ORDER NOW

Santisima Trinidad: The Mission of the Medina

The JOSE FRANCISCO RUIZ PAPERS, VOL. 1:

Report on the Indian TRIBES of Texas in 1828

Norbert Ormai - The first Martyr of arad

by Lajos Babos, Ph.D

Tejano Patriot: The Revolutionary Life of Jose Francisco Ruiz, 1783 - 1840​

                         Signed by the Author

Welcome to online home of Alamo Press. We publish books on Texas history, culture and genealogy for those who love Texas and its rich heritage.

Art Martínez de Vara’s Tejano Patriot: The Revolutionary Life of José Francisco Ruiz, 1783–1840 is the first full-length biography of this important figure in Texas history. Best known as one of two Texas-born signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence, Ruiz’s significance extends far beyond that single event.  Born in San Antonio de Béxar to an upwardly mobile family, Ruiz underwent a dramatic transformation from a conservative royalist to one of the staunchest liberals of his era during the war for Mexican independence   

Steeped in the Spanish American liberal tradition, his revolutionary activity included participating in three uprisings, suppressing two others, and enduring extreme personal sacrifice for the liberal republican cause. He was widely respected as an intermediary between Tejanos and American Indians, especially the Comanches. As a diplomat, he negotiated nearly a dozen peace treaties for Spain, Mexico, and the Republic of Texas, and he traveled to the imperial court of Mexico as an agent of the Comanches to secure peace on the northern frontier. When Anglo settlers came by the thousands to Texas after 1820, he continued to be a cultural intermediary, forging a friendship with Stephen F. Austin, but he always put the interests of Béxar and his fellow Tejanos first. 

Ruiz had a notable career as a military leader, diplomat, revolutionary, educator, attorney, arms dealer, author, ethnographer, politician, Indian agent, Texas ranger, city attorney, and Texas senator. He was a central figure in the saga that shaped Texas from a remote borderland on New Spain’s northern frontier to an independent republic.   

Paperback: 269 pages.  
Language: English. 
ISBN-13: 978--1625-1105-8-9
Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 inches

Published: 2020 TSHA Press

​​Price: $30.00 Paperback

MISSION ESPADA, in present-day San Antonio, Texas, began secularizing in 1794. Its lands and structures were distributed to its inhabitants and what remained was auctioned off. The church fell into disrepair following the rebellions of 1813 and 1836. Rebuilt by Fr. Francis Bouchu in the 1850s, the community of former Mission Indians, immigrants and Tejanos developed into a place as unique as the Lone Star State. This volume contains a history of Mission Espada from secularization in 1794 to the 1950s, as well as, the surviving sacramental records of the same period. The index contains nearly 10,000 names from the Espada Records plus 138 pages of narrative history of the Mission.

Paperback: 526 pages.  
Language: English. 
ISBN-13: 978-0-9992-128-0-6
Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 inches

Published: 2018 Alamo Press

​​Price: $59.99 Hardcover

​Alamo Press

Santisima Trinidad: The Mission of the Medina is volume 3 of the Northwest Vista College Series on Texas Cultural Heritage. Santisima Trinidad Church at Paso de las Garzas (present-day Von Ormy, Texas) served one of pioneering Tejano communities of Texas. Located on the Medina River in South Bexar County, Texas, this community was an early ranching center settled by many of the early families of San Antonio, including the Ruiz, Herrera, Navarro and Perez. Contained within these records are the inter-familial relationships that helped forge the Republic of Texas and the development of South Bexar County into the present. This volume of 529 pages contains the complete records of Santisima Trinidad Church, plus modern cemetery surveys of its two cemeteries, census records and a detailed history of the church community.

Paperback: 529 pages.  
Language: English. 
ISBN-13: 978-0-9842121-9-4
​Published: 2017 Alamo Press

