The following is a reprint of an article written by the author for and published by Los Bexarenos Genealogical and Historical Society’s 2018 Register.
The Changing Times of Maria Gertrudes Navarro Cervantes de Cantú
We all know that six flags flew over Texas. Many of the early Spanish colonial citizens of La Provincia de Texas[1] lived under many of these flags. So was the case of Maria Gertrudes Navarro Cervantes de Cantu. During her seventy-nine years of life she saw many changes and lived through turbulent times that accompanied the changing of the six flags. She was a witness to much turmoil and her immediate and extended family played pivotal roles in much of this turmoil.
Under the Spanish Flag
It was Friday, November 29, 1816 when Maria Gertrudes Servantes[2], three days old, was baptized at San Fernando Church. She was baptized as the natural child of Concepcion Servantes. Her maternal grandparents are listed as José Servantes and Barbara Peres. The baptismal record has a notation that says her father was Don José Ángel Navarro who was in service of the government. Ángel Navarro was an officer in the Spanish army and was likely away on duty during her baptism or was seeking refuge from the failed uprising at the Battle of Medina. Her godparents at her baptism were Alferes Don Bernardo Rodriguez and Doña Gertrudes de la Cerda[3].
At the time of her birth, Gertrudes was the fourth “natural” child born to Concepcion Servantes. Her older siblings were Juana Gertrudes Navarro, Maria Petra Navarro, and a half-brother named Juan Francisco Guelgos. She also had younger half sisters from her mother; Maria del Carmen Cervantes, Maria Antonia del Carmen Germana Cervantes, and Maria Filomena de Jesus Cervantes. The father of these sisters was Alferez Francisco Rodriguez[4]. Gertrudes also had half-siblings from her father; Nepomuceno, José de los Angeles, Federico and Nicolas Navarro. Her mother died when she was only fourteen years old[5]. Gertrudes would spend some of her younger years living with either her paternal or maternal aunts.
Gertrudes’ extended family played a significant role in her life and that of her sister, Juana. An early record indicates that her paternal uncle, Luciano Navarro, her father’s younger brother, adopted Gertrudes when she was only a year old[6]. She later shows up in the 1819 census enumerated with her mother and Juana Hernandez, her mother’s cousin. Her sister Juana was adopted by their paternal aunt, Joséfa Navarro and her husband Juan Martin de Veramendi[7]. The Veramendi and Navarro families were successful merchants and lived close to each other for years. The bond Gertrudes and Juana shared with their extended family would prove important, not only for their upbringing but for Texas history as well.
Gertrudes’s extended Navarro family would prove instrumental in Texas history for most of the nineteenth century. First, a quick review of the historical figures among her extended family.
Gertrudes’s paternal grandparents were José Ángel Navarro, her father’s namesake, and Maria Gertrudes “Joséfa” Ruiz y Peña. José Angel Navarro was born in Corsica and arrived in San Antonio in the late 1700s. Her paternal great uncle, José Francisco Ruiz, was the brother to her grandmother Maria Joséfa. Her paternal uncle was the famed José Antonio Navarro. These two uncles, José Antonio and José Francisco, were involved in every major Texas event for the first 70 years of the nineteenth century and, like Gertrudes and many other Texas citizens during this timeframe, witnessed the changing of six flags while continuing to live in the same city throughout this time—San Antonio. Other extended family members include cousin Ignacio Peña, cousin Ursula Veramendi, maternal grandparents José Maria Cervantes and Barbara Perez and maternal grand uncles Marcelo Cervantes and Ignacio Perez to name just a few.
The five years preceding Gertrudes’ 1816 birth were among the most turbulent in Texas history—the first Texas revolution. A review of this historical time period finds Gertrude’s extended family on both sides of the revolution.
