Texas Independence Day is the celebration of the declaration of the Texas independence from Mexico on March 2, 1836. After the adoption of the Texas Declaration of Independence, settlers in Mexican Texas officially broke from Mexico, creating the Republic of Texas. In the State of Texas, Texas Independence Day is an official holiday.

In 1836, a group of delegates gathered in the town of Washington to make Texans’ separation from Mexico official. The delegates assigned a committee of five members to draft a declaration of independence. George Childress, Edward Conrad, James Gaines, Bailey Hardeman, and Collin McKinney were part of this committee. The declaration was approved with out any debate.

The hand-written document was signed by the members of the convention, declaring the creation of the short-lived Republic of Texas. Nine years later in 1845, Texas became the 28th state of United States.  The original document is kept safe in Austin, the state capitol.

The Texas document claimed that the Mexico had “ceased to protect the lives, liberty, and property of the people” and even started “arbitrary acts of oppression and tyranny.” The following are the other reasons for separation mentioned in the declaration.

• The 1824 Constitution of Mexico establishing a federal republic had changed into a centralist military dictatorship by Gen.
• The Mexican government had invited settlers to Texas promising them constitutional liberty and republican government.  But then reneged on these promises.
• Texas was in union with the Mexican state of Coahuila as Coahuila y Tejas, with the capital in distant Saltillo.  The affairs of Texas were decided in the Spanish language at a great distance from the province.
• The denial of the right to keep and bear arms and the right to trial by jury.
• There was no system of public education.
• The denial of freedom of religion to the settlers.

Take a moment today to remember this pioneering frontier people who fought, sacrificed and died to create what would become the State of Texas.