fugitives to the authorities. By August, stories circulated that Mexico’s troops were on the move into Texas; communities reacted by calling general meetings to decide their best course of action: reason with the government, or openly resist it. Then, in early September 1835, Austin, newly freed from jail in Mexico City, arrived back in Texas and threw his prestige behind the ideals of the war party. On the twentieth of that month, Cós landed with men and materiel at Cópano Bay, whence they marched into the interior, reinforcing Goliad before heading toward Béxar. Reports that the Centralist forces intended to free the slaves, oppress Texans, and lay waste to the region influenced communities to take necessary measures for an expected confrontation. Even before the Centralist armies from Mexico skirmished with the Texans, the first episode between Anglos and the Mexican military occurred at Gonzales, where Lieutenant Francisco de Castañeda arrived on September 30, 1835, to request the transfer of a cannon that the Mexican government had given to the colonists four years earlier to help them protect themselves from Indians. Because he feared provoking a fight should he cross the Guadalupe River into Gonzales, Castañeda found himself negotiating for the surrender of the artillery piece in a rather awkward manner–he on one side of the river and local officials, determined to retain possession of the cannon, on the other. Without much hope of success and still reluctant to start a conflict, Castañeda retreated. Then, on the morning of October 2, the rebels fired upon the government forces in their camp, some four miles upriver from Gonzales, using the very cannon in question: on the artillery piece the Anglos had draped a white banner bearing the combative phrase “COME AND TAKE IT.” A brief and minor encounter ensued. Shortly, the Anglos called for Castañeda’s surrender, resuming their fire with the cannon when the lieutenant refused. With orders from his superior to withdraw “without compromising the honor of Mexican arms,” Castañeda left Gonzales without further ado, and the Anglos proclaimed victory.
The insurgents claimed another triumph a week later when Goliad fell to them. With the capture of the presidio and the soldiers Cós had left there, the Texans obtained a new cache of military goods recently brought in by Cós; more important, they could now prevent the general from using the Gulf to import additional troops or to escape in case of an impending defeat.
By the end of the month, Texas volunteers under the command of Stephen F. Austin began moving into San Antonio. In late October, they quarantined the city, which was by then under the control of some 800 to 1200 troops under Cós. In mid‐November Austin was sent on a diplomatic mission to the United States, and the men elected Edward Burleson to command the army. Burleson decided to abandon the siege for the winter, but Ben Milam convinced him to allow volunteers to attempt to take the town. On December 5, some 300 men (several of whom were Texas‐Mexicans) led by Milam and Frank Johnson attacked. Isolated from reinforcements and re‐supply for his army, Cós, having tried to defend Béxar in door‐to‐door combat, succumbed to the assault on December 11. Now the attackers, less Ben Milam, who had been killed by a Mexican sharpshooter, forced Cós to promise to respect the Constitution of 1824 and begin a retreat into the interior of Mexico.
Meanwhile, fifty‐eight delegates from a dozen Texas communities had assembled in what is called the Consultation of 1835 at San Felipe de Austin. Meeting between November 3 and November 14, they elected Branch T. Archer president of the Consultation and, after lengthy discussion, declared their commitment to federalism as embodied in the Constitution of 1824. By this strategy, the delegates hoped to win support from liberals in Mexico and gain time in which to acquire assistance from the United States; in fact, Texans already wanted independence from Mexico, as did the corps of Tejano oligarchs who had seen advantages in Anglo immigration early. Delegates further created a provisional government and elected Henry Smith as governor, James W. Robinson as lieutenant governor, and established a general council (a legislative body like a parliament) to be composed of representatives from the various settlements. Among other things, the Consultation empowered the new government to seek funds to finance the expected war (to that end, it dispatched Austin, Archer, and William H. Wharton to the United States) and selected Sam Houston as commander of the regular army.
By early 1836, President Santa Anna himself was on the move toward Texas to crush the rebellion. In February the Mexican army, consisting of some 6000 soldiers, among them trained infantrymen and cavalrymen but many others conscripted for the Texas campaign, crossed the Rio Grande. Draftees included farm and ranch hands, poverty‐stricken city dwellers, heads of families more concerned with the safety of their loved ones than a distant war, and political opponents of the Centralists.
Texas troops in the field, meantime, proved difficult to manage. Officers faced problems imposing order and discipline. Enlisted men tended to show more allegiance to their immediate leaders, as opposed to those higher up the chain of command. For the most part, the Texan army consisted of volunteers willing to fight when needed but ready to leave the ranks in order to care for their families and property once an immediate crisis had passed. It soon became apparent that the Consultation had blundered badly in not giving Sam Houston (who commanded the mostly nonexistent regular army) command over the volunteers as well.
The disorder in the military was symptomatic of problems besetting Texans in general, for into the winter of 1835–36 they still faced much political division. Their own individualism inhibited agreement on the best path to pursue toward independence. Some still held conflicting feelings about their relationship to Mexico and agonized over whether to join the peace or the war party. Others took issue with their fellow Texans over land claims or denounced them for shirking military duty.
As to the government, it faced such confusion and dissension that in December 1835, the general council called for the election of men to meet in early March 1836 for the purpose of adopting an ad interim government and framing a new constitution. Before the convention could meet, however, the government virtually collapsed. In January Governor Smith suspended the general council, which retaliated by removing Smith from office. Neither recognized the legality of the other’s action, and for all practical purposes Texas ceased to have a government. When delegates to the convention convened at Washington‐on‐the‐Brazos (a townsite located a few miles from Austin’s head center at San Felipe) on March 1, sentiment had crystallized in favor of independence from Mexico. On March 2, the delegates endorsed a committee document, a declaration of independence, stating that Santa Anna had overthrown the Constitution of 1824 and substituted it with tyranny, that the Mexican government had subjugated Texas to Coahuila and thereby had diminished the voice of the people of Texas, that it had denied them the right to trial by jury, the right to religious freedom, and the right to bear arms, and that Mexico had failed to establish a system of education. It further denounced Santa Anna’s regime for employing the military to enforce the law instead of utilizing civilian justice, for inciting the Indians against the colonies, and for mustering an army of mercenaries which was even then on its way to exterminate the colonists. All fifty‐nine delegates to the convention signed the document, among them three Mexicans: Lorenzo de Zavala and the Tejanos José Antonio Navarro and José Francisco Ruiz, the latter two belonging to that group of Coahuiltejano capitalists who had profited from Anglo American colonization.
The War for Texas Independence
Causes
How can this move for independence be explained when, just fifteen years earlier, Anglo American immigrants to Texas had pledged their loyalty to Mexico and agreed to conform to Mexican custom? Traditionally, historians viewed the Texas rebellion as a courageous act of liberty‐loving Anglo Texans against the intolerant and undemocratic government of Mexico: in this light, Anglos were simply following in the footsteps of their ancestors who had rebelled against the autocratic British. Over time, other interpretations gained acceptance. One depicted the Texas rebellion as part of a conspiracy of southern slaveholders to take control of Texas. Another cited collusion between President Andrew Jackson and Sam Houston. Nevertheless, the original democracy versus tyranny thesis remained the most tenacious.
Recent interpretations, however, depart from the earlier explanations.
