VIESCA, JOSÉ MARÍA (?-?). José María Viesca, Mexican governor of Coahuila and Texas, was a native of Saltillo, Coahuila. He represented Coahuila as a member of the deputation of the Estado Interno de Oriente at the National Constitutional Convention of 1823-24. He was a member of the legislature of Coahuila and Texas in 1824 and was the first governor to be elected under the state Constitution of 1827; he served in that capacity from his election on July 4, 1827, until April 4, 1831. He was the brother of Agustín Viesca.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Vito Alessio Robles, Coahuila y Texas en la época colonial (Mexico City: Editorial Cultura, 1938; 2d ed., Mexico City: Editorial Porrúa, 1978). Hubert Howe Bancroft, History of the North Mexican States and Texas (2 vols., San Francisco: History Company, 1886, 1889). Nettie Lee Benson, The Provincial Deputation in Mexico (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1992). Bexar Archives, Barker Texas History Center, University of Texas at Austin. Charles Adams Gulick, Jr., Harriet Smither, et al., eds., The Papers of Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar (6 vols., Austin: Texas State Library, 1920-27; rpt., Austin: Pemberton Press, 1968). Ohland Morton, Terán and Texas: A Chapter in Texas Mexican Relations (Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1948).
