Coahuila (Spanish Colony)
Years: 1768 - 1823
Capital
Saltillo Coahuila MexicoRelated Events
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The Comanche population has increased dramatically during this time because of the abundance of buffalo, an influx of Shoshone migrants, and their adoption of significant numbers of women and children taken captive from rival groups.
The Comanche never form a single cohesive tribal unit, but are divided into almost a dozen autonomous groups, called bands.
These groups share the same language and culture, and rarely fight each other.
They were estimated to have taken captive thousands of people from the Spanish, Mexican, and American settlers in their lands.
Curtis Marez suggests that this contributed to the development of mestizaje in the borderlands, as the descendants of such captives are mixed-race.
Jesuit missionary Eusebio Francisco Kino had visited the Santa Cruz River valley in 1692, and founded the Mission San Xavier del Bac in 1700 about seven miles (eleven kilometers) upstream from the site of the settlement of Tucson.
A separate Convento settlement had been founded downstream along the Santa Cruz River, near the base of what is now "A" mountain.
Hugo O'Conór, the founding father of the city of Tucson, Arizona, authorizes the construction of a military fort in this location, Presidio San Agustín del Tucsón, on August 20, 1775 (near the present downtown Pima County Courthouse).
The new Bourbon kings do not split the Viceroyalty of New Spain into smaller administrative units as they had with the Viceroyalty of Peru.
The first innovation, in 1776, is by José de Gálvez, the new Minister of the Indies (1775–1787), establishing the Commandancy General of the Provincias Internas, known as the Provincias Internas (Commandancy General of the Internal Provinces of the North, (Spanish: Comandancia y Capitanía General de las Provincias Internas).
He appoints Teodoro de Croix (nephew of the former viceroy) as the first Commander General of the Provinicas Internas, independent of the Viceroy of New Spain, to provide more autonomy for the frontier provinces.
They include Nueva Vizcaya, Nuevo Santander, Sonora y Sinaloa, Las Californias, Coahuila y Tejas (Coahuila and Texas), and Nuevo México.
Hugo O'Connor, born in 1732 in Dublin, Ireland, into the Gaelic-Irish aristocratic O'Connor family, is a descendant of king of Ireland Turlough Mor O'Conor.
For political and religious reasons, when he was eighteen years old—like many other Irish aristocrats—O'Connor had left his homeland and moved to Spain where his cousins Alexander and Dominic O'Reilly, were serving as officers in the Spanish Royal Army; he had been established in Aragon.In his youth he had joined the regiment of Volunteers of Aragon, eventually acquiring the title of major.
During his years in the military, he had been sent to Cuba and Mexico City, where he had distinguished himself by his ability as a military strategist and was appointed captain for the Northern Territory to exercise dominion in the region.
He had gone to Texas to investigate a dispute around San Agustín de Ahumada Presidio between Governor Ángel de Martos y Navarrete and Rafael Martínez Pacheco (future governor of Texas).
It was at this time that he obtained the title of inspector general of the Provincias Internas (general inspector of the Interior Provinces).
Later, in 1767, he had been appointed governor of Texas, in replacement of Martos and Navarrete.
On assuming office, he had found that one of its major cities, San Antonio, had been shattered by frequent attacks of several native tribes.
Therefore, the new governor set up a garrison at Los Adaes to protect the city.
In 1771 he had become commander of the Chihuahua frontier and in January 20, 1773 he had been appointed commandant inspector of presidios under the office of colonel.
He and Governor Juan María Vicencio de Ripperdá had rejected the petition of Antonio Gil Y'Barbo that the settlers be allowed to return to their original homes.
To strengthen the protection of Nueva Vizcaya and Coahuila, O'Connor decides to expel the Apaches in the region, making war against these peoples in 1775 and 1776, killing a large number.
The Apaches who survive flee to more western areas.
José de Gálvez, Minister of the Indies, had originally envisioned that intendancies, an institution borrowed from France, would replace the viceregal system (viceroyalty) altogether.
With broad powers over tax collection and the public treasury, and with a mandate to help foster economic growth over their districts, intendants encroach on the traditional powers of viceroys, governors and local officials, such as the corregidores, which are phased out as intendancies are established.
The Spanish Crown sees the intendants as a check on these other officers.
Over time, accommodations are made.
For example, after a period of experimentation in which an independent intendant had been assigned to Mexico City, the office is thereafter given to the same person who simultaneously holds the post of viceroy.
Nevertheless, the creation of scores of autonomous intendancies throughout the Viceroyalty creates a great deal of decentralization, and ...
...in the Captaincy General of Guatemala, in particular, the intendancy lays the groundwork for the future independent nations of the nineteenth century.
This leads to the term "Comanche Moon", during which the Comanche raid for horses, captives, and weapons.
The majority of Comanche raids into Mexico are in the state of Chihuahua and neighboring northern states.
In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the Comanche lifestyle requires about one horse per person (though warriors each possess many more).
With a population around thirty thousand to forty thousand and in possession of herds many times that number, the Comanche have a surplus of about ninety thousand to one hundred and twenty thousand horses.
They are formidable opponents who develop strategies for using traditional weapons for fighting on horseback.
Warfare is a major part of Comanche life.
Most subjects of Spain do not accept the government of Joseph Bonaparte, placed on the Spanish throne by his brother, Emperor Napoleon of France.
At the same time, the process of creating a stable government in Spain, which will be widely recognized throughout the empire, has taken two years.
This has created a power vacuum in the Spanish possessions in America, which creates further political uncertainty.
Flying a green flag, they had captured the town of Nacogdoches on August 7, 1812.
The Republican Army of the North had then marched to Goliad, where they had captured Presidio La Bahia.
From November 13, 1812, to February 19, 1813, they had been besieged, when the Royalist Army, commanded by Manuel María de Salcedo, the Governor of Texas, and Simón de Herrera, the Governor of Nuevo León, had gathered to confront them.
Unable to defeat the Republican Army, they had retreated back to San Antonio.
Samuel Kemper, who had also been involved in the 1804 rebellion in Florida, had become the commander after the death of Colonel Magee.
The Republican Army, now numbering about nine hundred men, pursues.
On March 29, 1813, the Royalist force, numbering fifteen hundred men, plans to ambush the Republican Army from a ridge overlooking Rosillo Creek, approximately nine miles southeast of San Antonio de Bexar near the confluence of Rosillo Creek and Salado Creek.
Their trap fails when they are detected by the Republican forces, who defeat them in less than an hour.
At a cost of six men, the Republican Army kills one hundred to three hundred and thirty Royalist soldiers and captures materiel including six cannon and fifteen hundred horses.