La familia Sanchez

[John Inclan]

Captain Tomás Tadeo Sánchez de la Barrera y de la Garza

(1709-1796)

 

© By John D. Inclan

Edited by Bernadette Inclan

 

Since the century and a half that the last Conquistadors plundered through the Texas panhandle searching for the Seven Cities of Gold, their sons and daughters accede to civilize and domesticate the vast terrain of the Southwest.   Of significant import in this new era, Captain Tomás Tadeo Sánchez de la Barrera y Garza holds the acknowledgment as the founder of Laredo, Texas.  He was born on June 04, 1709, in the Valle de Carrizal near Monterrey, Nuevo León.  His parents were Don Tomás Sánchez de la Barrera and Dona María Josefa de la Garza y Sosa.  A descendant of one of the oldest families of Monterrey, her paternal ancestor was Don Marcos Alonso de la Garza y Arcon.  On her maternal side, she descended from the Onate-Saldivar family of Zacatecas and New Mexico.

 

These early pioneer men not only labored in the everyday chores of ranching life, but, when the occasion arose, they also served as soldiers as was customary for young Spanish males to enlist into the service of their king.  At an early age, Tomás Tadeo Sánchez de la Barrera y Garza  showed distinction by rising to the level of Captain.

 

On or about April 11, 1729, he married Dona Catalina Uribe, the daughter of Don Phelipe de Uribe de la Cadena y Lobo, a native of Wichapan, and Dona Maria de Tremino Diaz y Navarro.  The Archives of Laredo list nine children from this union. A widower by 1760, Captain Tomas married for a second time to Dona Teodora Yzaguirre. This union produced two children.

 

In 1747, the Count of Sierra Gorda, Colonel Jose de Escandon, organized an expedition from Queretaro to explore and colonize Nuevo Santander.  The Count, a knight of Santiago, Spain’s highest military honor, wanted a territory named after his boyhood province in Spain. This new territory in New Spain (Mexico) included most of the northeastern part of what is today Tamaulipas, Mexico and Texas. During this time, he began allocating ranching grants along the Rio Grande. One of the first settlements established on the Rio Grande was Camargo, located across the river from present-day Rio Grande City.

 

As civilization pushed downstream from Camargo, in 1750, another pioneer, Don José Vásquez Borrego received the first land grant on the northern bank of the Rio Grande. This grant, located halfway between the Presidio San Juan Bautista Del Rio de Norte and the mouth of the Rio Grande, consisted of fifty sitios de grande  mayor. Here, at the Hacienda de Nuestra Señora de los Dolores, Don Borrego established his ranch and headquarters. In 1753, he received an additional fifty sitios, a grant resulting in a combined total of four hundred thirty-three thousand, eight hundred acres. Besides ranching, Borrego maintained a ferry service to transport cattle and the local population. This service attracted commerce to Dolores and Laredo, and eventually replaced the importance of the Presidio San Juan Bautista.

 

Captain Sánchez opened a ranch on the south side of the river within sight of Don Borrego’s settlement. By 1754, he petitioned Count Don José de Escandón  for permission to found a town on the north bank of the river.

 

Originally, Escandón wanted a settlement on the Nueces and told Sánchez to explore that area to determine the feasibility of establishing a colony there.   However, after attempting to carry out this suggestion, and thwarted by savage Indian attacks, Captain Sanchez reported that section of the frontier unsuitable. The Captain then engaged Don Borrego to persuade the Count of a more suitable terrain up stream from the Rio Grande and located twenty-five miles from Dolores. Giving his consent, he bestowed a second grant on May 15, 1755, to the then forty year old Captain Tomas.  Located at a ford and christened by Captain Tomas "El Paso de Jacinto" it was later called Indian Ford.  To honor Count Escandon, he named the settlement "Villa de San Agustin de Laredo" after the city of Laredo on the Bay of Biscay in the Spanish Province of Santander, the Count’s birth place. The site consisted of nearly sixty-six thousand five hundred acres. 

Located near the present San Agustin Plaza and the parish church, it situates close to the Rio Grande River in the heart of modern day Laredo.

 

By Royal decree, a census of San Agustin on July 23, 1757, recorded eleven families, including two of

Captain Tomas’ brothers,  Juan Bautista and Leonardo.  This census lists Don Juan Bautista Sanchez de la Garza as 43 years old and married to Dona Juana Maria Diaz Trevino of Monterrey.  (The 1780 census would list them at Guerrero Viejo, Tamaulipas, Mexico).  The census lists Don Joseph Leonardo Sanchez as single.

