Arredondo: Last Spanish Ruler of Texas and Northeastern New Spain (Latin American and Caribbean Arts and Culture) - Hardcover

Folsom, Bradley

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 080615697X ISBN 13: 9780806156972

Verlag: DENVER ART MUSEUM, 2017

Inhaltsangabe

In this biography of Joaquín de Arredondo, historian Bradley Folsom brings to life one of the most influential and ruthless leaders in North American history. Arredondo (1776–1837), a Bourbon loyalist who governed Texas and the other interior provinces of northeastern New Spain during the Mexican War of Independence, contended with attacks by revolutionaries, U.S. citizens, generals who had served in Napoleon’s army, pirates, and various American Indian groups, all attempting to wrest control of the region. Often resorting to violence to deal with the provinces’ problems, Arredondo was for ten years the most powerful official in northeastern New Spain.

Folsom’s lively account shows the challenges of governing a vast and inhospitable region and provides insight into nineteenth-century military tactics and Spanish viceregal realpolitik. When Arredondo and his army—which included Arredondo’s protégé, future president of Mexico Antonio López de Santa Anna—arrived in Nuevo Santander in 1811, they quickly suppressed a revolutionary upheaval. Arredondo went on to expel an army of revolutionaries and invaders from the United States who had taken over Texas and declared it an independent republic. In the Battle of Medina, the bloodiest battle ever fought in Texas, he crushed the insurgents and followed his victory with a purge that reduced Texas’s population by half. Over the following eight years, Arredondo faced fresh challenges to Spanish sovereignty ranging from Comanche and Apache raids to continued American incursion. In response, Arredondo ignored his superiors and ordered his soldiers to terrorize those who disagreed with him.

Arredondo’s actions had dramatic repercussions in Texas, Mexico, and the United States. His decision to allow Moses Austin to colonize Texas with Americans would culminate in the defeat of Santa Anna in 1836, but not before Santa Anna had made good use of the lessons in brutality he had learned so well from his mentor.

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Bradley Folsom is Professor of History at Grayson College in Denison, Texas.

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Arredondo

Last Spanish Ruler of Texas and Northeastern New Spain

By Bradley Folsom

UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS

Copyright © 2017 University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Publishing Division of the University
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-8061-5697-2

Contents

List of Maps, 
Acknowledgments, 
Introduction, 
1. Like Father, Like Son, 1775–1791, 
2. Servant of the Crown, 1791–1810, 
3. The Conquest of Nuevo Santander, 1811, 
4. Arredondo as Administrator and Delegator, 1812, 
5. Fire and Sword, 1813, 
6. The Battle of Medina, 1813, 
7. Caligula in Texas, 1813–1814, 
8. The Viceroy of the North, 1814–1815, 
9. A Government of Order and Good Administration, 1815, 
10. Unlawful Enterprises, 1815–1816, 
11. The Siege of Soto la Marina, 1817, 
12. A False Peace, 1817–1818, 
13. A Reduction of Authority, 1819–1820, 
14. The Coming of Mexican Independence, 1820–1821, 
15. After Arredondo, 1821–1837, 
Conclusion, 
Appendix: Romance de Arredondo, 
Notes, 
Bibliography, 
Index, 

CHAPTER 1

Like Father, Like Son, 1775–1791

You do not have to be only on the defensive, but ready to set out on a sortie to annihilate them on the battlefield.

— Nicolás Arredondo

IN 1791 JOAQUÍN DE ARREDONDO went to visit his father in the Río de la Plata, a remote region of Spain's American empire. At the time, Joaquín was a young cadet in the Spanish military. His father, on the other hand, was a viceroy, meaning he was second only to the king in a region making up much of South America. Although the details of the visit between father and son are lost to time, Joaquín's future actions make clear that he learned much from the interaction. Indeed, the young officer would later conduct his affairs in northeastern New Spain in a strikingly similar manner to the way his father ran the Río de la Plata. To properly understand the future commandant general of the eastern provinces, it is necessary to look at his father, his family, and the history of the nation to which he would declare his allegiance.

