Manuel María de Salcedo y Quiroga, (1776 in Málaga, Spain – executed, April 3, 1813), was a governor of Texas from 1808 until his execution in 1813. Salcedo gained leadership experience helping his father Juan Manuel de Salcedo, the 11th and last Spanish governor of Louisiana, (1801–November 30, 1803, when it was handed back to the French). In 1807, the younger Salcedo was appointed governor of Texas, and he officially assumed that role on November 7, 1808. As governor, he and his uncle Nemesio Salcedo, the Commandant General of the Interior Provinces, often disagreed, especially on immigration issues.
Salcedo was overthrown by Juan Bautista de las Casas in January 1811 and imprisoned for several months in Monclova. After he persuaded his captor, Ignacio Elizondo, to switch allegiances, Salcedo assisted in capturing documents detailing the movements of Miguel Hidalgo's army. The rebel army was captured one week later, and Salcedo led the military tribunal which eventually sentenced the rebel leaders to death. After fulfilling his duties with the tribunal Salcedo returned to Texas, but he did not resume his duties for several months as a result of a dispute with his uncle and whether he was at fault for his own capture.
In 1812, Salcedo led the Spanish army in Texas against the filibusters calling themselves the Republican Army of the North. He was never able to defeat that army, and he surrendered on April 2, 1813. Despite assurances that he would be imprisoned, extremists of the filibuster forces executed him the following day. To avenge Salcedo's death, the Spanish army quickly reconquered Texas and dealt harshly with any they suspected of treason.
Manuel María de Salcedo was born in Málaga, Spain, on April 3, 1776, to Juan Manuel de Salcedo and Francisca de Quiroga y Manso. When he was seven, Salcedo enrolled at the Royal Academy of Ocana, later transferring to the Royal Seminary of Nobles, where he trained until he was 17. Salcedo then joined the infantry, where he reached the rank of lieutenant and served under his father at Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the Canary Islands. In 1801, his father became the governor of Spanish Louisiana, and Salcedo accompanied him to New Orleans.[1]
In New Orleans, Salcedo served as a boundary commissioner as Spain prepared to transfer the colony back to France.[2] He married in 1803 to a local woman of Spanish and French ancestry, Maria Guadalupe Prietto y la Ronde. They returned to Spain the following year after Napoleon transferred Louisiana to the United States through the Louisiana Purchase.[1]
While living in Spain, Salcedo was appointed the governor of Spanish Texas.[1] At this time, Texas was a sparsely populated province consisting of three primary settlements connected by the Camino Real, with a few presidios and over a dozen missions scattered throughout the wilderness. The province was bordered on the south and west by the Nueces and Medina Rivers, with the Red River comprising its northern and eastern border.[3] The capital was the villa of San Fernando, commonly called San Antonio de Bexar after the local presidio, Presidio San Antonio de Bexar.[4] Approximately 2,500 people, including soldiers, lived in San Antonio,[5] with an additional 600 residents at La Bahia[6] and about 770 people in Nacogdoches.[7]
As governor, Salcedo would be the representative of the Spanish king in Texas.[8] As a deputy of the Commandant General of the Interior Provinces, at this time his uncle, Nemesio Salcedo,[9] the governor was the military commander for the province and had the power to appoint lieutenants and corporals to oversee the presidios and mission defenses. He would also serve as the civil administrator, and had final approval of the results of all elections.[10]
Salcedo took a preliminary oath of office on May 1, 1807, and he and his wife and daughter left for North America.[1] The family traveled by boat to New Bedford, Massachusetts, where they took a stagecoach to Providence, Rhode Island, and New Haven, Connecticut. They also visited New York City, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh before cruising down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to Natchez and then traveling overland to Texas.[2] Salcedo officially assumed the governorship of the province on November 7, 1808.[11]
In his first year in office, Salcedo faced many issues, often pitting himself against his uncle, Nemesio Salcedo. After visiting with the Americans for so many months, Salcedo warned of "the aggressive spirit of Anglo-American frontiersmen."[12] To minimize the threat to the Spanish borderlands, Salcedo recommended that Texas welcome more settlers and soldiers to the area.[12] He recommended that immigrants who could demonstrate their loyalty to Spain be welcomed into the province, including men deserting from the U.S. Army.[13] His uncle instead ordered the border be closed to all people from Louisiana, regardless of their ethnic background.[14] Despite the order, Salcedo still permitted slave owners from the U.S. to enter Texas in order to reclaim runaway slaves.[15]
Money was continually tight in the province, with little coming from the interior provinces.[16] At one point, Salcedo became desperate enough for funds that he asked citizens in the province to donate money to pay the troops who helped protect them.[17] He also continued to receive complaints and reprimands from his uncle, who "commended almost every high-ranking officer in the borderlands except" for Salcedo.[18]
After almost eighteen months in office, Salcedo decided to inspect other areas of the province. He left San Antonio de Bexar on March 11, 1810, to tour East Texas.[19] The United States and Spain were contesting the location of the border between Louisiana and Texas, and in response the local military commanders had declared the area between the Sabine River and the Red River to be a neutral ground which neither army would cross. As a result, this section of land became a haven for outlaws. While visiting Nacogdoches, Salcedo recommended that Spanish troops combine with an equal number of American soldiers to mount an offensive against the bandits.[20] He also personally interrogated the heads of new immigrant families to the area to determine whether they would be loyal to Spain.[21]
