MIRANDA Y FLORES, BERNARDO DE (?-?). Bernardo de Miranda y Flores was lieutenant governor of Texas on November 15, 1755, when he was commissioned by Governor Jacinto de Barrios y Jáureguiqv to explore the Llano and Colorado regions in search of two rich mineral deposits, the Cerro del Almagre and the Almagre Grande. On February 17, 1756, after delay due to jealousies and rivalries, Miranda set out from San Antonio with twelve soldiers, an Indian interpreter, and five others. On March 4, 1756, after exploring up Honey Creek to the Llano River and down the Llano to the Colorado, he started back for San Antonio. On March 29, 1756, he sent glowing accounts to Barrios of his discovery of a "silver mountain" and requested that an assay be made of the ore. On November 23, 1757, the viceroy granted his request and made him captain of a presidio to be established in the region. But the plan was abandoned before it materialized. Miranda was a surveyor and a careful observer; his report was widely used both for its geographic information and for the data on Indian tribes.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Herbert Eugene Bolton, Texas in the Middle Eighteenth Century: Studies in Spanish Colonial History and Administration (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1915; rpt., Austin: University of Texas Press, 1970). Carlos E. Castañeda, Our Catholic Heritage in Texas (7 vols., Austin: Von Boeckmann-Jones, 1936-1958; rpt., New York: Arno, 1976). Roderick B. Patten, trans. and ed., "Miranda's Inspection of Los Almagres: His Journal, Report and Petition," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 74 (October 1970).
Frank Goodwyn
