The Men Who War the Star: The Story of the Texas Rangers by Charles M. Robinson III Page B

whether he ever had any cause other than himself, and his entire life seems to have been centered around his own aggrandizement. Even toward the end, when he had outlived his enemies and existed in poverty and exile, he continued to feed his own vanity, portraying himself as a misunderstood patriot whose only motive was love of country.
    Yet for all his well-known faults, Mexico continued to turn to him for leadership during national crises. The reason is not as complicated as it might seem. During three centuries of Spanish rule, the army was the only means by which colonial subjects could advance; every important civil position was filled by administrators sent from Europe. Independence meant the departure of virtually the entire governmental machinery, and the army filled part of the void. 25 Against such a background, in which the military habitually intervened in civil affairs, Santa Anna was simply the best Mexico could do.
    At the time he seized the government, he was thirty-eight years old, dissipated, and obsessed with money and fame. But he was also shrewd, and could be patient when he wanted to be. Now he was patient as he represented himself as the liberal who only reluctantly had seized power to save the nation. 26 Soon, however, he realized there was strong opposition to reform, and he quietly began working with the conservatives and the clergy. Assuming executive power, he dissolved the national congress and the state legislatures and strengthened the privileges of the church. A new, handpicked Congreso Nacional ratified his actions, repudiating the 1824 constitution. Santa Anna was absolute master of Mexico. 27
    Mexicans did not quietly accept Santa Anna’s dictatorship. Opposition in Puebla, a state southeast of Mexico City, had to be suppressed by military force. Then Zacatecas, a mineral-rich northern state, rebelled and called up five thousand troops against the new central government. Santa Anna put down this rebellion with particular ferocity, allowing his troops to sack the wealthy city of Zacatecas. Then came Coahuila’s turn. The army arrived before the state could organize a rebellion and arrested Governor Agustín Viesca and his staff as they tried to transfer the government to San Antonio in Texas. The Texas members of the state legislature managed to escape and make their way home. 28
    Now Santa Anna turned his attention to Texas. Already he had received Stephen F. Austin, who was in Mexico City to present theTexans’views on their future. After an initially cordial relationship, Austin was jailed for eleven months, and under house arrest for another six months before being allowed to return home. In 1835, soldiers sent to Anahuac in east Texas to collect customs duties clashed with local citizens. The colonies organized committees of public safety, and by autumn, when Austin arrived back in Texas, many believed armed resistance to Santa Anna was the only option. As Mirabeau B. Lamar, later president of the Republic of Texas, wrote, “The Gov[erno]r of the State was a prisoner, the Constitution was broken down, and all Coahuila overrun by the military.”
    When they learned that Santa Anna’s brother-in-law, Maj. Gen. Martín Perfecto de Cos, was en route to San Antonio with additional troops, the Texans organized a convention to prepare the state for defense. Before it could assemble, however, the citizens of Gonzales clashed with federal troops. News of the fight created so much excitement that few were aware when General Cos arrived in San Antonio with substantial reinforcements. As far as Santa Anna was concerned, Texas was in rebellion. 29
    With the state now at war, the convention that opened in San Felipe on October 11 established itself as the Permanent Council to organize a government and give some legitimacy to the citizens who were gathering to form an army. There was also the matter of frontier defense while the army faced Mexico, and on October 17, Daniel Parker of Nacogdoches