The revolution in La Provincia de Texas began with Father Miguel Hidalgo’s “Grito” in September 1810. The ripples of this cry for freedom reached San Fernando de Béxar and in January 1811 Juan Bautista de las Casas overthrew Texas governor Manuel Salcedo who, at the time, was here in San Fernando de Béxar. A counterrevolution would soon follow and reinstate Spanish rule and order via the junta (town council). One of those serving on the ruling junta was Ignacio Perez, a maternal uncle of Gertrudes. Ignacio was a staunch royalist and would serve the crown admirably. He fought alongside General Joaquin de Arredondo at the Battle of Medina. Arredondo’s army decimated the rebels at the failed insurrection at the Battle of Medina. Following the massacre at Medina, Ignacio rode with Lt Col Elizondo chasing the fleeing rebels as they headed for refuge in Louisiana. Some would perish at the hands of Perez and Elizondo before reaching their intended destination. Others, like Gertrudes’ grand uncle Marcelo Cervantes, would die only a few months after reaching exile in Louisiana[8]. Several members of Gertrudes’ family did not favor the Spanish crown and were among the fleeing rebels.
One of the rebel leaders at the Battle of Medina, the bloodiest battle in Texas which occurred in August 1813, was none other than Gertrudes’ great uncle José Francisco Ruiz. José Francisco Ruiz was a Spanish army officer who turned his allegiance away from the crown and joined the rebel forces under the direction of José Bernardo Gutierrez de Lara and later under General José Álvarez de Toledo. When Arredondo and his Spanish army succeeded on the battle field, José Francisco, like many others who survived the massacre, sought refuge in the east. While General Arredondo issued an amnesty to the rebels in September 1813, he excepted José Francisco Ruiz. Ruiz spent the subsequent eight years in exile; mostly living among many of the Texas Indian tribes[9]. The price paid for freedom by the Béxareños, individuals from Béxar, was high but the independence they sought would come to them around the same time José Francisco returned from exile.
Under the Mexican Flag
Gertrudes was only five years old when the Spanish flag in San Fernando de Béxar was lowered and replaced by the Mexican flag in 1821. Her adolescent and teenage years spent under the Mexican flag would be no less tumultuous and her extended family would again play pivotal roles in this period of Texas history.
An interesting dynamic appears as you comb through the archives researching this particular time period in Texas history. Some of the players who were involved in the local 1811-1813 independence movement against the Spanish crown and survived the bloodiest battle in Texas, are once again found “stirring the pot” seeking autonomy and self-rule during the Mexican period of 1821-1836. Many of these players were Gertrudes’s family.
The first alcalde[10] in Béxar in 1821 who was responsible for accepting the surrender of the Spanish Governor when Mexico claimed its independence in September of the same year was José Ángel Navarro—Gertrudes’s father. Ángel, like his uncle Jose Francisco and others, fled from General Arredondo’s wrath. Arredondo discharged Ángel from the Spanish Army when he learned of his relationship to the insurgent Jose Francisco. He didn’t waste much time getting back into the thick of things.
Gertrudes’s other close family members would serve as alcalde for five of the fifteen years that San Antonio, then San Fernando de Béxar, was a city in the Mexican state of Coahuila y Texas. Her father would serve two, one-year terms, her uncle Juan Martín de Veramendi would also serve two terms and her first cousin Francisco Antonio Ruiz would serve a short period of time as alcalde[11].
In the 1820s and early 1830s, Gertrudes’s paternal great uncle Lt Colonel Jose Francisco Ruiz continued to command armies at several outposts across Coahuila y Texas. In 1826, he was sent to Nacogdoches to squash the Fredonian Rebellion and following, was the commander of a nearby post. His service continued and at one time was appointed the commander of the Alamo de Parras company headquartered out of Mission de Valero (aka The Alamo). Jose Francisco Ruiz was also responsible, in the early 1830s, for establishing a fort near the Brazos River called Fort Tenoxtitlán in an attempt to dissuade American migration to Texas.
While uncle Jose Francisco was serving in the army, uncle Jose Antonio Navarro was serving as a state legislator for Coahuila y Texas as well as a federal congressman in Mexico. Jose Antonio was also the land commissioner for the DeWitt colony[12].
In 1831, Gertrudes’s connections to freedom seekers expanded when her first cousin, Ursula de Veramendi, married James Bowie in San Fernando Cathedral. Gertrudes’s father served as their witness.
In 1832, when Gertrudes was sixteen years old, the independence bug was beginning to infect many of Béxar’s citizens. Once again her father José Ángel was serving as a member of the town council and drafted a list of grievances, referred to in English as the Béxar Remonstrances, which the citizens had with the Mexican government. The sixteen page document concluded with fourteen articles:
Article 1.
