A Gringo in Rural Mexico: Manuel Lorenzo Justiniano de Zavala y Sáenz - Born October 3, 1788

Wednesday 21 March 2018

Manuel Lorenzo Justiniano de Zavala y Sáenz - Born October 3, 1788 – Died November 15, 1836 Hero of Texas

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Lorenzo de Zavala, pictured above, quite bluntly and fairly was a fundamental hero to and for Texas. He was born as much a Mexican as one could be in that he was born upon what would become officially Mexican soil. During his first span of 22 - 25 years, he would see rule by vice-regency, by a presidium of The Regency of combined Mexican political and Spanish Royal political interests, and Empire ruled by an unwilling Emperor of Mexico Iturbide I, who had been something of a hero in the fight for Mexican Independence.

He had a turbulent, dangerous, exciting, rewarding first 25 years of his life. Along with all of that, he mastered with eloquence his own native tongue (Spanish), French, and English he was accomplished as a student of the Latin and classical Greek languages. He was a good student of Roman Catholic concepts of moral guidance, and he was also a 33rd Degree, York Rite Mason (liberal theistic, non-papal guided). Further, he was a qualified and credentialled doctor of medicine and a qualified member of the fraternity of barristers during the 1820s through the end of his life on this Earth.

He was an eloquent speaker, a florid writer, and generally a friend of all men of good will. He was a good anti-Imperial politician, very pro-republican and followed Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna during those turbulent years from 1822 - 1825. Lorenzo saw Guadalupe Victoria, an erstwhile republican and true hero of the Independence Revolution (1810 - 1821), turn into a pawn of Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.

That man whom we must name so often concerning any and every matter from 1822 through 1856 and who retarded Mexico from gaining a reasonable place in the Hall of Great Nations, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna came to distrust...fear...loath...be jealous of the more suave Yucatecan-born "provencial"...de Zavala.

As a politician and despotic dictator in the making, Lopez de Santa Anna raged almost Herrod-like when he watched this upstart, with no military accolades, spin a defence of Epresario Sen~or Stephen Fuller Austin that would result in Austin's release from unjustifiable imprisonment by a Mexico City superior court. That was in 1835. Oddly, Austin thought there was some way Mexico could allow Texas an independent Statehood, and something of an Independent Mexico-related Commonwealth. Coahuila State which was joined with Texas as a combined legal entity thought that they (the people of Coahuila) were being as shortchanged as Texas in terms of military allocations, public works, etc. They were right, and relations between the two entities, (Texas and Coahuila) were actually quite good.

Let us end this overly long preambulatory statement with the simple fact that the Texians won their contention against Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. He was captured, and should have been assigned to the dust-bin of history. But, at least he was peripheralised for a period long enough for the provisional Vice-President of the Republic of Texas (de Zavala) to write a reasonable Constitution, while his very close friend Stephen F. Austin served as provisional President of the Republic of Texas. All of this was while the "smoke of battle still blurred the future".

From 1836 and the expulsion of Mexican Centralist forces, by surrunder and agreement, the Centralist forces retired to the south side of the Rio Bravo (Grande).
But, neither Lorenzo nor Stephen would serve to see 1837. In December of 1836, as Austin lay dying of various conditions, especially pneumonia, he rose up briefly and declared in his feverous stupour, "The Independence of Texas is Recognised!!!". Minutes later, he was gone.
Talk about patriotism. He had not been informed that his closest friend had gone to be with the Angels a month and a half earlier. He had had the same ailments and pulmonary compromises. It was a loss to the Republic which will never be measured adequately.

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Concerning Major General Manuel Fernandez Castrillon:

Please consider from a warrior without qualifications (your humble servant), what warriors with scars and bloody wounds said of this enemy...and gentleman, major-general in the Regular Army, and the only person who could possibly reach Antonio de Santa Anna's soul...but alas...Antonio, by that time, had no soul. Please review this reasonable capsule of the life of a good, loyal soldier.

