A&M-K given weighty Spanish archive

How to donate To donate materials to the South Texas Archives or to find out more about its mission, call Cecilia Aros Hunter at 361-593-4154.

FOR 31 years until her death, Maria Lerma Wolf zealously guarded dozens upon dozens of aging pieces of paper that had been in the family for nearly three centuries.
   Like so many in the family before her, Lerma Wolf took seriously her role as keeper of this family treasure, a paper trail that leads back to 1700 and to Gen. Blas María de la Garza Falcón, father of Nueces County's first European settler, his namesake and a captain who explored much of South Texas and Northern Mexico.
   The latest keeper of the family inheritance is Lerma Wolf's son, 77-year-old Bruno Wolf Jr. of Corpus Christi.
   Just as the Garza Falcón men followed their fathers' lead and for generations explored and colonized the New World, Wolf in a modern era carries on the clan's other form and tradition of family preservation.
   After years of careful deliberation, Wolf decided to break with tradition, concluding that the best way to continue preserving his family's past was not in boxes underneath beds and in closets but making them available to scholars and researchers.
   Wolf's donation of more than 1,000 documents to the South Texas Archives at Texas A&M University-Kingsville includes official correspondence to Spain from Mexico, then known as New Spain, bearing the signature of Gen. Blas María de la Garza Falcón. The collection also includes original land grants and research supporting their authenticity, letters that document events of the day, a genealogical accounting of the Garza Falcón family tree and 18th century surveys of areas in what is now northern Mexico and South Texas.
   'Incredibly exciting find'
   What is not known is the information contained in nearly a dozen sheets of correspondence that have crumbled into tiny fragments because of exposure to moisture. South Texas Archives personnel, who have spent months organizing the collection of documents, are confident that with patience and the right tools they can make whole what is now a jigsaw puzzle.
   In all, Wolf's Spanish colonial documents, spanning from 1700 to 1776, make them the oldest materials housed at the Kingsville archives.
   "What an incredibly exciting find this is for historical research," said Cecilia Aros Hunter, university archivist and preservation officer at the South Texas Archives.
   "When they write about the history of South Texas - and they do often - this is the history of South Texas that is least written about. And part of the reason why is there is still a lack of documents."
   Handpicked administrator
   Aros Hunter hopes that as more documents, diaries and other personal papers of that time move from private hands into archives, more can be learned about the life and times of historical figures such as Gen. Blas María de la Garza Falcón, his son and many others.
   Born in 1673, the general came from a family whose ancestors as far back as the 1500s lived in Lepe, Spain. He came to New Spain as an early pioneer of Sabinas Hidalgo and Nuevo Leon and served twice as governor of Coahuila.
   The Spanish crown typically reserved governorships for those born in Spain and regarded those born in the mother country as the upper class of the new frontier.
   "They wouldn't pick someone born in the Americas for fear they would have loyalties to the region," said Felix D. Almaraz Jr., professor of history at the University of Texas at San Antonio and author of several books on Texas and the borderlands.
   'Expression of confidence'
   Unlike most governors, the general served two terms as governor in the new frontier.
   "Most unusual," Almaraz said. "Those who came here (to New Spain) didn't risk everything unless the reward was prestigious. But after one term, most returned to Mexico City or Spain. They weren't willing to take on a second tour at the frontier.
   "Appointing him to a second term was an expression of confidence on the part of the viceroy. Coahuila needed stability and the general's service and commitment had been exemplary. He had experience, but he also had the military prowess certainly needed for survival and the training of soldiers in the new frontier."
   The son's exploits
   Like his father, Capt. Blas María de la Garza Falcón's expeditions in New Spain earned the family name distinction and subsequently a place in the annals of Texas history.
   Recruited in 1747 by José de Escandón, the captain quickly became one of the most trusted lieutenants in the colonization of Nuevo Santander, a coastal strip that stretched from the San Antonio River to the Pánuco River near Veracruz, Mexico.
   "By the time he was recruited, the captain had already earned his rank as a frontier army officer," Almaraz said. "He was among a small cadre of lieutenants willing to lead colonists from Coahuila to Nuevo Santander. The instructions Escandón gave his lieutenants were specific.
