Date:12/20/98
From: Wallace Mckeehan
[Julia Kathryn] Garrett in her book, Green Flag Over Texas states "÷Antonio Delgado, leader of the militia of Bexar, and Ruiz, commander of troops of the Alamo÷these vengeful men guarded fourteen mounted prisoners÷valiant (Texas governor) Salcedo, "good and amicable (governor Nuevo Leon) Herrera" and twelve of their officers÷" The 14, thought to be on the way to the coast for transport to New Orleans or southern Mexico, were summarily executed
, mutilated and beheaded without spiritual sacrement just outside Bexar as described by Antonio Navarro and others in their memoirs .
Was this the same Francisco Ruiz, later commander of Ft. Tenoxtitlan, alcalde of Bexar in 1836 and signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence? Was he involved in the brutal executions? Were these executions justified?
Wallace Mckeehan
Bellaire, TX
Were the executions justified? It depends on whose standards of civilization you use as your basis of judgment. By the basic rules of war and diplomacy, not to mention human decency, to say such atrocities are justified is unconscionable. Even Nazi war criminals received a trial.
So, while not exactly innocents, Salcedo and Herrera did attempt to make an honorable surrender. Four of their thirteen conditions for surrender were made primarily for "humanitarian" reasons to protect the Bejareños. The other nine conditions asked that their army be allowed to return to the interior with their cannon, ammunition, baggage and provisions and that the Spanish officials not be mistreated...not totally unreasonable requests.
Gutiérrez and Kemper (Magee was, by this time, dead) accepted the four "humanitarian" conditions, but rejected the rest.
Salcedo and Herrera surrendered themselves unconditionally to avoid the city's destruction. According to Yoakum, Salcedo offered his sword to Captain Taylor who refused him and referred him to Kemper who also refused him passing him off to General Gutiérrez. Salcedo was so incensed by this treatment, that he "struck his sword into the ground in front of Gutiérrez and turned away."...So much for military decorum.
The Tejanos lied to the Americans with an alternate agenda in mind.
Ted Schwarz's "Forgotten Battlefield of the First Texas Revolution," gives us this description:
"... On the evening of April 3, Salcedo, Herrera, and twelve other prisoners were escorted out of Bexar under the guard of sixty mounted men. In command were Antonio Delgado, former corporal of the Bexar militia, and Pedro Prado and Francisco Ruiz of the Alamo Company. The Americans had permitted the release of the royalists because the ruling junta had assured them they were to be taken to Matagorda Bay, there to board a vessel and sail to safety in the United States. McLane said that Gutiérrez had proposed to the Americans that the prisoners had best be sent to La Bahía, where there were better security facilities, and the Americans, having no suspicions of his designs, readily consented to this arrangement.The journey ended six miles from Bexar, near the recent battle site. The prisoners were dismounted, disrobed, and robbed of their valuables. Governor Salcedo's tongue was cut out. After being refused spiritual sacrament, they were beheaded with swords whetted on the soles of their executioners' boots. The bodies were left on the field unburied."
Shortly after this incident and after the Battle of Medina many of their friends and relatives who had joined the insurgency were slaughtered as they attempted their escape to Louisiana. Members of the Leal, Arocha, and Delgado families, were apprehended by General Elizondo's troops. The heads of the various families were bound and led on a forced march to Fort Trinidad to stand before Elizondo. He condemned the men to instant death. They were led before their weeping families, where they were shot and denied burial.
Because of their participation in this assassination, Ruiz and others were exempted from a general pardon issued by Arrendondo in 1814. Ruiz lived in exile in Louisiana until Mexico gained its independance from Spain in 1821.
Randell Tarín
Date: 12/21/98
From: Dr. J. F. de la Teja
Francisco Ruiz was a native of San Antonio and, much as Erasmo Seguín, espoused a rather autonomous attitude toward politics, reflecting their Mexican War of Independence experiences. Although Seguín was never a military man, they both got swept up in events, fell afoul of Spanish authorities, but later went on to have successful political and professional careers.