Castrillón was a major general in the Mexican army, originally from either Cuba or Spain (the reviewer tends to believe he was born in Spain and arrived in Cuba with his military family as a child ) Like Santa Anna, he was a career soldier who fought alongside Spanish and loyalist forces near the Mexican state of Veracruz. It was there he met Santa Anna.

Santa Anna's ally through much of their working relationship, Castrillón often took exception to Santa Anna's decisions especially during the Texas Revolution. He opposed the hurried assault on the Alamo. Yet when he received his orders to lead the battle's first column of troops, he did so with expert efficiency.

As an humane and honourable soldier, Castrillón also pleaded clemency on behalf of the seven Texian fighters who survived the Alamo siege. Castrillón's arguments for mercy were ignored, and the men were brutally executed. Castrillón again stated his protest when Santa Anna ordered the execution of the Goliad prisoners.

Castrillón's compassion was a sign of kindness, not weakness. When the Texians roused Mexican forces from their afternoon siesta on April 21, 1836, at the Battle of San Jacinto, he was one of the few Mexican officers who stood his ground.

His bravery was recorded in the memoirs of Texian Second Lieutenant Walter Paye Lane:

"As we charged into them the General commanding the Tampico Battalion (their best troops) tried to rally his men, but could not. He drew himself up, faced us, and said in Spanish: "He estado en cuarenta batallas!! Nunca he dado mi espalda a ningun enemigo!! Y ya estoy demasiado viejo para empezar horita!!"('I have been in forty battles and never showed my back; I am too old to do it now.')

He continues: "Gen. Rusk hallooed to his men: 'don't shoot him,' and knocked up some to their guns; but others ran around and riddled him with balls. I was sorry for him. He was an old Castilian gentleman, Gen. Castrillo (sic)."

Honoured on both sides of the Texas Revolution — except by Santa Anna, who blamed the loss at San Jacinto in part on Castrillón — he was even buried in the family graveyard of Lorenzo de Zavala, the vice-president of Texas, at the request and agreement of Austin and de Zavala. No one objected.

Your humble servant is quick to point out that General Castrillon had nothing to do with the failures of tactics, preparation, nor strategy at San Jacinto. There was only one fool large enough to sacrifice such a large and effective army to a bunch of militia. I shall leave the three guesses up to the reader to name a possible candidate. Castrillon was a brilliant warrior, a good Catholic, and a reasonable opponent.

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And now finally we arrive at my sadness, melacholy, and concern. Lorenzo de Zavala was awarded a fine piece of land in the bayou country. There was a home of sorts which was fixed up to be a nice accommodation for someone with the title of the Vice-Presidency of the Republic of Texas - Author of the Constitution!!

As an honour to Castrillon, both Austin and de Zavala offerred their home grounds as an august and dignified burial place for the noble enemy Castrillon. He was known, and in positive terms, to both Austin and de Zavala. Many others among the Texian politicians and soldiers knew of his magnanimous disposition.

It was finally determined that the honour should go to the yards and gardens of the de Zavala home...and the 1,200 acres that surrounded the swampy, mystical, yet beautiful area. And so there-in were interred the remains of a true hero of Mexico and an enemy who would guard him forever because of his nobility. It is / was very near the San Jacinto Battlefield.

Or so it seemed...because sometimes, forever can be defined in very strange ways...

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We do not wish to ruin your day. But, after the fiasco of the 1925 removal of Lorenzo's body and supposedly the remains of old General Castrillon, and various other pertinent interments, there was a form of sedimentary chaos. The mud of the bayou's banks was steadily sliding into the muck. Barge traffic was causing wakes that, with each pass, seemed to take down another 1 / 16th of an inch of mud and muck.