   "They were told to find an area that enjoys a healthy climate, an area with something of an elevation, but do not select sites already inhabited by the tribes," Almaraz said. "Look for land that had creeks, a gentle slope about them and ample grass."
   Names that endure
   The captain came to the south banks of the Nueces and found the land attractive with all its natural resources, among them water, grass, and prevailing winds, Almaraz said.
   It was the captain, Almaraz said, who began applying names to the geography. Many creeks, for example, still bear the names the captain gave them such as Petronila, Escondido, Palo Blanco, Copano, Chiltipin, Lagarto, Santa Gertrudis and Jaboncillos.
   In 1762, the captain founded his rancho, Santa Petronila, near Petronila Creek, the first successful colony in the area. As the first settler of Nueces County, he also helped establish other settlements along the Rio Grande, as did his brother, the Capt. Miguel de la Garza Falcón.
   Colonizing South Texas
   Both brothers, under the direction of Escandón, were among the first to deviate from standard Spanish colonization practices, said Mario A. Cardenas, history instructor at Southwest Texas Junior College, Eagle Pass campus.
   Instead of relying on missions to convert the natives to Christianity and manning its presidios with armies, the Garza Falcón brothers decided that a more efficient way to populate an area would be to rely more on bringing families to the region.
   Among the possessions of Capt. Blas María de la Garza Falcón's listed in a 1757 census taken by the Spanish government, he claimed his wife, María Josefa de los Santos Coy, whom he married after the death of his first wife. He also claimed two sons, an annual salary of 500 pesos, more than 100 servants and a herd of more than 100 horses, said Cardenas, who has conducted extensive archival research on South Texas' and northern Mexico's colonial period.
   "These are the documents that we as historians use in researching and writing about our past," Cardenas said. "But when documents are in private hands, it's incredibly difficult to get access to them.
   "That is why the (Wolf) donation is a coup for the South Texas Archives. It just may lead to some rewriting of history of this area."
   For the most part, Wolf's documents have survived the centuries relatively well and that's because the kind of paper used in the 18th century had a much higher rag content, said Aros Hunter.
   "Plus, these family documents weren't being passed around from hand to hand. They were kept inside boxes."
   The documents span the reigns of five Spanish kings - King Charles II, King Philip V, King Louis I, King Ferdinand VI and King Charles III. In all, they reigned from 1665 to 1788.
   Using tweezers, a spatula and archival backing material, Aros Hunter and her assistant plan to salvage those dozen documents that have deteriorated.
   "I'm just glad my grandmother had the foresight to keep these papers safe," Wolf said. "The reason she kept them was to prove that land belonged to our ancestors and it was ownership the Mexican government recognized. But Mexico never paid her ancestors. That is why she kept the papers, to keep the claims alive."
   Just the first step
   Wolf's grandmother, Dolores Rodriguez Lerma, was born in Camargo, Tamaulipas, Mexico. After the death of her husband, she moved her family to Laredo, which is where Wolf was born and raised. Wolf and his wife, Joyce Young Wolf, who has traced her family lineage to the settlers who came to East Texas with Stephen F. Austin, moved from Laredo to Corpus Christi in 1992.
   Wolf hopes his donation inspires others to see the value of their personal papers and plans to help Aros Hunter in a South Texas Archives effort to get more material archived that pertains to the historical development of South Texas and northeastern Mexico.
   Perhaps someday, Wolf said, he may even come upon the few documents that his mother said a lawyer stole from her many years ago when he offered to help her with her family's legal claim.
   'I love my heritage'
   His mother never revealed the name of the lawyer to her son, fearing it would only lead to trouble. Instead she and his grandmother focused on what the family did have.
   And that included the 366.11 acres of ranch land in Webb County that Wolf bought as a young man.
   When Wolf went off to serve in World War II, his grandaunt, Lucinda Rodriguez, came to live on his ranch while he was away.
   "She stayed on my land and wouldn't leave until I returned," Wolf recalled. "While I was in the service, she tended to the goats and sheep, she milked the cows, fed the hogs, chickens and horses.
   "All of these things make you very possessive of your heritage. Just like my grandaunt never left my ranch until I returned, I never left South Texas. I love my heritage."