Cattle Drive from La Bahia
Goliad, Goliad County, Texas
Marker Inscription
After Spain joined the American colonists in declaring war on England in 1779, Spanish soldier Bernardo de Galvez traveled to New Orleans to raise an army. Aware of the great number of wild cattle in Texas from his time spent stationed in the region, Galvez asked the Spanish governor of Texas to send cattle to feed his troops. As a result, about 10,000 head of cattle from Texas missions and ranches were assembled at Presidio La Bahia. Between 1779 and 1782, in what is believed to be the first major Texas cattle drive, cattle were herded from La Bahia to Spanish soldiers preparing to fight in the American revolution along the Gulf Coast. (1999)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When Spain entered the American Revolution against Britain in 1779, Bernardo de Gálvez went to New Orleans to raise an army—and remembered the wild cattle of the Texas country where he had once been stationed. At his request the Spanish governor of Texas rounded up some 10,000 head from the missions and ranches, assembling them at Presidio La Bahía. Driven east between 1779 and 1782 to feed Gálvez's Gulf Coast campaign, this is regarded as the first major Texas cattle drive.
Why it matters
It links two great American stories—the Revolution and the birth of the Texas cattle industry—showing that Spanish Texas quietly helped supply the war for independence a full century before the great trail drives.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In 1779, the American Revolution was no longer a purely British-American quarrel. Spain entered the war against England that year, and suddenly the fighting stretched far beyond the thirteen colonies to the Gulf Coast, where Spanish forces moved against British positions.
Texas at the time was a remote frontier of Spain's American empire—a land of missions, presidios, and vast open country where cattle brought by earlier Spanish settlers had multiplied into enormous wild and semi-wild herds. It was thinly settled and far from the centers of power, but it held something the war effort suddenly needed: beef, on the hoof, by the thousands.
At the heart of this corner of Spanish Texas stood Presidio La Bahía, near present-day Goliad—a fortified outpost that made a natural gathering point. When the war reached the Gulf, this quiet frontier found itself with a role to play.
People & events
The man who saw the opportunity was Bernardo de Gálvez, the Spanish soldier who traveled to New Orleans to raise an army for the campaign against the British. Gálvez had once been stationed in the Texas region, and he remembered the great numbers of cattle roaming its ranges.
An army marches on its stomach, and Gálvez knew where to find the food. He asked the Spanish governor of Texas to send cattle to feed his troops. In response, roughly 10,000 head were gathered from the missions and ranches of the region and assembled at Presidio La Bahía.
From there, between 1779 and 1782, the herds were driven eastward toward the Gulf Coast, where Spanish soldiers were preparing to fight. It is believed to be the first major cattle drive in Texas history—not cowboys chasing a market, but a supply line for a war, hooves and horns pressed into the service of a revolution.
Its place in the American story
This marker ties together two great American stories that are rarely told in the same breath: the fight for independence and the birth of the Texas cattle industry.
Schoolbook accounts of the Revolution tend to end at the Atlantic seaboard, but the war had a Gulf Coast front, and Spain's entry into it mattered to the American cause. The beef that fed those Gulf campaigns came, in part, from the ranges of Spanish Texas—meaning this distant frontier quietly helped supply the wider war for independence.
And it did so nearly a century before the famous trail drives of the late 1800s, the cattle epics of Texas legend. Long before the Chisholm Trail, herds were already moving out of Texas in large numbers. The romance of the cowboy has deep roots here—roots that reach back, remarkably, to the era of the Founding.
If you visit
Come to Goliad ready to think in long distances. This is open Texas country, and the story here is about movement—thousands of animals gathered and then pushed east across the land toward the coast. Stand and look toward the horizon, and picture the dust and noise of that first great drive.
Presidio La Bahía, the fortified presidio at the center of this story, still stands in the Goliad area and is one of the region's landmark sites. Its thick walls give you a tangible sense of the Spanish military frontier that made a place like this a natural mustering ground.
Fold this stop into a broader exploration of Goliad's layered past. It rewards a moment of imagination: the next time you picture a Texas cattle drive, remember that the very first big one wasn't headed to market at all—it was headed to war.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Bernardo de Gálvez
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Stoddard-Collins House
Goliad, TX
One of Goliad's oldest buildings, this house may date to the 1820s and was certainly standing before pioneer settler Jessie W. Stoddard bought the property in 1847. Sold in 1879 to the wife of a local cattle rancher, it stayed in that family into the next century and still shows the layered additions of successive owners.
Presidio de Nuestra Senora de Loreto de la Bahia
Goliad, TX
Founded in 1722 and re-established at Goliad in 1749, the Presidio La Bahia is among the most storied Spanish forts in Texas, guarding the nearby Espiritu Santo Mission. Its walls rang through the age of revolution—filibustering expeditions under Gutierrez-Magee, James Long, and Henry Perry assailed it, and in 1835 ninety-two citizens signed Texas's first formal declaration of independence within it. In 1836 Colonel James Fannin and more than 340 men were held here and massacred on Palm Sunday, one of the darkest days of the Texas Revolution. A meticulous 1960s restoration uncovered nine layers of occupation.
Manuel Becerra
Goliad, TX
Born at Presidio La Bahía in 1762, Manuel Becerra came of age as Texas passed through the hands of four governments and helped shape its transition at every step. Elected the first secretary of La Bahía's town council in 1820, he was soon chosen to accompany Stephen F. Austin in scouting a site for Austin's first colony, and later managed the political and business affairs of Martín de León's Guadalupe colony. In 1827 he helped negotiate a treaty with the Coco and Karankawa peoples, and he went on to receive a large land grant and aid the settlement of the Power colony before his death around 1849.
Don Rafael Antonio Manchola
Goliad, TX
Born around 1800 to a Spanish family, Rafael Antonio Manchola came to La Bahía in 1822 and married into the powerful de León family, empresarios of the region. He rose to command the presidio, served as alcalde, and sat in the legislature of Coahuila and Texas, where he championed separate statehood, corresponded with Stephen F. Austin, and even secured the town's renaming from La Bahía to Goliad. He died of cholera in 1833, and years later his de León kin were driven from Texas by anti-Mexican sentiment during the Revolution.