During the Fiasco of 1925, Lorenzo's grandson...still bearing the surname "de Zavala"...invaded the proceeding and declared that all that was being done violated Roman Catholic canon (although some Roman prelate or another was presiding over the re-interment). The de Zavala family was heavily intermarried into the highest levels of Harris County (Houston) correct society. All were aghast...only the Lord God Yahweh knows how many times His name was invoked during this contention. Smelling salts must have been du jour for that grand episode in Houstonian social history....there were an estimated 25, 000 attendants at the event.

The "likely remains" were returned to from whence they had come. And now...there really is no perfect scientific reasoning where the cemetery was or should have been; or where the first Lorenzo de Zavala home and its second, more elaborate home along with it, have gone.

A bayou at its best...and worst

At my age, and I at my selfish concern...and considering my affection for the efforts of Lorenzo as a Texian, I find it all a matter of the darkest contemplation.

Finally, in as few words as is possible for your humble servant.
Thanks for your attention. Pray for the restoration of the de Zavala legacy, the re-veneration of old man Castrillon, and for the Glory of the Republic of Texas!!
El Gringo Viejo

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Click to visit our little Adobe Hideaway…

This is our rustic, but very comfortable place, out in the rural area to the northwest of Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas…the State's Capital. From a bustling city of 400,000, we placed our domicile a bit more than 20 miles into the scenes of mountains, citrus groves, spring-fed creeks and rivers with crystal clear waters, and an abundance of bird species that make veteran birders shake their heads in wonder.

We are all but adjacent to the venerable Hacienda de Santa Engracia (about 500 yards away), which dates to the 1720s and has ancient structures still in use, very elegant, and mystical in many ways. It has operated as a guest hotel since the 1970s.

Our little place rests on three and a fraction acres, fronting on the Rio Corona, which is lined with over-1,000 year old cypress trees. The nearby Sierra del Cautivo…a major segment of the overall Sierra Madre Oriental that dominate most of eastern Mexico, lies to the west by about three miles. guards the many springs that maintain the almost perpetual flow from those heights (up to 12,000 fasl) while our place is situated right at 1,000 feet above sea level.

Give us a call, come by and visit…it is truly a different venture in the most positive sense. We can be reached by our email - privatouring@gmail.com - which is our preferred method of communicating.

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What is an OROG?

Once a person lands on our page, that individual becomes a member of the Order of Readers of the Old Gringo, (OROG). There are no dues or assessments to pay, no meetings, no requirements. We are not associated with the KKK, the WCTU, the French Masons, or the Global Warming Glacier

Protection Committee.

We do have a distant connection with the Knights of the Golden Circle and hold the maps to the internment sites of 34 tonnes of Confederate Gold, and 1,000 tonnes of Mexican Imperial Silver (bar and coinage) derived from the collapse of the Reign of Maximillian von Hapsburg, Emperor of Mexico (1863 - 1867). I think we can remember where we put it.

All kidding aside, we are acerbic, but we do not bite. We do believe in our antiquated philosophy, but we try to not impose our quirks and beliefs so far as to be disrespectful.

El Gringo Viejo

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Wise Words

Communism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy. Its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.

Winston Churchill

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Be sure you are right, then go ahead.

I bark at no man's bid. I will never come and go, fetch and carry, at the whistle of the Great Man in the White House, no matter who he is.

I told the people of my district that I would serve them as faithfully as I had done. But, if such was not to be, then you may all go to Hell, and I shall go to Texas!

David Crockett

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And on and on it goes. The more the Government gives away, the more it takes, and the less Americans do for themselves, until finally, like Europe, there is nobody left to do anything, and there is nobody left to pay for, the nothing that is not done.

And, yes, Virginia, there truly is a Santa Clause, and he and Mrs. Clause and their helpers care greatly for the good children of the Planet. So long as there is happiness, kindness, charity, generosity, and the Spirit of Fellowship, Santa Clause will be there, representing those noble things, and he will always move in a spiritual way so as to provoke humankind to goodness.

