The Gonzales Flag: The Untold History of the Battle of Gonzales

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“Come and Take It.” It’s a slogan of defiance against government tyranny with roots in antiquity that continues to inspire freedom-loving patriots today. This updating of the classic Spartan molṑn labé (meaning “come and take them”) is a powerful challenge to would-be gun grabbers. Seeking to remove arms from the people will not come without dear cost. For the Texian rebels of the Battle of Gonzales, these words were not mere tough talk. They were words the Texians were willing to die for.

The story begins in 1831. Texians in Gonzales, then a part of Mexico, requested a cannon from federal authorities to defend themselves from Comanche raids. The cannon itself was of little military use (historian Timothy Todish once said it wasn’t good for much more than starting horse races). Indeed, it probably served more as a visual deterrent to the hostile natives than a military one.

Curiously, Gonzales was one the communities preferring Mexican rule to independence, even after relations between Mexico and the Texians began to sour. The town went so far as to declare their allegiance to the Mexican government of Santa Anna. However, on September 10, 1835, a Mexican soldier beat a Gonzales Texian, sparking widespread outrage. It was after this incident that the federal government thought it best to retrieve the cannon before it was turned on the Mexican government.

Supreme commander of the Mexican military, Colonel Domingo de Ugartechea, sent out Corporal Casimiro De León and five soldiers of the Second Flying Company of San Carlos de Parras. Emboldened by other Mexican states in open revolt, the Texians refused to return the weapon, taking De León and his men hostage. Ultimately, it wasn’t about the cannon. The Texians were worried that the Mexican government planned to use recent unrest to disband local militias, which the Texians considered absolutely essential for freedom and safety.

Texians decided to bury the cannon in George W. Davis’s peach orchard. This and other methods of subterfuge delayed the arrival of 100 Mexican dragoons. By the time they arrived, Texians had amassed a force 140 strong. On October 1, 1835, these men voted and decided that if the Mexican government wanted their cannon back, they were going to have to fight for it. The simple refusal to surrender the cannon acted as the spark that ignited the wildfire of the Texas Revolution.

The Gonzales Flag is a stark black-and-white banner, a simple design that acted as a stark gauntlet thrown at the feet of Mexican federal power. It was nothing more than a star, the cannon in question and the old Spartan slogan updated for modern times: “Come and Take It.”

Continue reading The Gonzales Flag: The Untold History of the Battle of Gonzales at Ammo.com.

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Damn Texans, the south dosnt claim them,the Yankees want to sell them back to Mexico and nobody but themselves are proud of thier drunken shenanigans…

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I feel more in common with texas than arkansas, even if texas is mostly mexican.

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Dixies cajun swamp folk have more in common with Arkansas then Texans in general though. Texans really are thier own thing.

Most rural Texans like this part of Oregon , it is is mostly farmland , and lots of agriculture along with being a really hot high-desert and the neighboring town hosting one of the biggest rodeos in the United States…but the minute they hit Portland thier opinion of Oregon usually goes right down the shitter. I tell them I would feel the sameway about Austin or Houston but at least we have actual scenery and wildlife (outside of the marxists)

The SW is like a giant deep fryer for us gingers though :grimacing: so maybe im a little bias

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Missouri has a history with Texas that makes us a little biased towards them. After the civil war they started driving thier tick infested cattle here so some of our farmers started stopping them that is why the rail heads were moved to Kansas .

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Out of Texas and Missouri ,who won? :grimacing: :runlikehell:

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Love reading about history! Before I moved to Texas, I had previously lived in Mississippi and North Florida for a spell. So I learned about Southern culture. I mistakenly thought Texas shared the same, and to a limited extent it somewhat does. But I quickly learned Texas is its own, unique entity. Texas has mountains, deserts, southern plains, canyons. lush pine forests, beaches, swamps and alligators, rattlesnake roundups, Tex-Mex, Texas BBQ, Texas Soul food (similar to Southern cooking), rodeos, all major sports teams, Run-n-Gun biathlons, some of the best private hunting ranches, oil and gas production, wind turbines and solar power, and the petrochemical capital of the country. Texas isn’t really Southern, not really Southwestern, not really Mexican - just Texan.

As a plus, cowboy boots in Texas are considered casual, work wear and formal wear.

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Oh, and we’re still sore over what happened to our beloved Whataburger.

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Well they stopped bringing tier cattle to Joplin and the Missouri cattle stopped getting sick . You have to remember this was right after the civil war and Missouri had alot of guerilla fighters that would shoot you or tie you to a tree and use a bull whip on you or just beat your cass.

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Texas , Arizona and New Mexico all sort fall into the samething , in my opinion.

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I like your state.

Jesse James was hell of a guerrilla

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I have family that moved to Texas that love Whataburger. Me I don’t see what the big deal is . But I don’t like any fast food burgers the best burgers I have had have been in dive bars.

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Although I personally feel John Singleton Mosby and the 43rd Battalion, Virginia Cavalry were the most interesting guerrillas of the civil war.

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I feel the same way except for S.E texas along the sabine river. Lotta coonass cajuns jusmped slightly over the border.

