George Fisher

Đorđe Šagić (; April 30, 1795 – June 11, 1873), also known as George (Jorge) Fisher, was a customs officer and early leader of the Texas Revolution. Biography Fisher was originally named Đorđe Šagić, and also known as Đorđe Ribar, which translated into English as George Fisher. He was born to Serbian parents in Székesfehérvár, Hungary in April 1795. Following his father's death Đorđe was sent to the Serbian Orthodox Church seminary in Sremski Karlovci, to train as a priest. He left in 1813 to join the Serbian revolutionary forces during the First Serbian Uprising.1 He traveled to Philadelphia in the United States in 1814 before heading to Mexico. In 1825, Fisher helped found the first York Rite Masonic Lodge in Mexico. He became a naturalized Mexican citizen in 1829 and contracted to settle five hundred families on lands in Texas formerly held by Haden Edwards. Fisher later was in charge of a customs house at the far north end of Galveston Bay. Fisher demanded that all ships landing at the mouth of the Brazos River pay their customs duties to him at Anahuac. This was a great hardship to area boat captains due to the great distances between that port and other Texas seaports. Fisher was forced to resign his post in early 1832 after a military confrontation with Texian settlers. Later that year, Fisher began publishing the liberal newspaper Mercurio del Puerto de Matamoros in Matamoros. On October 13, 1835, Fisher and José Antonio Mexía organized a movement in New Orleans to attack Tampico and instigate a revolt among the eastern states of Mexico.