Flag Day

[fritz]

Today is Flag Day, and few places in this country have flown as many flags as my town. Many of you know that I live in the place where Texas independence started. And you can't miss my flag icon.

 

Here is a story that our local newspaper printed today, hope it unloads---

 

 

Goliad flies them proudly

Nine flags over Goliad include one unique to the area

 

June 14, 2006

PAT HATHCOCK - Victoria Advocate

Editor's Note Today is Flag Day - a day set aside to honor the American flag as a symbol of freedom, sacrifice and unity as a nation. Other flags in the area also represent battles fought to gain independence. Pat Hathcock takes a look at the origin of the Goliad flag, which flies at the Presidio La Bahia as one of the nine flags over Goliad.

Advocate File PhotoGreg McReynolds

View our Flag Day photo gallery

 

 

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GOLIAD - They fly nine flags in front of Presidio La Bahia. There are your standard six flags over everywhere - Spain, France, Mexico, the Republic of Texas, the Confederacy and the American flag.

 

The other three, said Newton Warzecha, director of the Presidio, include a green flag of the Gutierrez-Magee Expedition of 1812, which he calls the First Republic of Texas.

 

Then there's the red-and-white flag of the James Long Expedition of 1821, with a lone star in the corner and stripes like the U.S. flag, which he calls the Second Republic of Texas.

 

The ninth flag is unique to Goliad and there's no mistaking the imagery. It's a bloody red arm clutching a sword that's dripping blood, all against a white background. It was raised over the Presidio on Dec. 20, 1835, when a band of Texas patriots gathered to declare independence from Mexico.

 

Warzecha said that the flag was made by Philip Dimmitt, a prosperous merchant who had taken an interest in politics. The Handbook of Texas Online credits Dimmitt as the likely maker of the flag and mentions that many count Dimmitt's flag as the first flag of Texas independence, since previous flags designed in 1835 symbolized separate Mexican states, not an independent republic.

 

Dimmitt was born in Kentucky and had married a relative of Martín De León. The couple lived on a ranch at the edge of Victoria. He had trading operations on the Guadalupe River near Victoria, at Goliad, and on Lavaca Bay.

 

A couple of months before the independence meeting, Dimmitt had designed a flag in the Mexican colors, with the words Constitution of 1824 in the center panel. By Dec. 20, he had given up on the idea of the Texians sorting things out peacefully with Mexico.

 

 

Warzecha

Warzecha said, They gathered at the Presidio on Dec. 20, 1835, and on Dec. 22 certified the vote for independence. Later the declaration was discounted because all Texas communities weren't represented. They met at Washington-on-the-Brazos March 1 of the following year, but the Goliad declaration was the first declaration of independence of Texians from Mexico.

Flags were so plentiful and varied in the history of early Texas, that a beautiful illustrated book is devoted to them, Texas Flags, by Robert Maberry Jr. According to Maberry, Dimmitt had led a contingent from Goliad in October that took San Antonio from the Mexican troops stationed there.

 

Maberry writes, Those who accept the tradition that an '1824' tricolor flew over the Alamo assume that it was Dimmitt's Goliad flag, which he had left behind.

 

Upon returning to Goliad from San Antonio, Dimmitt had abandoned the idea of reconciliation with Mexico and saw independence as the only path for the Texians. Maberry quotes Hobart Huson, who had a description of the Goliad flag as being of white domestic, two yards in length and one in width, and in the center was a sinewy arm and hand, painted red, grasping a drawn sword of crimson.

 

Maberry says that the origin of the design has been unclear to historians but might refer to a bit of Irish legend. Warzecha said, There's a story in Irish history about two groups trying to get to land. They had agreed that the first to touch land could have possession. One of them cut off his hand and threw it on the land and won.

 

According to a baronetage.org Web site, the coat of arms of Ulster still has a red hand.

 

Warzecha said that it was a story that would be familiar to the many Irish delegates at the meet and perhaps some of the Celtic-American delegates as well.

 

 

A modern version of the Goliad flag is one of the nine over Goliad. The original was designed by Philip Dimmitt as a way to declare the Texians' independence from Mexico.

Maberry said the design was a provocative one for reasons the Texians might not have known. He wrote, To Santa Anna and the Mexican authorities, it would have looked much like the flags flown by Caribbean and Gulf pirates - for the Texians an unfortunate association. The design seemed to justify the Mexican government's insistence that the rebels were mere 'pirates and outlaws,' the argument used to justify Santa Anna's policy of granting no quarter.

The delegates met in the chapel, Warzecha said, leading visitors into the Our Lady of Loreto at Presidio La Bahia, which is still a functioning church, beautifully restored, with services every Sunday at 5 p.m. With the ghosts of Fannin's massacred troops hanging about, there is hardly any site but the Alamo more redolent of Texas history.

 

Warzecha said that when the delegates came out of the chapel after signing the declaration, the flag was raised. I'm sure it was Nicholas Fagan who raised it on a sycamore pole.

 

Warzecha said, He raised the flag but afterward he had a hard time deciding to sign the declaration. He was grateful to Mexico for giving him the opportunity to have land here.

 

In a room just off the chapel there are many flags closely nestled. Warzecha said, Those are the flags of the states, counties, countries of the men who were killed in the Fannin massacre. This is not all, not a complete list, but we're really not working on finishing it.

 

The fate of Dimmitt's original flag is unknown. Warzecha said, We're not sure where it ended up. We have a framed flag that has been artificially distressed to look old.

 

Dimmitt later committed suicide in a Mexican prison, according to the Handbook of Texas Online. Nicholas Fagan is the forebear of numerous descendants in the area, including the O'Connors of Victoria, Warzecha said.

 

Maberry writes, When (Fagan) unfurled the bloody-arm flag, it was immediately rent by a bullet fired from the streets outside the wall. The desire for independence was by no means universal.

 

There could be no mistaking the message the Goliad patriots - Irish, Tejano and American Texians - were sending Santa Anna when they waved that bloody arm at him.

 

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