Pedro Suarez de Longoria was named as “oidor”, or magistrate, for the Audencia de Mexico on January 24, 1603, in Ventosilla. Less than 5 months later, on June 16, 1603, he departed for the New World and New Spain.  Pedro took with him several "criados", or servant boys.  One of those "criados" was Lorenzo Suarez de Longoria, who in one document found in the Archives of Seville referred to Pedro Suarez de Longoria as "tio", or his uncle.  It is from Lorenzo Suarez de Longoria that I and many other Longorias in South Texas are descended.

Most likely, the ship carrying Pedro and Lorenzo landed in Veracruz, perhaps after stopping in Cuba, sometime in July or August of 1603 and Pedro and Lorenzo became the first Longorias to set foot on the New World. This would have been about 5 years after the villa of Monterrey had been established in Nuevo Leon.

On October 30, 1616, the Viceroy of New Spain made a request to the King of Spain that Pedro Suarez de Longoria be removed from his position as magistrate in the Audencia de Mexico. Apparently, Pedro in his position of “oidor” was accumulating property and other possessions in his own name. If so, then Pedro succumbed to greed, and could not resist the temptation to accumulate wealth at the expense of the King’s treasury. Little is known about Pedro Suarez de Longoria after 1616.

Lorenzo Suarez de Longoria apparently migrated to northern Mexico after Pedro Suarez de Longoria lost his royal position. It may be that both Lorenzo and Pedro migrated to the mining community of Zacatecas and/or Monterrey. We know that eventually Lorenzo Suarez de Longoria made his way to Monterrey, in the province of Nuevo Leon, because it was there that his son Lorenzo Suarez Longoria (the 2^nd) was born sometime around the year 1629. The elder Lorenzo stated in his will that he never married, so in all probability Lorenzo (the 2^nd) was illegitimate. The mother was Ana de Salazar, the widow of Jacinto de Cobarrubias and a granddaughter of Diego de Trevino, who had been a resident of Mexico City since the mid 1500’s.

Lorenzo Suarez Longoria (the 2^nd) was born in Monterrey but probably spent his adult life in both Monterrey and Saltillo. He was probably born around 1629. Little is known about his life. He was not mentioned in his father’s 1665 will, perhaps indicating that he had died by then; if so, he would have been only about 36 years old. Lorenzo (the 2^nd) had at least five children (Maria, Ana, Pedro, Francisco and Jose Jacinto) by Antonia Rodriguez, a citizen of Monterrey, and at least one child (Nicolas Suarez de Longoria) by Beatriz Gonzalez. The elder Lorenzo mentioned only two grandchildren, Maria de Longoria and Jose de Longoria, in his will; there is no mention of Ana, Pedro or Francisco Longoria Rodriguez, or of Nicolas Suarez de Longoria. Why they were not mentioned remains to be determined; however, a possible explanation is that the elder Lorenzo simply did not have sufficient assets to leave for everyone and selected two of his most prized possessions to leave to his two favorite grandchildren.

Pedro and Francisco were natural children (i.e., illegitimate). In all likelihood, all children of Lorenzo Suarez de Longoria (the 2^nd) were natural children.

Antonia Rodriguez, Lorenzo’s “common law wife” and the mother of five of his children, was the granddaughter of Diego Rodriguez, one of the 15 settlers who came with Diego Montemayor when he founded the city of Monterrey in 1596. She was also the great great granddaughter of Diego Montemayor, the founder of Monterrey and Governor of Nuevo Leon.

Pedro Longoria Rodriguez, son of Lorenzo Suarez Longoria (the 2^nd) and Antonia Rodriguez, was born circa 1652 in Saltillo, Coahuila, New Spain. He was still a citizen of Saltillo when he married Agustina Garcia sometime in 1678 (the Church conducted their marriage investigation on January 23, 1678). Agustina Garcia was the daughter of Diego Garcia Quintanilla and Mariana Zaldivar Sosa; she was also the second cousin of Pedro’s mother, Antonia Rodriguez.

