Republic of the Rio Grande

The republic's army was never only Mexican. When Antonio Canales regrouped at San Patricio in June 1840, his force counted about 300 Mexicans, 140 Americans and 80 Indians, with Col. Samuel W. Jordan leading the Americans. Jordan and ninety men took Ciudad Victoria without a fight, then turned toward Saltillo after suspecting treachery among their officers. On October 25, 1840, General Rafael Vásquez attacked them there. Part of Jordan's command deserted, but he held his ground and brought the rest back to Texas. The Handbook does not name the Native fighters.

What the plaque says

Republic of the Rio Grande In January 1840 Senor Antonio Canales and other Federalists met near Guerrero to found the Republic of the Rio Grande. Canales and friends were loyal to the Mexican constitution of 1824, which had been set aside by Centralists in Mexico City. The Republic was to govern northern Mexico and the part of Texas south of the Nueces. Jesus Cardenas was president; Francisco Vidaurri y Villasenor, vice president; and Juan Francisco Farias, secretary. The capitol was established at 1000 Zaragoza Street, on this plaza in Laredo. Centralist General Manuel Arista brought an army here to crush the Republic. In March he took Laredo without a fight; then after a battle at Morelos, he captured and killed Federalist leader Antonio Zapata. Mexican and Anglo-Texan Federalists counterattacked, and recaptured Laredo and several other towns; but confronted by a large Centralist force at Saltillo, the Anglo-Texans found themselves and some Carrizo Indians making a lone stand. Many comrades had fled. After a bloody battle, the Indians and Texans escaped to the north of the Rio Grande. Canales, deserted by his army, surrendered to Arista near Camargo, and in a few days Cardenas gave up Laredo. The Republic of the Rio Grande had lasted 283 days. (1976, 1994)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Republic of the Rio Grande Museum — steps away
  A stone-and-adobe Laredo house, by tradition the capitol of a federalist republic that lasted ten months in 1840, now a museum of life in a mid-nineteenth-century home.
• San Agustín Plaza — steps away
  The shaded square at the center of Laredo's 1755 town, where Carrizo families, Spanish ranchers and a century of border politics shared the same ground.
• San Agustín Cathedral — steps away
  Laredo's Gothic Revival parish church, finished in 1872 on a parish older than Texas statehood, and the mother church of the Diocese of Laredo since 2000.
• Fort McIntosh Historic District at Laredo College — 1.1 mi
  An 1849 Army post on the Rio Grande above Laredo, its barracks, officers' quarters and 1895 chapel still standing on a college campus that took over the site in 1947.

More markers nearby

• Benavides Brothers — steps away
• Laredo Election Riot, 1886 — steps away
• The Ramón Family — steps away
• Laredo's Washington's Birthday Celebration — steps away