Читать книгу Texas Got It Right! - Sam Wyly - Страница 20

When the early Texans revolted against Mexican

rule and gave birth to a new nation, the Republic of

Texas, it was a do-it-yourself thing. It all started

with an old cannon, a homemade flag, and a cocky

motto that’s as resonant today as it was in October

1835. That’s when colonists in a settlement named

Gonzales decided to fight the one hundred troops

that Mexico’s dictator, General Santa Anna, had

sent to take possession of the town’s single rusting

cannon. Oddly enough, that gun— the “It” in “Come

and Take It”—had originally been sent from Mexico

to help the Anglo colonists fight the Comanche

Indians, who had wiped out San Saba and other

Spanish missions. In fact, it was the Mexican

regime that had invited those Anglo settlers to the

Texas territories in the first place, as a defense

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TEXAS GOT IT RIGHT!

against Indian raids. But times had changed. The dic-

tator who had overthrown Mexico’s democratic

government now wanted to rule the “unruly” Texans.

The defenders of Gonzales rallied under the crude

flag above, which was hastily made from the silk of a

local gal’s wedding dress. After a brief battle, the first

of the Texas Revolution, the people of Gonzales kept

their cannon. But the skirmish wasn’t really about the

gun (the thing barely worked). It was about defending

local self-government from distant, centralized power—

a notion that’s as dear to Texans today as it was to the

Gonzales guys in 1835. And just like your typical

present-day Texan, those grassroots rebels knew the

value of fighting words. “Come and Take It.” You

couldn’t pay an ad agency a monster fee to come up

with a better slogan than that.