Texas Independence Day is always on March 2nd, which falls on a Monday this year. On this day 190 years ago, 59 delegates at Washington-on-the-Brazos signed the Texas Declaration of Independence from Mexico.
The adoption of the Texas Declaration of Independence on March 2, 1836, marked a turning point in the Texas Revolution, shifting the focus from returning to the Mexican Constitution of 1824 to forming a separate and independent Republic of Texas, states a story in The Austin American-Statesman.
Explaining the importance of today in Texas History, thisdayofhistory.com reveals that on March 2, 1836, amid war and uncertainty, delegates gathered at Washington-on-the-Brazos formally adopted the Texas Declaration of Independence, severing political ties with Mexico and proclaiming the birth of the Republic of Texas. The decision came not in peacetime deliberation but under the shadow of advancing Mexican troops. Even as the convention met, General Antonio López de Santa Anna’s army was laying siege to the Alamo in San Antonio de Béxar. The delegates knew their declaration would either inaugurate a new nation—or condemn them as traitors in a failed rebellion.
The roots of the break stretched back years, the thisdayofhistory.com story says. During the 1820s, Mexico had encouraged Anglo-American settlement in its northern province of Coahuila y Tejas to stabilize and develop the sparsely populated region. Empresarios such as Stephen F. Austin recruited settlers, who pledged loyalty to Mexico and nominal adherence to Catholicism. But tensions simmered almost from the beginning. Cultural differences, disputes over tariffs and immigration, and especially the issue of slavery—which Mexico had abolished but Texas settlers continued to practice—deepened mistrust between the colonists and Mexico City.
Matters came to a head after Santa Anna abandoned the federalist Constitution of 1824 and centralized power. Many Texans, both Anglo and Tejano, viewed this shift as a betrayal of the federal compact under which they had agreed to settle. Armed resistance erupted in late 1835. By the end of that year, Texian forces had driven Mexican troops from much of the province. Yet Santa Anna’s winter campaign of 1836 signaled that the conflict would not be settled easily.
Against this backdrop, 59 delegates convened in a hastily constructed hall at Washington-on-the-Brazos on March 1, 1836. The next day—March 2nd, coincidentally the birthday of Texas empresario Stephen F. Austin (who died December 27, 1836, at Columbia)—they unanimously adopted the declaration. Modeled closely on the United States Declaration of Independence, it asserted that when a government becomes destructive of the rights of the people, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it. The document cataloged grievances against Mexico: the dissolution of state legislatures, the suspension of trial by jury, the imposition of military rule, and the denial of religious and civil liberties.
The declaration’s authors framed their cause in the language of natural rights and constitutionalism, echoing the American revolutionary tradition familiar to many settlers. Yet it also reflected the distinct circumstances of Texas. The document emphasized Mexico’s alleged failure to protect settlers from Native American raids and accused Santa Anna of arbitrary governance. It declared that the people of Texas now constituted “a free, sovereign, and independent republic.”
The convention did more than proclaim independence, the thisdayofhistory.com story goes on to say. Delegates drafted a constitution for the new republic, creating a government with executive, legislative, and judicial branches. They named an interim president, David G. Burnet, and selected Sam Houston as commander-in-chief of the Texian army. These decisions were urgent; Santa Anna’s forces were already pressing deep into Texas.
Just four days after the declaration, the Alamo fell. Its defenders, including William B. Travis, James Bowie and Davy Crockett, were killed. Later in March, Texian prisoners captured at Goliad were executed on Santa Anna’s orders. These events galvanized resistance. Houston retreated eastward, gathering strength, until April 21, 1836, when his army surprised and defeated Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto. The victory secured Texas independence in fact, though Mexico would not formally recognize it.
The adoption of the declaration on March 2nd marked the decisive political break. It transformed a regional uprising into a war for national independence and laid the foundation for a republic that would endure nearly a decade. The Republic of Texas would operate as an independent nation until its annexation by the United States in 1845—a move that would help ignite the Mexican-American War and reshape the North American continent.
By the time the Convention of 1836 met at Washington-on-the-Brazos on March 1, 1836, such temporizing was no longer acceptable. On the first day, Convention President Richard Ellis appointed a committee to draft a Declaration of Independence.
A story from the Texas State Library and Archives Commission states that George Childress, the committee chairman, is generally accepted as the author of the Texas Declaration of Independence, with little help from the other committee members. Since the 12-page document was submitted for a vote of the whole convention on the following day, Childress probably already had a draft version of the document with him when he arrived. As the delegates worked, they received regular reports on the ongoing siege on the Alamo by the forces of Santa Anna’s troops.
A free and independent Republic of Texas was officially declared March 2, 1836. Over the course of the next several days, 59 delegates — each representing one of the settlements in Texas — approved the Texas Declaration of Independence. After the delegates signed the original declaration, five copies were made and dispatched to the designated Texas towns of Bexar, Goliad, Nacogdoches, Brazoria and San Felipe. One thousand copies were ordered printed in handbill form.
The Unanimous Declaration of Independence made by the
Delegates of the People of Texas in General Convention at the
Town of Washington on the 2nd day of March 1836
Among those who signed the Texas Declaration of Independence were John S.D. Byrom, who is buried at the historic Columbia Cemetery in West Columbia, Texas, and General Sam Houston, who was sworn in as the first president of the Republic of Texas later in 1836 in the town of Columbia (present day West Columbia). Columbia remained the capital of the Republic of Texas until early 1837 when the new city of Houston would become the capital of the republic.
The Texas Declaration of Independence from Mexico closes with the following words:
We are, therefore, forced to the melancholy conclusion, that the Mexican people have acquiesced in the destruction of their liberty, and the substitution therfor of a military government; that they are unfit to be free, and incapable of self government.
The necessity of self-preservation, therefore, now decrees our eternal political separation.
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 connection 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 nations; 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.
[Signed, in the order shown on the handwritten document]
| John S. D. Byrom Francis Ruis J. Antonio Navarro Jesse B. Badgett Wm D. Lacy William Menifee Jn. Fisher Matthew Caldwell William Motley Lorenzo de Zavala Stephen H. Everitt George W. Smyth Elijah Stapp Claiborne West Wm. B. Scates M. B. Menard A. B. Hardin J. W. Bunton Thos. J. Gazley R. M. Coleman Sterling C. Robertson | Richard Ellis, President of the Convention and Delegate from Red RiverJames Collinsworth Edwin Waller Asa BrighamCharles B. Stewart Thomas BarnettGeo. C. Childress Bailey Hardeman Rob. Potter Thomas Jefferson Rusk Chas. S. Taylor John S. Roberts Robert Hamilton Collin McKinney Albert H. Latimer James Power Sam Houston David Thomas Edwd. Conrad Martin Parmer Edwin O. Legrand Stephen W. Blount Jms. Gaines Wm. Clark, Jr. Sydney O. Pennington Wm. Carrol Crawford Jno. TurnerBenj. Briggs Goodrich G. W. Barnett James G. Swisher Jesse Grimes S. Rhoads Fisher John W. Moore John W. Bower Saml. A. Maverick (from Bejar) Sam P. Carson A. Briscoe J. B. Woods H. S. Kimble, Secretary |