José Joaquín de Arredondo y Mioño (also known as Jose Arredondo y Miono Pelegrin y Oceja) (1768–1837) was a 19th-century Spanish and Mexican soldier who served during the last two decades of Spanish rule in New Spain. He was military commandant of the Texas province during the first Texas revolutions against Spanish rule. Early life Jose Joaquin de Arredondo was born in Barcelona, Spain, in 1768 to Nicolás Antonio de Arredondo y Pelegrín and Josefa Rosa de Mioño. His father served as Governor of Cuba and as Viceroy of Buenos Aires. Military career Arredondo entered the Royal Spanish Guards as a cadet in 1787 and was detached for service in New Spain. In 1810 he was promoted to the rank of colonel and given the command of the infantry regiment of Vera Cruz. In 1811 he was made military commandant of Huasteca and governor of Nuevo Santander. Arredondo enforced a rigid interpretation of the Laws of War regarding guerrillas, partisans and insurgents. He applied his rules of warfare in proactive campaigns against Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla's revolt of 1811 and the criollos revolts of 1813, taking part in Ignacio Elizondo's plot to capture Miguel Hidalgo. Arredondo was rewarded for his actions in suppressing the revolutionaries with an appointment as commandant of the eastern division of the Provincias Internas (comprising the provinces of Coahuila, Texas, Nuevo Santander and the New Kingdom of León); the region had a predominantly royalist population (see below), and the independence movement would not be supported by a majority of the population in those provinces until the late 1810s, after Servando Teresa de Mier's fight for Mexican independence. Texas As part of the New Kingdom of León, the area of Texas then called Tejas was a bulwark against the large-scale marauding attacks of hostile Indian nations such as the Apaches and the Comanches. Because of long-term hostility between the Indians and the Europeans in the area, much of the New Kingdom of León and Tejas had a population almost wholly European in origin, unlike other parts of New Spain. Spanish authorities supported the settlement of Tejas, the frontier of the Kingdom between Indian territory and the growing American nation. Thus, while the southern areas of the New Kingdom of León remained royalist, the northern areas were mostly ambivalent about supporting either the revolution or the royalist cause. This neutrality disappeared when independence fervor spread among the population