Welcome to the Engines of Tech Sanity.

Episode 2, The Font of Texas Government.

I'm Brandon Seal.

When Don Juan de Ognate crossed the Rio Grande on May 4, 1598, at a spot which he called

El Paso del Rio del Norte, he didn't just bring with him the horses that would redraw

the map of Native Texas. He brought with him 539 colonists, intent on establishing Spanish

government in the northernmost reaches of Spanish North America.

We talked about this at some length in season four when we discussed the origins of Mexican federalism,

but something I know I didn't appreciate at the time was how ancient and vibrant this tradition of Spanish self-government was.

The Spanish tradition, particularly in respect to citizens of cities,

typically guaranteed freedom of commerce,

the inviolability of the home, and inheritance rights for women.

In fact, in 1188, King Alonso the 9th of Leone had convened the first parliament in Europe,

and it included representatives of propertyed commoners,

all of his 27 years before the English Magna Carta, and nearly a century before any commoners would be admitted to the English parliament.

And the Comunero revolts of the 16th century in large Spanish cities rang out with appeals to the consent of all and the general will,

two centuries before those same terms would flow from the pens of all and the general will two centuries before those same

terms would flow from the pens of english and french writers yet the spanish model of self-government

was built around the city state around the siudad the villa or the pueblo the latter a word which

suggests the representative nature of their elected councilmen, clerks, and mayors.

And so all up through the central Mexican highlands, the Spanish Empire established a string of self-governing municipalities to process the mineral wealth of the Sierra Madre.

We're talking about Kereto, Sakatecas, Durango, towns made famous by their prodigious silver output.

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