The Republic of the Rio Grande () is the name given in Anglo‐American newspapers, and in later histories, to a federalist revolt on the lower Rio Grande in 1838–1840.Josefina Zoraida Vázquez, "La supuesta República del Río Grande", Historia Mexicana, vol. 36, no. 1 (141), 1986, pp. 49–80.David M. Vigness, "Republic of the Rio Grande", Handbook of Texas Online, Texas State Historical Association. A junta at Casa Blanca on 23 January 1840, headed by Antonio Canales Rosillo, Jesús de Cárdenas, and others withheld recognition from the centralist government in Mexico City and set up a provisional government until a convention of all the states of Mexico could meet. The revolt ended with the convention of Camargo on 6 November 1840, ratified by Canales and approved by General Mariano Arista."Convenio que dio fin al levantamiento de las villas del norte", Camargo, 6 November 1840, approved by Mariano Arista at Cadereyta Jiménez, 8 November 1840, in The Pronunciamiento in Independent Mexico, 1821–1876, University of St Andrews.
Texas accounts have treated the movement as a secession on the model of the Republic of Texas.David M. Vigness, "Republic of the Rio Grande", Handbook of Texas Online, Texas State Historical Association. The leaders' own papers do not use the name and do not speak of separation; they use frontera del norte, villas del norte and gobierno provisional. Background After a decade of strife, Mexico won its independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821. After a failed attempt at a monarchy, Mexico adopted a new constitution, the 1824 Constitution. This new constitution established los Estados Unidos Mexicanos, or "the United Mexican States," as a federal republic.
Congress, sitting as a constituent body after the Plan of Cuernavaca, abolished the federal system on 23 October 1835. The Siete Leyes, the centralist constitution, were published on 30 December 1836 under the interim president José Justo Corro. States became departments, with appointed governors and departmental juntas.
On the lower Bravo the grievances were the loss of local fiscal control and little help against Comanche and Lipan raids. Northern federalists wanted the appointed officials out and the charter of 1824 back. On 3 November 1838 Antonio Canales, a Monterrey lawyer, Tamaulipas deputy, and militia officer, issued a pronunciamiento at Guerrero for federalism. The same years saw federalist risings from Tampico to Sonora.
Rebellion
Resistance In January 1839, Antonio Canales summoned a convention at the office of the Justice of the Peace in Laredo, Tamaulipas where the Constitution of 1824 was unanimously approved and began raising a force among vecinos, vaqueros, Carrizo, and Texian volunteers, including Reuben Ross and Samuel W. Jordan of the so-called Texian Auxiliary Corps. Mirabeau B. Lamar would not commit the Republic of Texas to the campaign, but allowed recruiting in Austin
On 3 October Canales and his army marched to the town of Alcantra, about twelve miles southwest of Mier, where they beat a centralist force. Towns on the river sent men and supplies. Canales then declined to attack Matamoros against Valentín Canalizo, moved on Monterrey, and saw part of his Mexican force bought off by General Mariano Arista. Ross left with a body of Texians. Among the wounded on the federalist side that year was José María Jesús Carbajal.
January 1840 government
On 17 January 1840 notables from Tamaulipas, Nuevo León, and Coahuila met at the Oreveña ranch near Laredo. A later sitting at Casa Blanca on the Nueces produced articles dated 23 January. The departmental congresses did not adhere to the pronunciamiento, and asked Mexico City for troops. Manuel María de Llano, interim governor of Nuevo León, was nevertheless named to the council
The Casa Blanca text does not found a new country. It denies that the government in Mexico City is legitimate over states and pledges that “The inhabitants of the Mexican Republic's frontier will not stop fighting” until a convention of all the Mexican states settles the system; and it sets up a provisional junta with a president and a council, with power to raise an army and a navy. A convention of delegates from all the states was called for 28 May, or sooner. Transcription by Stanley Green (2004); English translation by Brandon Seale, with notes by Green and Jacqueline Pasquel.
Officers of that junta, in the usual lists, were:
Jesús de Cárdenas, former political chief of the Northern Department of Tamaulipas, president Antonio Canales Rosillo, commander of the army Juan Nepomuceno Molano, councilor for Tamaulipas Francisco Vidaurri y Villaseñor, councilor for Coahuila Manuel María de Llano, councilor for Nuevo León Juan Francisco Farías, then José María Jesús Carbajal, secretary
Laredo was named capital; Guerrero, which had the press, did the work.
