Our Catnolic Heritage in Texas
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It antedates the first formal declaration of independence of Mexico, issued by Morelos in the fall of 1813. No acknowledgment was made of the aid rendered the patriots in their triumphant march from Nacogdoches to San Antonio by Magee and his friends. Rather, the document asserted that it was the duty of the in- habitants of Texas to work for the regeneration of the people of Mexico, "to free themselves from all foreign domination, to organize their own government, and through wise laws seek the prosperity of our country." It was to these emphatic statements of co~plete independence from all foreign influence, as also to the organization of a government composed of Texans-not in the sense of citizens of the United States, but in the sense of residents and inhabitants of Texas at that time--that Shaler and Claiborne took exception. The leaders of the volunteer adventurers from the United States were completely ignored in the formation of the new government. Kemper, Warren, D. C. Hall, and other officers, to- e: >- gether with some hundred of their men, thoroughly disg~g. at the turn of events, asked for a furlough and returned to Natchitoches. 36 This interesting document, the first declaration of independence of Texas, and of Mexico, perhaps of Spanish North America, was translated and printed in the Niles Register and the National Intelligencer. The British read it in the column of the London Morning Clironicle on August 19, and an inveterate Mexican rebel, then in exile in the English metropolis writing a history of the revolution in New Spain, observed that it was "well written," and that it would prove of great aid to the Mexican Re- public in ·its struggle for independence. 57 In accord with the declara- tion a provisional government was organized by the "Illustrious Liberator, Don Bernardo Gutierrez, Commander in Chief of the Mexican Republican Army of the North." A president, six councilors, and a secretary consti- tuted a junta with plenary powers to perform all the functions of govern- ment." Organization of a provisional government. Out of a sense of duty and gratitude in setting the people free, Gutierrez was designated President-Protector. He, in turn, immediately appointed 36 Homer S. Thnll, .A Pictorial History of Te:::as, S49; Shaler to Monroe, May 7, 1813, StaJe D,,;artme,u Records, N. A. W. 11 Niles Register, July 17, 1813, IV, p. 313; National Intelligencer, July 3, I 813; London M or11i11g Clironicle, August 19, 181 3 ; Jose Servando Teresa de Mier Noriega y Guerra, Historia de la Revolucion de Nueva Es,pa,ia (London, I 813) , II, 7u-712. "Historia, Operaciones _de Gue"a, Arredondo, 1813-1820, IV, 19-:n, A. G. M.
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