DAVID McDONALD is a self-employed historian from San Antonio. He worked for twenty-three years as manager and park historian for the Casa Navarro Historic Site. He translated and co-edited (with Timothy Matovina) Defending Mexican Valor in Texas: The Historical Writings of José Antonio Navarro. He has given presentations on Navarro for various audiences, worked as a translator for the Texas Antiquities Committee, been a consultant for PBS’s American Experience, and given workshops on Spanish paleography.

 

DAVID McDONALD is a self-employed historian from San Antonio. He worked for twenty-three years as manager and park historian for the Casa Navarro Historic Site. He translated and co-edited (with Timothy Matovina) Defending Mexican Valor in Texas: The Historical Writings of José Antonio Navarro. He has given presentations on Navarro for various audiences, worked as a translator for the Texas Antiquities Committee, been a consultant for PBS&;s American Experience, and given workshops on Spanish paleography.

 

José Antonio Navarro

In Search of the American Dream in Nineteenth-Century Texas

By David McDonald

Texas State Historical Association

Copyright © 2010 Texas State Historical Association
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-87611-243-4

Contents

Acknowledgements,
Foreword,
Introduction,
Chapter One: Roots, 1762–1816,
Chapter Two: Emerging Leader, 1816–22,
Chapter Three: The Making of a Legislator, 1822–28,
Chapter Four: Businessman, Land Commissioner, and Politician, 1828–35,
Chapter Five: Mexican-Texan, 1835–40,
Chapter Six: Statesman and Prisoner, 1840–45,
Chapter Seven: Tejano Spokesman, 1845–53,
Chapter Eight: Elder Statesman, 1853–71,
Appendix One: Margarita de la Garza,
Appendix Two: Henry Navarro,
Appendix Three: José Antonio Navarro’s Will,
Notes,
Index,

CHAPTER 1

Roots, 1762–1816

José Antonio Navarro’s father, Ángel Navarro, was one of the thousands who have left their native lands over the centuries to search for success in the New World of the Americas. He worked hard to better himself, and his quest for the American Dream was picked up and carried on with particular zeal by José Antonio, his second son. On a spring day in 1792, Ángel Navarro sat at his table and recalled the events of the previous thirty years that had brought him from his Corsican birthplace to a respectable life as a merchant and family man in the frontier community of San Fernando de Béxar (later renamed San Antonio). This recollection came because he was required by Governor Manuel Muñoz to prepare a statement to comply with a royal directive to identify foreigners in the province of Texas as part of a census. Muñoz knew very well that Navarro, despite his Corsican birth, was a respected, loyal citizen. But this bureaucratic requirement nevertheless provides an authoritative summary of Ángel Navarro’s life and is the best place to begin a study of José Antonio Navarro.

In his autobiographical sketch, Ángel Navarro said that he was born on the island of Corsica “in the province” of Ajaccio, rather than in the capital city of Ajaccio, which might suggest a rustic origin. What his family circumstances were can only be guessed at, but at the time of his birth, a fierce war was raging as Corsicans fought for independence from Genoa, which had dominated the island for more than 500 years. This conflict continued through the years of his youth, ending only in 1770 with the incorporation of Corsica into France. In 1762, when Ángel was about thirteen or fourteen, he took a ship for Genoa “without the permission of my parents.” From Genoa he made his way to Barcelona and then Cádiz, “always seeking to serve various persons to earn my keep” as he worked in various ports along the Mediterranean Sea.

Most of the Spanish trade with America passed through the busy port of Cádiz, and it was there that Ángel reached a turning point in his life. He was a youth with much experience working for various individuals (most likely merchants) in major ports and had assuredly learned some valuable lessons about human nature and about trade. While his station in life was still that of a humble servant, he was no longer an ignorant provincial. At this juncture, Ángel must have understood that he had reached the limits of what he could achieve in a place where traditions defined a person’s worth and opportunities came more often by birth than by ability. Because there was little future in Spain for a youth not born in the mother country or even in a Spanish territory, he must have seen the tall ships anchored at Cádiz as a solution to his problem. He likely met traders, sailors, and servants who had actually been to Spanish America, and who offered credible accounts of opportunities in the New World for a talented and resourceful young man. He arranged for passage on a ship bound for New Spain—colonial Mexico—where he would seek the American Dream. Indenture is suggested by his saying, “I arrived obligated to seek work with Don Juan Antonio Agustín in the mining district of Vallecillo.” After working for eight years in these silver mines between Laredo and Monterrey (evidently to pay for his passage), Ángel made his way to Béxar as a merchant around 1777.