In Ruiz's case, he was first elected to city govt. in 1805, and served again in 1809. In 1811 he began a military career, as many other frontiersmen did, by participating in the local militia company. Just as many other Bexareños joined the Republican Army of the North [see my essay on the subject, "Rebellion on the Frontier," in Tejano Journey, ed. Gerald E. Poyo (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996) for a different perspective than Garrett and others], Ruiz through in his lot with the people in power, at this point the insurgents. He was not commander of the Alamo company at this time, as that was a regular presidial unit rather than a militia unit, and we know the commander was Vizente Tarín.
As to his participation in the execution of the Spaniards captured at San Antonio in 1813, the available evidence and interpretations don't give a definitive answer. If he was a member of the escort led by Delgado, he certainly was not in charge. Delgado himself later claimed that the individual responsible for the murders was Pedro Prado. In any case, Ruiz's role may at best be regarded as ambiguous under the current state of knowledge.
As to the propriety of the executions, the evidence is so contradictory and self-serving that making heads or tails of it is conducive to migraine. We do know that Gutiérrez had some sort of trial in which the Spaniards were found guilty of treason (?!), a difficult thing to be guilty of, considering you are representing the established government. According to some evidence, the American officers object to the sentence of death, but Gutiérrez de Lara got his way by sending the Spaniards out of town, where the sentence could be carried out. Other evidence says that on their way out of town, a group of Tejanos, led by Delgado, seized the prisoners and executed them in retaliation for the previous execution of a family member for treason. There is, however, no evidence that Salcedo had anyone executed for treason. One observation seems warranted, Salcedo and Herrera escaped previous imprisonment by insurgents during the Casas Revolt of 1811 and had participated in the capture of Father Hidalgo, who had supporters all over Mexico, including Gutiérrez de Lara, himself. Remember that Gutiérrez de Lara went to the U.S. as a representative of Father Hidalgo. It is not unreasonable to hold, therefore, that Salcedo and the other Spaniards were killed in revenge for the execution of Father Hidalgo. Were the executions justified? Not being a revolutionary, I am of the opinion that they are not. The times were desparate, however, and Salcedo, Herrera, and some of the others did represent Spanish authority and had managed to turn the opinions of fence-sitters toward remaining loyal to the Crown. I'll be working on this subject over the next few months, and should have more to say later.
J. F. de la Teja
Associate Professor of History
Southwest Texas State University
San Marcos, Texas
Subject: José Francisco Ruiz
Date: 12/21/98
From: Robert Tarín
I would like to make one clarification concerning the identification of José Francisco Ruiz. The José Francisco Ruiz who commanded the Alamo Company and signed the Texas Declaration of Independence was NOTthe Alcalde of San Antonio in 1836. The Francisco Ruiz who was Alcalde was the SON (and according to some unpublished research, possibly an adopted nephew or other close relative) of the aforementioned José Francisco Ruiz who commanded the Alamo de Parras company. To help explain this I hereby provide a brief article that I researched and wrote back in 1992. It goes as follows:
José Francisco Ruiz
The historical personage of Lieutenant Colonel José Francisco Ruiz has been written about many times in many articles. Throughout them, his date of birth has often been inconsistent. It is a subject that has perplexed many historians. Some of this confusion is due to the commonality of the name "Francisco" in the Ruiz genealogy. In this examination of the historical record, it is hoped that a proximity of truth can be arrived at. A logical starting point is to look at Ruiz' immediate family. Information gleaned from the records of San Fernando Church as well as the missions in San Antonio provides the following:
Juan Manuel Ruiz, died July 30, 1797, married Manuela de la Peña
- María Gertrudis Josefa, born Nov. 22, 1766, married Ángel Navarro
- Ana Petra, born July 23, 1769, died Aug. 2, 1769
- Ana Petra de, born Aug. 22, 1770, baptized Sept. 11, 1770, died Sept. 1 [11?], 1770
- María Antonia, born Sept. 23, 1771, married 1st, Francisco Calvillo, 2nd [?], Aug. 21, 1788, Marcos Gil y Barbo, 3rd [?], March 20, 1802, Francisco Rodríguez
- José Antonio, born March 5 [9?], 1774, died March 13, 1774
- José Antonio Pablo Longino, born March 13, 1775, died Feb. 13, 1812
- María Rosalía, born May 12, 1777, married Feb. 25, 1800, Pedro de la Cerda
- María Ignacia, born Sept. 25, 1779, died Oct. 8, 1779
- José Antonio Francisco Victoriano, born Aug. 31, 1780, died Sept. 1780
- José Francisco, born Jan. 28, 1783, married April 11, 1804, María Josefa Hernández, born Dec. 26, 1767, baptized Jan. 3, 1768
- María Gertrudis, born Nov. 21, 1786
- Juan Francisco, [a twin] born March 8, 1789, died March 19, 1789
- José Francisco, [a twin] born March 8, 1789
Francisco Ruiz [Lt. Col. José Francisco Ruiz] married [María]
Josefa Hernández on April 11, 1804 at Mission Concepción.
