, Burr having been in Paris during the previous year. Bustamante, Cuad. Hist., i. 121-4.
- ↑ Jimenez at Saltillo not only left the Spaniards at liberty, but extended to them letters of safe conduct. Many availed themselves of this opportunity to seek the protection of Calleja; contrary to promise, when near Cedral they were seized, beaten, and stripped. Amid the maledictions and curses of the populace they were then conducted to Cedral, where they were kept imprisoned for a month, whence they were eventually conveyed to San Luis Potosí, and confined, to the number of eleven, in the jail. By order of Herrera, they were put to death with one exception, in March 1811, Juan Villarguide only escaping, having been left for dead. Villarguide, in Hernandez y Dávalos, Col. Doc., ii. 913-22.
- ↑ The cura of San Sebastian, José Mateo Braceras, a Franciscan friar, and a secular priest Francisco Fraga were submitted to every kind of ill treatment on their attempting to go from San Luis to Querétaro. They were sent back to San Luis, where they were imprisoned by Herrera, but were eventually released. Alaman, Hist. Mej., ii. 100-2.
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