Juan Seguin: Texican

Juan Seguin was a man of contradictions.

Born into the landed Mexican gentry of San Antonio in 1806, he unaccountably fell in with Stephen F. Austin and the gathering Anglo forces of revolution. Seguin was commissioned a captain in the Texas army and survived the Alamo—he was not among the 189 soldiers, all of whom died, because he had left the battle early as a courier. He reached General Sam Houston in time to help rout Santa Anna at San Jacinto.

After three sessions in the new Republic of Texas's senate, Seguin's rising fortunes abruptly collapsed. The hero of the revolution encountered financial reverses, ethnic tension, and a spreading rumor of Mexican collaborations. As if to confirm the complaint, he fled the Texas he'd helped create and settled in Mexico.

Following the Mexican War, the ex-turncoat was back, re-establishing himself in Texas business and politics. He died in 1890, and is interred at the city east of San Antonio that bears his name.