The Junior Historian, Volume 28, Number 5, March 1968 Page: 2
32 p. : ill. ; 25 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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THE JUNIOR HISTORIAN
captain read the deed and taking Balli's right
hand, walked onto the land where in the name
of His Majesty, he put Balli in possession. Upon
reaching the center of the grant Balli proceeded
to pick up sticks, break them, and fling them
to the wind. This action symbolized that he
would clear the land. He also picked up clods,
crumbled them in his hands, and flung them
to the wind which was to show that he would
break the soil and attempt to live on the land.
At this time there was no state, much
less a county, but settlers were coming
into the Valley to ranch. They lived far
apart but got together often for entertain-
ment of various sorts. Neighboring
ranches would have a picnic on Sunday
when families would take part in many
games such as coliadera. In this sport,
a ranch hand would ride his horse at
breakneck speed, grab a steer's tail, and
by twisting it around the steer, try to pull
the animal down in the shortest time pos-
sible. In the fall season, the farmers cele-
brated the harvest with a carnival which
lasted approximately three weeks. Cock
fighting took place the year round, how-
ever, it was as illegal then as it is now.
The men gathered deep in the woods
where they inserted knife blades in the
feet of the cocks and watched as the cocks
tried to cut each other's throats. At
Christmas, the settlers would gather and
re-enact Joseph's and Mary's journey to
Bethlehem. At midnight on Christmas
Eve, they would gather at a stable they
had built to represent Christ's birthplace
and hold a religious service. These were
the types of entertainment and customs
that prevailed in the Valley in the latter
part of the nineteenth century. Some of
these customs still are found to this day.
Settlers continued to flock to the Val-
ley in the early 1840's. "The Valley had
its first small land boom in 1848 when
soldiers from Zachary Taylor's army set-
tled in the Valley and wrote home to the
folks saying, 'Never were seen such fields
of cane and corn as these'!" quotes the
Hidalgo County Centennial program.
By 1850, the Valley was becoming
populated. Ranchers on the river were
tired of having to travel seventy or eighty
miles to the town of Brownsville to paytaxes or transact land business. "Judge
Israel Bigelow, an old stage coach oper-
ator . . . introduced a bill into the State
legislature (1851) to form a new county
of Hidalgo out of Cameron County."
A lawyer in the Valley, E. D. Smith,
who was pulling for the formation of a
new county, suggested the name Hidalgo
as a dedication to Father Miguel Hidal-
go, a renowned liberator of Mexico.
Miguel Hidalgo y Costello was born
on May 8, 1753, near Guanajuato, Mex-
ico. After being educated in Vallodolid
(present Morelia), he became a member
of the clergy and also worked to help the
Indians develop their agricultural tech-
niques. In 1810, Spanish troops destroyed
everything in his community, so it was
natural that he came to hate despotism.
He gathered hundreds of followers and
rose up against the Spanish ruler of Mex-
ico. "He was shot as a rebel in August
of 1811. His body was buried at Chi-
huahua, but his head was cut off by the
Royalists and displayed in an iron cage."
His followers kept fighting, and Mexican
independence was won late in 1813.
Miguel Hidalgo died, but what he
fought for lived on. In commemoration,
Hidalgo County residents celebrate Sep-
tember 16 as the anniversary of Mexican
Independence, when Miguel Hidalgo ut-
tered the Grito de Dolores-the cry that
eventually led to the freedom of Mexico.
The Texas Legislature approved the
bill to establish a new county, and Hidal-
go County was formed mainly out of
Cameron County and a small part of
Starr County and contained 1,541 square
miles. From a present map of Texas,
Hidalgo County appears to stretch north
from the Rio Grande (its southern bound-
ary) approximately fifty miles. At its
widest point, Hidalgo County is about
fifty-five miles in width and tapers to
about twenty-five miles.
On September 2, 1852, the first county
court convened with Madison M. Stevens
presiding as the judge. The court set up
rates for the four ferries that operated on
the Rio Grande at five dollars a month.2
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Texas State Historical Association. The Junior Historian, Volume 28, Number 5, March 1968, periodical, March 1968; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth391296/m1/4/?q=Lamar+University: accessed June 7, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.