The Devil Rode on Horseback

It's been a while since I last posted on Stolen Heritage-Revisited. Well, I'm back. I started back with my college classes and have a full schedule. However, after speaking with el primo Lonnie Ybarbo, I've come to realize that it's not that simple. There are mysteries and buried stories that take one down the proverbial "rabbit hole." My aim from the beginning was to understand what happened, but in the process, may have exceeded my grasp in trying to understand the plight of Antonio de la Garza.

I guess I shot first and asked questions later. But to be real, to be honest, to reach back in time it takes an extraordinary amount of time and effort. Yet, I came to realize that the O'Connors were mere pawns in this game. I came to the conclusion that there were bigger players involved in this damn saga. It's bigger than me, it's bigger than all of us. It's a tragedy. Thanks to that devil, Hobart Husson and his book: Refugio: A Comprehensive History of Refugio County from Aboriginal Times... and the other devil's book: Texas Irish Empresarios and their Colonies by William Oberste I've come to some sobering realities.

O'Connors are nothing more than an after thought, secondary to these robber barrons. But until I post again, I will not refrain from exculpating the dumbest country on earth: Mexico. What they were trying to accomplish and what they thought they were going to gain was nothing but an illusion. An illusion they bit into by the none other than the devil himself. To be continued...

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Racial Injustice in Refugio, Texas

Becerra Land Grant As most of us know now, in 1832, the Mexican government bestowed a first-class land grant of two leagues (8,856 acres) to Manuel Becerra. The land grant was approved by the ayuntamiento (town council) of Goliad and by the then-Tejas-Mexican governor, Francisco Vidaurri. However, when James Power and James Hewetson's Colony was established in 1834, Becerra's land was not surveyed or included in the colony. This suggests that racial injustice occurred between the white colonists and the existing Mexican landowners as evidenced by Abel Rubio’s book, Stolen Heritage. Yet the following facts are the facts and help shed light on their importance in what was to become known as the great theft: Irish Colonists, Omission of Becerra One, the Power and Hewetson's Colony was a group of white Irish immigrants who came to Texas in 1833. The colony was founded under the provisions of the Colonization Law of 1825, which allowed empresarios to recruit imm...

Old Maps and Deception

Well, it may come as no surprise to some, but I needed to validate this map search for myself and perhaps others in the group. Remarkably, what was said by Rubio speaks out in the maps. I was fortunate to access the Texas General Land Office database in Austin . More specifically, I was able to locate all the maps that were relevant to the story timeline. These Refugio Co maps date from 1850 - 1875. They are relevant only because they date the span of time the de la Garza's were on the land. Looking at them I was disappointed to see that all 5 original maps did not contain a Becerra or de la Garza name. Now, this is where it gets interesting. It's simple, 1. Becerra and de la Garza families lived in a parallel universe and the rest of Refugio lived in another, as in the left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing, 2. They knew who was on the land but didn't care to investigate. Instead allowing Anglo colonizers to take it outright and not bother as to w...

To Understand, We Go to the Beginning

So how do we come to understand historical outcomes? How can we come to understand the gaps that exist between a series of events? The natural thing to do is to look at the byproduct of a chain of events that took place over 150 years ago and to draw assumptions. Yet assumptions can never be trusted. Assumptions can be correct, or they can lead us astray, they can lead us into a wilderness of non-existent facts and narratives that can't be tested. I do think the natural byproduct we have come accustomed to is the end result. This end result as we all know by now is the plight of Antonio de la Garza and his family. Yet, the more important question to ask is how did it all begin? How did history lead us to this point? I believe that in order to understand this chain of events and to see it with a clear lens is to take a step back and start at the beginning. I have a good idea now as to whether Becerra's claim to title is valid or not. I plan on showing that it was. But I...

Stolen Heritage Revisited

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