Freed from his obligation to Agustín, Ángel struggled to support himself. He was not the only Navarro to leave Corsica for Texas. A mysterious Juan Antonio Navarro preceded Ángel’s arrival in Béxar by at least four years. The 1779 census enumerated Ángel, who owned only a horse, next to Juan Antonio and Juliana Navarro, so he was probably living on their premises. The census confirms the birthplace of both Navarros as Corsica and gives their occupations as merchants; Juan Antonio’s age was thirty-two and Ángel’s twenty-seven. The two Navarros were probably kinsmen with a shared purpose in coming to Béxar, but Juan Antonio’s tenure in the provincial capital was short-lived. The next year, he sold his house and left Béxar. Ángel stayed and became a successful merchant and community leader. He bought the lot and dwelling previously owned by Juan Antonio, and was elected to the city council in 1781.

By the time of his election, Ángel’s integration into the Béxar community was almost complete. All he lacked was a family. For marriage prospects, he did not have to look any farther than the other side of Real Street (present day Flores Street), to the home of Juan Manuel Ruiz and his wife, Manuela de la Peña. Among their five children was María Gertrudis Josefa Ruiz y Peña, who at the end of 1781 was sixteen years old. The San Fernando Church marriage records are incomplete and do not show the union of Ángel Navarro and Josefa Ruiz. By the time that Ángel wrote his autobiographical sketch for Governor Muñoz in 1792, he was a well-established merchant, had served on the city council twice, was the father of a nine-year-old son and an infant daughter, and had buried four other children in small graves at San Fernando Church.

In his autobiographical sketch, Ángel’s sparse and straightforward style is consistent with a favorite expression attributed to him: “Bread is bread and wine, wine,” which was taken to mean that he was impatient with wordy, exaggerated talk. Sparse records make it difficult to document many aspects of Ángel’s life. Despite his success as a merchant, scant evidence exists of his acquiring and selling the kinds of goods that were traded on the Texas frontier. He must have bought and sold merchandise such as cloth and crockery, for he operated a store out of his house and clearly had business contacts in Saltillo and Nacogdoches. Nevertheless, records reveal only one instance of him purchasing ordinary merchandise: one-half pound of thread at an auction of contraband goods. While most of the goods he dealt in remain unknown, the record does reveal that he participated in slave trading. Each census from 1790 to 1803 lists slaves in his possession whose identities vary. Ángel’s increasing prosperity was evident in March 1794, when he loaned San José Mission 600 pesos in cash and 145 pesos worth of merchandise. Ángel’s status as a merchant was matched by his accomplishments in municipal government. From 1781 to 1807, Bexareños elected him as their alcalde or assistant alcalde four times and numerous terms as an alderman. Thus it is clear he had built a solid foundation for his family, which soon included a new member.

At the end of each February in San Antonio, new leaves begin appearing on trees and shrubs. Occasionally, cold fronts pass through dropping temperatures to near freezing, but for the most part the new leaves are a sure sign that the San Antonio winter is ending. During the last days of February 1795, Ángel Navarro and his wife Josefa prepared for the birth of their eighth child. José Antonio Navarro was born on Friday, February 27. His birth must have filled his parents with both joy and apprehension, for disease had already claimed five of their seven children. The newest Navarro joined a three-year-old sister, María Josefa, and an eleven-year-old brother, José de los Ángeles, or José Ángel. On March 6, one week after José Antonio’s birth, at least twenty persons, including Navarro and Ruiz family members and friends, gathered at San Fernando Church for the baptism of their newest family member. Ángel and Josefa selected as godparents Juan José Farías, a corporal in the Béxar presidio, and the infant’s maternal grandmother, Manuela de la Peña.

