Francisco Antonio Ruiz

Who was Francisco Antonio Ruiz?

Francisco Antonio Ruiz was the alcalde of San Antonio during the Texas Revolution and was responsible for identifying the bodies of those killed at the Battle of the Alamo.

Ruiz was born between 1804 and 1811 in San Antonio, then part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain interior province of Spanish Texas. He was the eldest son of Jose Francisco Ruiz and Josefa Hernandex.

Ruiz supported the Texian cause during the Texas Revolution, when he was the alcade of San Antonio. General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna did not trust Ruiz, and when the Mexican army entered San Antonio to begin the siege of the Alamo, Santa Anna placed Ruiz under house arrest. At the conclusion of the battle, Santa Anna ordered Ruiz to identify the bodies of David Crockett, James Bowie, and William Barret Travis and to dispose of the dead. He later "left one of the most vivid eyewitness accounts of the fall of the Alamo." Ruiz stated that Crockett's body was found on the west side of the garrison, contradicting Susannah Dickinson's claim that he lay between the chapel and the low barracks to the south. Ruiz stated that Travis' body was found on a gun carriage on the north wall, with a single bullet wound to the forehead, and that Bowie's body was found in one of the rooms on the south side, on a bed.