In
1893, the Galveston Daily News printed a reporter’s interview with Charles Cronea,
a Jean Lafitte pirate who fought
at the Battle
of San Jacinto, where Texas won its independence from Mexico.
Cronea,
a native of Marseilles, France, slipped aboard a French frigate, and came to America
as a cabin boy and, after working on ships along the Gulf Coast, he joined a company
of men and wound up at San
Jacinto.
“It was fine fighting,” he said, “and we gave the Mexicans
hell. We just killed them until we got tired. We killed thirty greasers (Mexicans)
around one cannon; they could fire it only once.” Santa
Anna’s men soon began crying out, “We no Alamo,” referring to the battle in San
Antonio that became the battle cry at San
Jacinto.
One of the men in Cronea’s company captured Santa Anna, who
had hidden in a creek bed. “None of us recognized him, or we would have shot him
right there. When some of the prisoners recognized him, we wanted to kill him,
but the officers wouldn’t let us.”
Cronea said “if Santa Anna had not
been a Mason, his hide wouldn’t held shucks. But both Santa Anna and Sam
Houston were both high Masons, and Houston and the other Masons got him off
in a disguise.”
Cronea said seven Texas soldiers followed Santa Anna from
San
Jacinto. “If we had overtaken him, he wouldn’t have made it back to Mexico.”
Following the brief battle
at San Jacinto, Cronea went to Bolivar and began farming. He later moved to
Plaquemine Parish in Louisiana, where he cast his first ballot for Andrew Jackson.
Cronea
lived among his descendants and during his latter years he was revered at an oracle.
People often came to him for advice and, regardless of his frequent profanity,
the people listened to him. He died at Roll Over Pass in Chambers County and was
buried there.
Bob Bowman's East
Texas
January 16, 2011 Column.
A weekly column syndicated in 109 East Texas newspapers |
