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At the request of Manuel Antonio Cordero y Bustamante, interim Governor of the Province of Texas, Spanish-born Army captain and rancher, Felipe Roque de la Portilla (1766-1841), established a colony here were El Camino Real de los Tejas crossed the San Marcos River. Along with his own family that included his wife Maria Ignacia (de la Garza) and their eight children, he brought 52 settlers from the interior of New Spain. The first group departed Villa del Refugio (later Matamoros, Mexico) on Dec. 8, 1807, arriving on Jan. 6, 1808 to found the civilian settlement of San Marcos de Neve.
Titles were issued to 13 lots, and homes were built around a central plaza, only to be washed away in June floods. Don Esteban Garcia was the village schoolteacher. Hardships plagued the colony: military troops departed, no priest arrived, seed and farm irrigation system did not materialize; and horses and cattle were lost to wolves and to raids by Comanches and Tonkawas. Portilla wrote that these groups would often "camp in the place set aside as the pasture and in the center of town." An 1809 census listed 73 people and 1,771 animals; the population peaked at 91. Although the venture was government-inititated, Portilla invested his own funds in the colonizing effort, and in exchange was granted a town lot and twelve leagues of land along the San Marcos and Guadalupe Rivers. He lost his health and fortune and was forced to lead his people back to Villa del Refugio in 1812. Livestock left behind created a large population of wild cattle and horses.
Portilla continued to serve as an Army officer and as Alcalde in Matamoros. In 1829, he helped his future son-in-law, James Power, and Power's associate, James Hewetson, establish their Texas colony near the Gulf Coast. Portilla received a land grant along the Aransas River, moving his family there before returning to Matamoros in 1836. He is remembered as an early settler and civic leader both along the Rio Grande and on the Spanish Texas frontier. |
