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Blas Maria de la Garza Falcon (or Blas Maria Villarreal de la Garza Falcon; 1712–1767) was a Spanish settler of Tamaulipas and South Texas.
Biography
Capt. Blas Maria Villarreal de la Garza Falcon, colonizer of South Texas and Tamaulipas and the first settler of Nueces County, Texas, was born in Real de las Salinas, Nuevo Leon, Mexico, in 1712 to Gen. Blas de la Garza Falcon, twice governor of Coahuila, and Beatriz de Villarreal. His five brothers and six sisters spent their childhood at the hacienda Pesqueria Chica near Monterrey. He probably received his education in Monterrey. By 1734 he was a captain at Presidio de San Gregorio de Cerralvo in Nuevo Leon. On January 4, 1731, de la Garza Falcon married Catarina Gomez de Castro, daughter of Capt. Antonio Gomez de Castro and Nicolasa Baes de Trevino, at the mining town of Boca de Leones, present-day Villaldama, Nuevo Leon. One daughter, Maria Gertrudis de la Garza Falcon, and two sons, Juan Jose and Jose Antonio de la Garza Falcon, were born to this marriage. After the death of Catarina, de la Garza Falcon married Josefa de los Santos Coy, daughter of Nicolas de los Santos Coy, alcalde of Cerralvo, and Ana Maria Guerra. No children were born to this marriage.
In 1747 Jose de Escandon, colonizer of Nuevo Santander, chose de la Garza Falcon to explore the south bank of the Rio Grande. de la Garza Falcon led a contingent of fifty men from the presidio of Cerralvo to the mouth of the river. Escandon's plan, as implemented by de la Garza Falcon, was to establish seven settlements along the river-Revilla, Camargo, Mier, Dolores, Reynosa, Laredo, and Vedoya. On March 5, 1749, de la Garza Falcon arranged for forty families from Nuevo Leon to settle at Camargo on the banks of the Rio Grande. He founded the villa of Camargo, a presidio for the military squadron, and a mission, San Augustin de Laredo, for the Indians. Escandon named him captain and chief justice of Camargo, the first settlement founded on the Rio Grande. In 1752 de la Garza Falcon established a ranch, Carnestolendas, now the site of Rio Grande City, Texas, on the north side of the river.
After two unsuccessful attempts to settle and colonize land near the Nueces River, Escandon gave the assignment to de la Garza Falcon. By 1766 de la Garza Falcon had established a ranching outpost named Santa Petronila five leagues from the Nueces River in what is now Nueces County, Texas. He took his family and employees there and started a ranching enterprise that served as a camp for the Spanish soldiers from Presidio Nuestra Senora de Loreto who explored the vicinity while patrolling in 1767. The ranch, eight miles east of the Nueces River, served as an outpost and way station.
In 1767 de la Garza Falcon returned to Camargo, where he died and was buried in his private chapel, Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe. After his death the land grants were distributed to the settlers; his family received land extending from the Rio Grande to the Nueces River in South Texas.