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Texas Green Flag Republic (U.S.)

First Republic of Texas 1812

Last modified: 2020-07-31 by rick wyatt
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[First Republic of Texas 1812] image by Pete Loeser, 27 July 2013
Banner of the Texas Green Flag Republic 1812

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Introduction: Texas Green Flag Republic 1812
The First Invasion

In the fall of 1812, the Republican Army of the North, comprised of both revolutionaries and Americans under Bernardo Gutierrez and a former US Army Lieutenant named Augustus Magee, gained control of the Spanish province of Tejas and declared it the independent State of Texas. As first President of an independent Texas, Gutierrez established the first Constitution of Texas in 1813, but his government was clouded by the brutal execution of the captured Spanish Governor and several of his officers. Gutierrez was soon deposed by Colonel Alverez de Toledo, who renamed the movement the Republican Army of North Mexico, and was then defeated by the Spanish at the Battle of the Holm Oak of Medina ( la batalla del encinal de Medina ) in 1813, thus ending the short-lived First Republic of Texas. This solid emerald green banner was thought to have been introduced by Magee who was of Irish background. (source)
Pete Loeser, 27 July 2020

The Texas Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans has a Historic Flags Page at http://members.tripod.com/~txscv/texas.htm. This says, "In 1812, a filibustering expedition led by a 24 year old U.S. Army officer named Augustus Magee liberated Texas from Spanish rule for one year. Under this green flag, they ruled Texas until they met defeat south of San Antonio at the Battle of the Medina in 1813. Among the Spanish officers who crushed the "Green Flag Republic" was a young Spanish Lieutenant named Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.
This was mentioned last night on the History Channel's two-hour program, "The Legend of the Alamo." For anyone with an interest in the subject, Dumont Maps and Books of the West offers Julia Kathryn Garrett's Green Flag Over Texas (Item #87 at www.dumontbooks.com/catalogue/0074/books/ ) for $135.
John Ayer, 17 December 2003

See also the Handbook of Texas Online  www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/MM/qfm1.html, which notes:
"So disastrous was la batalla del encinal de Medina that its battlefield has become lost, its "Green Flag" has remained largely unrecognized, and its participants have been generally unknown, unhonored, and unsung. [...] By 1992 neither the Medina battlefield nor the burial sites of the soldiers had been archaeologically confirmed."
Andrew S. Rogers, 17 December 2003