Mier

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Mier, Tamaulipas
Nickname: Paso del Cántaro
Image:Map28024.gif Location within the state of Tamaulipas
Government
- Mayor	José Herbey Ramos Ramos
Population (2000)
- City	5 423 (city proper)
Time zone	CST (UTC-6)
- Summer (DST)	CDT (UTC-5)

Ciudad Mier (pronounced MEE-er), also known as El Paso del Cántaro, is a city and township in Tamaulipas, located in northern Mexico near the Rio Grande river, just south of Falcon Dam. It is 90 miles (145 km) north east of Monterrey on Mexico Highway 2. (26°28'N 99°10'W) In 1990 the population was recorded at 6,190. Its agricultural production centers on cotton, sugarcane, corn and livestock. The town was founded on March 6, 1753. The land was originally owned by Felix de Almandoz. Land later passed on to General Prudencio Basterra who married Felix's sister Ana Maria. Nineteen families from Camargo formed the new settlement. The town is called Mier because the governor of the New Kingdom of León from 1710 to 1714, Francisco Mier y Torre, used to spend the night there on his way to Texas. It began to be called Estancia de Mier and then simply Mier. This is where the steamboats used to stop when they came up the Rio Grande.

1 The Mier Expedition
2 Fidel Castro in Mier
3 Mayors of the city
4 Established Residents In Mier in 1757
5 Historic Families of the Region
6 External links

[edit] The Mier Expedition

In the 1840s, the tensions between the Republic of Texas and Mexico entered a new and dangerous phase. Mexico staged several raiding expeditions into Texas, sacking San Antonio twice. Most Texans were outraged and demanded retaliation. President Sam Houston believed that Texas was in no way prepared for another war with Mexico, but to appease these critics, he organized a force under Alexander Somervell to raid Mexico in the disputed borderland between the Nueces and the Rio Grande, in a failed mission that history remembers as the Mier Expedition.

Somervell recruited about 700 volunteers, most of whom had no regular military training. The expedition raided the border towns of Laredo and Guerrero; then Somervell decided to call it quits, fearing that to stage any further action would result in a fatal clash with Mexican troops. Many of the volunteers were incensed by Somervell's decision, and more than 300 elected to remain on the border with William S. Fisher rather than return home with Somervell.

On December 23, 1842, Fisher and most of the men crossed the Rio Grande and entered the town of Mier, where they met no resistance. They demanded supplies from the town, which the town's alcalde promised to deliver. The troops withdrew and waited. In the meantime, a large detachment of Mexican troops arrived in the town. On December 25, the two sides engaged in a bloody battle that lasted almost 24 hours. The Texans sustained thirty casualties and ran out of food, water, and ammunition. More than 200 Texans surrendered to Mexican forces, unaware that they had mauled the Mexican troops to an almost unbelievable degree, inflicting an astounding 800 casualties.

As far as the Mexicans were concerned, the Texans were privateers on an unauthorized raid and entitled to no consideration as military prisoners of war. They were initially sentenced to death, then ordered on a forced march to Mexico City. Fisher was separated from the group, but the men selected a leader from among themselves, a Scottish-born captain named Ewen Cameron. Along the way, Cameron led most of the prisoners in an escape attempt. The Texans tried to make a run back for the border, but they hadn't bargained on the harsh and dry conditions in the mountains. All but three were recaptured and returned to the town of Salado.

When he heard about the breakout, President Antonio López de Santa Anna ordered that the recaptured prisoners, some 176 men, be put to death immediately. The governor of the state of Coahuila, Francisco Mexía, refused to carry out the order and pleaded with foreign ministers in Mexico City to persuade the president to change his mind.

What happened next became known as the "Black Bean Episode," one of the most notorious atrocities of Santa Anna's career. He promised the foreign ministers that he would show mercy, and then modified his decree to order the decimation of the Mier prisoners; in other words, the execution of every tenth man. On March 25, 1843, the prisoners were forced to draw from a jar containing 159 white beans and 17 black beans. At dusk that day, those unlucky enough to draw a black bean were shot to death, as was Cameron as the leader of the escapees.