The organization of a civilian militia.
Article 2. A new colonization law should be drawn up granting land free to each
Mexican family born in Texas.
Article 3. Grant permission for the immigration of industrious North Americans
with capital in order to prevent entry of adventurers and criminals.
Article 4. Better conditions for public employees and the naming of properly
qualified judges of record and public notaries.
Article 5. Some reward for those with council duties.
Article 6. Bring to the supreme government’s attention the scandalous
proceedings of the military in Texas.
Article 7. Satisfy demands for personal representation.
Article 8. Adequate payment by the State for primary school salaries.
Article 9. The prohibition against foreign-born merchants should be repealed.
Article 10. The number of representatives for Texas should be increased
according to population.
Article 11. A District chief of this department should be named at once.
Article 12. The exemption of duties should be granted for ten years through
ports of Galveston, Aransas, and Rio de Los Brazos in Texas for local
consumption.
Article 13. Annul the delays granted to impresarios Powers and Hewitson.
Article 14. Let the legislature busy itself with these points as prime and
necessary matters.[13]
This document is considered by many to be the beginning of the Texas Revolution.
It’s important to note that the Béxar grievances, sent to the Mexican federal government, had sympathetic ears of the governor of Coahuila y Texas—Angel’s brother-in-law and Gertrudes’s paternal uncle Juan Martín de Veramendi, a fellow Bexareño. Martín was promoted from Vice-Governor to Governor in 1832 following the death of Governor José Maria Letona. Unfortunately, the Navarro family and citizens of Béxar would lose several members of one of its important families–uncle Juan Martín, aunt Josefa Navarro and cousin Ursula Veramendi all perished in Monclova from cholera[14].
In 1835, things in Béxar began to change. From October to December, Juan Seguin led a company of Tejanos who, under the command of Texian army that included James Bowie, James Fanin, William Barret Travis and Edward Burleson, laid siege to Béxar fighting against the local Mexican army. One of the many Tejanos that fought under Juan Seguin’s command was Gertrudes’s maternal cousin Jose Agapito Cervantes, son Battle of Medina rebel Marcelo Cervantes and Juana Martinez, a descendant of one of the early presidio soldiers from Los Adaes; Texas first capital.
Mexican general Martín Perfecto de Cos arrived with his troops in the early part of October 1835 and sought to use Ángel Navarro’s house as his headquarters. Ángel, the jefe politico at the time (political chief–the highest ranking Mexican government official in Bexar), refused the commanding general’s request. Several battles occurred between the Mexican army and the Texian and Tejano forces during the last two months of 1835 and culminated with the Edward Burleson accepting the surrender of General Cos[15]. This would not be the end of the Mexican army’s fighting to control the hot bed of rebels in Texas during its second revolution.
Gertrudes was winding down her teenage years in 1836 when her family would once again play a significant role in what would be a turning point for Texas citizens, especially the Tejanos.
Representatives from twenty-one communities in Texas met at the convention of 1836 at Washington-on-the-Brazos. While not known at the time, the sixty men at the convention were writing and signing the Texas Declaration of Independence from Mexico while the Mexican army was laying devastation to the forces at the Alamo. Jose Antonio Navarro, his uncle Jose Francisco Ruiz were two of the three Béxar representatives to sign the declaration. The other representative was Jesse Badgett.
While her uncles were in East Texas penning their names to the declaration of independences, Gertrudes and her sister Juana were inside the Alamo during the battle caring for their cousin’s widowed husband, James Bowie.
Helen Garza, a 2x great granddaughter of Gertrudes Navarro, was raised in her younger years by Gertrudes’s son and her great grandfather Faustino Cantu. He shared with Helen stories his mother Gertrudes shared with him about her time in the Alamo with her sister Juana caring for James. Here’s an excerpt of her recounted story published in the Navarro Family History book:
The Mexican army had entered Bejar in February, 1836. Gertrudes was nineteen years old. Her father, Angel sent her and her sister, Juana Alsbury and Juana’s child, Alejo Perez to the Alamo for safekeeping. . They went to the Officers barracks with the women and children. Gertrudes was related to James Bowie by marriage. His deceased wife, Ursula Veramendi de Bowie was her cousin. Bowie was ill with typhoid fever or malaria. Gertrudes would go to his room and bring him warm tea and do whatever she could to comfort him. Gertrudes told my grandfather, Faustino Cantu Navarro, that Bowie was like a brother to her and a kind and gentle person. He always wanted to help her and Juana and Little Alejo. Since Juana had a “Nino de brazos”, a child she always had to carry, Gertrudes was the one that went back and forth giving James Bowie the attention he needed. It was not wise for Juana to care for James Bowie as she could expose little Alejo to Bowie’s illness.
