Welcome to the Republic of the Rio Grande.

Episode 5, the Federalist Revoltz.

I'm Brandon Seal.

By 1835, the people of the Rio Grande-Bias were pissed off at the Mexican central government.

25 years after their own Bernardo Gutierrez de Lara had led the region's independence

movement against Spain, their new government still did little to protect them from the hazards

of life on the frontier, all while continuing to assess them import duties at 25% or more of the value

of the goods they bought.

Unfortunately, the Mexican central government depended on import duties for 80 to 90% of its revenue,

so it's understandable why they were reluctant to lower those duties,

but that didn't explain why some goods were prohibited from import altogether,

including basic essentials like cotton and cloth.

The sale of those goods was still reserved for well-placed monopolists at artificially high prices,

even as the same goods sold for a quarter or an eighth as much in New Orleans.

This was something that affected people up and down the economic ladder,

from stock raisers like Antonio Zapata to lawyers like Antonio Canales,

and it created a really unfortunate dynamic. In the words of a contemporary, quote,

as might reasonably be expected in any country where the duties on foreign goods amount almost to prohibition, smuggling ceases to be a crime and identifies itself with the best part of the population

and connects itself with the romance and legends of the frontier end quote

and that is indeed how those living on the frontier saw it

for those living in the center however all they saw were a bunch of ungrateful opportunists

with little respect for the rule of law

...