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They
convened in what Spanish officials called the Consistorial House
at Presidio La Bahia del Espirito Santo on July 19, 1822.
Soon to become an independent republic called Mexico, New Spain
then neared the end of its bloody struggle to free itself from the
Crown. But even in time of revolution, people are people. They are
good, bad or a mixture of both. On the bad side, among other possibilities,
they can be mean, they can hurt others, and they can steal – in
short, most human foibles are as timeless as our capacity to be
loving, nurturing and honest.
The meeting underway on this summer day in the small community southwest
of San Antonio that would come to be known as Goliad had nothing
to do with the distant revolution or the more immediate threat of
hostile Indians. Local civil, military and ecclesiastic officials
had gathered to discuss a shocking instance of what today would
be called domestic violence – one of their own had slashed off his
wife’s ears.
Less than a footnote in Texas history today, that the incident is
even known 182 years later is because that in addition to armored
men on horseback and galleons bristling with cannon, the Spanish
empire was held together by paper. Spain had a bureaucracy that
would do any modern-day federal worker proud.
The scribe for the town’s ruling body kept careful minutes of governmental
proceedings. Fortunately for posterity, that figurative treasure
chest of Texas history was discovered a few years ago in Mexico
City’s national library. The late Malcolm D. McLean, compiler of
the monumental “Robertson’s Colony Papers” obtained photo copies
of 700-plus pages of those old Spanish records from Goliad
and translated them to English.
In 2008, the documents became available to all with the publication
by the William P. Clements Center for Southwestern Studies of “Voices
from the Goliad Frontier, Municipal Council Minutes 1821-1835.”
And in that thick work is the frustratingly incomplete story of
a not-so-gentle gentleman named Don Encarnacio Vasquez.
The
bloody spousal attack that preoccupied Goliad’s leadership at what
must have been an emergency meeting had occurred earlier that day
in the home of Senor Vasquez, the interim alcalde (similar to a
mayor) of Goliad.
The matter came to official attention with a verbal report from
Senora Dona Gertrudis Barrera.
She told the officials that Vasquez’s wife had come to her house
for help following mutilation at the hands of her husband. Senora
Barrera doubtless provided the authorities more details, but for
whatever reason, those particulars were not noted in the minutes.
What did get recorded was that the governing body “resolved” that
Don Manuel Becerra, the syndic attorney (the equivalent of a county
attorney) “should go to [Vasquez’s] house and make him come to present
himself before the …authorities.” The attorney did as instructed,
only to find that Vasquez wasn’t there.
When Becerra reported that Vasquez had apparently fled, the council
commissioned him and Don Juan Jose Galan, the acting commandant
of arms, to find him and return him to Goliad.
Why
Vasquez mutilated his wife is not known. What is known is that the
barbaric practice was not unique. In the 1700s, the practice had
even played a part in starting a war between England and Spain.
The triggering incident happened off the coast of Florida a Spanish
ship stopped and boarded an English vessel. The Spanish captain
cut off one of his English counterpart’s ears, telling him to go
back and report to the British admiralty what happened when ships
flying the Union Jack ventured into Spanish waters. When the British
captain, one Jenkins, later told his story in Parliament. For added
impact he displayed what was left of his ear. The war that followed
later came to be called The War of Jenkins’ Ear.
Tragically, in some cultures, women still sometimes lose their ears
to husbands, fathers or brothers. In 2010, for instance, an Afghan
woman whose ears had been cut off for “shaming” her family by running
away from an abusive husband underwent reconstructive surgery in
the U.S.
But such surgery was not possible in 1822. Losing one’s ears was
not normally fatal, but if infection occurred, it could have been.
No matter, the woman in Goliad
had been marked for life and doubtless left to cope with impaired
hearing.
How extensively Goliad
authorities searched for Vasquez did not make it into the minutes,
but he could not be located. What the officials did find was that
the interim alcalde had not only assaulted his wife, he had absconded
with all the town’s funds and postage money.
The kicker is that a few years later, the council minutes reflect
that Vasquez not only had returned to Goliad,
he once again served in a position of public trust. Whether he had
benefited from hiring a very good defense lawyer is not part of
the record, nor is there any information on what became of his wife.
McLean did find several pages of material referring to Vasquez among
the papers of the Bexar Archives at the University of Texas, but
the documentation is in Spanish and has yet to be translated. Thanks
to the Spanish penchant for paperwork, the rest of this story may
lie there.
© Mike Cox
- April 3, 2014 column
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