March 6, 1836  Remember the Alamo

In 1831, Mexican authorities gave the settlers of Gonzales, Texas a small cannon, a defense against Comanche raids.  The political situation deteriorated in the following years.  By 1835, several Mexican states were in open revolt.  That September, commander of “Centralist” (Mexican) troops in Texas Colonel Domingo de Ugartechea, came to take it back.

Dissatisfied with the increasingly dictatorial policies of President and General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, the colonists had no intention of handing over that cannon.  One excuse was given after another to keep the Mexican dragoons out of Gonzalez, while pleas fr assistance secretly went out to surrounding communities.  Within two days, 140 “Texians” had gathered in Gonzalez, determined not to give up that gun.

Militarily, the skirmish of October 2 had little significance, much the same as the early battles in the Massachusetts colony, some sixty years earlier.  Politically, the “Lexington of Texas” marked a break…