CASTAÑEDA, FRANCISCO DE (?-?). Francisco de Castañeda (Castonado), lieutenant in the Mexican army and commander of the Mexican contingent at the battle of Gonzales, was attached to the Presidial Company of Alamo de Parras (see SECOND FLYING COMPANY OF SAN CARLOS), billeted in the old San Antonio de Valero Mission in the fall of 1835. He saw action against hostile Indians. On September 27, 1835, Castañeda was sent by Domingo de Ugartechea with a force of 100 cavalrymen to retrieve a cannon lent to the citizens of Gonzales in 1831 for Indian defense. The citizens of refused to relinquish the Gonzales "come and take it" cannon, and the battle of Gonzales resulted.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bexar Archives, Barker Texas History Center, University of Texas at Austin. Hubert Howe Bancroft, History of the North Mexican States and Texas (2 vols., San Francisco: History Company, 1886, 1889 Miles S. Bennet, "The Battle of Gonzales: The `Lexington' of the Texas Revolution," Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association 2 (April 1899 Henry Stuart Foote, Texas and the Texans (2 vols., Philadelphia: Cowperthwait, 1841; rpt., Austin: Steck, 1935 Edward Albert Lukes, De Witt Colony of Texas (Austin: Jenkins, 1976 Malcolm D. McLean, comp. and ed., Papers Concerning Robertson's Colony in Texas (19 vols., Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1974-76; Arlington: University of Texas at Arlington Press, 1977-92 Ethel Zivley Rather, "DeWitt's Colony," Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association 8 (October 1904 Harold Schoen, comp., Monuments Erected by the State of Texas to Commemorate the Centenary of Texas Independence (Austin: Commission of Control for Texas Centennial Celebrations, 1938 Dudley Goodall Wooten, ed., A Comprehensive History of Texas (2 vols., Dallas: Scarff, 1898; rpt., Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1986).