El Gringo Viejo

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“There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs — partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.”

Booker Tallaferro Washington

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It is impossible to make a poor man rich by making a rich man poor.

Abraham Lincoln

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El Gringo Viejo: a fair description

Life for El Gringo Viejo began on the Texas-Mexico frontier, near McAllen, Texas literally on a real, live farm. The farmer, as one might imagine, was his father, who had moved with his parents from Gwinner, Sargent County, North Dakota in 1915 - 1916 period, down to the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas. (And yes, Virginia, that is the way Sargent County is spelled.)

His parents farmed in an area close to the new community named after its founder, called Ed Couch, in Hidalgo County of Texas. My grandfather is buried in the Weslaco Municipal Cemetery about 10 feet away from his friend, Ed Couch.

After studies, and a stint in the 1st Cavalry, 12th Regiment (mounted), Headquarters Squadron of the United States Army...riding warhorses back and forth along the Rio Grande from the late 1920s and early 1930s. He did not speak much about his service, but we determined that he apparently made rank of 1st Lieutenant.

El Gringo Viejo's Father established his farming and citrus grove-care operation just north of McAllen, Texas. Mother was a housewife and a professional woman....a learned, eloquent, well-read woman.

They were educated people, my father winding up as a Superintendent of a major school/facility of the Texas Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation in Austin, Texas after a twenty year career in education at the secondary level. He had degrees in History, Psychology, and Education Administration.

El Gringo Viejo is the last of three children, all males. Number one was Milton Birchard, Jr. who was born in 1936 and died in a vehicular incident in 1988. He was narcoleptic. He held a doctorate in geography from Louisiana State University and was head of the Department there for a good while.

Number two is Norman Francis, who was born during the WWII situation in 1942 and became an important Republican political engineer and fundraiser. He served as Executive Director of the Republican Party of Texas during the late 1960s and early 1970s and as Senator John G. Tower's immediate Executive Assistant. The Senator is the Godfather of Norman's first son.

Norman died at age 77 in Austin, Texas and I was one of four eulogists who was chosen to speak at his en memoriam at the Austin Club in downtown most Austin…within sight of the State Capitol.

It was a personal duty and very rewarding

in every way.

My arrival was in 1947, and I was destined to confound my parents and all those around me. Educated entirely in public schools in McAllen, skipping the third grade, and stumbling out of my high school in the upper 90% of a class of 606. I

attended and graduated from Southwest Texas State University (now named Texas State University, unfortunately), being one of the few conservatives to graduate out of the School of Sociology, although my treatment at the hands of my tormentor-professors was not so unpleasant in those days. Emphasis of studies were social demography, and Latin American Affairs with a concentration on Mexico's history and current political evolution, with a minors in History, Geography, and Political Science.

El Gringo Viejo is one of the old, unreconstructed high-church Episcopalians. Politically, he is very fundamentally conservative. He prefers Baseball to football, and considers that baseball with a designated hitter for the pitcher should be called "poofy-ball". Favourite major league team of all times? The Brooklyn Dodgers of the 1950s. It will never be the same again.
El Gringo Viejo's father was born to a Hudson Valley-type girl and a man who had lost two older brothers who served in the Pennsylvania 96th Regiment of Volunteer Infantry during the War Between the States.

The surnamed line (Newton) originated from East Anglia, not far from a place called Washington in northeastern England. They came into Boston Harbour, Massachusetts in 1642 (the 1st voyage of the Mayflower had overbooked), and settled there and in Maine as well as spreading out to Vermont, New York, and Pennsylvania, over the generations for the first 220 years.
Another batch of folks, mainly Anglo, settled in the middle Hudson Valley. There was another group of Celto-Teutonics types from Saxony and Prussia, establishing and settling along the Hudson River from around what is Catskill County northward to Duchess and Rennselaer Counties around a place named Red Hook. The main group came in during the early 1650s.

