The Political Kingdom of God

This chapter describes the formation of the Council of Fifty, a secretive organization in Nauvoo created by Smith. Smith and the Council of Fifty consider solutions to the problems facing the Latter-day Saints. The council manages Smith’s presidential campaign and helps formulate plans to petition the federal government for redress or for a liberal tract of land in the west where the Mormons could resettle. The council also directs negotiations with the Republic of Texas for the Mormons to move there and occupy the contested Nueces Strip. It is also in the Council of Fifty that Smith and others discuss the eventual replacement of the United States government with a theodemocracy ahead of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

The Massacre at Gracias a Dios: Mobility and Violence on the Lower Rio Grande, 1821–1856

On March 20, 1856, Mexican forces massacred a band of Lipan Apaches at a river crossing known as Gracias a Dios. Historians have described the massacre as an example of the growing violence against Native peoples in Mexico, motivated by a desire to control movement across the U.S.-Mexico border. But given the long history of border crossings in the region, why did Mexican forces massacre the Lipan Apaches in 1856, rather than at some earlier point? The Lipan Apaches had long used the border to their advantage, forging alliances with Mexico in 1822, with the Republic of Texas in 1838, and again with Mexico in 1853. These alliances show that the Lipans were important to the history of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands not only because their raids wrought devastation, but also because they were geopolitical actors in their own right. To understand why Mexican forces turned on their Native allies, we must examine how the policies of neighboring nations interacted with—and shaped—one another. Convinced that Mexico’s Native allies were raiding their ranches with impunity, Texans decided to launch an expedition against the Lipans in Mexico in 1855. This attack made Mexico’s alliance with the Lipans into a liability rather than an advantage. The massacre that resulted shows that the shift toward greater violence against Native peoples was, at its core, a transnational process.

The Relations between the Texas Republic and Mexico

The Texan Santa Fe Expedition was a commercial and military enterprise. It was unofficially initiated by Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar, second President of the Republic of Texas, in the summer of 1841. His aim was to gain control over the lucrative Santa Fe Trail and to establish Texas jurisdiction over the area. The expedition included twenty-one wagons carrying merchandise and was accompanied by businessmen, Lamar’s commissioners, and a military escort of some three hundred volunteers. The members of the expedition expected a warm welcome by the citizens of New Mexico, but instead, were “welcomed” by a detachment of the Mexican Army. The Texans, reduced in number and broken in health and spirit, were forced to surrender, and then to march 1,600 miles from Santa Fe to Mexico City. They were held prisoners for almost a year and released only in the spring of 1842. In my paper I propose to discuss the organization, course, and consequences of the ill-fated expedition. My most important primary sources will be the official documents and the diplomatic correspondence of the Republic of Texas, the correspondence and addresses of President Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar, and the accounts of the participants of the Santa Fe expedition.

Seguín, Juan Nepomuceno

Juan Nepomuceno Seguín (1806–1890) was the leading Mexican-Texan military figure of the Texas Revolution (1835–1836) to participate on the Texas side of the struggle. He was the only Mexican Texan to serve in the Senate of the Republic of Texas and was the last Mexican Texan to serve as mayor of San Antonio until the 1980s. Having fled to Mexico to avoid violence at the hands of enemies he made during his tenure as mayor, he commanded an auxiliary cavalry company of fellow Mexican-Texan exiles in the Mexican army until the end of the US-Mexico War. During his effort to reestablish himself in Texas in the 1850s he wrote his memoirs of the Texas Revolution. He was one of only three Mexican Texans to do so, and the only one to have them published during his lifetime. Seguín returned to Mexico on the eve of the US Civil War to participate in Mexico’s civil conflicts. In about 1870 he permanently settled in Nuevo Laredo, where he died in 1890.