Hell, in L.A. we say the shreveport is N.E. texas!!!

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I should mention that we were in dallas (Irving) for 10 weeks after katrina. The wife said she liked it better there.
I said hell no!!! At least in NOLA i could speak ebonics and understood the guy behind me in line was saying. I never seen or heard so much spanish in my life! I never knew if they were saying they were going to gut me as soon as the wallet came out.
It must be as if some E. european feel like getting dropped off in detroit.

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Lots of Mexicans around here too , probably worse than Dallas (per capita) and I think its all the field work and employers that are lenient to illegal immigrants.

My woman is a Texican but she has lived in Mexico and Handuras , its crazy how she can hear an accent in spanish and mostly pin point where they are from. Even crazier how she can accurately guess which ones are probably illegal, makes me wonder what she has pin pointed about me :grimacing:

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I’ve never lived in AZ or NM but have visited them quite a few times. Love both states and wouldn’t mind living or retiring in either one. But to me, neither state appears too similar to Texas from a cultural standpoint.

For instance, Tex-Mex food tastes much different from the Hatch green chile food NM is famous for. For another, the Texas twang has its own accent - different from a Southern accent and much different from the more neutral-sounding accents found in NM and AZ. Admittedly small points, but cultural differences within a country may appear small from a distance so to speak.

And then there’s Friday night high school football and state flag displays. Both are king in TX and both have an obsessive passion about them that doesn’t come anywhere close to any other state I know of.

There’s also the size difference - not just geographically either. The population of the Dallas-Ft. Worth area alone is roughly the same as the entire state of AZ. Add the San Antonio metro area and it’s the same, if not more, than both NM and AZ combined. That doesn’t even include Houston, Austin, and El Paso (which happens to be closer to the Pacific 3 states away than it is to the Texas Gulf Coast). A vast state with a bunch of small little towns, a bunch of medium-sized cities and more million-plus super large cities than any other state tends to create its own unique culture and identity separate from other states.

Prisons and jails are bad everywhere. Maricopa County Sheriff Arpaio made the national news when he created his “tough-on-crime” tent city jail, with many critics decrying sweltering summer time heat conditions for its inmates. It eventually closed after a couple of decades. But the vast majority of TX prisons have had no air conditioning since their inception and continue with no AC to this day. Texas summers, especially with the high humidity east of I-35, can be sweltering as well. But there’s not been much public outcry in Texas about that except from the inmates themselves. This, along with having the most death penalty executions than all other states combined, pretty much solidifies Texas’ tough on crime attitude and culture.

One reason the show “Dallas” was so popular is because it displayed the grandess of Texas’ vast oil and gas wealth, albeit controlled and enjoyed by a few Machiavellian greedy folks like J.R. But with that vast wealth comes lots of jobs and opportunities. The Houston, Beaumont and Port Neches area is the petrochemical capital of the US. If there’s a state that can identify with oil rig roughnecks and rednecks-with-paychecks that span from crude’s upstream to refined product downstream its Texas. I don’t believe AZ or NM share anywhere near that large of a working class oil and gas and petrochemical demographic than TX. Louisiana might come somewhat close with its offshore rigs and petrochemical plants in Lake Charles, but from a numbers perspective TX still dominates.

Anyway, just thought I’d point out a few things that in my view make Texas too unique to lump it in with any particular region or identify it as being similar to any other state. Of course, others may feel differently. After all, we’re all Americans regardless and share more in common as a country. But when you get down into the details, I just feel Texas is its own entity. So where are my other fellow Texans who can chime in on that?

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As a Puerto Rican, I had a hard time understanding the Mexican accent at first. My wife is also Mexican. She grew up in TX and so her accent is a bit different from her family who grew up in Mexico. I still have a hard time understanding her uncles from Mexico sometimes. I get the feeling they have a hard time understanding me, too. At first I couldn’t tell the difference in accent between a Mexican from Mexico City and one from San Luis Potosí, but now I can. The Mexico City accent is much easier for me to understand. It’s a lot like the difference in accent between one from New York City and another from Iowa. We can tell a difference but maybe someone from Japan can’t.

I visited Spain one time and also found it hard to understand them, but then again I found some British accents hard to understand when I visited England.

One of my favorite Spanish accents is the Argentinian accent. Those guys sound pretty cool. I may be biased, but I think the coolest Spanish accent is the Puerto Rican/Cuban/Dominican/Caribbean basin accent. I’m sure those from other Spanish-speaking countries completely disagree, though.

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Irving has a large Hispanic population. Dallas itself also has a large percentage of Hispanics. The suburbs to the north have more White folks, though.

I don’t look Mexican, look more like a goofy-looking, skinny Mediterranean or Middle-Eastern guy. So I guess a Mexican may assume I don’t know Spanish and can talk about me all they want without me knowing. But I’m 100% fluent in Spanish, and in my 23 years living in this area I can’t remember any Mexican talking about me in Spanish. I’m betting they hold the same respect about everyone else they believe doesn’t speak Spanish.

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I like 5-Guys, In-and-Out and Steak-n-Shake burgers, but I really like Whataburger burgers.

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