My mother's people were another English line of long-term Southern and Tennessee people, from the Eastern part of that State, who originally came in during the 1660s through Virginia and North Carolina, and finally into Eastern Tennessee, settling in and around a county to be named Franklin, and helping to establish the city of Winchester. Almost all of these people originated from southwestern England, near the frontier with Wales.

Only recently did we verify that she had many people involved in the service of the Confederacy. One died in northern Mississippi, another Captain Asa Grant, 2nd Tennessee Volunteer Cavalry, was severely wounded and succumbed to his wounds finally in 1869, and another hung around in an Ohio POW camp (Camp Chase) for about 13 months, while three others were either wounded or died in action, including David Limbaugh, Lieutenant, 42 Tennessee Infantry. Another five made it through relatively unscathed.

Almost all were, oddly enough, related to the great-grand uncles and gggg-grandfathers down to gg-grandfathers of Rush Limbaugh. The gggg-grandfather came into the Colonies in the early 1740s from a Prussia and Saxony background, and served in both civilian and military capacities to the Continental government and Army. He was the XO of a Militia Battalion of 3,000 Pennsylvania effectives. They honed their military readiness under the supervision of Gen. von Steuben and someone named Washington at some place called Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.

A grandson of his, Isaac, settled in Tennessee after the War for Independence against King George III. So Rush and I share grandfathers, four generations deep on the American Continent.

It should be stated here that were I to be called to declare, my allegiance would still be with the Southern Cause, although I bear no rancor against those who feel the same about their instinct to maintain the Union. Oddly enough, both my mother (a Southerner) and my father (a true Yankee by blood) believed that we would have remained closer if we had separated, and each side gone the ways of their own yearning, but amicably.

The last of the English (El Gringo Viejo's) line came during the time between the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. They left County Wicklow, where they had been involved, apparently, in that peculiar Anglo - Scots/Irish practice of making whiskey by the use of peat for fuel. They were also involved in the business of production and processing of various types of grains as well as the production of whiskey, gin, and beer. By their surnames one would know that, while coming out of Ireland, they were actually English, one with the surname of Christian and the wife, Webster. They had, in fact, married in Christ's Church Cathedral, Anglican, in downtown Dublin in 1796. They landed in New York, set up shop in the City among previously arrived relatives, and then in Albany. We have some record that this Christian who married the Webster had actually lived in the colonies, but travelled several times back and forth between the Spirits businesses in England and Ireland and the New World. They wound up as the generations progressed in and around Minneapolis (St. Anthony) & Saint Paul, Minnesota, and Racine, Wisconsin. My particular line went from New York to Alabama, then North Carolina, and then Wisconsin to join up with the rest of the extended family, finally in Minnesota, before the War Between the States.

The Time Line of entry of all lines of my children's blood ancestry on their mother's side in the New World begins in 1578, when Spaniards of mixed Hebraic and Iberian peoples, and others of ancestry from Portugal, Galicia, and southern Spain entered into what was to become Monclova and Saltillo, Coahuila. They are brought under the auspices of the Explorer, Conquistador, and Colonizer Jose Luis Carvajal y de la Cueva, with elements settling in Lampazos and Cerralvo (Nuevo Leon), in Palofox (Texas), and Revilla (Tamaulipas) on the Rio Bravo.
Also, the Count of the Sierra Gorda, Col. Jose de Escandon brought another group of mainly Spanish, Portuguese, and Azoreans in the early 175os, settling along the Rio Bravo (Grande), and then on the north (Texas) side, spreading up to what is now Yorktown, Texas (near and southeast of San Antonio de Bexar, more or less) before and during the Texas Republican period.

My children and theirs are qualified to join the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Sons of Liberty, The Sons of the Grand Army of the Union, The Sons of Confederate Veterans, and the Daughters of the Confederacy. By my side they are 16th generation English Colonial - American and 6th generation Texian. By my wife's side, my children are 23rd generation northernmost New Spain, Texian, and American. Isolating Texas alone, my grandchildren are 15th generation Texian.

