SALCEDO, MANUEL MARÍA DE (?–1813). Manuel María de Salcedo, Spanish governor of Texas, lived in Louisiana with his father, Juan Manuel de Salcedo, governor of Louisiana, until 1803, when that area was sold to the United States and the family returned to Spain. He was appointed governor of Texas by the Council of the Indies on April 24, 1807, took his oath of office in Cádiz, and arrived in Texas in the summer of 1808. During his administration the chief problem in Texas was the constant illegal influx of foreigners. His efforts to remove American squatters in the Neutral Ground were futile, and he advised the Spanish government that, to be retained, Texas must be settled with Spaniards from Louisiana or Mexico. Salcedo advocated the establishment of new trading houses to placate the Indians and more troops to guard the frontier. In the spring of 1810 he made an inspection tour of East Texas and, contrary to instructions from the commandant general, was lenient in his treatment of foreigners and urged the settlers to secure title to their lands. He was recalled to San Antonio during the Mexican War of Independence and was captured on January 22, 1811, when the Casas Revolt broke out; he was, however, restored as governor later the same year. When the Gutiérrez-Magee expedition captured Nacogdoches and La Bahía in 1812, Salcedo and Simón de Herrera besieged La Bahía unsuccessfully until February 1813, when they retreated to San Antonio. Salcedo's forces were defeated in the battle of Rosillo on March 29, 1813, and on April 1 he and his staff surrendered as prisoners of war. A junta appointed by Gutiérrez found Salcedo and others guilty of treason and ordered their execution. Gutiérrez, however, in face of opposition by the Anglo-American officers who opposed the harsh sentences, agreed to hold the prisoner outside of Bexar. On April 3, rebel captain Antonio Delgado and sixty Mexican soldiers marched Salcedo and his staff out of San Antonio to the site of the Rosalis battlefield. There, on April 5, 1813, Salcedo and other captives were taunted and killed. This action caused Samuel Kemper, leader of the Anglo-Americans, and many of his followers to desert the expedition.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Hubert Howe Bancroft, History of the North Mexican States and Texas (2 vols., San Francisco: History Company, 1886, 1889 Bexar Archives, Barker Texas History Center, University of Texas at Austin. Carlos E. Castañeda, Our Catholic Heritage in Texas (7 vols., Austin: Von Boeckmann-Jones, 1936–58; rpt., New York: Arno, 1976 Donald E. Chipman, Spanish Texas, 1519–1821 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1992 Julia Kathryn Garrett, Green Flag Over Texas: A Story of the Last Years of Spain in Texas (Austin: Pemberton Press, 1939).
