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The Homestead: Keeping Texas Texan

Imagine yourself on the precipice of destruction — or death. What would you do?

The Texas Founders didn’t have to imagine it. They lived it. On the morning of March 2nd, 1836, their rebellion was at an end.

Sure, Texas had a good run. Just the previous autumn, the local militia at Gonzales had seen off a small Mexican garrison. Several weeks after that, a determined Texian force, mouse-holing from wall to wall inside crowded Bexar, had won that city and seized the Alamo fortress. That was as far as Texas had gotten. That was as much as Texas had got.

Now Mexico was going to get it all back. The new year of 1836 brought the dreadful news that the dictator himself, General Antonio López de Santa Anna, had crossed the Rio Grande with his army. His uniformed thousands, armed and eager, swept through the Texas southlands like a whirlwind. The main force arrived at Bexar and laid siege to the Alamo. Detachments fanned outward, sowing fear at their approach. General José de Urrea’s columns, well to the southeast, methodically destroyed the Texian forces around Goliad.

Texas had two armies in the field on March 2nd, 1836. One was pent up and soon to be wiped out at the Alamo. One was being sliced to pieces around Goliad. Everyone knew what would happen to the prisoners. This wasn’t General Santa Anna’s first invasion of a rebellious Texas, after all. He’d done it before, as a Spanish — not Mexican — lieutenant in the 1813 campaign culminating in the Battle of Medina, to this day the bloodiest battle fought on Texas soil. In that fight, a generation earlier, young Lieutenant Santa Anna followed his orders and murdered his prisoners. Now, in 1836, it was universally understood that age and power had only amplified his cruelty.

For Texas, it was exactly as Travis’s final letter from the doomed Alamo said: victory or death.

On the morning of March 2nd, 1836, anyone could see that fate chose death for Texas. So what did the Texas Founders do?

What did they do, with their armies dead or dying?

What did they do, with the invader at their door?

What did they do, with the dictator triumphant?

What did they do, with no hope of aid?

They did the unreasonable thing. They declared independence.

"We, therefore, the Delegates, with plenary powers, of the People of Texas, in solemn Convention assembled, appealing to a candid world for the necessities of our condition, do hereby resolve and DECLARE that our political connexion with the Mexican nation has forever ended, and that the People of Texas do now constitute a FREE, SOVEREIGN, AND INDEPENDENT REPUBLIC, and are fully invested with all the rights and attributes which properly belong to independent States; and, conscious of the rectitude of our intentions, we fearlessly and confidently commit the issue to the decision of the Supreme Arbiter of the destinies of nations.”

Armed with nothing against worldly might except hope, valor, and trust in God, the Texans at Washington-on-the-Brazos on March 2nd, 1836, declared themselves a nation.

Four days later, the Alamo fell.

Twelve days later, Texas lost at Refugio.

Eighteen days later, Texas lost at Coleto.

Twenty-five days later, the Texan prisoners were slaughtered at Goliad.

All throughout the long defeat, the Runaway Scrape unfolded, with Texans homes and farms burned, Texas dreams laid waste, and the whole Texas nation uprooted and cast forth as destitute refugees.

Fifty days later — Texas won at San Jacinto.

Winning the last battle and securing independence would never have happened without the courage to declare independence in those darkest days. It was an act worthy of its predecessor and model in 1776 — and it made a nation that endures today.

We Texans of 2021, one hundred eighty-five years later, live in the country they made. We rise and work and live in a land won by sacrifices untold, by courage found in the most harrowing straits. Our ancestors and forebears, the men and women of our own heroic age, did it for us. On this Texas Independence Day, remember them. But not just that: do one more thing beyond remembrance.

Deserve them.

For Texas,

Joshua Treviño

p.s. Last fall, TPPF released a new mini-documentary series, “Forging Texas,” a compelling look at the lives, causes and passion for freedom that drove Texas and the Texans to independence—and then to greatness. Episode 1: Season of Revolution ([link removed] ) and Episode 2: Season of Defeat ([link removed] ) are available now!

Texas Public Policy Foundation, 901 Congress Avenue, Austin, Texas 78701, United States, 5124722700

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