Joaquín de Arredondo was born to a wealthy noble family that had called northern Spain home for centuries. The first people to use the name Arredondo lived in the province of Cantabria, where they adopted the name "de Arredondo" in reference to the rounded or "redondo" hills dotting the surrounding countryside. Of Celtic ancestry, the Arredondos had light skin and fair hair and were often blue- or green-eyed, features that would later serve the family well in a Spanish society that often limited the social mobility of persons with darker complexions. Like most in Spain, these first Arredondos were devout Catholic farmers and ranchers. They were also likely subjects of one of the many feudal Christian kings who had come to rule Iberia following the collapse of the Roman Empire.

At some point in the Middle Ages, the Arredondo family rose out of the laboring class into the landed aristocracy. This elevation in social status likely came after Arredondo men performed some form of military service for a regional ruler, as kings often bestowed land grants and hereditary titles on subjects who fought under their banner during times of war. Those who distinguished themselves in battle received special compensation. It is unclear in which conflict the first Arredondos made their name, but it was possibly one of the many wars fought between the various Christian kingdoms of Iberia. The Arredondos may also have earned military accolades in the Reconquista, an eight-century-long conflict that began in 711 C.E. when the Moors, an Islamic group from North Africa, invaded Iberia. What ever the circumstances, military service brought the Arredondos land and entry into the nobility, the latter distinction allowing Arredondo men to adopt the title "don" and Arredondo women "doña." If the fierce lions adorning the Arredondo family coat of arms are any indication, the family was proud of their military tradition.

The fifteenth century brought change for the Arredondos and Iberia when the major Iberian kingdoms united, creating the nation of Spain. The last decade of the fifteenth century also saw the expulsion of the Moors from Iberia and Christopher Columbus's 1492 voyage to the Americas at the helm of a Spanish fleet. This latter event proved fortuitous for the new nation-state of Spain, as the Spanish soon subdued many New World inhabitants and used their labor to extract mineral wealth for exportation to the mother country. These riches then funded large armies and navies, which allowed Spain to colonize more land in the Americas and bring war to European rivals. By the mid-sixteenth century, Spain was the most powerful nation in Eu rope. It is unclear if the Arredondo family played an important part in the conquest of the Americas or Spain's rise to dominance, but as members of the upper class, they doubtlessly benefited from their nation's newfound prosperity.

Spain's fortunes did not last long. Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Spanish Crown devoted significant resources to religious wars with Protestant Eng land and territorial wars with its northern neighbor, France. Although Spain emerged victorious in some of these conflicts, more often than not the nation lost territory and influence to its European rivals. In part, aristocratic families such as the Arredondos were to blame for Spain's misfortunes. Whereas men of merit had filled the nobility in medieval times, by the seventeenth century their unaccomplished, less efficient, and more numerous descendants held power. These subsequent generations often had more interest in accumulating titles than true military achievement. Unfortunately Spanish monarchs, needing the armies the nobility commanded, obliged these desires by handing out positions in government to unqualified aristocrats. This drained the national treasury and decreased productivity. By the start of the eighteenth century, Spain was a power in decline, weighed down by its bloated, inefficient bureaucracy. Whether or not the Arredondos contributed to Spain's decline or were among the productive aristocrats would be conjecture with present evidence.

What ever the circumstances, the Crown would look to the Arredondos to help solve Spain's woes in the eighteenth century. When enlightened Bourbon monarchs assumed the Spanish throne in 1713, they sought to return Spain to prominence by modernizing and streamlining the national government. Among many other cost-saving measures, these Bourbon Reforms, as they would come to be called, attempted to consolidate power by reducing large government departments filled with inefficient aristocrats into a single civil, military, and judicial authority. These Bourbon officials had to be loyal and were expected to reevaluate traditional ways of doing things. This included reexamining the role of the nobility in Spanish society and exploring ways to make Spain's colonies more lucrative to the home country. Nicolás Arredondo, Joaquín de Arredondo's father, was an avid proponent of these Bourbon Reforms and, as such, would become one of the highest-ranking colonial officials in Spanish America.

Nicolás Antonio de Arredondo, Pelegrin, Ahedo Zorrilla de San Martin y Venero was born on April 17, 1726, in the small village of Bárcena de Cicero, on the northern coast of Spain. Nicolás's father was Nicolás Antonio de Arredondo...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: DENVER ART MUSEUM
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2017
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 080615697X
• ISBN 13: 9780806156972
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 336
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar