LOT Old Heritage Auctions  /  2007 December Signature Texana Auction #661  / 

56007

Earliest Texas Imprint; 1823; Los Filantropicos

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Paper Start Price:29,000.00 USD Estimated At:50,000.00 - 85,000.00 USD
Earliest Texas Imprint; 1823; Los Filantropicos
<B>[Broadside] </B></I><B><I>A Los Filantropicos Sin Ambicion</B></I></B></I><B>, 1823</B></I> , one page, 14.5" x 21". (San Antonio, Texas: George Asbridge, Printer, April 18, 1823.) Ornamental lettering and decorations, three columns. Headed "<I>A Los/Filantropicos/Sin Ambicion./Noticia de lo Acaecido en Bexar/el dia 15 de Abril, de 1823</B></I>" [To Public Minded Citizens of Good Will. An Account of a Meeting in San Antonio de Bexar, the 15th of April, 1823]. This broadside, <B>presenting a plan for the first Republican form of Government in Texas</B></I>, is listed as imprint number six in Thomas W. Streeter's <I>Bibliography of Texas, 1795-1845</B></I>. It is so rare that Streeter never saw one to include in the first edition of his bibliography (which he listed as a "ghost" imprint, deducing its existence from a reference in a letter in the Bexar Archives at the University of Texas). When Archibald Hanna revised and updated Streeter's <I>Bibliography of Texas</B></I> in 1983, he found an example of this broadside at the Bancroft Library at the University of California in Berkeley. This is the only other one known to exist! Translated from the Spanish, the broadside begins: "<I>The Senor Don Jose Felix Trespalacios, Governor of Texas, after having convened an illustrious town council, [including] the military, the clergy, and a great number of distinguished citizens and people, in the Town Hall of this City, proposes, in consideration of the critical circumstances in which the Mexican Empire finds itself, two plans: one for the organization of the Federal Republic, and the other for the Abolition of Cruel Warfare in America...Every government which does not have for its foundation equality and liberty for each and every one of its citizens in the nation, is illusory...</B></I>" The first two of ten organizational provisions: "<I>1. A provincial governmental junta will be formed, to handle the economic and political issues of this Province, and will be composed of the individuals from the Town Council of this City, since they have been legitimately chosen by the people, and two representatives from Bahia del Espiritu Santo, one from Colorado, one from Brazos, and another from Nacogdoches. 2. The three guarantees of religion, independence and union will be sustained as the fundamental bases of a Republican form of government.</B></I>" Shortly after printing this broadside, Asbridge sold his press to the Mexican government and the press was moved to Monterrey, Mexico. Streeter cites Texas bibliographer Winkler as saying "the type of man who brings type to Texas in 1823 like that used in the Bexar imprints was no ordinary printer." The bill that Asbridge submitted for printing for the government has survived in the Bexar Archives; each printing was limited to 20 copies, which would include this broadside. Trespalacios was Governor of Texas from August 17, 1822 to April 17, 1823, leaving office two days after the meeting was held in Bexar. Under his administration Austin's Colony was divided into the Brazos and the Colorado districts. Soiled in areas with several small wormholes, partially split at folds expertly repaired on verso. Fine condition. <I>From the collection of Darrel Brown.</B></I><BR><B><BR>Reference:</B></I> Streeter 6<BR><BR><b>Shipping:</b> Flat Material, Small (<a target="_blank" href="http://www.heritageauctions.com/common/shipping.php">view shipping information</a>)
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