Artist Once Known, Loteria Board. Courtesy of the Briscoe Western Art Museum. Photo by Ricardo Romo.
On July 25, 2026, the Briscoe Museum in San Antonio opened the Tejano Legacy: Another American Origin Story exhibit coinciding with the celebration of America’s 250th anniversary. The museum describes the exhibit as a landmark bilingual narrative that explores nearly four centuries of “Tejano history, culture, and identity and the enduring influence of Tejanos on Texas and the American West.” Many Americans of Mexican descent living in Texas refer to themselves as Tejanos, but also as Latinos and Chicanos. This exhibition of art and artifacts resonates with persons and families who have been in Texas for multiple generations.
Courtesy of the Briscoe Western Art Museum. Collection of Ricardo Romo.
The first Tejanos established missions in East Texas and in the town of Isleta, Texas in the 1680s. The first major Tejano community began along the San Antonio River in 1718. Spanning the 1680s to modern times, the Tejano Legacy, notes the Briscoe curators, “traces the evolution of Tejano identity through art, ranching traditions, military service, music, faith and community.” The exhibit draws from the museum’s own collections and from lenders across the United States and Mexico. Several works on loan from Mexican museums are exhibited in the United States for the first time.
The museum catalog notes that through the more than 100 paintings, sculptures, saddles, textiles, historic objects, and contemporary works, the exhibition preserves “the resilience, innovation and cultural influences” that continue to shape South Texas, San Antonio, and the Southwest today. Liz Jackson, Briscoe Museum Director, explains that the Briscoe exhibit presented in English and Spanish deepens and broadens the understanding of the Mexican American connection to the story of the American West and the origins of the United States. I believe that the Briscoe exhibition stands as a model for other Southwestern states, formally part of Mexico, to present visitors a rare opportunity to understand another American origin story.
George Catlin, “Buffalo Hunt, Chase.” Courtesy of the Briscoe Western Art Museum. Collection of Ricardo Romo.
The first Tejanos were Mestizos from Spanish and Mexican lineage who came principally from the northern Mexican states now known as Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon, Coahuila, and Chihuahua. After Spain conquered Mexico in 1521, very few Spanish women came to the Mexican provinces, so the Spanish soldiers who remained in the territory married Indian women. As these Mestizos settled Tejas, they called themselves Mexicanos or Tejanos. The Franciscan missionaries who built the East Texas missions and presidios of San Antonio, however, came from the Franciscan College in Queretaro, Mexico.
Artist Once Known, “Stagecoach Robbers.” Courtesy of the Briscoe Western Art Museum. Photo by Ricardo Romo.
The term Tejano has both American Indian and Spanish origins. Its usage dates back to the 1680s when Spanish friars and soldiers entered the eastern part of the Texas region on the banks of the Sabine River, which today divides Texas from Louisiana. Their goal was to build missions and establish a Spanish territorial presence to keep the French settlers from intruding into their province. The Caddo Indians who lived there used the terms táyshaʼ, taysha, teycha, or teyshas for allies or friends.
Spanish explorers and missionaries recorded the term Tejas originating from various usages (Tejas, Texas, Texias, Teyas, Thecas, etc.), and used Tejano first as an ethnic name for certain East Texas groups, then gradually adapted Tejas for the region itself. With the founding of San Francisco de Tejas in 1690 on the Neches River east of the Sabine River, the name Tejas gained greater official usage. However, nearly ten years earlier, Spanish fleeing Indian warfare in New Mexico had built the Mission Corpus Christi de la Isleta in 1682. These settlers, who were the founders of New Mexico, considered themselves Nuevo Mexicanos.
Guadalupe Morales, “Dragging a Bullock by its Tail in Open Field. Courtesy of the Briscoe Western Art Museum. Photo by Ricardo Romo.