When the Alamo was being overrun by Mexican soldiers, Juana asked Gertrudes to go to the door of the room and tell the Mexican soldiers that only women and children were in the room. As Gertrudes opened the door, one soldier cursed her and the others then rushed through the door. Gertrudes ran but was grabbed by a soldier who tore off here shawl. He shouted “Senorita, give me your money and your husband.” She answered “I have neither money nor husband.” A Texian soldier came to her rescue but was pushed aside by a Mexican soldier who ran his bayonet through him. He fell at Gertrude’s feet. Then a Mexican soldier used Gertrudes and Juana still holding little Alejo as shields to get to the front door. He left them standing there terrified. Gertrudes then went back inside the Alamo to continue to help the wounded. She told her son, “there was so much blood and the defenders needed bandages so I tore pieces off my petticoats to help bind the wounds and gave water to the injured. One of the defenders came back to tell her that they needed a long straight cloth. She tore off the long sleeve on her dress to give to him. It was cold so she covered herself with her shawl. At the same time she was bringing warm tea and some water to Bowie and she would wipe the sweat from his face and eyes caused by his fever. Bowie told Gertrudes that, “Her presence gave him strength and courage.” She told her son, “I prayed & cried a lot because there was so little I could do to help.”
The Mexican soldiers forced open her (baul) trunk and destroyed her precious mementos from her Mother and Father. They also took her gold, clothes, letters, and jewelry. She said to her son Faustino, “I thanked God and the Holy Virgin that we were alive. Surely it was a miracle.”
Juan Seguin once again led a company of Tejano fighters who rode alongside the Texian army at the Battle of San Jacinto. Among the Tejano fighters was Gertrudes’s older half-brother Juan Nepomuceno Navarro. Nepomuceno was born in 1811 and was marred to Maria de Jesus Uron. They had two children.
When news arrived Béxar that Texas secured its independence following the Battle of San Jacinto, many took to the streets to celebrate. That is how Gertrudes’s father Ángel is described by his house guest and physician, Dr Joseph Barnard. Dr. Barnard said Angel Navarro was “…seen capering about the street like a boy, in perfect ecstasy of glee[16].” Two months later, on June 13, 1836, Gertrudes would lose her father to a longtime illness.
Under the Texas Flag
Gertrudes’s family would continue to serve the community and the new Republic. Her uncle José Antonio served Béxar as a congressman in the new Republic. He fought for the rights of all citizens and spent considerable time helping local Tejanos in their fight to maintain their long-held land titles. It was a futile struggle. Their lands were lost to unscrupulous men who sought to acquire fortune and power. The Tejano struggle went beyond the issue of land rights and ownership. The political structure in Texas also changed as the new Republic was formed. The position of alcalde was changed to mayor and in 1842 Juan Seguin would be the last Spanish surnamed mayor until the election of Henry Cisneros is 1981[17].
Like the changes that came with a new flag and a new republic, Gertrudes would also experience a change. On July 26, 1841 Gertrudes married Jose Miguel Felipe Cantu, the son of Jesus Cantu and Maria de los Santos Gortari in San Fernando Church (now a cathedral). It is very likely that Gertrudes was introduced to Miguel by his maternal grandmother Concepcion Charlé Gortari Losoya who was also one of the non-combatant survivors of the Battle of the Alamo. Concepcion’s son Toribio was also an Alamo defender who lost his life during the battle. Gertrudes and Miguel were undoubtedly loved by the family. Proof can be found in 1941 when her granddaughter and namesake Gertrudes Delgado de Saenz sponsors a celebratory mass to be held in recognition of the 100th anniversary of Gertrudes and Miguel’s marriage.
