(Editor's Note: The following narrative on the founding of Matamoros, because of its length, was posted in three parts. It originally appeared in El Bravo and we translated it for our Spanish-challenged readers.)
PART 3
By Oscar Treviño Jr.
By 1800, the city had grown to the point that the most influential residents appointed their first mayor, Don Cayetano Girón, and also built a municipal palace so that he could attend to the needs of the citizens.
Villa de Matamoros first came into being on January 26, 1826, when Decree #12 was published, replacing Congregación del Refugio. At that time, a census revealed there were 3,933 residents, according to Luis Gerardo González Álvarez, the current director of the Matamoros Municipal Archives.
As a way to increase the local population and to honor the memory of Mariano Matamoros, one of the first martyrs of Mexico's independence, the Tamaulipas Constitutional Congress issued a decree in two parts: Article one formalized the name change from Congregación de Refugio to Villa de Matamoros. Article 2 dealt with formalizing the entity in its geographic location and allowed the inhabitants to remain in possession of their land, providing for indemnification to the legal owners, clearing the formal title to the residents.
José Miguel de la Garza, state deputy president, and Juan Nepomuceno de la Barreda, secretary deputy, witnessed the decree, which was then announced publicly two days later by Lucas Fernández, governor of Tamaulipas and his secretary José Rafael Benavides.
"By this time, the lands were the legal property of Juana Girón, widow of Calixto de Ayala, and the son of Ignacio Anastasio de Ayala, who was his representative – and who was also the mayor then – and of the original 12 families who founded what today is Matamoros. He was the original owner of the ranch San Juan de los Esteros Hermosos", explained González Álvarez.
Today, according to the national census and the Council of National Population (Consejo Nacional de Población -Conapo) Matamoros has a population of 878,355 residents.
According to most historians, Matamoros was founded on June 24, 1774, but lacking any physical or official documentary proof, the later date (1826) is accepted officially as the year of its inception.
(End of Series)
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