Famous Mexican Fights With Texans Against Santa Anna

The citizens of San Augustine defied the central government on Aug. 5, 1835, by refusing to hand over Lorenzo de Zavala, a fugitive diplomat who had taken refuge with his comrades-in-arms.

The most pernicious myth about the Texas Revolution slanders the struggle for independence as a race war. This malicious misinterpretation ignores the Texans of Mexican ancestry, who perished at the Alamo and Goliad as well as those that risked their lives at San Jacinto. No single story more effectively sets the record than the true tale of Lorenzo de Zavala.

He was born in Yucatan in 1788 the heir to a distinguished Spanish pedigree. A gifted intellectual who devoured books on contact, he completed his formal education at 19 and mastered an amazing total of eight languages.

In his youth Zavala favored a Mexico free of foreign domination, dangerous heresy in the Spanish colony. Given three years behind bars to change his subversive mind, he came out of prison with his convictions intact.

The Spaniards later loosened their tight-fisted grip and grudgingly granted Mexican representation in the Cortes, the national parliament at Madrid. Zavala was serving as deputy in the Cortes, when his countrymen broke free of their Spanish shackles in 1821.

An enthusiastic advocate of reform, he played a leading role in the congress and helped draft the democratic constitution of 1824. He later won election to the senate and several terms as the governor of the state of Mexico.

When Santa Anna came to power, Zavala suspected his old friend of secretly harboring authoritarian ambitions. But the future “Napoleon of the West” put his fears to rest by paying convincing lip service to the principle of popular rule.

Santa Anna shrewdly got Zavala out of the way by offering him the plum post of minister to France. The despot then revealed his true colors by doing away with the 1824 constitution and seizing absolute control. Zavala resigned in protest and slipped into provincial Texas knowing full well he was a marked man.

When he arrived in the summer of 1835, Zavala was not committed to the cause of independence but neither were most Texans. Under the relentless pressure of events, however, the ex-minister and his new friends evolved into revolutionaries.

Zavala