CHAPTER 1
Madisonville—Trinidad,The Green Flag Republic
The first lap of our Cradle of Texas Road celebrates anevent preceding the arrival of Stephen F. Austin to Texas.Our journey begins at Madisonville at the intersection ofhighway 90 and the Old San Antonio Road, OSR, now highway 21.Madisonville is the county seat of Madison County, both city andtown being named for the fourth president of the United States. Alongthe OSR from Madisonville east to the Trinity River were stageddramatic events surrounding both the birth and final demise of the1st Republic of Texas. A marker at Midway, between Madison ville andthe Trinity, tells the story succinctly. We will relay the words of themarker and then expand upon the story the marker summarizes:
Site of Trinidad
Later known as Spanish Bluff. A fort and town as early as1805. Captured by the Magee-Gutierrez Expedition in October1812, Near here the survivors of the Battle of Medina wereexecuted in 1813. Inhabitants of the town were butchered byorder of the Spanish commander and the town desolated.
First Declaration of the 1st Texas Republic
The full name of Trinidad was Santisima Trinidad de Salcedo. TheMagee-Gutiérrez Expedition cited on the marker references a groupof Anglo-Americans, Native Americans and Tejanos termed the"Republican Army of the North." While in Trinidad in October 1812,they declared Texas as a state free of Spanish control— from theTrinity to the Sabine River. By the following April, 1813, the grouphad conquered San Antonio, the Spanish capital of Texas. Declaringthe whole state free on 6 April, they then proceeded to draw up aconstitution on the 17th of that month. Truly a multicultural marvel,this, the First Republic of Texas, featured a Green Irish Flag flyingover a Tejano-Anglo state.
Roots of the Green Flag
The foundation of the Green Flag Republic lay in the "Father ofMexico", Miguel Hidalgo's, drive to free all of Mexico from Spain.As a Lt. Colonel in Hidalgo's Army, the later president of the GreenFlag Republic, Don Bernardo Gutiérrez de Lara, began his quest forfreedom acting on direct instructions from Hidalgo, himself, to gothe United States to secure aid. As a result, he recruited a force withUS native, Augustus Magee, the originator of the green flag, at thecommand. Significant to these events was the wife of Don Bernardo,Doña María Joséfa de Uribe Gutiérrez. Staying behind with her familythroughout the ordeal of the rise and fall of the 1st Republic of Texas,she exhibited great courage, her suffering extending to being removedfrom her home at the hands of Spanish authorities. Truly, Doña Maríawas a magnificent original First Lady of Texas, although her time inthe position was short.
Multicultural makeup
Significant to the story of the Green Flag Republic is its multiculturalmake up. The Mexican, Don Bernardo, was a citizen of a Catholicculture. His mentor, Miguel Hidalgo, had taken as his banner theimage of the Virgin of Guadalupe. This image had found root inMexico with the appearance of an apparition of the Virgin Mary toJuan Diego, an Aztec, in 1531, at the shrine of Tonantzin, the Aztecmother goddess. Following the apparition's directive, Juan Diegoattempted to convince the local Catholic authorizes of the miraculousoccurrence. Upon his failure here, he followed her orders to presentto the authorities roses wrapped within a blue cape. It was in Januaryand roses had never been at the shrine at that time of year. However,there they were and Juan Diego did as the apparition demanded. Uponpresenting them however, instead of roses in the cape there was animage of the virgin. Thus was born what would become overtime thePatroness of the Americas, and the fundamental national symbol ofMexico.
Even with this strong Catholic heritage behind him, Don Bernardoyet recruited an army of citizens from the United States, a nation withAnglo-Protestant roots. Not only were those roots Protestant, butthey were riding the crest of a Second "Great Religious Awakening."Exhibiting, therefore, a grand degree of togetherness, the group alsopicked up, along the way, a substantial cadre of Native Americansand a few African-Americans. Together, the assemblage worked itsway from Louisiana to San Antonio, winning every major battle enroute. On 4 August 1813, Don Bernardo Gutiérrez de Lara was forcedto yield the leadership of the Green Flag Republic to José ÁlvarezToledo. Only when this change in their government brought a realignmentof their politics and army, isolating the units according torace, did the Army of the 1st Republic lose a major battle.
The Pivotal Battle of Medina
Awesome was that loss; the Battle of Medina on 18 August 1813marked the most disastrous defeat ever on Texas soil. As impliedon the marker cited above, after the battle Spanish troops underthe command of Colonel Ignacio Elizondo pursued the remnantsof the escaping Texas Army. Establishing his headquarters betweenthe area of present Madisonville and the Trinity, Elizondo directedhis forces to execute with impunity most of the Texas Patriots theymanaged to apprehend. In the process, they also demolished the verytown of Trinidad to the extent that its exact location is yet a matterof dispute.
