Lone Star Characters: Lorenzo de Zavala
The Mexican Leader Who Became a Texian Leader
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Lorenzo de Zavala . . . the most interesting man in Texas.
–William Fairfax Gray
Today, on this, the 189th anniversary of Texas Independence, I’m beginning a new series: “Lone Star Characters,” in which I’ll introduce you to a wide array of Texas personalities—some well-known, some little-known.
I’m starting with a man who lived a life of intrigue and tragedy, whom William Fairfax Gray called “the most interesting man in Texas.” He began his life not as a Texian or Tejano—or an American—but as a Mexican who spent much of his adult life working for the peace, prosperity, and preeminence of Mexico—until Mexico turned its back on him: Lorenzo de Zavala.
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William Fairfax Gray was a man of his time—an Anglo who saw Tejanos as beneath him and the men of his race. An eyewitness to some of the most important political events leading to the birth of the Republic of Texas, he wrote in his diary on February 1, 1836, of the divide between Constitutionalists (who supported the Mexican Constitution of 1824) and Separatists (who supported immediate independence from Mexico). The Constitutionalist, he wrote, had “enlisted . . . all the Mexicans, or native Texans, who are a swarthy, dirty looking people, much resembling our mulattos, some of them nearly black, but having straight hair.”
Gray’s prejudiced views, however, had its limits. He had heard of a Mexican by the name of Lorenzo de Zavala but had never met him. That changed on February 28. This particular Mexican made a propitious impression on the haughty Gray. He recorded in his journal:
This evening a number of members arrived [at Washington-on-the-Brazos], among them Lorenzo de Zavala, the most interesting man in Texas. He is a native of Yucatan; was Governor of the State of Mexico five years, minister of the fiscal department and Ambassador to France from the Republic of Mexico, which post he renounced when Santa Anna proved recreant to the liberal cause, and he then resided for some time in the United States. He now lives on his estate on Buffalo Bayou, near Galveston Bay. He is a fine writer and a Republican; a fine statesman, although by some accused of inordinate ambition. Has published a volume of travels in the United States, printed in Paris in the Spanish language.*
Gray ended this day’s entry with a memo: “procure a copy” of Zavala’s book.
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Born Manuel Lorenzo Justiniano de Zavala y Sáenz on October 3, 1788, in the village of Tecoh, near Mérida, in northern Yucatán, he was the fifth of nine children of Anastasio de Zavala y Velázquez and María Bárbara Sáenz y Castro. He attended the Tridentine Seminary of San Ildefornso in Mérida, where he studied Latin, morals, theology, and classical philosophy. Completing his education in 1807, he married Teresa Correa y Correa† and became a newspaperman, establishing and editing a number of outlets in which he expressed classical liberal ideas—the same ideas that gave shape to the thinking of the founding fathers of America. Zavala put these notions into political practice as secretary of the city council of Mérida from 1812 until 1814 when he was arrested for championing such beliefs, spending three years in the Castle of San Juan de Ulloa in the harbor of Veracruz. They were productive years: he read medical textbooks—qualifying him to practice medicine—and taught himself to read and speak English.
Upon his release in 1817, he returned to the Yucatán and returned to politics, serving as secretary of the provincial assembly in 1820. Then, in 1821, he was elected to represent Mexico as a deputy to the Spanish Cortes in Madrid. When he learned of Mexico’s declaration of independence from Spain he returned home. When Mexico secured its independence, on August 24, 1821, Zavala was elected to represent Yucatán as a deputy in the First (1822) and Second (1824) Mexican Constituent Congress. In 1824 he served as president of the Chamber of Deputies (akin to the U.S. Speaker of the House) and became the first to sign the newly adopted Federal Constitution. Later that year, he was elevated to the Mexican Senate, where he served for two years.
Though Mexico won its independence from centralized control and had established a federal constitution on October 4, 1824, there remained a centralist bent in the people and politicians, leading to fierce battles between Centralists and Federalists. Darkening clouds gathered over the near horizon when Zavala finished his term in the Senate and ran for the governorship of the state of Mexico as a Federalist. He won and took office in March 1827. A year later, minister of war Manuel Gómez Pedraza, a moderate Federalist, won the presidential election. But there were irregularities which led to riots, which landed on Zavala’s doorstep. He was forced to hide in the mountains before fleeing to Mexico City. Pedraza eventually conceded, resigned his position as minister of war, and fled to France. Vicente Ramon Guerrero was declared the victor and became Mexico’s president. He appointed Zavala minister of the treasury—a post, along with his governorship, he held from April to October 1829. When Centralist Vice President Anastacio Bustemante ousted Guerrero, Zavala left office and abandoned politics. He was confined to home arrest for a time, then sailed for New Orleans in May 1830. From there, he toured the United States.
In New York, Zavala sought investors in the empresario grants he possessed, authorizing him to settle five hundred families in southeastern Texas. In October 1830 he transferred his interest in the grants to the Galveston Bay and Texas Land Company. Sometime during the spring of the following year Teresa died. Zavala remarried Emily West later that fall in New York City.‡ Gray described Emily in his March 23, 1836, diary entry: “Mrs. Zavala is a fine, beautiful woman, of tall, dignified person and ladylike manners, black eyes, twenty-seven years old.”
