San Antonio, City for a King

About the Book

San Antonio, City for a King takes us on an extraordinary adventure through an amazingly unknown, yet expectantly fitting, piece of Texas' origins. We learn how 16 families from Iberia's Canary Islands answered their monarch's call to populate a desolate northeast area of his New Spain for a strategic political reason. There was the year-long journey: crossing the Atlantic and then trekking north over present-day Mexico to Bejar. We see how these people initiated the township of San Fernando, guided its growth for generations and helped form many Texas traditions. And we follow their descendants through the town's evolution, through two rebellions, three changes of patriotism and one name change...to San Antonio.

About the Author

"Living very happily in San Antonio's West Side barrio in the 1940"s", says the author, "I grew up thinking I was one hundred per cent Mexican American. And even though my paternal grandfather always made it a point to stress that we were Canarians, I had no notion of my Spanish genealogy...until my later years." He joined the Canary Islands Descendants Association in the city, and learned from hundreds of Canarian "cousins" about their unique legacy. He served as president for three terms, during which time he delivered many public speeches to audiences that were, he says, surprisingly interested and hungry for the magnificent history of those brave founding families from Spain.