The great lesson of the First Republic of Texas, torn as it was bydisastrous dissension at the Battle of Medina, is "united we stand,divided we fall." (See supplement two, for a feature article andbibliography on the 1st Republic)
Remember the Alamo
Besides its association with the area where Texas was first declared afree republic, the Madisonville area is fascinating for other reasons.For example, a Madison County man, Major W.C. Young, is creditedwith originating the battle cry, "Remember the Alamo!" Other Texanstook up the cry as they engaged the pivotal battle for the independenceof Texas at the Battle of San Jacinto.
A Texan's Texas Town
Madisonville is a real Texan's cattle town. In the 1950's and 60's,Madison County boasted more cattle per acre than other county inTexas. The famous Sidewalk Cattleman's Association event, celebratedin late May and early June, proffered the idea that Madisonville hadtoo many "sidewalk cowboys." If one wore boots but did not own cows,he would be dumped into the horse trough on the square. Specifically,so the legend goes, should one have at least one cow, one was allowedto wear one pants leg tucked inside a boot. It took the ownership of atleast two or more cows to warrant having both pants legs tucked in.
The Mushroom Festival
Another major event of the year is the famous Mushroom Festival,complete with a dinner the evening before a full Saturday of fun andgames and, of course, delicious culinary treats. The festival is in lateOctober.
Bucareli
Between Madisonville and the Trinity outside of Midway is anothermarker to an event with impact on the area of the Cradle Road.This is the story of a settlement called Bucareli. The story beginswith the Spanish moving the capital of Texas from Los Adaes, inpresent Louisiana, to San Antonio in 1773. As a consequence, manysettlers from East Texas were forced to move west to the new seat ofgovernment.
Some of those removed became unhappy with their newsurroundings and appealed to the Spanish Viceroy Antonio Mariade Bucareli to allow them to move closer to the area of their originalhomes. The appeal being successful, they established a community atthe junction of San Antonio Road and the Trinity River. The thankfulcolonists named the community Nuestra Señora del Pilar de Bucareli.This was in September 1774 and the citizens were given a ten-yearwaiver of taxes.
Things went seemingly well until 1777 when an epidemicapparently stemming from contaminated water, in conjunction withraids by the Comanche's in the following year, doomed the settlement.The inhabitants consequently abandoned Bucareli, to found the townof Nacogdoches. (See Indians and Pioneers of Original MontgomeryCounty, 25-26)
On highway 21 four miles east of Midway, just west of the Trinity andhence in original Montgomery County territory, is a marker whichreads as follows:
Bucareli: In this vicinity, at Paso Tomas on the Trinity, wasthe Spanish town Nuestra Senora del Pilar De Bucareli (1774-1779).Indian troubles had caused Spain to move Louisianacolonists to Bexar [San Antonio]. These people, however, fled toreturn to East Texas, and secured the consent of Viceroy AntonioMaria Bucareli. Led by Gil Ybardo (1729-1809), they built at theTrinity crossing a church, plaza and wooden houses, and grew toa town of 345 people. But ill luck with crops, a few Comancheraids, and river floods sent the settlers farther east. Again led byYbardo, they rebuilt the old town of Nacogdoches, 1779.
The epidemic mentioned in the marker not only played a pivotalrole in the history of citizens of Bucareli. It also led to the loss ofperhaps half of the Native American tribe known as the Bidai (BeeDye), marking the demise of that great tribe as a major player in Texashistory. We turn now to more on that story.
CHAPTER 2
Bedias, Original Native Americans
Moving south from Madisonville on Highway 90 we cometo Bedias, named for the Native American Tribe of thatname, also referred to as the Bidai. The Bedias claimedto be the original tribe of Texas and the leaders of the whole area. Atthe time the Europeans began to occupy Texas, their main range wasbetween the Brazos and Trinity Rivers, west to east, and from SpringCreek to the Old San Antonio Road, south to north—the range of thewhole Cradle of Texas Road. However, their range once extended farto the east of the Trinity. For example, they were allied to the Caddo,and were the builders of the great Caddo Mounds of East Texas.
A distinctive feature of the Bidai was their shaman, consideredby all their neighbors as possessed of awesome supernatural power.It was believed that the shaman could assume the form of an owl andvisit alien campfires, casting spells for good or evil.
The Bidai were a tribe of diplomats, maneuvering between variouswarring factions of Texas history, both among the Native Americans,themselves, and the French, Spanish and Anglo-Americans. So adeptwere they at games of intrigue that they were once trusted with aposition within which they could have completely undermined theSpanish goals in Texas. This was in the early seventeen seventies, justbefore the epidemic at Bucareli mentioned above, which decimatedtheir ranks.