The remaining prisoners were put to work on a road gang. Then, most were thrown into the notorious Perote Prison in Veracruz, though a few were separated from the group and scattered into other prisons around Mexico. Over the next few months, some managed to escape, while others died of wounds, disease, and starvation. Diplomats from the United States and Great Britain worked for the release of the Mier prisoners. They were eventually paroled in piecemeal fashion, with the last prisoner going home in September 1844.

In 1848 the bodies of the men executed in the Black Bean Episode were returned from Mexico and were buried in La Grange, Texas.

[edit] Fidel Castro in Mier

One of the city's most significant events is one of which very few residents and historians are aware. It occurred in 1956, and the protagonist of this story of Ciudad Mier is Fidel Castro.

In 1956, the place was not very different from the Ciudad Mier of today. Currently there are some 6,400 inhabitants; fifty years ago, it had 4,000. In those days, just as today, its isolation and its proximity to the U.S. border made it a mecca for smugglers.

The relative ease with which any kind of contraband could be brought across the river near Mier reached the ears of Fidel Castro when he was in Mexico City laying the groundwork for revolution in Cuba. Castro needed weapons and went to Mier to obtain them.

Antonio Guerra, the town historian, told a reporter in 2006 that this was not like other operations: "Only the best smugglers got the assignment".

The operation was in the hands of Juan 'El Chapiado' González, Lauro 'El Colorado' Balderas (both from Mier) and Santiago 'El Chago' Guerra, from Agualeguas (Nuevo León). "There was nobody better for that operation", Guerra says.

The men acquired the weapons in the United States, brought them across the river in boats and then unloaded them on a ranch called Los Guajes, owned by Jesús 'El Gavilán' Ramírez.

Family and acquaintances of those men relate that after hiding the weapons, the group was directed to a bar at Loma del Peligro, at the 112 kilometer mark of the Mier-to-Ciudad Guerrero highway, where they met the buyer of the merchandise: Fidel Castro.

"He was a tall, strong, but above all an unfriendly man. He slept with one eye closed and the other open," Ramírez would relate many years later

In the bar it was agreed that the weapons would continue south from Mier to Aldamas; from there to Veracruz to be loaded into the yacht the Granma (see Granma (yacht).

When all was ready, Manuel Gómez, a friend of the smugglers, invited them to have a drink in the COD, a tavern of the corner of Palaces and Allende in the heart of the city. Gómez also convinced them to pose for a photograph.

Castro later confirmed that the weapons that determined the revolution indeed passed trough Mier with the help of the finest smugglers Mexico had to offer.

[edit] Mayors of the city

Nicolás Farías (1930-1933)
Severo Barrera (1934-1936)
Jesús García Gutiérrez (1937-1940)
Florentino Ramírez Canales (1941-1942)
Agustín Hinojosa Hinojosa (1943-1945)
Valentín Barrera (1946-1948)
Marcial Garza Sarabia (1949-1951)
Julio Ramírez-Mateo García (1952-1954)
Geronimo Ramírez (1955-1957)
Marco Hinojosa Villela (1958-1960)
Álvaro Barrera Garza (1961-1962)
Leonte Garza y Garza (1963-1965)
Mauro Smith Bazán (1966-1968)
Alvaro Barrera Garza (1969-1971)
Roel Ramírez Ayala (1972-1974)
Francisco Rodríguez Cavazos (1975-1977)
Vladimir Treviño Rodríguez (1978-1980)
Roberto González Guajardo (1981-1983)
Ignacio Peña Alemán (1984-1986)
Alvaro Barrera Ramírez (1987-1989)
Jesús H. Hinojosa Vivanco (1990-1992)
Enrique Maldonado Quintanilla (1993-1995)
Jesús Ángel Guerra Mancías (1996-1998)
Jesús Humberto Hinojosa Vivanco. (1999-2001)
Abdón Canales Díaz (2002-2004)
José Herbey Ramos Ramos (2005-2007

[edit] Established Residents In Mier in 1757

In the town of Mier in sixteen days of the month of July of seventeen hundred fifty-seven years, the honorable Don José Tienda de Cuervo, to acquaint himself in the satate of this settlement, arranged to make a review that has been ordered of him in the previous document and for it, with the list that he gave the captain, having gone to its plaza where the residents were formed, he began this act calling each one by name, registering the arms of their use that are composed of a rifle, a sword and a shield, some pistols, knives, and blunderbusses and, asking them the questions that they found suitable, it was executed in the following manner:

