Finding Medina

In 7thgrade Texas history textbooks, Bernardo Gutiérrez de Lara figures only peripherally in the events covered in this series. In reality, he may have been the great unifying figure for the Tejano, Native American, and Americans volunteers marching across Texas in the fall of 1812. Texas Governor Manuel Salcedo certainly took notice of his movements and rode out to ambush the revolutionary commander on the road to San Antonio in October 1812. It would be Gutiérrez de Lara, however, who had a surprise in store for Salcedo.

The research team takes to the air to look for the "canyon" chosen by Republicans to later ambush the Royalist Army before the Battle of Medina.

Before Father Miguel Hidalgo was captured by Royalist forces in March of 1811, he commissioned a modest but vocal supporter from the Rio Grande Valley as his emissary to the United States. With a dozen or so loyal followers, that emissary - José Bernardo Gutiérrez de Lara escaped Royalist capture and crossed over the Sabine, where he would spend the next two years rallying recruits and resources to the cause of Mexican independence.

Multiple contemporary accounts of the Battle of Medina relate the Republican army's route to the battlefield. Unfortunately, they almost all relate it differently or contradict each other in some material point. Despite their contradictions and ambiguities, what details might they have in common?

After capturing Father Miguel Hidalgo, Texas Royalist Governor Manuel Salcedo returned to San Antonio in a less-than-magnanimous frame of mind. San Antonio, after all, was the town that had deposed him, and the town to which Father Hidalgo had been fleeing. Governor Salcedo took it upon himself to impress upon San Antonians the true cost of disloyalty to the Crown…and to him.

The Battlefield search team, meanwhile, employs some modern technology (LIDAR) and grunt work of a dedicated UTSA researcher (Bruce Moses) to map out the roads into San Antonio in 1813 and, with that, the location of General Arredondo's camp and line of march on the morning of the battle.

On September 16, 1810, Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costillas unleashed a cry of protest against centuries of Spanish exploitation of New Spain. San Antonians under a retired militia Captain named Juan Bautista de las Casas took up the cry and attached themselves to his cause.

We start our search for the battlefield of Medina by dissecting the most primary account of them all: the post-action report of the Spanish Royalist commander, Joaquín de Arredondo. He gives us our first important clues for narrowing the search area.

Texas in 1800 was defined by its isolation, which Tejanos felt all the more acutely because of Spain's restrictive trade laws and general neglect towards its most distant colonies. Tejanos began to see themselves as a people apart and to crave more autonomy and control over their own affairs.

Three different battle markers claim to be the site of the Battle of Medina, though none has ever produced archaeological evidence of the battle. What can the markers tell us, however, about where the battle might have occurred? Listen to learn more.

How did we lose the site of the largest battle in Texas history?

"Finding Medina" weaves together the events surrounding the 1813 Battle of Medina with the modern-day search for the battlefield itself. Despite being the largest, bloodiest battle in Texas history, the *exact site of the* Medina battlefield has eluded archaeologists for more than a century. By the end of this podcast series, we hope to change that.

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