Sign in Subscribe
1 min read History

Juan Seguín Helped Win Texas Independence. Then Texas Drove Him Out.

Juan Seguín warned Texas its enemies were coming. Months later, he was riding with them.
Deep Time

Deep Time

on

Juan Seguín helped win Texas independence. Six years later, he rode in with the Mexican army that invaded the city he had helped defend. The road between those two facts is stranger than a simple story of betrayal.

Born into a prominent Texas family of Mexican descent (Tejano) in San Antonio, Seguín joined the rebellion against Santa Anna in 1835. He was inside the Alamo when Mexican forces arrived but left as a courier before the assault. He organized the only Tejano company to fight at San Jacinto, where Sam Houston praised its bravery.

Seguín became the only Tejano senator in the Republic of Texas and pushed to print its laws in Spanish. He also served as San Antonio's mayor. But hostility toward Mexican Texans grew, and his land dealings, finances and border ties put him at risk.

Then came the accusations of treason.

After a failed campaign with Mexican federalists, Seguín refused to join an expedition to retake Texas. In early 1842, he warned President Houston that Mexican forces might raid San Antonio. The government declined to send aid. When the invasion came, Seguín and many other Tejanos evacuated the city.

His enemies called the evacuation betrayal. Fearing for his life, Seguín resigned as mayor and fled to Mexico with his family.

He said he had no choice but to enter Mexican military service. That September, he returned to Texas with General Adrián Woll's invading army, and remained in Mexican service for six years, including through the Mexican-American War.

After the war, Seguín returned to Texas, ranched, held local offices and published memoirs defending his conduct. He retired to Nuevo Laredo to live near his son and died there in 1890. His remains returned to Texas in 1974 and were reinterred in the town of Seguin on July 4, 1976.

Read the full story at Texas State Library and Archives Commission, May 28, 2024

Hot Take: Texas named a town after Seguín, which is a nice gesture from a republic that once made him afraid to stay.

Subscribe to our newsletter.

Be the first to know - subscribe today

Member discussion

You might also like
Sep 17

Ireland's Famous "Kerry Cow" Was Never a Cow

Ireland's earliest evidence of farming wasn't farming at all. The bones that rewrote prehistory for three decades have rewritten themselves, and what replaced the cow is stranger.
1 min read
Sep 14

Greek Elites Wore Extraterrestrial Rings

Out of 91 ancient iron objects tested, only the signet pieces came back carrying the chemical signature of meteorites.
1 min read
Sep 11

Someone Stabbed This Man in the Face 100,000 Years Ago. He Survived.

A stone blade cut across Qafzeh 25's jaw. His bone healed. The injury may be one of the oldest known examples of sharp-force violence between humans.
1 min read
Sep 10

The Hiroshima Fireball Left Behind a Metal That Had Never Existed Before

A grain of glass from that August morning contains a substance that doesn't appear in any known materials catalog, natural or man-made. It took eighty years to notice something that formed in less than a second.
1 min read
Sep 09

Britain Turned a Scottish Island Into an Anthrax Bomb Range. It Stayed Contaminated for 48 Years.

Cleanup only happened after activists mailed government officials samples of the site's own soil. Until then, the quarantine simply held for decades while locals were kept in the dark.
1 min read