Captain Don José Florencio de Chapa, married to Doña María Margarita de Peña, has ten children, all arms, ten horses, five male donkeys, four female donkeys, and thirteen servants.
Don Manuel de Hinojosa, married to Doña María Inés de Chapa, has all arms, fifty horses, five donkeys, two orphans, nine servants with twenty-three persons.
Doña María Rita López, widow, has six children and ten horses.
Doña Ana María Guajardo, widow, has one son and one servant, six male donkyes and two female donkeys.
Don Francisco Guerra, married to Doña Josefa de la Garza, has nine children, all arms, twenty horses and two female donkeys.
Don Javier Salinas, married to Doña María Longoria, has three children, all arms, ten horses, and two donkeys.
Don Manuel del Bosque, absent with permission, bachelor, all arms, fifteen horses, two servants with seven persons, and two donkeys.
Don Gaspar García, married to Doña María Gertrudis, has five children, all arms, ten horses, and one donkey.
Don Cristóbal Ramírez, married to Doña María Matiana de Hinojosa, has eight children, all arms, twenty horses, six donkeys, and four servants, one married; two children.
Don Pedro Regalado de Hinojosa, married to Doña María de Peña, has three children, all arms, and six horses.
Joaquín Bazán, married to Manuela González, three children, arms, four horses, and one donkey.
Don Nicolás González, married to Doña Ana García, nine children, arms, six horses, and one donkey.
Don Manuel de Hinojosa, the younger, married to Doña Juana Sánchez, has two children, arms, and fifteen horses.
Don Ignacio Gutiérrez, married to Doña María de Hinojosa, two children, arms, ten horses, one donkey, and two servants, one married, three children.
Don Andrés García, married to Doña Clara Farías, all arms, twenty horses, one donkey, and one servant.
Don Miguel Sáenz, married to Doña María de Hinojosa, has two children, arms, and twelve horses.
Don José Peña, married to Doña Ana López, has two children, arms, ten horses, one male donkey, and two female donkeys.
José Bazán, married to Ana Salinas, three children, all arms, ten horses, and one donkey.
Alfonso García, married to Doña Tomasa de la Garza, has six children, arms, and eight horses.
Lázaro Vela, married to María García, seven children, without arms and four horses.
Don Juan Antonio Ramos, married to Doña Ana Anzaldúa, five children, six horses, one servant with a daughter and his wife.
Don Juan de Dios Garza, married to Doña María Ramírez, two children, arms, and fourteen horses.
Pablo de Zárate, married to Juana Bazán, one daughter, arms, six horses, and one servant.
Don Diego García, married to Doña María Salinas, all arms, and four horses.
Don José Félix Recio, widower, has three children, arms, and four horses.
Alejandro García, married to María Vela, arms and five horses.
Diego Pérez, married to Rita García, four children, nine horses, and without arms.
Don Bernardo Vela, absent with permission, married to María Peña, four children, arms, and five horses.
Antonio García, married to María Benavídez, has one son, six horses, and without arms.
Don Pedro Ramírez, married to Inés García, one daughter, three horses, and without arms.
Don José Manuel Alviño, married to Juana Montalvo, has four children, arms, and two horses.
Don José Ramírez, married to María Peña, one son, arms, six horses, and one donkey.
Don Ascencio [sic] Farías, widower, three children, arms, and six horses.
José Alanís, married to María Guadalupe, one son, arms, and six horses.
Juan Pantaleón, married to Antonia Ramírez, two horses, a rifle, and knife.
Don Francisco González, married to Doña Francisca Salinas, two children, arms, and eight horses.
Don Juan Francisco Sáenz, bachelor, all arms, and four horses.
Don José Ramón Guerra, married to Doña Rosalía de Hinojosa, has three children, arms, four horses, and three donkeys.
Luis García, married to Tomasa Solís, two children, two horses, and without arms.
Don Francisco de Landa, absent with permission, married to Doña Antonia Hinojosa, has two daughters, all arms, ten horses, and three donkeys.
Tomás Barrera, absent with permission, married, five children, arms, and four horses.