After returning to San Antonio, Salcedo learned that the Central Junta of Seville had issued an edict inviting Hispanic colonists overseas to send representatives to the junta. The people of San Antonio promptly elected Salcedo to represent them.[22] Nemesio Salcedo invalidated the election on the pretext that San Antonio did not have a cabildo, which was a prerequisite for balloting. Salcedo soothed the people of San Antonio by explaining that his primary obligation as governor of Texas required his presence in Texas. Instead, Texas would be represented by Coahuila's representative, Antonio Cordero.[23]
Salcedo left for a tour of the southern part of Texas on September 12, 1810.[24] Four days later, Father Miguel Hidalgo launched a revolution in Mexico. Hidalgo believed that only people born in New Spain knew what was best for the area, and he claimed to also want to govern in the name of deposed king Ferdinand VII of Spain.[25] His goal was to inflame the northernmost provinces, especially Texas, in the hopes that his cause might win the support of the United States.[26] When news of the revolt reached East Texas, many of the colonists fled into Louisiana, afraid the presidio would be unable to protect them.[27] Salcedo offered a blanket amnesty to the settlers if they would return to Texas by November 1.[28]
Salcedo returned to San Antonio de Bexar in late October and began making plans to protect Texas.[29] He requested permission to create a militia with 200 local gentry from Texas to help patrol Texas, but this was denied.[30][31] To guard against the spread of seditious literature, Salcedo instructed the San Antonio postmaster, Erasmo Seguin, to hold all incoming and outgoing mail pouches until they had been inspected by the governor. This privacy infringement was not publicized.[32] When the amnesty for East Texas settlers expired, Salcedo also ordered the borders closed and all settlers in the province confined to the immediate vicinity of their homes.[28] Both the confinement and the mail reading were overturned by Nemesio Salcedo as being too strict.[33] To improve response time, however, Nemesio Salcedo did authorize his nephew to open any correspondence from the United States that was addressed to the commandant general.[31]
At the end of November, Salcedo received a message from the viceroy of New Spain instructing him that Hidalgo and his confederates Ignacio Allende and Juan Aldama were expected to invade Texas, and that Salcedo was expected to capture them.[33] This posed difficulty for Salcedo, whose soldiers were operating without needed supplies, some not even having flints for their firearms,[34] and many members of the cavalry were without horses.[35] Eager to find a solution, Salcedo attempted to recruit 200 Lipan Apache warriors to fight with them, but the deal fell through.[35] Further stretching his resources, Salcedo sent 100 soldiers to Saltillo to assist in fending off the insurrectionists fighting in Coahuila.[31]
In December, Salcedo sent his wife and daughter from San Antonio to keep them safe. On January 2, he summoned all 300 troops in Bexar and informed them that they would be traveling to the Rio Grande to more effectively defend the province. This ignited rumors that Salcedo was planning to abandon the province. Four days later, Salcedo was forced to publish a proclamation to all inhabitants of the province, appealing for support for the royalists and denying that Spanish authorities intended to abandon New Spain.[36]
Within the next several days, Coahuila surrendered to the rebels.[37] On January 15, rebels launched an attempt to seize the Texas government; the plot was uncovered and the conspirators, including a lieutenant in the army, were arrested. Salcedo then canceled his orders to send the troops to the Rio Grande so that they could instead protect the capital. He also issued a declaration to the citizens of San Antonio to warn them that helping the rebels was treason.[38]
On January 21, Juan Bautista de las Casas, a retired militia captain from Nuevo Santander led a group of army sergeants to stage a coup in San Antonio de Bexar. The following morning they arrested Salcedo and his entire military staff. Even as Salcedo was led to detention however, the rebellious soldiers instinctively saluted him.[39] Las Casas chained Salcedo, Simón de Herrera, the governor of Nuevo Santander who was living in San Antonio, and twelve other Spanish officers and humiliated them in front of the town. The prisoners were then transferred to Monclova in Coahuila.[40]
The rest of Texas was quickly revolutionized. There was little resistance in Nacogdoches, where the presidio commander was arrested, or in La Bahia.[40] Las Casas promptly confiscated property belonging to Spanish residents, proclaimed himself the head of a provisional government, released political prisoners and jailed royalists.[39] His arbitrary rule disenchanted much of the army, and Juan Manuel Zambrano, the subdeacon of San Antonio, soon led a counter-insurgency against him. On March 2, Zambrano and his royalists marched on the government house. Las Casas surrendered without a fight, just 39 days after taking over. Zambrano reestablished royalist control of the province and sent a messenger to inform those holding Salcedo.[41]
During his captivity, Salcedo had been slowly enticing Ignacio Elizondo (his captor), with promises of a promotion and other rewards if he would renounce his revolutionary tendencies.[41] After receiving Zambrano's message, Salcedo's captor changed sides again. With his help, on March 13, Salcedo and his military officers were able to capture Pedro de Aranda, who held documents detailing the movements of the revolutionary army. One week later, Salcedo led a group which captured much of Hidalgo's army, as well as 27 rebel leaders. Salcedo accompanied the captured leaders from Monclova to Chihuahua, the headquarters of the Commandant General. On April 26, 1811, the Commandant General appointed Salcedo to be president of a seven-member tribunal to try the revolutionaries.[42] The men were quickly sentenced to death by firing squad.[43]
Loyalists in Coahuila quickly judged, convicted, and executed the prisoners captured in San Antonio de Bexar. Las Casas's head was shipped to San Antonio and displayed on a pole in the military plaza.[44] With Salcedo still in Chihuahua, Zambrano administered the province. Among his accomplis