From New York Zavala and his family sailed for Europe, visiting England and France. They returned to Mexico in the summer of 1832, where he was reelected as governor of the sate of Mexico, serving from December 1832 until October 1833, when he returned to Congress as a deputy for his native sate of Yucatán. He didn’t stay in Congress long. President Antonio López de Santa Anna tagged Zavala to serve as the first minister plenipotentiary of the Mexican legation in Paris. Zavala and the family sailed back to France. He reported to his post in the spring of 1834, but didn’t remain long there. In April of that year, he learned Santa Anna had set aside the Constitution of 1824 and assumed dictatorial powers. Zavala denounced the President and on August 30, 1834, tendered his resignation. Though ordered by Santa Anna to return to Mexico, Zavala remained in Paris until April 1835, then sailed for New York.
Zavala’s New York stay was short. In June of that year, he left for Texas, arriving in July. (His wife and children arrived in December and moved into their home at Zavala Point on Buffalo Bayou.) Within a month Zavala took up the cause of Texas independence, publishing an address on August 7, 1835, calling on Texians to resist Santa Anna’s villainy. The next day, Mexican General Martín Perfecto de Cos issued an order for Zavala’s arrest.
Zavala escaped Mexican authorities but couldn’t escape Texian responsibilities. He served on the temporary governing body for the nascent Republic of Texas—the oxymoronically named Permanent Council—as well as a delegate from Harrisburg to the Consultation of 1836 at San Felipe de Austin and the Convention of 1836 at Washington-on-the-Brazos. As a member of the Convention, Zavala helped draft the first constitution for the Republic of Texas. And on March 2, 1836, he signed the Texas Declaration of Independence. On March 19 he was elected ad interim vice president of the new republic—an office he was uniquely qualified to fill.
Then, inexplicably, on April 21—the day of the battle of San Jacinto, which was fought across the bay from the Zavala home—he sent a resignation letter to President David G. Burnet.
Persuaded by my Presence in the Cabinet at present will be of but little service & that I can better employ my time in other services of my country I beg leave to tender my resignation as Vice President of the Republic for reasons which I will explain to Congress & the Nation.
Brunet replied the next day.
I received your note this day, resigning the office of Vice President of the Republic. As no specific reasons are assigned for this unexpected act, nothing more is left for me to do, than to express the regret which I feel, in common with the gentlemen who compose the Cabinet, at the deprivation of your counsel at this interesting juncture in our affairs.
Zavala’s resignation and Brunet’s acceptance notwithstanding, Zavala continued to serve as vice president. He, along with his family, also served as nurses to the San Jacinto wounded—Texian and Mexican—turning, according to Gray, his “small” home of “one large room, three small bed closets and a porch” into a makeshift hospital.
A month later, on May 27, Zavala and Bailey Hardeman were appointed peace commissioners. In accordance with the provisions of the Treaties of Velasco they accompanied the defeated Santa Anna to Mexico City with the mission of persuading the Mexican Congress to recognize an independent Texas. A few days later, Zavala submitted a second resignation letter, addressed to the “President & members of the Cabinet Present.”
Taking into consideration that the present Government of Texas has lost the moral confidence of the People and is therefore no longer able to carry into effect their measures, I have to under my resignation as Vice President of Texas.
This letter was apparently never accepted and acted upon because Zavala, as before, continued to serve as vice president. But as a practical issue it hardly mattered. He had returned from Mexico too ill to participate in the government when the first Congress of the Republic of Texas convened at Columbia. Burnet wrote Zavala on October 14 indicating he wanted to surrender the government to the newly elected executives—Sam Houston and Mirabeau B. Lamar—as soon as possible instead of waiting until December, as stipulated in the constitution. Burnet said he intended to resign and asked Zavala to do the same, which he did October 17.
Less than a month later, while rowing on Buffalo Bayou with his five-year-old son Agustín, a norther swept through, capsizing his rowboat. Zavala managed to get Agustín on top of the overturned boat while he swam to shore. Soaked and half-frozen, Zavala caught pneumonia. He died on November 15, 1836, and was buried in a small cemetery at his home. Some ten days later, The Telegraph and Texas Register printed his obituary:
Died, on the 15th inst. at his residence on the San Jacinto, our distinguished and talented fellow-citizen . . . this enlightened and patriotic statesman. . . . Texas has lost one of her most valuable citizens . . . and society one of its brightest ornaments.
The land around the waters of Buffalo Bayou served as his home in his adopted homeland. Those waters echoed the sounds of freedom from the battle fought near those lands. Those waters then took his life seven months after realizing that freedom. Less than a century later, in the twilight of 1931, those same waters claimed the mortal remains of Lorenzo de Zavala when his grave silently slipped beneath their serene surface.
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* Beside the book Gray referenced—Viage á los Estodos-Unidos del Norte de América (1834)—Zavala also wrote a two-volume history of Mexico: Ensayo Histórico de las Revoluciones de México desde 1808 hasta 1830 (1831 and 1832).
† This union produced three children, including Lorenzo Jr., who fought at the battle of San Jacinto and served as General Sam Houston’s translator during negotiation with Santa Anna. She died in the spring of 1831.
‡ They were married on November 12, 1831. This union also produced three children, including Augstín (or Augustine), the eldest. His daughter, Adina Emila de Zavala, fought to preserve the Alamo’s long barracks.
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William Fairfax Gray, At the Birth of Texas: The Diary of William Fairfax Gray, 1835–1838, reprint (Corpus Christi: Copano Bay Press, 2015), 122–3, 163–4, 196.
Margaret Sweet Henson, Lorenzo de Zavala: The Pragmatic Idealist (Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1996).
Louis Wiltz Kemp, Our (Unlikely) Fathers: The Signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence, reprint (Corpus Christi: Copano Bay Press, 2014), 323–4.
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