In an exhibit catalog essay “Another American Story: Discovering the Tejano Familia Legacy,” John Phillip Santos writes that Tejanos brought a heritage from New Spain that “was already two centuries old, rich with cultural and faith traditions, livestock cultivation practices going back back to Spain, and a perception of themselves as mestizos that prepared them for adapting to new ways of understanding their communities, even as the world around them changed.” Santos has spent the last three decades studying and writing about mestizos and the borderlands.
Sam Coronado, “Toro.” Courtesy of the Briscoe Western Art Museum. Donation to the Briscoe Museum by Harriett and Ricardo Romo.
The artifacts of the cattle industry are plentiful in the Brisco exhibit. The early Tejano settlers came to the region to acquire land and cattle, making ranching profitable. The essays in the beautiful catalog include a story of Rosa Maria Hinojosa de Balli by Historian Amy Porter that is especially rich in Tejano history. Porter documents the story of Rosa Maria Hinojosa de Balli whose ranches in South Texas exceeded the smaller states of the original thirteen colonies in land area. Porter notes that when Balli died in 1803, she left more than a million acres of land to her sons. Hinojosa de Balli built her ranches by careful land purchases over three decades, and she well may have been in her time the largest landholder in North America and among the wealthiest women in all of the Americas–north and south.
The cattle industry in America began with these large Tejano ranches of South Texas. The exhibit provides a superb collection of saddles, weapons, and spurs from that era. Included in the exhibit are paintings and sculptures from South Texas ranches. Numerous paintings, maps, and artifacts belong to the Briscoe, but many others are on loan from the Witte and McNay museums in San Antonio, from Mexico, and from private collectors.
Jorge Luis García Ruiz, a Spanish-born archaeologist and historian who now works in San Antonio, narrates a spellbinding story in the catalog about Captain Joseph de Urrutia, whom he calls a “Model Figure of Society.” Urrutia was fifteen years old when his religious superiors decided to abandon missionary work in East Texas and return to Monclova, Mexico. After being lost for forty days, Urrutia defied the Franciscan authorities and decided to remain with the Indian natives. Garcia Ruiz writes that Urrutia “mastered their [Indigenous] language and earned their respect, fighting alongside them and their allies, taking part in numerous battles against their common enemy, the Apaches.” Urrutia’s merits earned him the title of captain general of the Indian allies, all before he reached the age of eighteen.
Thomas Allen, “Evening Market.” Loan courtesy of the Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, Tennessee, Gift of Berniece and Henry Blount, Jr. Courtesy of the Briscoe Western Art Museum. Photo by Ricardo Romo.
In 1750, José de Escandón brought Spanish missionaries, soldiers, and ranchers to selected areas of the Rio Grande for the purpose of establishing new towns and ranches. He was authorized by the King of Spain to grant parcels of land or porciones to new settlers. I am very acquainted with these efforts because part of my maternal Saenz family received porciones numero 72, 73, and 74. The family ranches were called Roma Los Saenz, later just Roma, Texas. Historian David Weber wrote that “Escandón moved 6,000 colonists into the colonia and established twenty-three towns and fifteen missions [along the Rio Grande]. It is no wonder that many Tejano historians call Escandón the true father of Texas. The three hundred families that Stephen F. Austin brought to Texas in the 1820-30 era fall significantly short of Escandón’s accomplishment.
Artist Once Known, Loteria Board. Courtesy of the Briscoe Western Art Museum. Photo by Ricardo Romo.
Tejano stories are plentiful in the Briscoe Tejano Legacy: Another American Origin Story exhibition. Additionally, the art is splendid. San Antonio’s celebration of the city’s 300th anniversary in 2018 demonstrated that the history of the region and its people are far too rich to tell in one publication or singular exhibit. The Briscoe Museum has found many stories and a plethora of art to present the complex history of Tejanos. Visitors will appreciate the vast number of art masterpieces and amazing artifacts. We await additional exhibits, hopefully from other museums in the region, that highlight the diverse origins of the USA that we know today. Liz Jackson, the Briscoe Museum curator, noted, “Tejano history is American history, and there is no better place to tell this story than San Antonio.”
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Copyright 2026 by Ricardo Romo. All photo and art credits as indicated above.