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(1783-1840) by Bernice Strong ©1997, Texas State Historical Association |
Ruiz was elected regidor on the San Antonio cabildo or city council in 1805. His duties involved assisting the síndico procurador" (city attorney) in administering the affairs of a public slaughterhouse. In 1809 he was elected procurador. Beginning a long military career, he joined the Béxar Provincial Militia on January 14, 1811, with the rank of lieutenant. He joined the Republican Army at Bexar and served first under lose Bernardo Gutierrez de Lara and then José Alvarez de Toledo y Dubois. He took part in the battle of Medina on August 18,1813, and with the defeat of the revolutionaries and aprice on his head, Ruiz was "obliged to emigrate to the United States of the North." His nephew, José Antonio Navarro, who was also in exile, wrote of their "wandering in the State of Louisiana." When a proclamation of general amnesty was issued on October 10,1813, to the Mexican insurgents, Francisco Ruiz, Juan Martín de Veramendi, and a few others were excepted. The Ruiz family was on the "List of Insurgents for the Month of March 1814." Ruiz remained in exile until 1822, and spent part of this time with the Indians.1 In 1821, at the order of Augustin de Iturbide, he "occupied himself in making peace with the Indians until he succeeded in getting the hostile tribes of the North, the Comanches and Lipans, to present themselves in peace." In a letter to Antonio M. Martinez, Ruiz writes that he will leave Natchitoches, Louisiana, on November 1,1821, in compliance with the commission conferred on him by Gaspar Lopez, commandant general of the Eastern Internal Provinces, and take the Indians to the capitol if possible.
In 1822, his long exile ended, Ruiz returned to Texas, where he was appointed to the Mounted Militia. That same year he traveled with a party of Indians to Mexico City, where the Lipans signed a peace treaty ratified in September 1822 by the Mexican government. Ruiz was promoted in 1823 to army captain, unassigned, with the rank of lieutenant colonel. His commission was confirmed on September 23,1825. On June 22,1826, he wrote the president of Mexico requesting the command of a post. He was sent to Nacogdoches in December 1826 to help put down the Fredonian Rebellion, and by April 1827 he was in command of a detachment there. In 1828 Ruiz returned to Bexar, where he commanded the Alamo de Parras company and assisted Gen. Manuel de Mier y Teran in his study of the Texas Indians. It was probably during this time that Ruiz wrote his "Report on the Indian tribes of Texas in 1818," preserved in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University. During his years in the military Ruiz gained the trust of the Indians as negotiator. The Shawnees referred to him as "A good man no lie and a friend of the Indians."
With the passage of the Law of April 6, 1830, General Mier instructed Antonio Elozúa, military commandant in Bexar, to dispatch Ruiz with the Álamo de Parras company to establish a military post on the Brazos at the upper crossing of the Bexar Nacogdoches road. Its primary purpose was to prevent further American colonization from this direction. Ruiz set out on June 25,1830, with his company and kept a diary of the trip, in which he recorded their arrival at the Brazos on July 13,1830. They chose a site on August 2 on the west side of the river, in what is now Burleson County, and gave their post the name Fort Tenoxtitlan. Colonel Ruiz encountered many difficulties as commandant of the fort--isolation, hostile Indians, and desertions and other crimes. The post suffered shortages of food, funds, and military personnel. In a letter to his friend Stephen F. Austin on November 26,1830, Ruiz stated that he was tired of his command and wanted to get out of military service. He longed to obtain land and build a house so he could bring his family from Bexar and settle down as a rancher. On October 16, 1831, he wrote Vice President Anastasio Bustamante asking to be separated from the army because of failing health. He outlined his military career and asked for retirement or a permanent leave. In a letter of November 13 to his friend and superior Elozúa, Ruiz described a debilitating illness that had impaired his hearing and caused his hair to fall out. On August 15,1832, he received orders to abandon the fort and move his troops back to Bexar. Ruiz received his retirement and military pay from the Mexican government at the end of 1832. On January 17,1836, James W. Robinson, lieutenant governor of the provisional government of Texas, appointed him one of five commissioners to treat with the Comanche Indians. When the struggle for Texas independence gained momentum in 1835, Ruiz allied himself with its cause. He traveled to Washington on the Brazos in late February 1836 as a delegate to the Convention of l836. There he and his nephew José Antonio Navarro signed the Texas Declaration of Independence on March 2,1836, the only native Texans among the fifty nine men who affixed their names to this document.
Still away from his home in the service of the republic, Ruiz wrote
his son in law, Blas María Herrera, on December 27,1836, from Columbia,
Texas. In this letter, still in family possession, he eloquently expressed
his affection and longing for his family and his support for the young
Republic of Texas. "Under no circumstance," he wrote, "take sides against
the Texans . . . for only God will return the territory of Texas to the
Mexican government." Ruiz represented the Bexar District as its senator
in the First Congress of the Republic of Texas, from October 3,1836, to
September 25,1837. He was a Catholic. He was married in San Antonio on
March 8,1804, to Joséfa Hernandez. They had four children, of whom
one was Francisco Antonio Ruiz, alcalde of San Antonio during the battle
of the Alamo. Besides the property Ruiz owned in and around San Antonio,
in 18 and 1834 he received eleven leagues of land that is now part of Robertson,
Brazos, Milam, Burleson, and Karnes counties. Ruiz died in San Antonio,
probably on January 19,1840, and is buried there.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Jean Louis Berlandier, Indians of Texas in 1830, ed.,
John C. Ewers and trans. Patricia Reading Leclerq (Washington: Smithsonian,
1969). Frederick Charles Chabot, With the Makers of San Antonio (Yanaguana
Society Publications, San Antonio, 1937). Louis Wiltz Kemp, The Signers
of the Texas Declaration of Independence (Salado, Texas: Anson Jones, 1944;
rpt. 1959). Walter G. Stuck, José Francisco Ruiz: Texas Patriot
(San Antonio: Witte Memorial Museum, 1943). Vertical Files, Barker Texas
History Center, University of Texas at Austin.
1 Recent research has shown that Ruiz's "time among the Indians" after the "Battle of Medina" in August of 1813, was actually spent in exile in the United States. Ruiz, along with other Tejano rebels took refuge in an encampment near Natchitoches, Louisiana. He with others participated in the running of weapons to Indians that were hostile to the Spanish. This seditionary relationship most likely gave rise to the often repeated account that his time was spent entirely with the Indians. There is also evidence to suggest that he also participated in actions against the British during the Battle of New Orleans.