Juan Davis Bradburn
After Spain relinquished its hold on Mexico in 1821, Bradburn became an officer in the new Mexican Army, in which he served as a courier for Emperor Agustín de Iturbide.
The hard feelings escalated when Bradburn, following Mexican law, refused to return runaway slaves to their owners in the United States.
After receiving a hoax letter claiming that armed men were marching on Anahuac to retrieve runaway slaves, Bradburn arrested local lawyers William B. Travis and Patrick Churchill Jack.
The resulting confrontation forced Bradburn's expulsion from Texas and encouraged other immigrants to take armed action against Mexican soldiers.
[Note 2] The rebels were initially successful, taking Nacogdoches, Goliad, and provincial capital San Antonio de Béxar.
The remaining members of the expedition were decisively defeated by royalist forces at the Battle of Medina in August 1813; a few Americans escaped to Louisiana.
After the December call for volunteers to help defend the state, Bradburn enlisted in the Eighteenth Louisiana Regiment and was elected third lieutenant.
[8] When Perry's forces entered Texas in early 1816, Bradburn was initially stationed in Nacogdoches to direct recruits and supplies to the main body of the expedition.
[11][12] Bradburn allied himself with Mina, whose plan was better-developed than Perry's, and was soon appointed second-in-command of the American troops, under Colonel Gilford Young.
He reappears in Mexican records in 1828, when he was granted a monopoly on steamboat traffic on the Rio Grande from the Gulf of Mexico through Coahuila.
The soldiers, who had been largely idle while the kilns produced bricks for settlers, were angry that they were now expected to do significant physical labor.
Their displeasure was augmented by Bradburn's high standards; he often forced the men to tear down and rebuild sections that did not meet his benchmark for quality.
[29] Although Bradburn believed that Liberty was created illegally, as the town was too close to the coast, he made no attempt to interfere with its establishment.
Most Texas colonists, including those who settled in Austin's other land grants, erroneously assumed the exemption applied to all settlers.
After hearing complaints from ship captains, Bradburn's influence helped the law be amended to curtail some excessive charges.
[34] In an effort to resolve the issues, Stephen F. Austin wrote Bradburn seeking help in getting the tariffs repealed throughout Texas.
From that point on, according to Henson, "Bradburn became increasingly obsessed about the Anglo-Americans and their intentions, believing that every event was part of a conspiracy to detach Texas".
[Note 5] Mexican law forbade residents from creating militias, so Bradburn arrested the ringleader, Patrick Jack.
[Note 6] Travis represented the men's owner in a series of failed attempts to return the former slaves to the United States.
[41] In May 1832, Bradburn received a letter warning that 100 armed men were stationed 40 miles (64 km) away, intent on reclaiming the slaves.
In this document, they declared themselves federalists who supported rebellious Mexican general Antonio López de Santa Anna and decried "the present dynasty" which gave them military order instead of civil authority.
At his urging, Bradburn agreed to relinquish his authority, but his chosen successor, Lieutenant Colonel Félix María Subarán, refused to take his place.
Acting president Anastasio Bustamante promoted Bradburn to brigadier general after his bravery in a major battle on September 18.
Henson related that "a Texas visitor noted that [Bradburn] had the respect of the foreign community in the city, even the Anglo merchants".
Urrea's forces eradicated opposition along the Texas Gulf Coast, and Bradburn was left to command the small port at Copano, just north of the Nueces River.
[63][Note 8] In April 1836, Santa Anna (now president of Mexico) was captured at the Battle of San Jacinto and all Mexican troops were ordered to retreat beyond the Rio Grande.
The Telegraph and Texas Register said simply that "Gen. Bradburn, who had long been in the Mexican service, and formerly commanded the garrison of Anahuac, lately died at Matamoros".
In his 1841 book Texas and the Texans; or, Advance of the Anglo-Americans to the South-West Henry Stuart Foote described Bradburn as an "evil spirit, hovering, with gloomy and malignant aspect, in the rear of Santa Anna's army".
[69] Henson posits that Bradburn was "one of the most maligned men in historical accounts of that period",[1] partially because he had no descendants to try to "preserv[e] his name and reputation in Texas".
[5] The historian William C. Davis believes that Bradburn "overreacted and made heroes of two local malcontents whose actions their own people otherwise had not been much inclined to sanction".