​​Price: $59.99

NORBERT ORMAI (1813 - 1849) was born into a German aristocratic family in Bohemia with the name Norbert von Auffenberg. In 1840, while serving as a lieutenant in the Imperial Army, he was accused of collaborating with Polish patriots from Galicia. He was arrested and spent seven years imprisoned, which hardened his revolutionary ideals. A proponent of European democracy and liberal reforms, he was sentenced to another fourteen years in 1847. Revolution swept Europe in 1848 and the people demanded pardons of their imprisoned compatriots. Norbert was pardoned by the Imperial government and within months he joined theHungarian uprising. At that time, he changed his name to Ormai (Ormay) as a translation of the German Auffenberg. The leader of the Hungarian Revolution, Lajos Kossuth, commissioned him to organize a rifle regiment. He managed to get thousands of soldiers for the regiment and was gradually promoted to the rank of colonel. Cornered by Imperial forces, he was arrested by General Baron Julius Jacob von Haynau and hanged as a traitor. He was first of the Martyrs of Arad, a group of revolutionary leaders who gave their lives for Hungarian independence and are honored today as founding fathers of the nation.  Ormai has many monuments, memorials and honorifics, including being the namesake of Von Ormy, Texas. This book is the English edition of LAJOS BABÓS's Hungarian original. It provides detailed primary and secondary source material of Ormai's life, military career and death. 

​Paperback: 219 pages
​Language: English
ISBN-13: 978-0-9992128-1-3
Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 inches 
Published: 2020 Alamo Press
Price $25.00, plus tax and shipping..

ORDER

ALAMO PRESS
PO BOX 377
VON ORMY, TX 78073
Ph. (210) 622-0323
Fx. (210) 622-4021

ORDER

ORDER

San Antonio Marriages, 1703 - 1846

Matrimony in Colonial, Mexican and Republican Texas

By Art Martinez de Vara

San Antonio Marriages, 1703 -1846: Matrimony in Colonial, Mexican and Republican Texas contains 1751 marriage records from present-day San Antonio. Included in the book are San Fernando Church Marriages; San Fernando Marriage Petitions; San Antonio Marriage Investigations; Mission San Antonio De Valero Marriages; Mission San Jose Marriages; Mission Concepcion Marriages; Republic Of Texas Marriage Licenses; Marriages of Bexar Exiles In Natchitoches; Mission San Francisco Solano Marriages; 1772 Married Couples of Mission San Antonio De Valero. Also included in an extensive introduction covering marriage law and custom of the period, including cannon law, reforms, marriage by bond, indigenous marriage practices and the collision of Anglo-American and Spanish-Mexican customs in the Republic of Texas period. Also included is a new English translation of Marriage Manual of the San Antonio Missions which was written specifically for the Coahuiltecan Indians entering the missions. An index of over 15,000 names and 1,200 terms gives researchers unprecedented access to the material. Among these are mission Indians, presidia soldiers, settlers, government officials, witnesses, priests, ministers, slaves and freedmen. In these records are hopeful beginnings, tragic ends, objecting parents, cheaters, converts, recalcitrants, Indians, Europeans, Africans and a mix of everything in between. This is the intimate story of early San Antonio, told one couple at a time. 

San Antonio Marriages, 1703 -1846: Matrimony in Colonial, Mexican and Republican Texas is Book 8 of the Northwest Vista College Texas Heritage Series

Hardback: 604 pages
Language: English

ISBN-13: 978-0-9992128-3-7
Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 inches 
Published: 2020 Alamo Press
Price $59.99, plus tax and shipping.

El Carmen Church in present-day Losyoa, Texas was constructed over the burial crypt of royalist soldiers who died at the Battle of Medina in 1813. This battle, the largest ever fought in Texas, decisively ended the First Republic of Texas and allowed Spain to maintain colonial control over Texas and Mexico. In 1817 a chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Mt. Carmel. (El Carmen) was constructed at the site by order of Joaquin de Arredondo, the Commander of Spanish forces at Medina, who credited his victory to the intercession of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel. The chapel developed into a fully functional mission church on the south bank of the Medina River in southern Bexar County, Texas by 1854.  In the 1870s,the first bishop of San Antonio A.D. Pellicer constructed the Villa del Carmen, a Catholic colony adjacent to the church.  Publshed during is bicentennial year of 2017, this volume contains records with an index of nearly 20,000 names essential for the historian or genealogist of early Texas. 

