Alarcón, Martín de (c. 1691–c. 1721)

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Alarcón, Martín de (c. 1691–c. 1721)

Martín, de Alarcón (flourished 1691–1721), governor of Coahuila (1705–1708) and governor of Coahuila and Texas (1716–1719). Alarcón's expedition, in 1718 and 1719, to aid Spaniards on the Neches River in east Texas and monitor the French who entered Texas from Louisiana, led to the founding of the Mission San Antonio de Valero (the Alamo) and a villa (a Spanish town) at present-day San Antonio. These institutions became the nucleus of Spanish influence in the province of Texas. Before his service in northern New Spain, Alarcón was a soldier of fortune in Oran; he also served in the Spanish navy and was a sergeant major in the Guadalajara militia of New Spain (1691) and an alcalde mayor (a local appointed magistrate) and captain of Jacona and Zamora (Michoacán).

See alsoTexas .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Fritz Leo Hoffmann provides the most thorough information about Alarcón; see especially the introduction to his translation of Fray Francisco Céliz, Diary of the Alarcón Expedition into Texas, 1718–1719 (1935), pp. 18-27, and "Alarcón, Martin de," in The Handbook of Texas, vol. 1 (1952), p. 24. Also: Oakah L. Jones, Jr., Los Paisanos: Spanish Settlers on the Northern Frontier of New Spain (1979), pp. 41-42.

Additional Bibliography

Foster, William C. Spanish Expeditions into Texas, 1689–1768. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995.

                                     AdÁn Benavides Jr.