Welcome to the Republic of the Rio Grande.

Episode 8, the Kingdom of Separta.

I'm Brandon Seal.

By May of 1839, the residents of the original Rio Grande Bias, Laredo, Guerrero, Mierre, Camargo, and Reynosa, had rid themselves entirely of any

centralist government presence in their towns.

Over the course of a few months and a few thousand miles in the saddle, local hero Antonio

Zapata had immobilized centralist armies in Matamoros, in Monterey, in Tampico,

establishing de facto dominion over the countryside.

Eventually, the Centralist Mexican president himself felt compelled to lead troops out into the field

to confront the Rio Grandeers, but Zapata ran him off too.

In no small part, this is because Sepata commanded the hearts and souls of large swaths of the population.

Sure, the centralist press dismissed him as a rabble rouser for arming his mounted legion of Indians, mestizos, and mulattoes,

which is to say, men who look like him.

And they called him a traitor for starting to accept Texian volunteers into his ranks. But his men adored him. Even the Anglo-Texians

drifting into his Federalist army were immediately drawn to Zapata and his leadership, which stood

out to them far more than the

color of his skin.

Writing high on the success of his spring of 1839 campaign, Sepata was arguably the most powerful

man in the region.

He didn't seem to be a personally ambitious man, or at least not an overly ambitious one in a political sense.

Yet he does seem to have realized his role at this moment as Kingmaker.

And that this movement that he was a part of needed clear leadership.

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