Bustamente ran away to Paris, the Santa Fe expedition was
soon defeated, and, as we have seen, the president, Santa Anna, began
his dictatorship with the invasion of Texas (March, 1842).] But to
return to the Santa Fe expedition. The Texans were deprived of their
arms and conducted to a small village, called Anton Chico, till orders
should have been received as to their future disposition, from General
Armigo, governor of the province.
It is not to be supposed that in a small village of about one hundred
government shepherds, several hundred famished men could be supplied
with all the necessaries and superfluities of life. The Texans accuse
the Mexicans of having starved them in Anton Chico, forgetting that
every Texan had the same ration of provisions as the Mexican soldier.
Of course the Texans now attempted to fall back upon the original
falsehood, that they were a trading expedition, and had been destroyed
and plundered by the Indians; but, unfortunately, the assault upon the
sheep and the cowardly massacre of the shepherds were not to be got
over. As Governor Armigo very justly observed to them, if they were
traders, they had committed murder; if they were not traders, they were
prisoners of war.
After a painful journey of four months, the prisoners arrived in the old
capital of Mexico, where the few strangers who had been induced to join
the expedition, in ignorance of its destination, were immediately
restored to liberty; the rest were sent, some to the mines, to dig for
the metal they were so anxious to obtain, and some were passed over to
the police of the city, to be employed in the cleaning of the streets.
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