Hidden History of Texas Episode 25
This is the Hidden History of Texas Episode 25 (Chapter 7 – Audiobook 3) 1830-1861
Hello and welcome to the Hidden History of Texas. Been away a while, needed to take a break and now I’m back.
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This is chapter 7 of the audiobook and episode 25 of the podcast. By 1835 Texas is turning into a powder keg and as the year ends and 1836 starts things are getting ready to explode. In this chapter, I will talk about how Texas actually had two declarations of Independence. One passed in 1835 and the other in 1836. All of these events culminated in an eventual explosion and were part of the events and circumstances that led up to the battle of the alamo.
The first declaration of independence was passed in 1835 is known as the Goliad Declaration of Independence. This was the first and most formal regional declaration of Independence. It is often referred to as the “Mecklenburg of Texas.” Remember a large number of early Texas settlers were from the south, so they would have been familiar with the events that took place before and during the revolutionary war. [The Mecklenburg Declaration of May 1775 which came from a regional convention of North Carolinians in Mecklenburg, and it contained wording similar to that of the American Declaration of Independence of 1776. On December 20th in 1835 in Goliad a meeting of 92 men, both members of Capt. Phillip Dimmit’s troops and local citizens, produced the Goliad Declaration of Independence, drafted by Ira Ingram, and was read to the citizens of Goliad at Nuestra Señora de Loreto Presidio, The document was enthusiastically ratified and received ninety-one signatures, including Tejanos (those are Texans of Mexican descent) José Miguel Aldrete and José María Jesús Carbajal. Philip Dimmitt who was also a strong supporter and major participant in the process, along with many in his company of volunteers signed the declaration.
The enacting clause resolved that the former department of Texas ought to be a “free, sovereign, and independent State,” and the signers pledged their lives, fortunes, and honor to sustain the declaration. Several copies of the document were prepared and sent to various parts of Texas, and the copy that reached Brazoria was printed and widely distributed.
A committee including John Dunn, William S. Brown, William G. Hill, and Benjamin J. White, carried the original copy to San Felipe and delivered it to the General Council on December 30, 1835. The council referred the declaration to the Committee on State and Judiciary; but the arrival of the document caused some embarrassment. There were negotiations with José Antonio Mexía and Julian Pedro Miracle already underway in San Felipe about whether the Texans true intentions were independence or cooperation with the Federalists in northern Mexico. Needless to say, members of the council warned the Goliad messengers not to circulate the declaration further, and the committee report on the declaration said that it hadn’t been carefully thought out before being adopted. They wanted the document to remain in the files of the secretary without further action.
The declaration happened two days before Stephen F. Austin’s announcement at Velasco that he was now in favor of independence and it preceded the Texas Declaration of Independence by seventy-three days. The primary result of the Goliad Declaration was how it alienated the Federalists of northern Mexico.
The official Texas Declaration of Independence was issued by the Convention of 1836 at Washington-on-the-Brazos. As soon as the convention was organized a resolution was introduced for appointment of a committee to draw up a declaration of independence. Richard Ellis, president of the convention, appointed George C. Childress, James Gaines, Edward Conrad, Collin McKinney, and Bailey Hardeman to the committee. Childress was named chairman, and it is generally conceded that he wrote the instrument with little help from the other members. In fact there is some evidence that he brought to the convention a proposed declaration that was adopted with little change by the committee and the convention, a view which is substantiated by the fact that the committee was appointed on March 1 and the declaration was presented to the convention on March 2. The Texas edict, like the United States Declaration of Independence, contains a statement on the nature of government, a list of grievances, and a final declaration of independence. The separation from Mexico was justified by a brief philosophical argument and by a list of grievances submitted to an impartial world. The declaration charged that the government of Mexico had ceased to protect the lives, liberty, and property of the people; that it had been changed from a restricted federal republic to a consolidated, central, military despotism; that the people of Texas had remonstrated against the misdeeds of the government only to have their agents thrown into dungeons and armies sent forth to enforce the decrees of the new government at the point of the bayonet; that the welfare of Texas had been sacrificed to that of Coahuila; that the government had failed to provide a system of public education, trial by jury, freedom of religion, and other essentials of good government; and that the Indians had been incited to massacre the settlers. According to the declaration, the Mexican government had invaded Texas to lay waste territory and had a large mercenary army advancing to carry on a war of extermination. The final grievance listed in justification of revolution charged that the Mexican government had been “the contemptible sport and victim of successive military revolutions and hath continually exhibited every characteristic of a weak, corrupt, and tyrannical government.” After the signing of the original declaration by fifty-nine delegates, five copies of the document were dispatched to the designated Texas towns of Bexar, Goliad, Nacogdoches, Brazoria, and San Felipe. The printer at San Felipe was also instructed to make 1,000 copies in handbill form. The original was deposited with the United States Department of State in Washington, D.C., and was not returned to Texas until some time after June 1896. In 1929 the original document was transferred from the office of the secretary of state to the Board of Control to be displayed in a niche at the Capitol, where it was unveiled on March 2, 1930.
Next episode and chapter, it’s time for the battle of the alamo, not the movie version, but the real life version and the events that took place around it.
If you want more information on Texas History, visit the Texas State Historical Association.
I also have two audiobooks on the Hidden History of Texas one which deals with the 1500s to about 1820, and the other one 1820s to 1830s. You can find the books pretty much wherever you download or listen to audiobooks.
Links to all the stores are on my publishers website https://ashbynavis.com.