The marriage record clearly shows him as the legitimate son of Juan Manuel
Ruiz, deceased, and Doña Manuela de la Peña. She was listed
as the legitimate daughter of Plácido Hernández, deceased,
and Rosalía Montes [de Oca]. The marriage entry does not list the
ages.
According to Frederick Chabot (With the Makers of S.A., p. 200), Lt. Col. Ruiz purchased a house and lot at Mission San José on March 19, 1824. It should be noted that during the early 1800's, there was another Francisco Ruiz also married to an Hernández. They were residents of Mission Concepción. Her name, however, was María Pascuala Hernández.
Listed in order, their three children were José, José Leonicio, and María Francisca. The wife died October 6, 1814 from having given birth three days prior. She was buried in the cemetery of Mission San José. This Francisco Ruiz was the son of José María Ruiz and Victoriana Morillo as evidenced by the naming of the paternal grandparents in the baptism of José Leonicio, the second child.
There was also a Juan Ruiz married to Francisca Hernández. Their son Juan, a coyote, was baptized at San Fernando Church on December 14, 1816. The child died and was buried the next day. The child's maternal grandparents were listed as Juan Hernández and María Guadalupe Zamorano. It is not clear who the paternal grandparents were.
Lt. Col. Ruiz and Josefa Hernández appear to have had three children. San Fernando Church baptisms reveal María Ludgarda de Jesús, born 1804, and María Antonia Paula de la Concepción, born 1809. A son, Francisco Antonio, does not appear in the church records, but was born in 1811 according to family tradition. It is this child, Francisco Antonio Ruiz, who was the alcalde of San Antonio during the 1836 battle of the Álamo. He married Concepción Soto, propagating several children.
Participating in the disastrous Battle of Medina on August 18, 1813, Ruiz, as one of the few survivors on the Republican side, fled to Louisiana remaining there until 1821. Initially, he subsisted by farming in the environs of Natchitoches. Once México gained independence, Ruiz and fellow exile Vicente Tarín, a former Spanish Royalist officer, were appointed commissioners by the new government to negotiate peace treaties with the Comanche and Lipan Indians. Successful in their efforts, Ruiz later escorted several chiefs to Mexico City where a treaty was signed. In the years that followed, Ruiz, as Lieutenant Colonel, commanded the reinstated cavalry company of San Carlos de Parras (La Segunda Compañía Volante de San Carlos de Parras del Álamo) and directed the construction of Fort Tenoxtitlán in 1830. It was this military troop's assignment at Mission San Antonio de Valero in 1803 that resulted in the mission becoming known as the "Álamo." Vicente Tarín, Ruiz' companion, had been commandant of the Álamo company shortly before San Antonio fell to the Americans on April 1, 1813. Ruiz was present at Washington-on-the-Brazos during the Convention of 1836 representing Béxar and signed the Texas Declaration of Independence. He died in San Antonio four years later on January 20, 1840.
I hope this clarifies things some.
Robert L. Tarín, Jr.
San Antonio, Texas