Pedro’s wife Agustina Garcia Zaldivar came from a distinguished family. Her maternal grandfather was Capt. Vicente de Zaldivar, who had a distinguished military career as the chief officer of Juan de Onate in his expedition to New Mexico. He led several side expeditions from Onate’s base in New Mexico to explore what was later to become the American southwest. One expedition was to the buffalo plains east of the Pecos in September 1598. Another was to the southwest of New Mexico. In November 1598, Vicente's brother, Juan de Zaldivar, and 14 companions were ambushed and killed at the Acoma pueblo in New Mexico by the residents of the pueblo. Vicente brutally avenged his brother's death in January 1599 by attacking Acoma and laying it to waste. In 1602, Vicente Zaldivar went to Spain to secure a confirmation of Juan de Onate's titles and to secure a force of 300 men with whom to continue exploration beyond Quivira.

About seven years after Pedro and Agustina were married, Spain began to receive reports of a new threat to their sovereignty claims over the lands, which were to become Texas. In 1684, La Salle left France with colonists, headed for the mouth of the Mississippi where he hoped to establish a French colony. La Salle, however, overshot the Mississippi River and landed instead in Matagorda Bay, where they were shipwrecked in the shallow waters. Coming ashore, La Salle established a small fort and colony a short distance inland, and claimed the land for France.

From 1686 to 1690, Alonso de Leon made five expeditions into Texas from Nuevo Leon, searching for the reported colony established by La Salle with the intent of destroying it. De Leon finally found the remains of the French colony on his fourth expedition in 1689. The native Indians had already demolished the fort, and most of the French inhabitants had been killed. De Leon then helped Fray Massanet to establish two missions in 1690 among the Tejas Indians near the Neches River. This was the first Spanish settlement in Texas and its primary goal was to establish the northeastern boundary of New Spain, thus attempting to prevent further foreign incursions.

Accompanying Alonso de Leon on several of his expeditions into Texas was Juan Bautista Chapa, who kept a detailed diary on the expeditions. He later combined his diary with knowledge gained from his work as secretary to the governors of Nuevo Leon to write a book he called the "Historia de Nuevo Leon". This is the definitive historical work on northern Mexico and south Texas. However, for almost 300 years no one knew who had written the "Historia de Nuevo Leon" because Juan Bautista Chapa chose to remain anonymous. He did so because he recognized the many difficulties and dangers in writing histories during that era. The incredulity of some and the censure of others would make life very difficult for the author, with many rebukes and criticisms. Juan Bautista used the example of Zoilo, who rebuked and criticized the Greek poet Homer, whom Juan Bautista calls the "Prince of Poets". Thus, the author of this important history became known simply as the "aútor anonimo". It was not until 1961 that the noted Mexican historian, Israel Cavazos Garza, identified Juan Bautista Chapa as the author through extensive research and analysis. As we shall see shortly, Juan Bautista Chapa was an ancestor of the Longorias (and many others) of South Texas, and probably our first such ancestor to set foot in Texas.

Pedro Longoria Rodriguez and Agustina Garcia Zaldivar had five children, all of whom were born in Monterrey. Apparently, they moved to Monterrey soon after their marriage. Their eldest child is believed to be Juan Diego Longoria.

Juan Diego Longoria was born in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, probably around the year 1680. By July 30, 1718, Juan Diego had moved to Cerralvo, Nuevo Leon, where on that date he married Maria Clara de Chapa, granddaughter of the aforementioned "aútor anonimo", Juan Bautista Chapa. Cerralvo was a mining community and it is my supposition that Juan Diego moved there to pursue riches as a miner, but there is no actual record as to why he moved to Cerralvo. It was in Cerralvo that Juan Diego Longoria and Maria Clara de Chapa had all ten of their children.

It was also in Cerralvo, after Juan Diego had been widowed, that he and his family joined a caravan headed north to establish a new settlement by the Rio Grande River. The lures for joining an endeavor sure to be full of hardships and danger was the promise of a land grant from the King of Spain, an exemption from taxes for ten years, and perhaps most important, a once in a lifetime opportunity to improve one’s social status. The new settlement they founded would be the first of five established on the Rio Grande under the direction of Jose de Escandon; this settlement was named Santa Ana de Camargo, known today simply as Camargo. It was one of the original settlements in the new province of Nuevo Santander.