4/1/1813: Mexican revolutionary captures San Antonio

[Craig Tx]

On this day in 1813, Spanish governor Manuel Maria de Salcedo surrendered the city of San Antonio to forces under Jose Bernardo Maximiliano Gutierrez de Lara, commander-in-chief of the filibustering Gutierrez-Magee expedition.

Gutierrez intended to set up a republican government in Texas and use Texas as a base for operations designed to liberate Mexico from Spanish rule. The scheme ended in August with the defeat of Gutierrez's successor as head of the provisional government, Jose Alvarez de Toledo, but the indefatigable Gutierrez went on to become involved with such filibusters and revolutionaries as Louis Michel Aury, Francisco Xavier Mina, and James Long, among others.