Texas and The Mexican Independence Movement: The Gutiérrez-Magee Expedition (Sep 15, 2024)
by Scott Sosebee
Mexican Independence Day--Día de la Independéncia—is celebrated throughout Mexico, as well as within many Mexican American communities and households in the U.S., on September 16. The Mexican Independence movement, which took inspiration from both the American and French Revolutions as well as advantage of Napoleonic turmoil in Spain, was a long, often sporadic, but also brutal journey that did not end until 1821 when the rebellion was successful, and Mexico became a new nation.
Texas was, of course, a province of New Spain, the vast royal possession that would become the new nation of Mexico. Unbeknownst to many Texans—and some more who think Texans should not revere Mexican independence—Texas played a role in the Mexican independence movement, particularly in the earliest days of the conflict. In fact, Father Hidalgo, the man who began the independence movement, was captured and killed in northern Mexico; his destination at the time of his seizure was Texas, from which he hoped to help to conduct operations against the Royalist army.
Texas became a location of a number of actions against the Royalist faction. A significant clash came in San Antonio in January 1811 when rebels deposed Governor Manuel María de Salcedo, an overthrow that only lasted three months before Salcedo and the Royalists returned to the Governor’s Mansion. However, unrest was the rule in Texas, and while American expatriates had been a source of filibustering expeditions into New Spain since the late 1700s, the possibility of linking a filibuster with the Mexican Independence movement seemed promising to some of these erstwhile invaders. One group of such men would make that push in 1812-1813 when they launched what could become known as the Gutiérrez-Magee Expedition.
After Salcedo returned to the governorship, one of the rebels, José Bernardo Gutiérrez de Lara, sought to persuade the American government to give aid to the rebels in northern Mexico. American officials offered little more than rhetorical support, so Gutiérrez joined with another veteran of the Texas uprising, José Álvarez de Toledo y Dubois, and sailed to New Orleans to concoct a different approach. After securing support and funding, Gutiérrez and Toledo assembled a group of mostly American “soldiers of fortune” in Natchitoches, Louisiana, which they named the “Republican Army of the North” (RAN). Their contacts in New Orleans then recruited a former U.S. Army officer, Augustus W. Magee, to lead the military aspects of the incursion.
The 130 members of the RAN crossed the Sabine in August 1812 and immediately marched to Nacogdoches. They were received there as heroes, and their numbers swelled to over 300. They took Santísima Trinidad de Salcedo on September 13 and next moved toward San Antonio to confront Governor Salcedo and his Royalists. Magee outsmarted the Spanish governor in November, went around his assembled troops on the Guadalupe, and then marched instead to Goliad, which he took with virtually no resistance. Salcedo and his troops moved to place La Bahía under siege in February 1813, but the Royalist commander found himself greatly outnumbered as Magee’s force had increased to over 800. Magee asked Salcedo to surrender, but the governor refused. However, before the Rebels could attack the assembled Royalists, Magee died of a fever, and Samuel Kemper took over command. Under Kemper, the Rebels routed Salcedo’s band in two battles and then, in the Battle of Rosillo, defeated the 1,200-man Royalist army on March 29, 1813. Salcedo surrendered San Antonio on April 1, and the Rebel conquest of Texas seemed complete.
Once in San Antonio, fortunes reversed for the Rebel forces. Gutiérrez, who had always been—at least in name—the commander-in-chief of the operation, began to assume greater control. Two days after Salcedo surrendered, Gutiérrez had him executed. The execution prompted over 100 of the men, mostly Americans, to leave the RAN and go back to Louisiana. The Rebels fell into infighting and chaos, mostly with the Americans on one side and the Mexican volunteers on the other.
Meanwhile, in Mexico City, the Royalist forces made plans to recapture Texas. Two Spanish armies, one under Colonel Ignacio Elizondo and another under General Joaquín de Arredondo, marched to Texas. Elizondo, with 900 men, arrived at San Antonio and placed the city under siege. Kemper advised the RAN to abandon the city, but his men rejected that offer as well as him. He resigned and was replaced by Henry Perry, who led the RAN to a victory over Elizondo’s troops at the Battle of Alazán in June 1813.
The Rebels, once more, did not enjoy their victory and destroyed any advantage they may have had. The financiers of the expedition back in Louisiana maneuvered Perry and Gutiérrez out of power and replaced them both with José Toledo, who was an ineffective military man and had spent most of the action in Louisiana. Arredondo, one of the most brutal and successful generals of the Royalist Army, arrived to reinforce—and take command of—Elizondo’s troops. Gutiérrez left the RAN and went back to Natchitoches, and Toledo assumed command of a badly divided force.
Toledo left San Antonio to confront the Royalists near the Medina River. What he led them to was a disastrous end. Arredondo, now leading a force that numbered close to 2,000, brutally defeated the RAN at the Battle of the Medina River. The Spanish commander then entered San Antonio and executed any person who had participated and aided in the revolt; he also sent a small contingent to Nacogdoches to do the same. Arredondo had returned Texas to Royalist control, and it would remain so until the war ended in 1821.
The East Texas Historical Association provides this column as a public service. Scott Sosebee is a Professor of History at Stephen F. Austin State University and the Executive Director of the Association. He can be contacted at sosebeem@sfasu.edu or via www.easttexashistorical.org.