339
PAPERS OF J\:ImABEAU BuoNAPARTE LA~[AR
Elizondo was of tall stature and robust, good looking of a swarthy florid color. He was 46 years old.
Miguel :Menchaca was tall ancl thin, somewhat bent, swarthy, pock- marked.- He was 46 years old.
Jose Menchaca was of medium stature, ·round headed and pock- marked.- He was 60 years old.
Bernardo Gutierrez de Lara was of medium stature, good looking and of amiable countenance, keen eyes, black hair. The fanatic who killed Elizondo was named Manual Serrano.
In the year 1813 when Arredondo arrived at San Antonio after tq_e battle of Medina he ordered that all the women of the families opposed to the Spanish Government, as a punishment should go to a Quinta [cottage] where he ordered 100 metates to beat the corn to make the tortillas for the troops in his command, having warned them that they should make 10,000 tortillas daily and if they did not do it promptly, Sergeant Acosta, who was the. overseer, would- give them the lash during the day and during the night the officials of the Army went to the Quinta and ordered Acosta to bring some of the most decent of the women to them. [Note in English on margin:] The Quinta was in the street that was South from the South East Corner of Main Plaza and called to this day la Calle de la Quinta. ,. When Arredondo came to San Antonio he imprisoned more than six hundred men in two houses because the calaboose would not hold them: In one of the two houses there were four deaths caused from suffoca- tion by the heat. The disaster occurred in the house of Don Francisco Arocha, one of the American patriots.- A little afterwards it was ordered that two prisoners be put in chains and go out to clean and work the streets, in charge of Francisco Rivas head officer of the Regi- ment of the Fijo, a man without kindness who cruelly punished the prisoners. Breakfast was given them in this manner: Rivas stood in the door of the Calaboose when the prisoners went out to work and . asked those who came first whether they had had breakfast? they answer "No Senor," and he gave them a sound beating in order that they might breakfast: when he asked those who came afterwards if they had had breakfast, they replied yes, fearful that he would give them a beating, and he said to them "well in order that the breakfast may agree [with you]," and he gave them another sound beating like the rest. This punishment he gave to those who had not committed any crime, and they endured that from August to October of the year 1813: and those who were considered as criminals or rebels and had f been madi prisone,s•;n Beja, we,e shot ;n ,he Pdncipal Pla,a, one
Powered by FlippingBook