Erasmo Seguin

Seguín helped write the law under which Austin's colonists settled. As Texas's deputy in the congress that drafted the Mexican Constitution of 1824, he sat on the colonization committee that shaped the National Colonization Law of August 18, 1824, which left immigration and land to the states. He accepted the union of Coahuila and Texas reluctantly and worked for a clause letting Texas seek separate statehood later. He also argued for a loose reading of the rule that settlers be Catholic and against the complete abolition of slavery. Earlier he had helped lead the 1811 counterrevolt against Casas.

What the plaque says

Erasmo Seguin Near Homesite of Erasmo Seguin (May 26, 1782 - November 7, 1857) Born in San Antonio; descendant of Frenchman who settled in Mexico before 1714. Always a civic leader, helped found first public school in San Antonio, 1812. Went (1821) with Juan M. Veramendi to escort Austin Colony leaders to Bexar, and ever after befriended Stephen F. Austin and Anglo-American settlers. Seguin was postmaster of San Antonio, 1823-35, and deputy for Texas in National Congrss of Mexico, 1823-24. After Santa Anna came to power as liberal (1831), then made himself dictator, Seguin joined neighbors in sending him "San Antonio Remonstrances" (protests) in 1832, and called an opposition convention in 1834. Expelled from the postmastership by Santa Anna's brother-in-law, Gen. Cos, and made to flee from San Antonio on foot, he walked 33 miles to his ranch, Casa Blanca, where he recruited men to help patriots win siege of Bexar (Dec. 1835) and expel Gen. Cos. Early in 1836 he sent spies to the Nueces to watch for Santa Anna. He lodged David Crockett in his home, and provisioned the Alamo before the final siege. Persecuted by newcomers to Texas, he refused to go to Mexico with his son Juan, but with his wife Josefa Becerra retired to Casa Blanca (located in present Wilson County), where he died and was buried in 1857. (1973)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• San Fernando Cathedral — steps away
  The Canary Islanders' parish church on Main Plaza, where Bowie married and Santa Anna raised a red flag, rebuilt in Gothic Revival around the walls of the 1750s church.
• Spanish Governor's Palace — 0.2 mi
  The last visible piece of the Presidio San Antonio de Béxar: a presidio captain's house with a 1749 keystone, a century as shops and saloons, and a romantic 1930 restoration.
• Casa Navarro State Historic Site — 0.2 mi
  The adobe and caliche-block home of José Antonio Navarro, a native-born signer of the 1836 declaration, and the last remnant of the Tejano neighborhood called Laredito.
• San Antonio River Walk — 0.3 mi
  A Depression-era park one level below downtown, built because San Antonio refused to pave its river after the 1921 flood, and designed by an architect the project later fired.

More markers nearby

• San Antonio Mutual Aid Association — steps away
• Vicinity of the Storming of Bexar — steps away
• The Canary Islanders — steps away
• Francisco Madero in Texas — steps away