Bernardo Gutiérrez de Lara

Bernardo Gutiérrez de Lara, first constitutional governor of the Mexican state of Tamaulipas between 1824 and 1825, native of Villa de Revilla (Guerrero Viejo), Nuevo Santander now Tamaulipas. Gutiérrez de Lara had the idea of emancipating New Spain from Spain, recruiting and arming twenty men. In Texas, together with José Menchaca, he spoke with the aborigines to convince them to fight against the Spanish. He then went in his boat to the town of Galveston.

Career

At the beginning of 1811 he met with Miguel Hidalgo and Ignacio Allende at the Santa María hacienda, in what is now the Municipality of Ramos Arizpe. He received the rank of lieutenant colonel and was named the first Mexican diplomat accredited in Washington, and the December 10, 1811 he went to the House of Representatives to request support for the Mexican independence cause. He was persecuted by the royalist captain (formerly an independentist) Ignacio Elizondo whom he defeated in a place known as El Alazán (Béxar County)on June 20, 1813, he was subsequently pursued by two thousand five hundred men under the command of the royalist brigadier Joaquín de Arredondo who arrived in San Antonio on August 17. During those months, the Spanish naval officer José Álvarez de Toledo y Dubois arrived, who was a representative of the Cortes of Cádiz for the island of Santo Domingo but had deserted in April 1811. He took command of Gutiérrez Lara's men and together they faced to Arredondo's forces. Álvarez and Gutiérrez's men were defeated this time by Elizondo in the Battle of Medina, who ordered mass shootings, upon learning of the executions of the royalist rulers Simón de Herrera y Leyva and Manuel María Salcedo carried out in April. A Spanish subordinate named Miguel Serrano, witnessing the massacre, took his sword and killed Elizondo on September 2. Arredondo published a pardon for all the insurgents except for Álvarez de Toledo, who later swore allegiance to Spain again, and Gutiérrez Lara, both of whom managed to escape.He is buried in the Church of Santiago Apóstol, in Santiago, Nuevo León.