Ramón Músquiz

Don Ramón Músquiz (1797–1867) was governor of Texas from 1830 to 1831 and in 1835.

Biography

Don Ramón González Músquiz was born in 1797 in San Antonio, Texas, in an environment where he lived with presidio soldiers and settlers, both Spanish and Mexicans and Anglos, mostly of northern Texas. Coming from a Basque family, his life was spent in the company of missionary friars and people from Canary Islands, and Basque origin like himself. He developed friendships with prominent families, such as the Leal, Arocha or Veramendi. With these influences, he managed to become vice governor and acting governor of Coahuila and Texas in the early 1830s. He resigned in 1831 and was replaced by Juan Martin de Veramendi, friend of him. During the Texas Revolution and in the presence of President General Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana, was ratified Don Ramon Muzquiz in office as governor in early 1836, but in May of that year, he submitted his resignation citing "family reasons". Muzquiz, knew the effects and consequences of central power and its impact on Texas, for that reason, in 1836, he moved with his family in the colonial city of Monclova in what is now the Mexican state of Coahuila, where in addition to experience security of his nation, lived some of his relatives, including his sister Josefa Muzquiz, who was the mother of the first medicine man of Monclova, Don Simón Blanco. Known by people of Monclova its experience in Texas government, he was appointed political prefect as ad interim in 1853 and 1858. In addition, he was one of the largest shareholders in terms of water rights, in the bags of water from San Francisco and San Miguel (now part of the Pueblo), to whose inhabitants he championed for endorse guarantees to the state government of Nuevo Leon and Coahuila, headed by former resident of Monclova, Santiago Vidaurri Valdés. While he defended him, the government that he represented, required the delivery to ecclesiastical authorities all the funds in support of the army of the north, where they fought many of the inhabitants of Monclova. Following this, in 1857, Father José María Villarreal Montemayor, claimed the water from the Confraternity of the Immaculate, property of the inhabitants of the village of San Francisco in Tlaxcala, and, although he gave a large sum of money, he got to be given title of ownership. He refused to deliver the flow of the confraternity of the Virgin of Zapopan, that he previously divided among his family, forcing the political boss Don Ramón Múzquiz, to banish him sending him into exile (he return to years later). On 27 November 1867, after evacuating Jeaningros French troops in Monclova, he died.^[1]

Family

Don Ramon Muzquiz married with Tejano Francisca Castañeda and together they had, inter alia, two sons: Octaviano Múzquiz (who served for a time as mayor of Monclova, was wounded, he entered the city on October 18, 1871, by the forces of Comanchero Pedro Advíncula Valdés, on November dying due to shooting ) and Ramon Muzquiz Castañeda (who followed the example of his father occupied for long periods of Monclova political leadership and the mayor).^[1]

References