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| A Challenge to a Tyrant |
Over the last week we have learned more about Texas History than at any time in our lives since 7th Grade Texas History class (God bless Maedell Kenas). Well, we've at least had our memories jogged concerning the events in Texas from October, 1835, the "Come and Take It" Battle of Gonzales to, at this point, March, 1836, when Texas has officially declared her Independence and the fall of the Alamo have taken place. Today I want to link again to the posts from earlier in the week, so maybe you can actually sit down and read them without the constraints of time. For those of you who haven't had the opportunity to read these posts, there is some outstanding information in them, including some eyewitness accounts of what was happening at the time Texas was desperately seeking its Independence from Mexico.
Texas History, October, 1835 to March,1836
- The First Shot of the Texas Revolution - The citizens of Gonzales had a big cannon. The Mexican Army wanted it. The people of Gonzales made a flag with a very clear message - "Come and Take It." The Mexicans did not get the cannon.
- Closing in on Independence - This post covers February, 1836. The siege of the Alamo was underway and Texans were bracing for a full blown revolution.
- The Texas Revolution, March, 1836 - Texans declare their Independence from Mexico, the Alamo falls yet the people of Texas are mere weeks away from Freedom and Liberty.
- A Letter of Defiance and Anger - Benjamin Briggs Goodrich wrote a letter to his family in Tennessee to report the death of his brother at the Alamo. He also updates them on the ever-changing events of the Texas Revolution. It's amazing to read it just like you reading your morning newspaper.
Reading the posts and clicking on the links in each one could take a little while, so you might want to plan to look them when you have some time to do so. I really do
highly recommend that you do exactly that. There is some fascinating history in there and it's just a couple of clicks away. I hope you enjoy it!
God bless you and may God continue to bless that Beautiful Lady we call Texas,
About that cannon, it was a gift from the Governor of the Presidio and the trouble got going when they asked for its return.
ReplyDeleteThe ‘Come and Take It’ Cannon
"Since the colonists were too few to effectively muster against Indian attacks, Mexican soldiers would have that primary responsibility. It could have been a peaceful step toward self-democracy for the Texians, only Governor Trespalacios overlooked one singularly important fact. The fierce Tonkawa Indians lived between the two major rivers, making it all but impossible to communicate effectively between the two colonies. Not only that, Texas had at least twenty-two other tribes of Indians in the same general area, most of them hostile. Mexican soldiers were totally inept to handle the Indians---an infuriatingly intolerable situation to the colonists. When Stephen Austin returned, he immediately hired the best marksmen he could find to protect the properties and lands. These "rangers" were ruthless and determined, answering to no one but Austin himself. In a matter of weeks, they were the law of the Colony.
Most Mexican authorities tolerated the interlopers, mainly because the Mexican soldiers weren’t successful in coping with the Indian problem, and the rangers were. But it made some in the Presidio in San Antonio uneasy to have mounted Anglos dispensing law on Mexican soil. When empressario George C. DeWitt founded his settlement of Gonzales on the banks of the Guadalupe River in 1825---a mere stone’s throw, so to speak, from the Presidio---the government at the Presidio, as a sign of good will, as much as an effort at regaining some control in the Colony, furnished to the citizens, six years later, a discarded, damaged cannon for defense of their city against Indian attack. It was a stubby, iron cannon, only twenty-one-and-a-half inches long, delivering a six-pound load at short range. A spike had been driven through it, rendering the old cannon basically useless, but the tiny hamlet was glad to have it as their one defensive weapon. They drove the spike out, leaving a touch-hole the size of a man’s thumb."
As a modern Texian, I have THIS FLAG!
ReplyDeleteMy actual variant of the venerable AR-15 is a carbine with a red dot optic and other accessories.
n2l...I LOVE your "flag"! LOL Thanks again for such an info-packed comment. You are amazing.
ReplyDeleteI'm not either, but I can find some stuff, temps de temps.
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