 

Don Borrego’s grandson, Don Jose Fernando Vidaurri Vasquez Borrego, married Dona Maria Alexandra Sanchez de la Barrera, the daughter of Captain Tomas and Dona Josefa. This marriage took place at Los Dolores on August 12, 1765. This marriage intertwined the genealogies of these two ranching families.

 

The settlements of Camargo, Mier and Revilla predated Captain Tomas Sanchez's little town, but all were subsidized, either as soldier-garrisoned "presidios" or by well-protected missions. Thus, Laredo has the distinction as founded without financial aid or military protection from either the Spanish Crown or the Diocesan Church. Don Tomas Sanchez’s merits and achievements unquestionably place him topmost of  the  “Movers and Shakers” of this Texas era. Through his foresight, he created an empire famous the world over.

 

Of all of Spain’s expansion pursuits, Count Escandon’s expedition is extolled as the most determined and successful.  With Captain Sanchez’s founding of the little frontier town of Laredo, Spain finally began to feel its northern borders secure against any encroachment from the forces of the French at Louisiana and the English off the coast of California. Huddling along the seacoast, the navies of these two super powers increasingly made their presence known. (It would take Russia’s colonization of Alaska and Oregon to prompt the Spanish crown to secure their holdings in California).

 

During its first fifty years, Laredo faced normal frontier-life problems.  Drought, flooding, and temperature changes, which shifted from humid semi-tropic intensity to chilling cold, provided the colonists with unimaginable challenges. In addition, they dealt with more than just the varying weather. The fierce Comanche and Apache Indian tribes, on their annual treks from their northern hunting grounds, extended their boundaries into sunny Mexico. Competing for the same natural resources, they confronted the Spanish settlements with fierce and often devastating results.  This clash ultimately ended in a murderous rampage. To add to the bedlam, less belligerent local tribes skirted on the settlement’s perimeters using such occasions to strike back.

 

Captain Sanchez solely administered political and military decision-making during the settlement’s early years.  This included organizing his own militia to fight the migrating Indians and imposing disciplinary measures to the natives. This capable servant of the Crown stood up to the task of keeping the Indians at bay  which secured the boundaries of his settlement.

 

In 1767, after settlers had received grants and a charter from the Spanish crown, they elected as Alcalde Don José Martínez de Sotomayer. It soon became clear that he lacked the daring to protect against Indian attacks. He attempted to move the settlers to the southern side of the Rio Grande to avoid confrontations.  This became the “final straw” and, in 1770, he was removed from office. Sotomayer’s discharge and the mounting nuisance of Indian raids prompted the Governor of the Province to appoint Captain Sanchez to take over as mayor. He served in the capacity of Alcalde for twenty-two years.  In 1792, at the age of eighty-two, he resigned. On January 21, 1796, Captain Sánchez died in Laredo. His widow, Dona Teodora Yzaguirre, died on October 21, 1825.

 

New generations of descendents become heirs to his long legacy.   On October 16, 1938, the Texas Centennial Commission erected a monument marking the site of the founding of Laredo by Captain Tomás Sánchez.

 

 

NOTE: The Archives of Laredo list nine children for Captain Tomas and Dona Josefa. I have eleven children. I leave it for others to query the variance.

 

Tomas Sanchez de Uribe, baptized on July 11, 1730, at Nuestra Sra  de Guadalupe, Salinas Victoria, Nuevo Leon, Mexico.

Maria Josefa Sanchez de Uribe, baptized on March 13, 1732, at Nuestre Sr. de Guadalupe, Salinas Victoria, Nuevo Leon, Mexico, and married to Joaquin Cayetano Galan de Leon.

Blas de Jesus Sanchez Uribe, baptized on March 07, 1736, and married to Francisca Flores.

Maria Gertrudis Sanchez Uribe, baptized on October 26, 1737, at Nuestra Sra  de Guadalupe, Salinas Victoria, Nuevo Leon, Mexico, and married to Jose Francisco Javier Ramon.

Tomasa Sanchez Uribe, born July 11, 1740, at Cienega de Flores, Nuevo Leon, Mexico, and Married to Juan Francisco Cayetano de la Garza y de la Garza.

