LATINOPIA BLOG DR. GILBERTO QUEZADA – CELEBRATINIG LAREDO’S 270TH ANNIVERSARY

Celebrating Laredo’s 270th Anniversary

By Dr. Gilberto Quezada

I would like to offer a few comments and a very interesting coincidence about the 270th anniversary of the establishment of Laredo, which will occur on Thursday, May 15, 2025. The name of Joseph de Escandón as he would write his name along with his rubric appear in several reports found in the Laredo Archives from him to the Viceroy Francisco de Guemes y Horcasitas, Conde de Revilla. My first encounter with the name of Joseph de Escandón was while I was growing up in my beloved Barrio El Azteca in Laredo, Texas in the 1940s thru the 1960s and I would see his name etched in the red granite historical marker in the historic San Agustín Plaza commemorating the site of the Villa de Laredo.

In 1754, Escandón was visiting Revilla, a settlement that he had given permission four years earlier to Don Vicente Guerra, a wealthy rancher from Coahuila, to establish with forty families from Nuevo León when he received word that Don Tomás Sánchez de la Barrera y Garza, also a wealthy rancher from Coahuila, was requesting his permission to establish a settlement on the north bank of the Río Grande. In his request, Don Tomás Sánchez agreed to use his own money to cover the expenses of bringing families to the new site. Escandón granted permission and on Thursday, May 15, 1755, the official founding took place when he moved his family, along with three other families to a site that Escandón suggested be named San Agustín de Laredo in honor of a town on the Bay of Biscay in the Spanish province of Santander.

But in the 1950s and early 1960s, the name of Joseph de Escandón meant nothing to me. Escandón’s name, however, remained etched in my subconscious until I transferred to St. Mary’s University during my junior year in the fall of 1967 and began working part-time with Miss Carmen Perry in the spring of 1968 cataloguing and indexing the Laredo Archives, which are housed in the Academic Library. Miss Perry was the Archivist
for the Laredo Archives and author of San José de Palafox: The Impossible Dream by the Río Grande, and the editor and translator of With Santa Anna in Texas: A Personal Narrative of the Revolution by José Enrique De La Peña. Working with Miss Perry and with the Laredo Archives was an invaluable learning experience.

A tremendous opportunity presented itself during the second summer session in 1969 at St. Mary’s University when I enrolled in a graduate seminar with Dr. Hubert J. Miller. The source problem for discussion for our graduate seminar was: “The Spanish Conquistadores–Men or Devils?” We were to select a Spanish conquistador and thoroughly research the individual using mainly primary sources and some secondary sources and defend our position in an oral presentation. Well, needless to say, I chose José de Escandón because I remembered his name from the historical marker in San Agustín Plaza. I did my research in the Laredo Archives and at the Benson Latin American Library at the University of Texas at Austin, utilizing the Archivo General de la Nación; “Relación Histórica de la Colonia del Nuevo Santander y costa del Seno Mexicano,” by Vicente Santa María; “El Coronel Don José de Escandón y la conquista del Nuevo Santander,” by Roberto F. Villaseñor; “Informe de Don José de Escandón al Virrey de la Nueva España sobre los primeros actos culturales en la provincia de Nuevo Santander,” “Documentos para la Historia Eclesiástica y Civil de la Provincia de Texas o Nuevas Filipinas, 1720-1779,” and others. Finding information in secondary sources in English and Spanish was not a problem.

I took a special interest in an essay published in English on Escandón by University of Texas History Professor Dr. Carlos E. Castañeda at the dedication of a monument to José de Escandón in Río Grande City in December 1936. His paper was entitled, “Don Jose de Escandon, Explorer During the Middle eighteenth Century, Brings First Civilization to Rio Valley,” and was published in a Valley newspaper.

I titled my exhaustive research paper for the graduate seminar, “José de Escandón: Conquistador and Colonizer of the Seno Mexicano.”

I was the first to include a copy of the well-known “Map of Nuevo Santander in 1792” in my research paper. Don José de Escandón, a Spaniard by birth, was commissioned by the Viceroy of New Spain to colonize a geographical area known as “El Seno Mexicano,” which extended from the Pánuco River in Mexico to the Guadalupe River in Texas. All in all, he established about twenty-four towns or villas and fifteen missions, including Camargo and Reynosa in 1749, Hacienda de Dolores and Revilla (Guerrero Viejo) in 1750, Mier in 1753, and Laredo in 1755. The Hacienda de Dolores and Laredo were the only two settlements on the north side of the Río Grande.

After the appointment of a Royal Commission in 1767, the settlers of Nuevo Santander were assigned porciones along the Río Grande and land grants by the King of Spain. The colonization of South Texas and northeastern Mexico was thus started. In the colonia del Nuevo Santander, each family was given one hundred to two hundred pesos, free land, and a ten-year tax exemption. There were a total of about fifteen hundred families with more than eight thousand persons, and eighty thousand head of cattle, horses, and mules, and over three hundred thousand head of sheep and goats. The spiritual needs of the settlers and the natives were cared for by Franciscan missionaries. After Mexican Independence, the name of the Spanish province of Nuevo Santander was changed to the Mexican state of Tamaulipas.

Since its founding on Thursday, May 15, 1755, Laredo has had a colorful and interesting history, having been faithful and loyal to seven governments; namely, Spain, France, Mexico, The Republic of the Río Grande, the Republic of Texas, the Confederate States of America, and the United States. What makes this governance so unusual is that while Texas has been under six flags, the citizens of Laredo can proudly boast that they have been under one more flag—the Republic of the Río Grande. There is no example of a successful colonization enterprise so vast as the one by José de Escandón to be found in the history of North America. In my historical assessment, he was not a devil, he was more of a colonizer than a conquistador.

As Laredo commemorates its remarkable 270th anniversary, it stands as a testament to resilience, growth, and the enduring spirit of its people. From its humble beginnings on that historic Thursday on May 15, 1755, the settlement has flourished into a thriving international hub, bridging cultures and commerce across the Río Grande. With five international bridges linking communities and fostering economic prosperity, Laredo has become a powerhouse of border trade, a gateway of opportunity, and a beacon of unity. As we celebrate this milestone, we honor the legacy of those who built this city, and we look forward to the boundless possibilities that lie ahead for this vibrant and ever-evolving community.

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Copyright 2025 by Dr. Gilberto Quezada. The map of Laredo, etching of Escandon, Map of Santander and mural of Father Hidalgo are all in the public domain. Photos of San Agustin Plaza and of Mariachi rope twirler copyrighted by Joel Salcido and used with his permission.