The name “Republic of Rio Grande” was derived from Anglo-American newspapers. In August 1839 the New Orleans Louisianan proposed that Texas “give birth to a new federative republic… la República Norte Mexicana,” a barrier between itself and Mexico. George Fisher took up that project in the Texas press. His letter of 30 March 1840 recalls that his communication of 29 February, printed in the Houston Morning Star of 3 March had spoken of the advantages to Texas of “the establishment of the Republic of Rio Grande.” The junta's papers do not use the name, and do not speak of separation.
Cárdenas’s heading on the junta’s sheet, the Correo del Río Bravo del Norte, was “President of the Northern Frontier of the Mexican Republic.” And in the summer of 1840 Canales responded to Henry Karnes, who had set occupation of the north bank under the Texas flag as the price of Texas support, that his people had not taken arms “to sell, cede, or deliver our territory to foreign persons,” and that he had never allowed the Texas flag beyond the old limits of the province of Texas.
Battle of Santa Rita de Morelos (March 24–25, 1840)
Word came that Arista was in the valley. Jordan urged a retreat into Texas to raise more Texians. Canales refused; Jordan and about sixty men left. Cárdenas and the civilian officers went to Victoria, Texas.
Canales met Arista outside Santa Rita de Morelos. Antonio Zapata, needing provisions, rode into town with some thirty men and was surrounded. Arista offered a pardon if he swore allegiance; he refused. He was shot on 29 March 1840. His head was shown at Guerrero. While Zapata was held, Canales fought at San Fernando and lost heavily. He fled across the river.
Texas and the auxiliaries Canales needed rifles and used Texian volunteers from 1839 on. Lamar’s government stayed officially neutral and still let men and powder move. Texas also had conflicting interests. On one hand, Texas papers argue in favor of the creation of buffer state between Mexico and Texas, postponing any possible intentions Mexico had for the reinvasion of Texas; on the other hand, Texas needed Mexico to recognize its independence.
Battle of Saltillo (October 25, 1840)
In Texas, Canales rebuilt a mixed force at San Patricio; Mexican recruits, Carrizo, and Texians under Jordan and recrossed, taking Laredo, Guerrero, Mier, and Camargo.
He then sent some 350 men. Texians under Jordan and Mexicans under Juan Nepomuceno Molano to acquire horses and take more towns in the interior. They took Ciudad Victoria on 29 September 1840, put up a local authority, and marched on Saltillo. Molano, writing to the prefect at Linares on 20 September, said he had restored “the federal constitutional order.” On 12 October he answered to Arista that the alliance with the Texians was the worst of the federalists’ acts, and that he and his officers hated them. An agreement dated Victoria, 14 October, provided that the Mexicans under his command would separate from “the adventurous strangers.” José Cayetano de Montoya, commanding at Saltillo, reported that the Mexican rebel leaders had agreed to abandon Jordan. On 25 October, at a canyon near Saltillo, Jordan turned back into a hacienda, held it, and broke out toward Texas.
Defeat After Saltillo, Canales opened talks with Arista. On 6 November 1840 commissioners signed at Camargo; Canales ratified, and Arista approved the agreement on 8 November. Canales was taken into the regular army as an officer. A regiment of the northern towns was to remain as defensores de la patria. The text refers to the debts of “el que se llamó gobierno provisional,” not to a republic. Cárdenas who had been at Victoria since March, surrendered at a later date. Arista later named him prefect of the northern district of Tamaulipas.
Canales later served against Texian incursions, including the Mier expedition in 1842, and in 1851–52, as a government general, broke José María Jesús Carvajal’s Plan de la Loba on the same river.
Flag of the republic
The flag used by the movement has a blue hoist with three white stars run evenly along the hoist The fly is split into three bands, one white, one red, and one black. Researcher Juan José Gallegos notes that the three stars and bands might be read as Coahuila, Nuevo León and Tamaulipas.
Legacy Remnants of the revolt's effect can be seen in: Zapata County, Texas, as well as the city of Zapata are named in honor of cavalry commander, Colonel . The purported capital building now housing the Republic of the Rio Grande Capitol Building Museum is located in Laredo, Texas. As an addition to the historical six flags over Texas, the Laredo Morning Times newspaper adds a seventh flag to its banner: the flag for the Republic of the Rio Grande.
See also Centralist Republic of Mexico Siete Leyes Revolts against the Centralist Republic of Mexico Antonio Canales Rosillo Mariano Arista José María Jesús Carbajal
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