José Joaquín de Arredondo

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

José Joaquín de Arredondo (1768 - 1837) was a 19th century Spanish–Mexican soldier who served as Chief Civil and Military Commandant of Texas during the first Texas revolution.

Contents

[edit] Early life

Joaquín de Arredondo was born in Barcelona, in 1768 to Nicolás Antonio de Arredondo y Palegrí and Josefa Roso de Mioño. His father at one time was a Governor of Cuba and a Viceroy of Buenos Aires.

[edit] Military career

Arredondo entered the Royal Spanish Guards as a cadet in 1787 and was sent for service in New Spain. In 1810 he was promoted to the rank of colonel and given the command of the infantry regiment of Vera Cruz. In 1811 he was made military commandant of Huasteca and governor of Nuevo Santander. Arredondo took a proactive role in suppressing Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla's and criollos revolts in 1812 and 1813. Arredondo was rewarded for his actions by being appointed as commandant of the eastern division of the Provincias Internas.

[edit] Texas

On 18 August 1813 after being reinforced, he now had about 1,800 troops; he left for San Antonio de Bexar and defeated a rebel force under José Álvarez de Toledo y Dubois in the four-hour long Battle of Medina. The Spanish Army completely destroyed the 1,300 man Republican Army of the North. Less than 100 Republican soldiers escaped. The dead had their corpses or parts of their bodies, hung in trees. Or no effort was made to bury the remains of the Republican Army’s dead and the remains lay on the battlefield for nine long years. The approximately 1,300 men killed in the Republican Army exceeded the total number of Texans killed during the entire Texas Revolution twenty-three years later in 1836.

After his victories, Arredondo quickly cleared the Texas province of insurgents and appointed Cristóbal Domínguez ad interim governor. After completing his assignment in Texas, he returned south to Monterrey. He subsequently crushed the filibustering expedition of Francisco Javier Mina by overrunning his defenses at the village of Soto la Marina in October 1817.

[edit] Settlement of Texas

On January 17, 1821 General Arredondo approved the petition of Moses Austin to bring three hundred settlers within an area of 211,000 acres (850 km²) in Texas. This move helped usher in future waves of settlement of Americans from the United States into northern Mexico.

When Mexico achieved independence from Spain he endorsed the Plan of Iguala and swore allegiance to the Republic of Mexico on July 3, 1821. Arredondo surrendered his command and went into retirement in Havana, Cuba. Arredondo died in 1837.

[edit] See also

[edit] Further reading

  • Derr, Mark-"The Frontiersman; Davy Crockett" William Morrow and Co. ISBN 0-688-09656-5
  • Davis, William C.; Lone Star Rising-The Revolutionary Birth of the Texas Republic; Free Press; ISBN 0-684-86510-6
  • Davis, William C; Three Roads to the Alamo; Harper Collins; ISBN 0-06-017334-3
  • Roberts, Randy & Olson, James S.; A Line in the Sand-The Alamo in Blood and Memory; Simon & Schuster; ISBN 0-684-83544-4
  • Dingus, Anne, The Truth About Texas, Houston: Gulf Publishing Company (1995) ISBN 0-87719-282-0
  • Nofi, Albert A., The Alamo and The Texas War for Independence, Da Capo Press (1992) ISBN 0-306-81040-9
  • Crisp, James E., Sleuthing the Alamo, Oxford University Press (2005) ISBN 0-19-516-349-4
  • Hardin, Stephen L., Texian Iliad, Austin: University of Texas Press (1994) ISBN 0-292-73086-1
  • Lord, Walter, A Time to Stand,; Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press (1961) ISBN 0-8032-7902-7