Four Miles Southeast to the Original Town of Velasco
Freeport, Brazoria County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Landing place of the "Lively" first vessel bringing immigrants to Austin's colony in 1821. There the Battle of Velasco, between Texas colonists and Mexican troops, was fought June 26, 1832. A treaty of peace between Texas and Mexico was signed there May 14, 1836, by Presidents David G. Burnet and Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna but was never ratified by Mexico.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Four miles from this spot stood the original town of Velasco, one of early Texas's most consequential coastal sites. Here the schooner Lively landed the first immigrants to Stephen F. Austin's colony in 1821; here colonists and Mexican troops clashed in the 1832 Battle of Velasco, an early spark of Texan resistance; and here, in 1836, Presidents David G. Burnet and Santa Anna signed a peace treaty that Mexico never ratified. Few places hold so many turning points of the Texas Revolution in one stretch of shoreline.
Why it matters
Velasco was a gateway of Anglo-American settlement and a crucible of the Texas Revolution, binding immigration, armed rebellion, and diplomacy into the story of an independent Texas.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the early 1820s, Texas was a remote northern province of a newly independent Mexico, which had broken free of Spain in 1821. Hoping to settle and secure the region, Mexican authorities allowed empresarios to bring in colonists. The most famous of them was Stephen F. Austin, whose colony along the Brazos and Colorado rivers became the heart of Anglo-American Texas.
The mouth of the Brazos River was a natural gateway for that colony. Settlers and supplies arriving by sea from New Orleans and other Gulf ports came ashore along this stretch of coast, and the settlement of Velasco grew up there as a small but strategic port.
By the 1830s, tensions were rising between the colonists and the Mexican government over issues such as customs duties, immigration limits and military garrisons. Those tensions eventually exploded into the Texas Revolution of 1835-1836, and Velasco found itself at the center of events more than once.
People & events
According to the marker, Velasco was where the vessel Lively landed the first immigrants bound for Austin's colony in 1821. The Lively's voyage is one of the founding stories of Anglo Texas, though its details have long been debated by historians, and the early days of the colony were marked by confusion and hardship as settlers and supplies struggled to connect.
In June 1832, Velasco saw bloodshed. Texas colonists clashed with Mexican troops stationed at a fort there in what became known as the Battle of Velasco, fought on June 26. The fight grew out of the rising friction between settlers and Mexican authorities, and it ended with the Mexican garrison giving up the fort. Many historians see it as an early sign of the armed resistance that would erupt into full revolution a few years later.
The town's most famous moment came in May 1836. After Texan forces defeated and captured Santa Anna at San Jacinto that April, the Texas government met with its prisoner at Velasco. On May 14, 1836, Republic of Texas President David G. Burnet and Santa Anna signed a treaty meant to end the war. Mexico, however, never ratified it, arguing that Santa Anna had signed as a captive, and the question of Texas's boundaries and independence would remain unsettled for years.
Its place in the American story
Few places pack so much of the Texas story into one piece of coastline. Velasco saw the arrival of settlers who would help transform Texas, an early clash that foreshadowed revolution, and the treaty that followed Texan victory. Taken together, they trace the whole arc from colonization to independence.
That arc matters far beyond Texas. The Republic of Texas eventually joined the United States in 1845, and the dispute over its border with Mexico helped lead to the Mexican-American War. The result reshaped the map of North America and added vast territory to the United States. The fact that Mexico never ratified the Treaty of Velasco is part of that bigger story of unresolved claims.
Velasco is also a reminder of how immigration shaped the nation. The families who came ashore here were migrants to a foreign country, living under Mexican law, and their arrival set off a chain of events that neither they nor Mexico fully foresaw.
If you visit
This marker stands in Freeport, pointing you toward the site of the original town of Velasco about four miles to the southeast. Little of the old port survives today; storms, shifting coastlines and time have erased most of it. That makes the marker a place for imagination as much as observation.
As you stand here, picture the mouth of the Brazos in the 1820s and 1830s: small ships riding in from the Gulf, colonists wading ashore with their belongings, and later, the sounds of gunfire and then diplomacy. The flat coastal landscape, humid air and wide Gulf sky all help set the scene.
Freeport and the surrounding Brazoria County coast make a natural stop for anyone tracing the Texas Revolution. Pair this marker with other historic sites in the county tied to Austin's colony and the revolution, and give yourself time to enjoy the nearby Gulf beaches and waterways that once made Velasco such an important gateway.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Stephen F. Austin
- · David G. Burnet
- · Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna
Related events
- · Battle of Velasco
- · Treaty of Velasco
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
The Lively
Surfside Beach, TX
This stretch of the Brazoria County coast witnessed three turning points in early Texas history. Here, according to the marker, the first ship of colonists bound for Stephen F. Austin's colony came ashore in December 1821; here the Battle of Velasco was fought in June 1832 in the growing friction between Texian settlers and Mexican authority; and here, in May 1836, peace treaties were signed with the captured General Santa Anna after the Texas Revolution. The Lively's landing opened a decade that would transform this shoreline into the doorstep of a new republic.
Colonel Robert M. Coleman
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Kentucky-born Robert M. Coleman came to Texas in time to sign the Texas Declaration of Independence and serve as aide-de-camp to General Sam Houston at the decisive Battle of San Jacinto in 1836. He went on to command the first regiment of Texas Rangers before drowning at the mouth of the Brazos River in 1837. This state memorial honors a founder of the Republic of Texas whose life was cut short in its earliest years.
Site of Town of Old Velasco
Freeport, TX
Long before Freeport rose nearby, the town of Velasco stood at the mouth of the Brazos River as one of the earliest gateways into Anglo Texas, funneling more than 25,000 settlers into Stephen F. Austin's colonies between 1821 and 1835. In 1832 it became the scene of an early armed clash between colonists and Mexican forces, an ember of the coming Texas Revolution. By the mid-1800s the same coastline had reinvented itself as a breezy resort for wealthy plantation families, before the Civil War and an 1875 hurricane hollowed the town out for good.
William Jarvis Cannan
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Born in Edgefield, South Carolina in 1808, William Jarvis Cannan came to Texas in 1835 and joined the army in time to fight in the decisive victory at San Jacinto in April 1836. For his service he received headright and bounty lands across several Texas counties, and he raised eleven children by his two marriages before his death in 1881.