The tax records for Bexar County clearly list Erasmus Seguin, Jesus Cantu, Jose Casiano, Don Juan Leal, and Bryan Callaghan Sr. as slave owners with Jose Antonio Navarro owing the most as an “agent” of his wife. Jose Maria Viesca, Ramon Musquiz, Juan Seguin, Francisco Ruiz, and others were also listed. Yet, these villains are lauded in high places. Jose Antonio Navarro went a step further when he specifically petitioned Mexico’s Afro-Mexican president Vicente Guerrero, to make an exception to maintain slavery in Bexar County.
Navarro declared the abolition of slavery a “stupid law.” Navarro, the “technical” slave owner, became great friends with the slave owner Stephen F. Austin. There is proof that Navarro had in mind a pro-slavery governmental arrangement, as evidenced by his attempt in 1828 to honor labor contracts from the United States which were easily corrupted to contracts for slaves for over 90 years. This suggestion was later adopted by Anglo slave owners in Mexican Texas and often written up in Louisiana at the behest of Austin and others. The Italian Jose Casiano, another bigot, would lobby Austin to purchase two African American slaves in the 1830s.
These records dispel the myth that San Antonio and Bexar County were not like the rest of the slave holding states. We had lynching, racist killers, and slave catchers, but most often the law was used to maintain a white supremacist political structure. Furthermore, we had a local elite of Canary Islanders, misnamed “Tejanos,” who supported slavery and segregation. John M. Carolan, a mayor of San Antonio from 1854 to 1855, owned a slave auction house in San Antonio at Main Plaza in the 1860’s at a place called the “Old Stand Corner” at Main Plaza, just a few yards from present day City Hall.
John Carolan sold enslaved human beings along with coffee, furniture, horses, sugar, and other items according to an advertisement displayed in the local newspapers. It is logical that Mayor Carolan was in contact with the backwater Cibolo Creek and Salado Creek slavers as the city began to see an influx of slaves coming into the city. The dates of his slave selling, May and June of 1860, coincide with the City of San Antonio passing slave codes describing the penalties for slaves in 1860. Several other auction houses existed in and around Main Plaza and Military Plaza and also included the Alamo and the local Menger Hotel where slaves were sold to the elite by appointment. Slave sales have also existed on the Salado Creek and at Military Plaza by the Spanish in the 1700s.
Bigots have streets and other place names that disgrace humanity to continue the white supremacist version of history. (Mirabeau) Lamar Street, W.W. White Road, Dawson Street, (William Barret ) Travis Street, (Edward) Burleson Street, (David) Crockett Street, Crockett Park, (Sam) Houston Street, (John) Hays Street, (James) Callahan Street, Burnet, Nolan, (John “RIP”) Ford Street, (Jose Antonio) Navarro Street, Seguin Road, Travis Park, Milam Park, Pershing Elementary School, Samuel A. Maverick Elementary School, Mirabeau B. Lamar Elementary School, W.W. White Elementary, Sam Houston High School, Robert E. Lee High School (shrewdly and shamefully changed to “Legacy of Educational Excellence High School- L.E.E. in 2017), Thomas Jefferson High School, Sidney Lanier High, Luther Burbank High School, Austin Street (Highway), (James Butler) Bonham Street, (Lorenzo) De Zavala Road, and others are named after killers, racists, and enslavers of Native American, Mexicans, and Black people. The truth cannot be returned to the bottle. Eventually, all of the false history and bigots will be revealed.
