Welcome to Finding Medina.

Episode 7, the free and independent state of Texas.

I'm Brandon Seal.

On April 6, 1813, just five days after capturing San Antonio, a revolutionary junta led by

Bernardo Gutierrez de Lara declared Texas's independence from Spain.

The declaration begins, quote, swearing before the supreme judge of the universe,

the rightness of our intentions, declare that the chains that have held us under the domination

of European Spain are forever dissolved, that we are free and independent, that we have the right

to establish our own government, and that henceforth all legitimate authority

shall arise from the people to whom alone this right belongs, that from now on and forever,

we shall be free of any duty or obligation whatsoever to any foreign power."

And this wasn't just an aspirational statement.

It was a more or less accurate assessment of the current situation.

Following the Battle of Rosillo, the week prior, as Julia Garrett notes in her 1939 book,

Green Flag Over Texas, Texas became the first of Spain's colonies to, quote, achieve complete independence

from Spain. It was also the first to establish a separate government without an opposing

force in her environs, and that during April of 1813, every Spanish official had been

removed, end quote.

The April 6th, 1813 Declaration of Independence, appointed Señor Don Bernardo Gutierrez de Lara as a sort of regent, a position sometimes

described as President Protector, charged with naming seven men to a revolutionary junta

that would establish the new state's government.

He chose seven San Antonioians with impeccable Canary Island pedigrees and equally impeccable revolutionary credentials, three arrochas and four Delgado's.

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