Continuing from the previous post….

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The last two paragraphs of our previous posting:

   To make a long story as short as possible, the Galan Grant reverted back to the Galan family, and they extended their efforts there, which was a real chore.  Four brothers from Lampazos had to travel 60 to 100 miles just to arrive at this tract of land that really was huge and somewhat useless without heavy financing and constant investment of attention.   The wool business was the best alternative, and there were already relatives who had flocks on the south side of the Rio Grande in the same area.

    Now, remember, we are not speaking of 30 or 40 ewes penned up in an arroyo channel with a small pond of water.   We have reference to various assemblies of flocks of 30,000 to  100,000 sheep in different meadows and constructs, designed to provide "pacas" (bales of approximately 250 pounds) to English ships for delivery to the "spools of Liverpool".  Special milk, meat, hide, and wool goats were also shepherded and prized.

     (As a refresher, allow us to restate that, among the Spanish surnames, most that are names that represent an animal or geographic or geological item tend to have Sephardic, Hebraic roots.  In the case of names that end in an "n", or an "s" or a "z", and have two syllables or at times more, with an accent on the last syllable…those are almost entirely of Hebraic roots.   It is the nature of Spain…whose ethnic make-up is Hebraic, Arabic, Celtic, Visigothic and Gothic (Teutonic), and Latin (Italian / Roman) bloodlines.   Many, many Jews came into the Iberian Peninsula, accompanying the Saracen - Mohammedan Invasion.  The Mohammedans trusted the Jews as quartermasters and accountants over their own people, and employed them in such pursuits.  The last vestiges of the official Islamic presence on said peninsula was shoved into the Mediterranean Sea in 1492, after 700 years of occupation Spain and much of southernmost Europe.) 

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 We now move into the last stages of this aspect of the lore of the family.   In order to rein and tongue the horses to the wagon though, please allow us a bit of backgrounding.     The Galan family of Lampazos, 100 miles to the South, managed to intermittently utilise the massive acreage.  There were border disputes between Texas and Mexico, a war between Mexico and the United States, and border depredations by bandits on both sides, along with a Civil War or War Between the States.  The Galans managed to work through and around such distractions.

    As normally things do progress, younger men grow up and become older men until finally they become old men and then men who used to be.   From the period of Texas as a Republic until after the War Between the States, four Galán brothers and a blood Uncle, a fellow  Galán, all flocked their sheep and goats on that downriver part of the Rio Grande / Rio Bravo.   The Uncle had a baby who was baptised at the parish church of Revilla, part of a community that 100 years later would be flooded by the waters of Falcon Reservoir in 1953.  Only rarely now, can visitors to the old Chapel see the bronze marker commemorating the first child baptised in that church, a Galan baby, back in the 1780s.   I had the pleasure of "discovering" that plaque and bringing it to the attention of the caretaker…who, oddly enough…had never seen it during almost forty years of taking care of the essentially abandoned, colonial era building.

     All these Galan men were related by blood, and they were known on both sides of the Rio Bravo / Grande and respected, apparently by Anglo and Latin alike.   By the time Reconstruction had run it course in Texas, 1865 - 1875, the Galan Brothers were dispersed into other activities, involving themselves only infrequently with the extension of land on the north side of the Rio Grande.  The Uncle who had originally flocked sheep around Revilla and Mier, downriver from the Laredos, had gone on to his Reward, and the Galans were re-orienting their business and dealings.

     The matter of the disposition of the land has been a thorn in the side of literally thousands of people in South Texas…a number that mushroomed to that point, chiefly because babies and old people stopped dying so much, and numbers, obviously increased.   What was, in the 1850s, a matter of three or four score potential heirs and interested parties has grown into a universe of the qualified by blood heirs that numbers in the thousands.  To wit:

By:  Marty Toohey
Staff Writer - Austin American Statesman
10:00 a.m. / 06 September 2015


    "Garza, a McDonald’s corporate trainer who lives in Dallas, said she is an eighth-generation descendant of Joaquin Galán. She said the family, after research into what its ancestors had insisted was its rightful claim, began compiling evidence in the 1940s, but ran out of money.
    "The family’s lawsuit, filed in July in Travis County District Court, says the state commission formed in 1850 to sort through land-grant claims recognized the family’s ownership of Palafox. After the necessary research and surveying, Gov. Edmund J. Davis endorsed the family’s ownership in 1870.

