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‘First Flag’ Over Texas — Texas Independence Day

March 2, 2021byPepper Hastings0
Native Texans raise Gonzales Flag on Texas Independence Day.

Every month at our Texas HQ on flagpole #3, we rotate a flag of one of the United States military branches.

Today, on Texas Independence Day, we honor the patriots of the Republic of Texas. In 1836 on March 2, delegates representing Mexican Texas officially declared independence from Mexico and created the Republic of Texas.

Six months earlier, the “Come And Take It” flag from the Battle of Gonzales (Oct. 1835) was unofficially and quite accidentally the first flag of the soon-to-be Republic of Texas. The original was painted on fabric from one of the local’s dress material. But if you’re going to hang it out in a battle, it’s a flag not a dress, right?

Today, Mexico and Texas are economic partners and enjoy each others’ cultures, food and people. Yet in October 1835, colonists in Gonzales taunted the approaching Mexican army with the “Come And Take It” banner. The weapon on the flag referred to a small cannon the Mexicans months earlier had loaned to the colonists to fend off raiding Plains Indians. The Mexicans were turned back in the Gonzales skirmish. Less than a year later, after a crushing defeat at the Alamo and the defining victory at San Jacinto, Texas would indeed be its own republic.

Today, the “Come And Take It” flag can be seen on shirts, neckties, underwear, license plates, album covers, food trucks, murals, hats, koozies, and fraternity walls, even tattooed into the skin of true blue Texans. And for today, on Texas Independence Day, it flies over IIDM HQ, hoisted by native Texans Carlos Arriaga (left) and Omar Mediano.

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