Just four years after the Republic of Texas was founded in 1836, the Rio Grande Valley found itself in the midst of political turmoil.
There was discontent with Mexico's centralist government. Residents living in the northern Mexican states’ Villas del Norte (the current Rio Grande Valley), felt the government was neglecting them and taking advantage of the people and the land.
This conflict is explored in the documentary, “The Republic of the Rio Grande,” produced by podcaster Brandon Seale.
Seale said it’s critical to understand this little-known period of borderlands Mexican history to understand what was happening in the Republic of Texas at the time.
“You have another fronterizo, another borderlands revolt led by Northern Mexicans and Tejanos, but you have one that is never overtaken by Anglo-Texans,” Seale said. “It’s a little bit of an unfiltered, undiluted control case to try and help understand what the Tejanos are fighting for in this whole period.”
Many of the men who played important roles in the plans and battles that led to the Republic of the Rio Grande’s brief existence were also key figures in past famous battles. This includes Antonio Zapata, Santa Anna, and José Bernardo Gutiérrez de Lara.
Seale said many of the conflicts that took place during this time are connected.
“They’re sequels of each other,” Seale said. “It’s like you’ve got the Battle of Medina as the first installment, you’ve got the Texas Revolution as the second, and then you’ve got the Republic of the Rio Grande that features so many of the same figures.”
“The Republic of the Rio Grande” is available on PBS.
Click here to watch. See the prior installment in the ”A New History of Old Texas” series, “Battle of Medina” here.
Hear Seale talk more about it on his podcast series below:
