Texas Renaissance Man: Jose Antonio Navarro (Oct 13, 2024)
by Scott Sosebee
Texas has certainly had its share of people of many talents—politicians, military leaders, men and women of letters, among others—citizens who seemed to be the ones who excelled and led whenever the times called for it. Most of these gifted individuals seemed to have a specialty, a “field” in which they shined, but some found success in multiple arenas at multiple times. One of these was Jose Antonio Navarro, a man from a noble family with a frontier education who became one of Texas’ true “renaissance men.”
Born in San Antonio in 1795 to Angel Navarro—a native of Corsica—and Josefa Maria Ruiz y Pena, whose family came from the Spanish aristocracy, Jose Antonio Navarro was destined to be a leader from his beginnings. His family was one of the most important in San Antonio, and he would certainly follow in their footsteps. Like many Tejano families in San Antonio, the Navarro’s supported the fledgling Mexican independence movement that began in 1810, which led young Jose—although he was just barely eighteen—to become involved with the ill-fated Gutierrez-Magee expedition in 1813. That experience as a revolutionary forced him to flee to the United States for a few years, and upon his return, he read for the law and began to build one of the most prestigious practices in San Antonio. He would marry Margarita de la Garza in 1825, and it looked as if he would settle into the life of a Bexar patrician, but Jose Navarro was still a “revolutionary” at heart.
Navarro’s next life chapter began when he met and friended Stephen F. Austin in the 1820s. The two men were approximately the same age, both lawyers, and both bachelors at that time. With so much in common, it was natural that they would become close friends. Navarro taught Austin much about Mexican politics and culture, and Austin instilled in Navarro a passion for helping to colonize and populate Texas. Navarro, the Mexican attorney, used his knowledge of Mexican land law, as well as his political connections, to help a number of empresarios gain land contracts, and he eventually became the land commissioner for Green Dewitt’s colony, which was adjacent to Austin’s, near the Lavaca River.
Navarro began a career in politics in the 1830s when he was elected first to the Coahuila y Tejas state legislature and then to the Mexican Congress. In both capacities, he became a strong supporter of land grants and liberal colonization for Texas and one of the few to back separate statehood for Texas. Navarro was a Federalist and, as such, he first supported President Santa Anna when he came to office in 1833, but like almost all other Federalists, he broke with him when the President declared himself a Centralist in 1834. When Santa Anna dissolved the Mexican states, Navarro decided to cast his lot with the mostly American Texians in their dispute with Santa Anna. This Mexican patriot was not yet ready to disavow his national allegiance, and his support was limited to making Texas a separate state and to the return of the Mexican federation. However, when it became apparent that Santa Anna was determined to crush all opposition to his rule, Navarro accepted Texas independence and became one of the original signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence at Washington-on-the-Brazos on March 2, 1836.
After independence, Navarro continued his political activity when he became a Congressman from Bexar County. He also became a supporter of Mirabeau B. Lamar, which meant he opposed Sam Houston, but his most strident support came in defense of Tejano land and citizenship rights, civil liberties that had come under constant attack from Anglos within Texas after independence. Perhaps thinking that expansion would help such a cause, or maybe out of political loyalty, Navarro accepted a role in the disastrous Santa Fe Expedition in 1841. When Mexican troops captured the Texian soldiers in New Mexico, the Mexican authorities gave him the opportunity to repudiate the Texas Republic and his fellow soldiers. Navarro defiantly refused and took his place among the prisoners taken back to Veracruz. The Mexican authorities condemned him to death and held him in prison for more than a year, but sympathetic Mexican army officials eventually helped him escape back to Texas.
Back in Texas he resumed his political activities and became a staunch advocate for Texas’ annexation to the United States. When Texas became a part of the U.S. Navarro became an instrumental part of drafting the first state constitution; he also served three terms in the Texas Senate, where he once again advocated for the rights of Tejanos. He retired from politics in 1849 to live the life of a gentleman rancher on his ranch near San Geronimo Creek, east of San Antonio, near Seguin.
Jose Antonio Navarro, however, was not a man to be idle. He began to chronicle his life and the events that surrounded it, writing historical and political essays for the San Antonio Ledger. Navarro freely advocated his positions on American freedom and democracy, while also taking Texas’ leaders to task for forgetting the contributions and rights of Tejanos. He also wrote very fine histories of the Texas independence movement and the Mexican War. His health began to fail in the 1860s, so he sold the ranch and moved back to San Antonio, where he died in 1871. The local newspaper probably summed up the gratitude and prominence that Texas felt for Navarro when in his obituary appeared this line: “To none of her greatest statesmen nor to her many eminent patriots is Texas more indebted for her existence than to Jose Antonio Navarro.”
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.