Hardcover: 690 pages

​Series: The Northwest Vista College Series on Texas History

Language: English
ISBN-13: 978-0-9842121-7-0
Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 inches 
Published: 2017 Alamo Press
Price $59.99 

EL CARMEN:  THE CHAPEL OF

THE BATTLE OF MEDINA

BUY NOW

DIOS Y TEJAS:  ESSAYS ON THE

HISTORY OF VON ORMY, TEXAS

Mission Espada After Secularization

THE TOWN OF BEXAR (near present-day Somerset, Texas), developed on the Kinney Ranch in South Bexar County beginning in the 1860s. The town was called "La Colorada" by its many Mexican miners who settled there.St. Patrick's Church was established on the ranch and served as the Catholic mission to Atascosa and Frio Counties. With the arrival of the Artesian Belt Railroad, the town of Bexar declined as its population moved two miles east to Somerset. Many of the early families of Atascosa and South Bexar Counties are contained among this book's nearly 10,000 entries, including the Ruiz, Herrera, Navarro, Cotulla, Lytle, Casias, Kinney, Hayden, Barker and Vara. This volume contains the complete records of St. Patrick's Church, plus a modern cemetery survey of its cemetery, an 1876 mission census of Atascosa County and a detailed history of the community.

​

Paperback: 386 pages.  

Language: English. 

ISBN-13: 978-0-9992128-2-0
Product Dimensions: 9 x 7 inches

​Published: 2020 Alamo Press

​Price: $59.99

  This volume contains Jose Francisco Ruiz' influential "Report on the Indian Tribes in Texas 1828" with an extensive introduction by historian Art Martinez de Vara giving a short biography of Ruiz, his influence on the ethnography of Texas Indians and role in the early Texas history.. Jose Francisco Ruiz, (1783 - 1840) is remembered for being one of only two native-born Texans to sign the Texas Declaration of Independence in 1836. Ruiz' Report on the Indian Tribes of Texas in 1828 has been lauded by many historians as the most authentic and insightful contemporary account of early 19th century Texas Indian culture. Ruiz' Report was written for the Mexican expedition surveying the international border with the United States in 1828 and was used as a primary source by Jean-Louis Berlandier in his seminal works on the Indians of Texas.

Paperback: 141 pages
Language: English
ISBN-13: 978-0-9842121-3-2
Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 inches
Published: 2014 Alamo Press

​Price: $19.99

Remembering History

Bexar: The History and Records of a South Texas Ghost Town

​

Von Ormy, Texas was founded as a Tejano ranching community along the Medina River thirteen miles southwest of San Antonio in the mid-1700s.  Its strategic location near San Antonio and along the main trade route to the south have attracted interest and settlers for nearly three centuries.  Dios y Tejas provides a comprehensive and multifaceted overview of this South Texas town whose residents have been influential from the Texas Revolution to the Liberty City movement.  Readers will find biographies of Blas Herrera, Francisco Antonio Ruiz, Samuel McColluch, Jr., Count Norbert Von Ormay, Enoch Jones, Rachael Quintana, Ella Fischer and other historical figures.  Other essays include the environmental history of Southwest Bexar County, Historic Native Peoples of the area, Colonial Roads and River Crossings, Tejano support for Texas Independence, the Comanche Expedition of 1839, the Castle on the Medina, the Medina Guards and Civil War, Mission San Patricio de Bexar, the Medina and Von Ormy Schools, Von Ormy Cottage Sanitarium, Kelly Field and the Rise of the Mexican-American Middle Class, Repatriations, Water Wars and much more. The history of Von Ormy, Texas is as rich and unique as the Lone Star State.  

Hardcover and Paperback: 502 pages
Language: English
ISBN-13: 978-0-9842121-5-6
Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 inches

Published: 2016 Alamo Press

Hardcover Price: $59.99

Paperback Proce: $39.99

ROADS TO THE BATTLE OF MEDINA: A SEARCH FOR THE LOST BATTLEFIELD OF TEXAS

By Bruce K. Moses and David L. Nickels

ROADS TO THE BATTLE OF MEDINA presents in-depth research of the 1813 Battle of Medina that succinctly locates the rebel Republican forces and the Spanish Royalist forces in the days leading up to the battle and for the first time reveals the true location of the main battle site in southern Bexar County.   Moses and Nickels rely on multiple historic maps and factual accounts of the days before and after the battle, and are able to separate fact from fiction to locate the lost battlefield of Texas. The book contains 90 illustrations and maps to guide the reader through the Spanish and Texan armies's daily movements.

Paperback: 219 pages
Language: English

ISBN-13: 978-0-9842121-8-7
Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 inches 
Published: 2020 Alamo Press
Price $25.00, plus tax and shipping.