VÁSQUEZ, RÁFAEL (1804-1854). Ráfael Vásquez, Mexican general, was born in Mexico City in 1804. He began his career a captain of patriots of the Hacienda de Ciénega de Mata on February 20, 1827. A commander of the Mexican centralist forces, he was appointed brevet brigadier general in 1839. Later he sought to draw a force of Texans and Mexicans serving with Antonio Canales Rosillo in the Republic of the Rio Grande into ambush near Saltillo. In spite of treachery the federalists under Col. Samuel W. Jordan routed the centralists forces who fled into Saltillo, leaving their cannon. On March 5, 1842, Vásquez occupied San Antonio with approximately 700 men. The Texans, not being strong enough to hold the town, evacuated without a fight when Vásquez demanded its surrender. He took San Antonio, raised the Mexican flag, and declared Mexican laws in force. Vásquez departed on March 7 and crossed the Rio Grande back into Mexico; his invasion was regarded as a plundering or guerrilla party and was one of the events leading to the Somervell and Mier expeditionsqv. Vásquez was commandant general of the state of Jalisco from 1851 to 1852. He died in Mexico City on March 9, 1854.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Hubert Howe Bancroft, History of the North Mexican States and Texas (2 vols., San Francisco: History Company, 1886, 1889 George B. Erath, "The Memoirs of George B. Erath, 1813-1891," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 26-27 (January-October 1923; rpts., Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1923; Waco: Heritage Society of Waco, 1956 Sam W. Haynes, Soldiers of Misfortune: The Somervell and Mier Expeditions (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990 Joseph Milton Nance, Attack and Counterattack: The Texas-Mexican Frontier, 1842 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1964 Dudley Goodall Wooten, ed., A Comprehensive History of Texas (2 vols., Dallas: Scarff, 1898; rpt., Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1986).
