Viva Tejas
The Story of the Tejanos,
the Mexican-born Patriots of the Texas Revolution

by Ruben Rendon Lozano
With new material added by Mary Ann Noonan Guerra

Clearly...Tejanos also contributed substantially to resistance against the centralists and then to the cause of Texas independence. Texas forces that laid siege to Cos in San Antonio in the fall of 1835, for example, included perhaps as many as 160 Tejanos, among them companies led by Colonel Juan Seguin of San Antonio, Placido Benavides of Victoria, and a group of rancheros from Goliad. Seven Tejanos died inside the Alamo, fighting alongside AngloAmericans against Santa Anna. --David Weber, The Mexican Frontier 1821-1846, The American Southwest Under Mexico, University of New Mexico 1982.

The immediate cause of the revolution...was the substitution of centralism for federalism in Mexico and the determination of the Mexican authorities to use force rather than reason to compel an unqualified acceptance of the change...Texans were reluctant to believe that it had any serious implications for them until they faced the threat of militaryinterference in the summer of 1835. They were still thinking of themselves as Mexican citizens who were about to be drawn into the sphere of operations of a revolt against the principles of the federal constitution, and they still had confidence in the willingness and the ability of the liberal element in Mexico to overcome that revolt." --William C. Binkley, ''The Texas Revolution, " Louisiana 1952.

"Zavala's presence further emphasizes that in great part the Texas revolution was a fight of liberals against tyranny, I rather than Anglos against Mexicans."--Joe B. Frantz "Texas, A Bicentennial History," New York 1976.

"Tejanos and Anglo-Americans fought side by side against Spain to set up a more liberal and democratic government under which they might enjoy greater liberty.

A few years later Tejanos and Anglo-Americans once more fought side by side against the despotism of Santa Anna, who had deprived the nation of its hard-earned freedom.--Carlos Castaneda, Our Catholic Heritage in Texas, Austin 1936.

ISBN 0943260027

The Alamo Press
125 East Huisache
San Antonio, Texas 78212