José Antonio Navarro was likely born in his father’s house or perhaps in the Ruiz grandparents’ house across Real Street. As children, he and his siblings were equally at home at their grandparents’ house as they were at their own home. Between chores and studies, they would have played such games as flechas with toy bows and arrows. Another pastime was cabestros (halters), possibly a rowdy game that mimicked the real job of breaking wild horses. Among the neighborhood children living along Real Street was Margarita de la Garza, who was destined to be José Antonio’s wife and the mother of their children.

Educational resources were scarce during José Antonio’s youth. Instruction at the missions was limited to Indian children, but he may have received some schooling from the parish priest. José Antonio was fortunate to have his mother’s brother, José Francisco Ruiz, as a mentor. Although the government opened a primary school in Béxar in 1803 with Ruiz as schoolmaster, the school only existed for a few months. The city council, responding to an order from the governor, appointed Ruiz as schoolmaster “provided that his minority does not render him incompetent to fill it. His residence … is to serve as the school house.” Ruiz was nineteen years old at the time of his appointment and had no special educational training. He married the next year and evidently concluded that his income would be adequate to maintain a family. However, a few months later, when the commandant general in Chihuahua reduced the schoolmaster’s fees, Ruiz resigned his position. Before Ruiz resigned, eight-year-old José Antonio was most likely one of his best students, and he would continue to benefit from a close, long-term association with his learned uncle. It would not be an exaggeration to say that, after the death of his father, Ruiz was like a “second father” to the young Navarro, and served as his nephew’s life-long confidant.

Following his initial education in Béxar, José Antonio was sent to school in Saltillo, which was a mercantile center and also provided educational services for northeastern New Spain. Saltillo, like Béxar, evidently did not have public schools during the Spanish colonial period. Miguel Ramos Arizpe reported that the people “were anxious to be educated, but lacked the resources to attain it.” José Antonio had the advantage of family support, since his grandmother, Manuela de la Peña, and other relatives were natives of the provincial capital, and he probably studied under private tutors. Referring to himself and his siblings in his “Autobiographical Notes” written in 1841, Navarro said they received an education that “in those days … may have [been] called superior.” The quality of Navarro’s education is demonstrated by his remarkable proficiency as a writer and orator in his native Spanish.

José Antonio returned to Béxar in the summer of 1808, where his father “placed him in a house of business,” probably the Navarro family store. Perhaps it was intended that the younger Navarro would continue his education in Saltillo, but two circumstances prevented that. An accident changed his life at age thirteen when his left leg was fractured “by a blow.” The injured leg did not heal properly and he never regained full use of it. He was left with a permanent limp, and the leg was prone to periodic inflammation for the rest of his life. Physical ability was highly valued on the frontier, and Navarro’s prowess was diminished at the critical time of his life when he was on the verge of becoming a man. He must have expressed his anguish to his father. In a recollection that could only have come from José Antonio, his father counseled him, saying:

No my son … your physical infirmity need have no effect on your mind; the man that possesses moral courage carries more weight, and is more capable of defending his own rights and those of his fellow-citizens than he who possesses merely physical courage. You need not be afraid of being a laughing-stock, if you do not deviate from the narrow path of honor and virtue, for they have a magic and subtle strength which always compels respect.

The second setback came when Ángel Navarro, the Corsican patriarch, died on October 31, 1808, at about age fifty-eight. He was interred the next day in Campo Santo, the new cemetery west of San Pedro Creek—Ángel Navarro was the first to be buried in that sacred ground.

Accepting that he would not be able to live a physically robust life like other boys, José Antonio devoted extra effort to his studies, a devotion that became a lifelong practice. While working, he began an informal study of law, probably under the guidance of his uncle and mentor, José Francisco Ruiz, who had been elected to the city council as síndico procurador—city attorney and prosecutor and voting member of the city council. This personal relationship with a council member offered an opportunity for José Antonio to study municipal government and its legal processes from an insider’s point of view. He learned enough law to represent several clients during the next few years, but contrary to opinions expressed in later years, he was not a lawyer by profession. Nevertheless, his modest legal study provided a foundation for his effective service in two Texas constitutional conventions and in legislatures for Mexico, the Republic of Texas, and the state of Texas.

