Apr 14, 2015 - Sale 2380

Sale 2380 - Lot 235

Price Realized: $ 27,500
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 20,000 - $ 30,000
(TEXAS.) Añorga, Juan. Log of the Mexican schooner Bravo while attempting to suppress the Texan Revolution. 84 manuscript pages. Folio, stitched; moderate dampstaining and wear, third leaf excised (25-26 October), minor worming. Vp, 24 October to 12 December 1835

Additional Details

With the official outbreak of the Texan Revolution in October 1835, the rebels commissioned six privateers to keep the ports open and harass Mexican shipping. Two Mexican naval vessels were dispatched to blockade the Texas coast and hunt down these privateers. This is the "diario de navegacion" of the schooner Bravo, one of the key vessels in the Mexican blockade. Several entries discuss confrontations which provide new insight into the naval operations of the revolution.
The earliest confrontation, and probably the most important, is recorded on 5-6 November. It describes a battle with the San Felipe, the first privateer commissioned by Texas, which had run aground in Matagorda: "Ochenta hombres en ellas de los cuales texanos, tres fusileros. La goleta puso bandera americana con la unión hacia abajo en el tope mayor. . . . aproximamos al referido buque a las 8 1/4 estando a menos de tiro de cañón del buque nos rompió el fuego con su artillería sin izar ningún pabellón, a la que contestamos con la nuestra . . . . Repitiendo nuestros fuegos hasta las 10 1/2 que no contestar nos la otra goleta se mandó a trincar la artillería y a esta hora . . . reconocer ser la San Felipe."
Añorga describes another confrontation with two ships, on 15-16 November: "Avistamos dos buques fondeados y seguimos en demande de ellos . . . dentro de la laguna de Matagorda, y eran dos goletas y hallándonos enfrente de ellas nos tiraron un cañonazo." On 18 November, the Bravo took an American merchant schooner called the Hannah Elizabeth as a prize: "vela avistada a las 5 1/4 estando mas proximos a la goleta . . . sobre la costa la que reconocimos ala seis estar varada en la playa como una milla al N de Matagorda. Al mismo . . . todo aparejo y dimos fondo en tres varas con la ancla de estribor y depues se le tiro un tiro con la colita. A las 6 y 20 se embarca en el bote Seg'o Ten'te Jose C Mateos y de igual clase Ramon Palomo con marinería y tropa que abordaron la goleta . . . a las 8 regreso el bote trayente algunos pasajeros y armamento, el que se volvió a las 9 a la 1 volvio el bote con más prisioneros y armamento." The Hannah Elizabeth was soon recaptured by a Texan privateer.
See Dienst, "The Navy of the Republic of Texas," in Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association XII:3 (January 1909), page 184; and Cutrer's article on the San Felipe in the Handbook of Texas Online. The naval aspects of the Texan Revolution are the object of much interest, but primary documentation is scarce. This logbook is a crucial source from the Mexican side, and appears to be previously unknown.