Tejano History
Arciniega, Jose Miguel de
Tejanos |
ARCINIEGA, JOSÉ MIGUEL DE (?–?). José Miguel de Arciniega, legislator, military explorer, and alcalde of San Antonio de Béxar, was the son of Gregorio and Josefa (Flores) Arciniega. His father was a soldier from San Carlos de Parras Presidio (see SECOND FLYING COMPANY OF SAN CARLOS). In 1816 Arciniega was authorized to go to the United States border to check on possible illegal entry of Americans. In 1818 he and Vicente Gortari gave information secured at Nacogdoches, Texas, and Natchitoches, Louisiana, on foreigners at Galveston and on the Trinity River. Arciniega was a member of the provincial deputation of Texas, which in October 1823 gave consent for abandoned mission lands to be distributed to settlers without property. In 1826, when he was sent to learn the intentions of the Cherokee Indians, he met Richard Fields and leaders of the Comanche, Tahuallace, Tejas, and Caddo Indians at Laguna de Gallinas, near Nacogdoches. Arciniega was arrested in October 1826 by alcalde Juan José Zambrano for signing a document for María Josefa Seguín but was evidently exonerated, as in December he was appointed captain of the civil militia. By April of 1827 he and Ángel Navarro were elected commissioners, and the following month he and José Antonio Navarro were elected deputies to the state congress at Saltillo, where they managed to pass a law allowing slavery in Texas. In 1832 Arciniega returned from the United States border to advise Ramón Músquiz of the cholera epidemic in New Orleans. On February 27, 1833, he was reelected alcalde of Bexar, and in June he assumed the post of political chief because Músquiz was ill.
Full article on the Texas State Historical Association's Handbook of Texas Online