    "But for some reason, the state cancelled that endorsement four years later and took possession of the land. Garza said the state later passed pieces of the Palafox land to other owners, some of whom still live there. The state kept the 40,000 acres at the center of the family’s case, she said.The office of General Land Office Commissioner George P. Bush, the lead defendant in the lawsuit, declined to comment per its policy for ongoing litigation, spokesman Jim Sudyam said.

Garza said the family is only interested in the mineral rights under the state-controlled land, not the property itself. She said dealing with the surface land could draw in other people who received pieces of the Palafox land over the years"

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     As a brief side issue, as it is revealed in the above text, there is a statement that Governor Edmund Davis endorsed the family's ownership in 1870.  One can look up the author of the article from which the above excerpt is extracted and inquire as to why he (1) assumed that the Governor of Texas would "endorse" the family's ownership, and (2) why he did not look up the fact that the Governor of Texas would be powerless in this issue of the Courts, even if the Governor endorsed the matter 1,000 times, and (3) Governor Edmund Davis was a Reconstruction Governor who was hated by the populace by at least a 9 to 1 ratio.   He had been a high-handed, even brutal martial law governor who literally had to be dragged out of the Governor's Mansion by physical force when Reconstruction was finally discontinued in Texas (the last State of the Confederacy to be 'set free').

     We feel remorse for those people who have involved themselves and paid monthly dues, essentially, to people…attorneys…others who have been trying to resuscitate this case.   Lamentably, this case would have to start at the top of the food chain, in an unofficial way…informally, but engaging the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (the supreme court, so to speak, for criminal law adjudications).   Judges and clerks would speak very carefully and declare that this matter has been settled law for over 150 years.

     Your humble servant…no attorney he…would declare that there is an apple hanging from the tree that has not fallen in the past 160 years, neither far from nor close by.  It is a fact that the agent of sale of that property did not have full and complete control over the property and the purchaser of the property, a member of a legal firm from New York, knew that fact and yet proceeded with the transaction, hoping and almost knowing the other parties would probably never know about the matter until far too late.   Those parties were the three Galan brothers who did not know what the Oveja Negra of the foursome was up to while counting saloons and excitement in Laredo, Texas.  Three older brothers were gentlemen and industrious types, highly respected.   And their brother was a known rowdy, undisciplined, self-centre'd individual.
     The attorney took advantage of that opening and rode the train back to New York City to flaunt his success, I am sure.   The attorney committed a breach of law by not doing the due diligence to assure all parties that original ownership had been reasonably established.   By the time the youngest Galan boy had spent something like 12,000 American dollars on his fling, the ink was dry, and days, weeks, and months would pass before the three other brothers would learn of this treachery.    Things became worse for the errant Galan, an I must confess some pleasure in that fact.

     For those who might like to review this case, one need only type into the search engine, Google if need be, something like "Galan Spanish Grant - Webb County, Texas".  The searcher will be immediately rewarded with about 10 or 12 choices.   Some are pitiable, self-torture stories about "little people" being trampled, others are more studied, even if strident, because, after all, these people of the present lost their economic heritage in many ways.  Most of them are professional people, proprietors, high-skill blue-collar…absolutely one of the finest slices of the American and Texian Pie that exists.   Their resentment is justified so long as it does not cause ulcers.

    I finish this now, because otherwise it would become something like a Doctor Zhivago interminable commentary…ending in a pointless point.   Suffice to say that a girl by the name Librada Galan would marry a boy by the name of Rufino Rios…and they would forward the population, but in an area much closer to the Escandon people's settlements and cities.   The coming together of people of similar backgrounds but different geographic characteristics and life challenges.
     That girl became the grandmother of my mother-in-law…and the great-great grandmother of my daughter and son.  They lived in Penitas, Texas…forming part of the population of Hidalgo County that would always draw the comment from the Anglos that, "Those people out in Penitas and San Isidro…they are really strange birds.   They're really honest, hard-working people."  And it was true…although there were many of those rural communities where such work ethic and moral self-control were norms…Santa Maria, Granjeno, Salinen~o, …they were the ones who stayed in when the American Army passed them by on the way to the Battle of Monterrey in 1846.  They were primordial Americans and Texians.

More sometime soon…this has been a bit exhausting…but pleasant. Thank you for your kind attention.
El Gringo Viejo…

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