Joseph Eugenio de la Candelaria Sanchez Uribe, baptized on December 30, 1741, at Nuestra Sra  de Guadalupe, Salinas Victoria, Nuevo Leon, Mexico, and married to Maria Rafaela de la Garza y de la Garza.

Maria Alexandra Sanchez de la Barrera y Uribe, baptized March 13, 1742, at San Juan Bautista, Lampazos de Naranjo, Nuevo Leon, Mexico, and married to Jose Fernando Vidaurri y Vasquez-Borrego.

Antonio Dionicio Sanchez Uribe, born November 08, 1748, Lampazos, Nuevo Leon, Mexico, and married to Maria Antonia Flores.

Joseph Enriquez Sanchez Uribe, married May 10, 1768, at San Agustin, Laredo, Webb County, Texas, to Maria Guadalupe Villarreal de la Serna.

Tomas Antonio Sanchez Uribe, baptized on January 11, 1750, at San Juan Bautista, Lampazos, Nuevo Leon, Mexico, and married to Gertrudis Gonzalez Hidalgo y Lozano, on October 20, 1774, at San Juan Bautista de Rio Norte, Coahulia, Mexico. (Marriage Source from the Book, Mil Familias III by Rodolfo Gonzalez de la Garza. Page 83).

Santiago de Jesus Sanchez Uribe married Maria de los Santos Gonzalez, on September 30, 1776, at Nuestra Sra de Guadalupe, Salinas Victoria, Nuevo Leon, Mexico.

 

Source:

The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints microfilm collection # 605,179

Horgan, Paul, Great River the Rio Grande in North American History.

Sepulveda Brown, Angel and Villa Cadena, Gloria, San Agustin Parish of Laredo

Webb  County Historical Commission, Su Vida y Su Espiritu Webb County Family Histories.

Williams, Lyle W., Ranches and Ranching in Spanish Texas.

 

Spanish and Mexican Land Grants Recipients in South Texas

 

Agustin Sanchez

Porcion 26, Laredo 5,314 acres

 

Antonio Sanchez

Porcion 69, Mier  6,399 acres

 

Eugenio Sanchez

Porcion 42, Laredo 5,314 acres

 

Guadalupe Sanchez

Brooks and Hidalgo County, 22,140 acres

 

Isabel Maria Sanchez

Porcion 21, Guerrero 6,366.24 acres

 

Leonardo Sanchez

Porcion 23, Laredo 5,314 acres

 

Leonardo Sanchez

Porcion 53, Laredo 5,316.4 acres

 

Maria Gertrudis Sanchez

Porcion 27, Laredo 5,570.93 acres

 

Maria Jesus Sanchez

Porcion 22, Laredo 5,314 acres

 

Santiago Sanchez

Porcion 12, Laredo 5,314

 

Tadeo Sanchez

Porcion 38, Laredo 5,681.97 acres

 

Tomas Sanchez

Porcion 11, Laredo 5,313.6 acres

Source:Texas General Land Office

 

My genealogical connection to the Sanchez family

 

John David Inclan

Viola Otilia Canales m. Encarnacion Esquivel Inclan

Lucia Cavazos-Sanchez m. Jose-Antonio Canales

Estefana Sanchez-Lopez m. Ysidoro Cavazos-de-la-Pena

Manuel Sanchez-Benavides m. Maria-Teresa Lopez-Cantu

Joseph-Antonio Sanchez-Trevino m. Maria-Magdalena Benavides-Flores

Jose-Miguel Sanchez-Diaz m. Maria-Gertrudis Trevino

Juan-Bautista Sanchez-de-la-Garza m. Juana-Maria Diaz-Trevino

Captain Tomas-Tadeo Sanchez-de-la-Barrera - Founder of Laredo Texas (brother to the above)

Tomas Sanchez-de-la-Barrera m. Maria-Josefa de-la-Garza-Sosa

Tomas Sanchez-Duran m. Ana-Maria de-la-Barrera-Navarro

Francisco Sanchez-de-la-Barrera born in Lepe, Huelva, Spain m. Maria Duran-de-Vzcanga

Juan Sanchez-y-Ortega m. Juana-Maria Marquez-de-la-Barrera, both were born in Lepe, Huelva, Spain

 

 

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[Emmanuel]

hi my name is Tadeo Fidencio / Gustavo Emmanuel and life in monterrey,
mexico, i want now if tomas tadeo is a name , by my not is a name, if
you want answer me i thank