Between 1842 and 1853, Miguel and Gertrudes would have eight children. Alexandro born 1842; Angela born 1843 who married Cresenciano Navarro; Catarina Cantu born 1844 married Felix Arciniega; Miguel Cantu born 1846; Jesus Cantu born 1849 married Trinidad Tejeda; Faustino Cantu born about 1850 married Ester Vara; Santa Cantu born 1851 married Salvador Delgado; and Jesus Cantu born 1853. The family lived on the large Cantu ranch.
Under the United States Flag
Most of the Cantu children were born as United States citizens as Texas joined the union as the 28th state in 1845. They would also experience the changing of flags in their lifetime—at least twice.
Under the Confederate Flag of America
Gertrudes was forty-five years old when Texas, like many other southern states, seceded from the union and joined the Confederate States and fight against union forces during the Civil War from 1861-1865. Some of Gertrudes’s family, like paternal cousin Jose Angel Navarro (son of Jose Antonio Navarro), served in the Confederate Army. Many did not participate in battles but rather served the confederacy hauling cotton which was a major source of income or the confederacy. Hauling goods was not foreign to the Cantu family nor to others from San Antonio in the mid-1800s. Being a carretero, or cartman, was an occupation for many in the area and was another source of friction between Tejano and anglo citizens of Texas. The cart wars of the late 1850s, preceding the Civil War, pitted anglo freighters from South Texas against Tejano and Mexican freighters from San Antonio and resulted in several deaths before Governor Pease involved the U.S. Army[18].
The flag would change one last time in 1865 when the Civil War ended. Gertrudes Navarro lived another 30 years under the United States flag until her death in March 1895.
In
November 2016, descendants of Gertrudes and Juana Navarro gathered at the
marker dedicated to the Women and Children Survivors of the Alamo to recognize
and celebrate Gertrudes on her 200th birthday.
[1] La Provincia de Texas, or the Province of Texas, is how Texas was referred to in the early Spanish colonial period up to 1821 when Texas came under the control of independent Mexico.
[2] For the purpose of this article, the last name “Servantes” will appear as it does in the records. However, it is worthy to note that records pertaining to other extended family members are found under the same name spelled “Cervantes” or “Serbantes”.
[3] San Fernando Baptisms, 1812-1825, entry 391, John Ogden Leal, unpublished manuscript, Dec 23, 1976.
[4] “Navarro Family History Book”, Al Gerdes.
[5] San Fernando Burials, John Ogden Leal, unpublished manuscript, entry 1399, dated January 30, 1830, page 61.
[6] “Navarro Family History Book”, Al Gerdes
[7] ibid
[8] Los Bexareños Genealogical and Historical Society Newsletter, October 2012, page 12. http://www.losbexarenos.org/newsletter/LBGHS_Newsletter_201210.pdf
[9] Handbook of Texas Online, Bernice Strong, “RUIZ, JOSE FRANCISCO,” accessed July 11, 2018, http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fru11.
[10] Alcalde was the highest-ranking municipal governmental position, reporting directly to the Governor, during the Spanish colonial period. Today’s equivalent would be a County Judge, Mayor and Magistrate all rolled into one.
[11] List of Mayors and Alcaldes, City of San Antonio, www.sanantonio.gov/
[12] “Jose Antonio Navarro: In Search of the American Dream in Nineteenth Century Texas”, David McDonald, pg 100.
[13] Summary of the Bexar Remonstrance from Memoirs for the History of the Wars in Texas by General Vicente Filisola (Second in Command to Santa Anna). http://www.sonsofdewittcolony.org/bexar7.htm
[14] Handbook of Texas Online, “VERAMENDI, JUAN MARTIN DE,” accessed July 15, 2018, http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fve06.
[15] Handbook of Texas Online, Alwyn Barr, “BEXAR, SIEGE OF,” accessed July 14, 2018, http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/qeb01.
+[16] “The Alamo Reader: A Study in History”, Todd Hansen editor, page 615.
[17] Mayors and Alcaldes, City of San Antonio Municipal Archives, https://www.sanantonio.gov/Municipal-Archives-Records/About-Archives-Records/Mayors-and-Alcaldes
[18] Handbook of Texas Online, David J. Weber, “CART WAR,” accessed July 15, 2018, http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/jcc01.