In 1839, José Policarpo Rodriguez came north with his father from Zaragosa, Mexico, to the Republic of Texas. Poli grew up with Comanches, surveyed territory for the Republic of Texas and the US Army, fought against warring Indians, and mapped settlements for nineteenth-century German settlers. Caught between the three main elements that made up early Texas—Mexicans, Indians, and Anglos—he struggled to decide where his true loyalties lay.