Guadalupe County News and People

Juan Seguin

SEGUIN, Tex. (AP) – A Texas Revolution hero forced to flee to Mexico because he said he had been made to feel "a foreigner in my native land," has returned to a final resting place of honor in the town named after him.

The remains of Juan Nepomuceno Seguin, a colonel in the Texas Army, friend of Stephen F. Austin and Sam Houston, and the man who first learned of the fall of the Alamo and buried its defenders, were brought back to Texas from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, Friday. He will be reburied in Seguin and a memorial built to him as part of the South Texas city's commemoration of the U.S. Bicentennial. Seguin, mayor of San Antonio, member of Congress, and cofounder of the Bexar County Democrats, was a controversial personality who at times was accused of sympathizing with the Mexican government following Texas' War of Independence. In his memoirs he said his political enemies forced him to flee to Mexico where he was offered a choice of imprisonment as a Texas rebel or service in the Mexican Army. He chose Army service.

Seguin was born in San Antonio in 1806. His father,Erasmo, attended the congress in Mexico City that drafted the 1824 constitution. Don Erasmo sent a copy to his son and asked him to pass it to his friends for their information. On April 22, 1825, Seguin mailed a copy to Austin so he could inform his colonists. In 1834 Seguin joined the Ango colonists as the feeling of independence grew throughout Texas. He met Austin and Houston on the Salado Creek and was appointed a captain of Calvalry and attached to the commands of James Bowie and James Fannin. He participated in the battle at Conception, the Grass Fight and the siege and storming of Bexar. He and his father drew freely from their ranch to supply the Texans with food, arms and ammunition, according to Seguin's memoirs.

In January 1836 Seguin reported to Col. William B. Travs at San Antonio. He and his men were at the Alamo when the Mexican forces arrived. On the night of February 29th, Seguin was elected to go in search of assistance. He borrowed Bowie's horse to make his way through the Mexican lines. On March 6 he attempted to return to the Alamo with provisions and became the first Texan soldier to learn of the fall the Alamo. Later he was ordered to protect the rear guard of the eastwardly retreating Texian Army. He participated in the Battle of San Jacinto and later was attached to the command of Col. Henry Karnes whose mission was to communicate Santa Ana's defeat to the Mexican Army and escort it on its retreat to Matamoros.He was promoted to colonel in May 1836 and told to assume command of San Antonio. According to his memoirs,Seguin's conflicts with the Texians began in December 1836 when he tried to stop Army officers from raiding cattle ranches owned by residents of San Antonio and surrounding areas. He complained to Sam Houston, He was elected to the Senate of the Republic of Texas in 1837 and served until 1840. Seguin fought on the losing side when he joined the federalist forces fighting the centralists.

He was installed as mayor of San Antonio in 1841. In 1842 a Mexican force invaded San Antonio and left shortly thereafter.But before leaving its commander, Gen. Rafael Vazquez, told the citizens that Seguin sympathized with the Mexican cause.

Seguin said in his memoirs that at this time his political enemies began a smear campaign against him and attempted to kill him, forcing him to flee to Nuevo Laredo. It was when he arrived inNuevo Laredo that he was offered the choice of imprisonment or service in the Mexican Army. Shortly thereafter Seguin appears back in Texas as a scout for a Mexican force. “It is hard to determine his role at that time," said Richard G Santos, a historian and professor at Our Lady of the Lake College in, San Antonio. Santos, who is writing a book titled

"The Odyssey of Juan N. Seguin," pointed out that Seguin fed wrong information to the Mexican forces regarding the position of Texian forces in the area. Santos said his book will have information that will bring to light Seguin's time motives and actions during that period. Santos noted that Seguin's actions at the time were not held against him later by Sam Houston. In 1848 Seguin wrote to Houston saying he wanted to return to Texas. By 1852 he was elected justice of the Peace of Precinct 8 of Bexar County. In 1855 he was nominated to co-chairmanship of the Bexar County Democratic party and appointed to a committee to draw the party's platform.

In 1862 Seguin moved to Monterrey, Mexico, to accept a position in the army of Benito Juarez then engaged in a war against invading French forces. "It was a time of confusion," Santos said. "We must remember that Juarez received a lot of support from the United States and a lot of that help in the form of arms,money and men was funneled through San Antonio. Many volunteers from South Texas joined the Juarez army to fight the French." Seguin was an officer in the Mexican Army that defeated the French at the battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. The Mexican forces were under the command of Gen. Ignacio Zaragoza, Seguin's uncle, who also a Texian born in Goliad. Seguin returned to Wilson County in 1873 and applied for and received a pension from the Texas Army. By 1883 he had moved to Nuevo Laredo to live with his son, the mayor of the town. In 1887 he was denied a pension from the Mexican Army on the grounds that he had served as an irregular cavalry officer and had been a Texas rebel. He died peacefully in 1890. In his memoirs Seguin discussed the problems he had with the Anglo settlers who had moved to San Antonio. "In those evil days," he said, San Antonio was swarming with adventures from every quarter of the globe. Many a noble heart grasped Uie sword in the defence of the liberty of Texas ... but there were also many bad man, fugitives from their country, who found in this land an open field for their criminal designs." He criticized his political enemies saying they attacked him because he tried to defend his fellow Mexican-Texans. "I have been the object of the hatred and passionate attacks of some few dsorganizers, who, for a time, ruled, as masters over the poor and oppressed population of San Antonio ... a victim to the wickedness of a few men, whose imposture was favored by their origin, and recent domination over the country; a foreigner in my native land..."

His feelings toward Texas were expressed when he said he had been forced to seek shelter "amongst those against whom I had fought (Mexico) I separated from my country, parents, family, relatives and friends, and what was more, from the institutions on behalf of which I had drawn my sword with the earnest wish to see Texas free and happy."

source: The Paris News Sunday Sept 22, 1974