Saga of the Triple Alliance:
In the late eighteenth century, the Spanish had initiated a reversal intheir Indian policy. Part of the new policy hinged on building alliancesagainst the Apaches, with whom they had found it futile to build aneffective friendship.
As a means toward implementing the policy they sought tomaneuver the Bidai into drawing upon their close relations with theHasinai Caddo to set the stage for an alliance with the Indians ofnorth, the Norteños, and with the Comanche's. The Caddo, however,much like the Bidai, had been driven to despise the Spanish missionsystem. With their sufficient agricultural system and independenceof mind, the Hasinai had not succumbed in great numbers to themachinations of the Spanish seeking to place them in the missions,making of them docile neophytes.
Hence the Hasinai or Tejas (Texas) and the Bidai entered into aconspiracy to bring the Apache into a three-way alliance with them.Such a three-way confederacy would be a major counterweight to theSpanish desires. The Spanish had not yet solidified their projectedalliance neither with the Norteños nor with the Comanche's; thealliance was yet in a formative, if not dream state. A solid three-wayconfederacy against Spanish interests would be a threat of majorproportions. (See Indians and Pioneers of Original Montgomery County,p23-25)
In his book, Doomed Road of Empire, (p.148) Hodding Carter getsto the heart of the matter:
Now came intrigue. Governor Ripperda [of Spanish Texas]learned that the Apaches feared the treaties being signed by theNations of the North would produce a coalition, which might seekto destroy them. Through the Bidais, a separate tribe who livedsouth of the camino real [San Antonio Road] and to whom theyhad long traded horses for guns as intermediaries, the Apachessuggested to the Texas that the three nations meet for an allianceof their own ... Let the Apaches unite with the Bidais and theTexas, and they in turn with the Nations of the North, and Spainwould not have the power to protect the presidios of Texas or evenCoahuila itself. Something would have to be done."
Hodding Carter further stated, "When Mézieres [Spanish liaisonto the Native Americans of Texas] learned in Natchitoches that fourApache chiefs and their bands were on their way to the Texas andthe Bidais Indians to draw up the proposed treaty, he had no time tolose." The Spanish were bent upon exerting maximum pressure on theBidai and Hasinai to abort their scheme. Fortunate were the Spanishthat there had been a long history of bad relations between these twoeastern tribes with their would-be Apache ally upon which to buildand manipulate them.
The Spanish therefore, through guile, cunning and promises, wereable to prevail, preventing the consummation of the treaty. We oncemore turn to Hodding Carter, who wrote that the Spanish convincedthe Bidai and the Texas that they "they should never forget that theApaches were truly their enemies and must be treated as such."
The two Eastern tribes obviously were drawn to the Spanishposition as shown in the following quote from Carter (p.149):
When the Apache chiefs entered [the] tent they were attackedby Texas tribesmen. Three Apache were slain. The Bidais dancedover the dead bodies. Thus was the potentially dangerousalliance among the Apaches, the Texas and the Bidai avoided.At Natchitoches, Mass was said and the Te deum sung in the newparish church, resplendent in its glittering silver ornaments, forthe success of Spanish arms and the beneficial results of the tourof Captain de Mézieres.
Given the Bidai's historic penchant for intrigue, their extendedgeographical range over the course of their history and the uncertaintyof the roots of their language, an enticing possibility presents itself.The background to this thesis rests with a book, which the NaylorCompany published in 1967 entitled Latest Aztec Discoveries.The author, Guy E. Powell, a former naval commander, makes aninteresting case for the location of the original home of the Aztecs andToltecs, and for an early home for the Mayas. Powell takes the positionthat all three of these great civilizations made their way to what wouldbecome the country of Mexico from an area in East Texas that couldsurely encompass the range the Bidai claimed for themselves, claimswhich the Caddo confirmed. Could the Bidai be descendants of oneor all of these great civilizations?
The epicenter of this early abode of three significant tribes ranged,according to Powell, from about present Trinity to Groveton, Texasgenerally encompassing Trinity County. This was the land to whichthe Aztecs referred as Aztlan, known as the "white place" for the typeof rocks in the area.
At the outset, let it be understood that there are many arguablepositions on the location from which the great Mexican civilizationssprung. All have their supporters and doubters. One of the moreremarkable of these suppositions is derived from a map by thegreat explorer and geographer, Alexander von Humboldt. In 1810,Humboldt's map depicted Aztlan far to the north. Amongst its notablefeatures, Humboldt's map preserves the tradition that the Aztecsmigrated to Mexico from the land of Aztlan, usually referenced asa mysterious place which the Spanish thought was located near theGreat Salt Lake in modern Utah.
