HistoricSiteMarkers
Early Republic

Don Juan Ximenes

San Antonio, Bexar County, Texas

Marker Inscription

Born in San Antonio de Bexar, 1810. Veteran in the Texas War for Independence, 1835-1836. One of the storming party at Bexar, December 5, 1835. An honored citizen, soldier and Ranger of Texas. Died July 22, 1877. Erected by the State of Texas 1963

Erected by Texas Historical Commission

The Story

Born in San Antonio de Béxar in 1810, Juan Ximenes joined the fight for Texas independence in 1835–1836 and was among the storming party that took Béxar on December 5, 1835. Honored in his lifetime as a citizen, soldier, and Texas Ranger, he died in 1877, and the state raised this marker to his memory in 1963.

Why it matters

Ximenes represents the Tejanos—Texans of Mexican descent—who took up arms for Texas independence, a legacy sometimes overlooked in the telling of that revolution.

The story behind this marker

AI context

The era

Juan Ximenes was born in 1810 in San Antonio de Béxar, then a Spanish frontier town. By the time he was a young man, Mexico had won its independence and Béxar was a Mexican town, the most important settlement in Texas, with a proud Tejano community that had lived there for generations.

In the 1830s tensions rose between Texans and the central government in Mexico City. In the fall of 1835 fighting broke out, and Texian and Tejano volunteers laid siege to Béxar, where Mexican troops under General Martín Perfecto de Cos were holding the town.

The siege dragged on for weeks. Then, in early December, a party of volunteers chose to attack directly, fighting their way into the town street by street and house by house. After several days of hard combat, Cos surrendered, and Béxar was in Texan hands for the time being.

People & events

Juan Ximenes was among that storming party when the attack began on December 5, 1835. It was hard, close fighting, carried out through the stone and adobe buildings of the town he had been born in. For Tejanos like him, the battle was not a campaign in a distant place but a fight for their own streets and neighbors' homes.

The assault is often remembered through Ben Milam, the frontiersman who helped rally the volunteers and was killed during the fighting. Tejano volunteers also played an important part in the siege and the capture of the town, a fact that the traditional telling of the Texas Revolution has not always emphasized.

Ximenes lived a long life afterward. The marker remembers him as an honored citizen, soldier, and Texas Ranger, which tells us his service to Texas went well beyond a single battle. He died on July 22, 1877, and in 1963 the State of Texas raised this marker in his honor.

Its place in the American story

The Texas Revolution is often told as a story of Anglo-American settlers alone. Juan Ximenes is a reminder that it was more complicated than that. Tejanos, Texans of Mexican descent, fought on the side of independence, and some of them, like Ximenes, were natives of the very town being fought over.

Their choice was a difficult one. Tejanos who supported the revolution found themselves opposing the government of their own former nation, and in the years that followed, many faced suspicion and loss of land and standing in the new Texas they had helped create.

Honoring figures like Ximenes helps restore a fuller picture of how Texas, and eventually much of the American Southwest, came to be. The revolution was a multicultural struggle, and San Antonio's Tejano families were part of its story from the first shots onward.

If you visit

This marker stands in San Antonio, a city where the Texas Revolution is never far away. As you stand here, remember that Ximenes was a hometown son: the fight he joined in December 1835 took place in the streets of the city where he was born.

You can easily build a day around this history. The Alamo, where the revolution's most famous battle unfolded a few months after the siege of Béxar, is in downtown San Antonio, and the city's old neighborhoods and missions give a strong sense of the Spanish and Mexican town Ximenes knew.

As you travel, keep an eye out for Tejano names on markers, streets, and buildings. Juan Ximenes is one of many whose part in Texas history is worth seeking out, and his marker is a good place to start looking.

Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.

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Related people

  • · Juan Ximenes

Related events

  • · Storming of Béxar
  • · Texas Revolution

Themes & tags

Military & WartimeMemorial

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