Texas Declares Independence: Birth of a Republic

Fifty-nine delegates gathered in an unfinished building at Washington-on-the-Brazos on March 2, 1836, and declared Texas independent from Mexico while the Alamo was under active siege 150 miles to the southwest. They could hear no cannon fire from that distance, but they knew time was running out. The declaration launched a republic that would last nine years before joining the United States. Tensions between Anglo-American settlers in Texas and the Mexican government had been escalating since the early 1830s. Mexico had invited American colonists to settle the sparsely populated province of Tejas, but by 1835, those settlers outnumbered Mexican citizens several times over. When President Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna abolished the 1824 Mexican Constitution and centralized power, Texans — along with several other Mexican states — revolted. The delegates at Washington-on-the-Brazos modeled their declaration closely on Thomas Jefferson's 1776 original, listing grievances against the Mexican government including the dissolution of state legislatures, military occupation, and the imprisonment of Stephen F. Austin. George Childress, who had arrived in Texas only weeks earlier, is believed to have drafted most of the document. The convention signed it on March 2 and immediately began drafting a constitution for the new Republic of Texas. Four days later, the Alamo fell. Santa Anna's army killed all the defenders, and the news reached the convention as it was still deliberating. Sam Houston, appointed commander-in-chief of the Texan army, began a strategic retreat eastward that ended with his decisive victory at the Battle of San Jacinto on April 21, 1836, where his forces captured Santa Anna himself. Texas existed as an independent republic from 1836 to 1845, recognized by the United States, Britain, and France, before annexation reignited the territorial disputes that led directly to the Mexican-American War.