Santos Benavides

Santos Benavides was a regionalist before he was a Confederate. As a young man he fought for the Federalists against Mexico City's centralists, and after the Mexican War he joined his uncle Basilio in opposing annexation of the Laredo area by the United States, fearing it would end northern Mexico's independence. He backed the Confederacy for its states' rights, though the Confederacy existed to protect slavery. In 1864 he arranged safe passage for Texas cotton to Matamoros. Later he helped found the Guarache party, and Porfirio Díaz chose him as envoy in 1880.

What the plaque says

Santos Benavides Santos Benavides, son of Jose Jesus and Marguerita Benavides and great-great grandson of Laredo founder Tomas Sanchez, was born in Laredo on November 1, 1823. He married Augustina Villareal in 1842. Benavides, appointed procurador (administrative agent) of Laredo in 1843, openly cooperated with the forces of Mirabeau B. Lamar which occupied Laredo during the Mexican War (1846-48) in an effort to pacify the region. He was elected mayor of Laredo in 1856 and 1857 and chief justice of Webb County in 1859. During the Civil War Benavides raised a company of cavalry at Laredo which defeated Juan Cortina in the Battle of Carrizo in 1861. He became a colonel in command of his own regiment known as Benavides' Regiment. On March 19, 1864, his regiment successfully defended Laredo with only 42 men against a Union force of more than 200 men. During the late 1860s and 1870' Benavides engaged in mercantile and ranching activities with his brother Cristobal. He served in the Texas Legislature during the 1880s and in 1884 was appointed Texas Commissioner to the world's Cotton Exposition. Benavides helped found the Guarache party, a faction of Laredo's Democratic Party. He died in Laredo on November 9, 1891. Sesquicentennial of Texas Statehood 1845-1995

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Lake Casa Blanca International State Park — 2.0 mi
  A 1,680-acre reservoir on Chacón Creek at Laredo's eastern edge, a city lake run as a state park since 1991, with bass fishing, camping and a long human history.
• San Agustín Cathedral — 2.3 mi
  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.
• San Agustín Plaza — 2.4 mi
  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.
• Republic of the Rio Grande Museum — 2.4 mi
  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.

More markers nearby

• Bishop Peter Verdaguer — steps away
• Refugio Benavides — steps away
• City Cemetery — steps away
• Raymond and Tirza Martin High School — 1.6 mi