Posted on 03/27/2007 10:40:16 AM PDT by WestTexasWend
Robert Collins might not be around had it not been for a mysterious, kindhearted Latina who was at Goliad when Texans fought for independence in 1836.
Now 72, Collins had never heard of the "Angel of Goliad" until he read about Francisca Alvarez in the newspaper a few years ago.
His ancestor, John P. Collin, came to Texas from Louisiana to serve in the war. Collin was a young medic when he somehow eluded execution at Goliad. The mystery runs so deep that Collins can't say for certain that Alvarez saved his forebear.
"Naturally, he survived, or I wouldn't be here," Collins said.
The battle of the Alamo, March 6, 1836, is the most fabled event in the Texas Revolution. But the "Goliad Massacre" three weeks later, 171 years ago today, had a death toll of at least 350 Texans.
Rudy Ramirez has often wondered why his mother never told him she was the great-granddaughter of Alvarez, who saved dozens of Texans from the wrath of Gen. Antonio López de Santa Anna.
He now devotes much of his time to learning more about Alvarez so no one forgets the compassion she showed in one of the bloodiest periods in Texas.
"I'm not going to let that happen in my lifetime," said Ramirez, of Palestine.
Though many despised Santa Anna for overrunning the Alamo, the killing of unarmed men in Goliad further riled the Texans. Battle cries of "Remember the Alamo!" and "Remember Goliad!" helped Texas win independence at San Jacinto.
One dilemma with the story of the raven-haired beauty at Goliad is that her true name and years of birth and death are in doubt. Her surname has been given as Alavéz, Alvarez and Alevesco, although Capt. Telesforo Alavéz, her common-law husband by today's standards, was already married when he brought her to Texas. Also, accounts have said her first name was Francita or Panchita.
One thing is certain: The diminutive young woman saved or aided up to 60 Texans in defiance of Santa Anna's explicit orders to take no prisoners at Goliad, Victoria, the nearby port of Copano and in Mexico.
Dr. Jack Shackleford, who survived at Goliad, wrote an account shortly after the war.
"She was indeed an angel of mercy, a second Pocahontas," who would "pour oil into our wounds," he wrote.
Alvarez is said to have gone into the presidio in Goliad the night before the massacre to help men escape. Working independently, or with Mexican officers, their wives or a priest named Father John T. Malloy, she's believed to have saved Shackleford and another doctor, as well as some nurses, workmen and nearly 30 others, including a 15-year-old boy.
"We were called out and told to hurry up and get in line to march to a place of embarcation, and we got into line rather hopping and skipping with joy at the thought of soon being home," said the boy, Benjamin Franklin Hughes, in an account written later and now kept at the University of Texas at Austin.
It had been a week since the Texian commander at Goliad, Col. James Fannin, surrendered to Mexican Gen. José Urrea, believing his men would be treated as prisoners. But Santa Anna had sent orders to kill them.
Alvarez and Urrea's wife, who stayed in Goliad as her husband moved on to Victoria, urged officers to spare Hughes, who was pulled from the ranks before the others were shot and stabbed with bayonets.
Dr. Joseph H. Barnard, the other physician who survived, recalled Alvarez's response:
"During the time of the massacre, she stood in the street, her hair floating, speaking wildly, and abusing the Mexican officers. ... She appeared almost frantic."
For the next 100 years, little else was known about her. In 1936, as Texas marked its centennial, Elena O'Shea, a former King Ranch schoolteacher, wrote memoirs based on interviews from the early 1900s.
Francisca Alvarez had been an orphan, reared by a family in Mexico "as a sort of better class servant," O'Shea wrote. She fell in love with Capt. Alavéz and came with him to Texas. He had wedded under a family-arranged marriage and couldn't get a church annulment.
After the war, the couple returned to Mexico and had two children. The captain abandoned Francisca, who fell into poverty and was rejected in Mexican society for the help she'd given the Texans.
Her daughter died at an early age. Her son, Matias Alvarez, met Capt. Richard King, founder of the King Ranch, in 1884. Knowing Matias was the son of the famed Angel of Goliad, King invited him and his family to live on the ranch.
Francisca Alvarez was buried in an unmarked grave at the ranch, O'Shea wrote. Matias Alvarez raised nine children there.
Growing up in Kingsville, Rudy Ramirez and his sister, Rebecca Alvarez Shokrian, had no clue about their ties to history.
"Naci sin un padre" — "I was born without a father," their mother, Rebeca Marroquin Alvarez de Ramirez, had always said.
Their mother died in 1994. Nearly a decade later, Ramirez and Shokrian learned through a relative that their mother's father, Gerardo Alvarez, was a grandson of the Angel of Goliad.
Ramirez, 61, and Shokrian, 64, have since devoted many hours to promoting awareness of Francisca Alvarez. He's president, and she's treasurer, of the Angel of Goliad Descendants Historical Preservation, a 3-year-old group with bylaws, fundraisers and a Web site.
Each year, around the date of the massacre, descendants lay a wreath by the Fannin Monument at the Presidio La Bahía, south of Goliad, and by the Angel of Goliad statue, unveiled in 2004.
The descendants' group sells T-shirts, commemorative coins and CDs by country-folk artist K.R. Wood, who recorded a song about Alvarez. They hope to fund a granite pedestal for the statue, then find their ancestor's grave and put a marker there.
There are an estimated 2,500 descendants today, Ramirez said. They include Lauro Cavazos Jr., the nation's first Hispanic secretary of education; Richard E. Cavazos, who was the Army's first Hispanic four-star general before he retired in 1984; and Tejano singer Rebecca Valadez, winner of two Latin Grammys and a recent Grammy nominee.
Ramirez, who has four grown children, 14 grandchildren and three great-grandkids, said he hopes textbooks will include his ancestor's story.
"Things like that take time," he said. "There's still a whole lot more we hope to learn."
It still isn't known, and may never be, whether Alvarez saved Robert Collins' ancestor, John P. Collin, at Goliad. Collins only knows the young medic went on to marry and have children and add an "s" to his name.
Collins, of San Antonio, said he wants to learn more about Alvarez, although he won't have many answers by June, when his relatives, about 50 people, will gather for a family reunion. They'll likely contemplate how many of them might not be around today if not for the Angel of Goliad.
"I'm just beginning to realize the significance of this," he said.
Shokrian, a retired teacher who lives in San Antonio, hopes to pass the angel's legacy on.
"I'm fixing to have a grandson in July, and I want him to know where he came from," she said. "Our ancestor represented humanitarianism. Today, some of her descendants are still working on the King Ranch. Some are serving in Iraq. We're nurses, doctors and firefighters.
"We serve others. We carry that heritage in our veins."
La Bahia slideshow: http://www.mysanantonio.com/multimedia/slideshows/show_1436/window/slide_1.html
Angel of Goliad decendants historial preservation:
http://www.angelofgoliadhp.com/
Presidio la Bahia:
http://www.presidiolabahia.org/
Goliad Massacre - Texas State Handbook Online:
http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/GG/qeg2.html
Since you expressed an interest on The Alamo thread, here's more on Goliad.
Texas, Tech, Alamo ping
Angel Ping!
If you want on, or off this S. Texas/Mexico ping list, please FReepMail me.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.