Navarro’s legal study completed the process that made him a well-educated man. His articulate expression, large vocabulary, and references to historical persons and events demonstrate that he read widely and was acquainted with works of law, history, and classical literature. For example, he was familiar with the great foundation of Spanish law, the Siete Partidas (Seven Sections). This compilation, originally prepared in the thirteenth century, remained in force in Mexico, at least in part, through the nineteenth century. In addition, Navarro showed familiarity with the Recopilacion de Leyes de las Indias, which formed the basis of government in Spanish America. In his “Autobiographical Notes,” Navarro compared the cruelties of the French Revolution to those perpetrated by General Joaquín de Arredondo at Béxar after he defeated the insurgents at the Battle of Medina in 1813. Navarro’s reading probably also included Enlightenment writers, as copies of their work are known to have been available to him. Navarro knew some medieval history as well, and compared the executions of Mexican revolutionary leaders to the Sicilian Vespers, a reference to an uprising that began at vespers on Easter Monday in 1282, when Sicilians slaughtered the French who occupied their island. Finally, Navarro was familiar with Greek literature, referring to himself as the “local Socrates” in a letter to Stephen F. Austin. He also mentioned the Coryphaeus (chorus leader in Greek theater) in discussing revolutionary leaders who did not recognize the danger to themselves after overthrowing the Spanish government of Béxar in 1811, and he described the Gutiérrez-Magee Expedition as the North American “Band of Leónidas.” Given the frontier conditions and his lack of formal instruction, Navarro’s education was a great accomplishment and one that led to his other achievements.

José Antonio’s formative years were passed during turbulent times for Texas—and the entire hemisphere. During the years between 1803 and 1821, three momentous events occurred that shaped the destinies of the United States and Mexico: the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, Napoleon’s invasion of Spain in 1808, and the Mexican Revolution that began in 1810 and ended with Mexico’s independence in 1821. Those were precisely the years when José Antonio Navarro grew from boy to man. Throughout these impressionable years his character and personality were shaped by a need to rebuild his family’s diminished fortune while coping with not only his physical disability and the death of his father, but also scarcities, revolutionary violence, exile, and even imprisonment.

Despite these obstacles, Jose Antonio’s bond with his family remained strong. The Ruiz-Navarro family union was further strengthened in 1810 by its joining with the Veramendi family through the marriage of José Antonio’s older sister, María Josefa, to Juan Martín de Veramendi. Dynastic and propitious family unions were important even on the frontier as a way of enhancing a family’s status and economic well-being. Obviously, such unions could provide political access as well as assist in developing business and social relationships. The Navarro, Ruiz, and Veramendi families were united not only by kinship and marriage, but also by shared political ideals and economic ambitions for Texas.

Veramendi was the son of a prominent and successful Spanish merchant. His multiple achievements have been overlooked or even maligned by Mexican historians, eventually reducing him to being known only, if at all, as the father-in-law of James Bowie. Following family tradition, Juan Martín entered Béxar politics and became a successful merchant. At the time of his marriage, Juan Martín was a rising star in local politics and would work his way up from various municipal positions to the highest levels of state government. José Antonio Navarro was seventeen years younger than his “political brother,” as he referred to Veramendi. If Ruiz was like a second father to Navarro, then Veramendi was apparently like another older brother—one who also became a trusted and experienced confidant. That the two men were close is evidenced by the fact that Veramendi later gave Navarro a power of attorney to represent him before authorities up to and including the Pope.

While José Antonio Navarro grew closer to Ruiz and Veramendi, he drifted away from his older brother José Ángel. After the death of Ángel Navarro, his oldest son became head of the family. As time passed, José Antonio became displeased with his brother’s performance in family affairs. For example, José Ángel lost the investment the family inherited upon the death of the Navarro patriarch at the annual fair in Saltillo in 1810. Years later, José Antonio’s memories of José Angel’s deficiencies were still vivid:

Under the inexperient [sic] tutelage of my oldest brother José Angel we could make but the little progress in promoting our interest and much less could we apply ou[rselves] to a more perfect education than we could if o[ur] f[ather had] lived.

(Continues…)Excerpted from José Antonio Navarro by David McDonald. Copyright © 2010 Texas State Historical Association. Excerpted by permission of Texas State Historical Association.
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