José Manuel Rafael Simeón de Mier y Terán, generally known as Manuel de Mier y Terán, was a leader in Mexican War of Independence and in the post-independence period was a military figure and politician.
After returning to Mexico, General Terán served as second in command to Santa Anna during his defense of Tampico against the Spanish invasion of 1829. He participated in the Capitulation of Pueblo Viejo. Their success made them both national heroes. Considered a strong candidate for president, he lost his chance when Santa Anna and Zavala's coup d'etat briefly gave the position to Vicente Guerrero. The next year, another coup elevated Anastasio Bustamante, who named Mier y Terán as his commandant general for the northeastern provinces, giving Terán military and civil authority over the provinces of Coahuila y Tejas, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas. Headquartered at the recently renamed city ofMatamoros, he arrived in Galveston Bay in November 1831, to review the port of Anahuac and install the SerbGeorge Fisher as its new customs agent. Texian scofflaws had been smuggling and evading taxes, so he granted Fisher authority over the mouth of the Brazos River, as well. The general instructed John Bradburn to enforce title fees and remove an unauthorized ayuntamiento installed at Liberty. These administrative changes led directly to the Anahuac Disturbances, an uprising that was a precursor to the 1836 Texas Revolution. Following a Federalist victory near Matamoros on July 3, 1832, there was pressure on Mier y Terán to become a candidate for the presidency. He was considered a moderate conservative, which placed him in between contending factions of liberals and conservatives. He was one the creole elites who felt that they had failed in the post-independence period to forge a nation. As commander in Texas, he saw the northern region slipping away to the Anglo-Americans, and he became increasingly worried about another Spanish attempt to reconquer Mexico. He wrote, "I believe that the Spaniards can only cause us temporary damages; the serious and permanent ones are reserved for our own hands, and those of the North American neighbors." He also wrote Lucas Alamánthe day before he ended his life, asking how Mexico could hold Texas if they could not stop killing each other. In despair, he committed a highly symbolic suicide by throwing himself on his sword in Padilla, Tamaulipas. It was the same location where Emperor Agustín de Iturbide had been executed in 1824, following his return from exile by the men of General Felipe de la Garza Cisneros. Mier y Terán's remains were buried with Iturbide's as were his wishes. In 1838, when the emperor's bones were re-interred in Mexico City.
Family
General Terán was the youngest of the three sons of Manuel de Mier y Terán and his wife María Ignacia de Teruel y Llanos.