LIKE?

Cats, and then dogs.

Fishing, even a bit of bird watching, now and then.

Really good music..antique, old, 1950s and early 1960s rock and roll, classical - Hayden, Mozart, Beethoven, both Strauses, and many others, African tribal sounds en chorus, Mexican bolero...mariachis when they play out-of-doors, some country and quite a bit of the old western (Sons of the Pioneers, the Texas Ploughboys, Marty Robbins "Gunfighter Ballads, for instance.), even some of my own piano works, bagpipes, Enya, marimba, Caribe.

The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess always seemed to me to have been, and remains, a true masterpiece of Americana.

Well maintained Firearms, smooth running small equipment, old autos that respond to repair and upkeep and keep going. Used to have BMWs and so forth, but being old helps tone things down a bit.

Antiques, and antiquities...Meso-American archeology...and religious history. Formal religious services among the Orthodox..as in Anglican, Roman, Orthodox and Conservative Jewish services and celebrations. Hard to find, now.

Overnight radio, rightwing talk radio until it becomes overly tedious and repetitive.

Weather and climate.

And strangely during the past few years,cooking. Not just barbequeing...but actually dishing up gourmet-type stuff...and gardening to a purpose.

We grow a lot of our own spices for our little bed and breakfast and we specialise in flowerng plants, bushes, and trees that attract bees and literally hundreds of species of common to extremely rare birds to our place.

Lifelong Republican, honourably discharged - United States Army (conscripted).

Now drifted into the position of favouring the amicable withdrawal of Texas from the American Union. My grandchildren are 15th generation Coahuila/Texas by my wife and 8th generation Texas by me and my will is to have them answer for the debt of Texas and not for the debts incurred by the National Socialists who have taken possession of the central government in Washington, D.C.

DISLIKES?
Any kind of socialism...bolshevik, national, marxist, social democratic, Trotskyite, progressive, ....and any kind of socialist.

The Ku Klux Klan and such types who figure that they have to hate somebody because of how he/she was born. They are just role players, resucitated by the Communist Party USA in the 1920s, whose members are fueled by a well deserved sense of inferiority.

And almost all social activism.

Almost all labour union officers and almost all labour unions. (There are some exceptions.)

Public assistance of any kind. All welfare and/or charity should and must be privately handled in order to avoid the trap wherein we have fallen, that being the multigenerational slide into the abyss of forlorn hopelessness that is government slavery and dependence. That slide is cheerfully supported by politicians who love to buy votes with other peoples' money.

Lotteries operated by governments.

Litter, filth, graffiti, gangs, and waiting in line for people using food stamps whil'st they argue with the cashier about how they "need" this or that to be covered...when they have three carts with 450 USD of snacks and things we cannot afford because we are in an 'upper income" category.

Church reformers who want to change my church instead of them going to another church and just leaving me alone.

Medications for boys who are over-active, and medications in general.

Lite beer, lite Coca Cola, fat-free, lo-cal, artificial sugars and sweeteners, anything marked "healthy" on food packages, sugar-free, margarine, and driving 23 miles to buy gasoline over there because it is 2 cents per gallon cheaper.

Any government programme designed to help anybody; 94% of the time the programme winds up morphing into some kind of monster. Then liberals and do-gooders will propose another programme, twice as costly, to cure the ills caused by the first cure-all.

Officiousness, and the term "non-profit", as if there is some kind of moral superiority in the failure to produce wealth.

Physical abuse of an animal, an extraterrestrial, a child, slave, woman, or anything like a tractor or power tool, firearm, sewing machine, or an auto, etc.
Loud and/or sharp noises, especially when such noises have no particular purpose.

Wasting anything, from paper towels to Clorox to cake and cookie batter...anything. And....waiting in a line.