Manuel Becerra

In the late summer of 1821 Stephen F. Austin rode down the San Antonio River from Bexar to La Bahía, and the town sent one of its councilmen with him, along with three Aranama guides, to look over the Colorado. Becerra was that escort. Safely back in Bexar, he reported that he had never seen Austin or any of his men perform a religious act, a pointed remark when Austin's colonists were bound to be Catholic. Estella Zermeño, a descendant, commissioned and placed this marker.

What the plaque says

Manuel Becerra Born at Presidio La Bahía del Espíritu Santo in 1762, Manuel Becerra played a significant role in the settlement and politics of the region. Becerra and his wife, Juana María Cadena, and their two daughters, María Josefa and Gertrudis, were leading citizens of La Bahía. In 1820, Antonio María Martínez, the last Spanish governor of Texas, called for the formation of the ayuntamiento of La Bahía as required in the Spanish Constitution of 1812. The ayuntamiento, or town council, included Manuel Becerra, who was elected its first secretary. Becerra's involvement with colonization efforts came the following year, as he was selected to accompany Stephen F. Austin to the Colorado River to find a suitable site for Austin's first colony. His friendship with empresario Martín de León led to his eventual responsibility within de León's Guadalupe Colony in 1827, when de León placed Becerra in charge of the colony's political and business affairs. The same year, Becerra helped negotiate a treaty with the Coco and Karankawa tribes to enhance peace and stability in the region. In 1832, Becerra received a land grant of 8,856 acres in what is now Refugio County and later assisted colonizer James Power in the colonization of the Power Colony at Villa de Refugio. As a citizen under the flags of Spain, Mexico, the Republic of Texas and the United States, Manuel Becerra bore witness to many of the formative events in Texas history and played a significant role in colonization efforts. He died in what is now Refugio County about 1849. (2001)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Zaragoza Birthplace State Historic Site — steps away
  A rebuilt stone house beside La Bahía marking where Ignacio Seguín Zaragoza, the general of the Battle of Puebla and Cinco de Mayo, was born in 1829.
• Presidio La Bahía — steps away
  A Spanish fort on its third site since 1749, held in turn by filibusters, insurgents and Fannin's Fort Defiance, rebuilt in stone in the 1960s around a chapel that never fell.
• Fannin Memorial Monument — 0.2 mi
  The 1938 pink granite memorial over the common grave of Fannin's men, shot on the roads out of Goliad on Palm Sunday 1836, the grave itself found again only in the 1930s.
• Goliad State Park and Historic Site — 0.7 mi
  Mission Espíritu Santo on the San Antonio River, a mission ranch whose herds seeded Texas cattle country, rebuilt from ruin by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s.

More markers nearby

• General Ignacio Zaragoza — steps away
• Angel of Goliad — steps away
• Grave of Colonel J. W. Fannin and His Men — 0.2 mi
• Aranama College — 0.7 mi