Nine Flags of Nacogdoches
Nacogdoches, Nacogdoches County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Throughout the storied history of Nacogdoches, nine different flags have flown over the region. The six flags of Texas are well known, but three others have also been raised. The traditional six flags include those for Spain (1519 – 1685; 1690 – 1821), France (1685 – 1690), Mexico (1821 – 1836), the Republic of Texas (1836 – 1845), the United States of America (1845 – 1861; 1865 – present) and the Confederate States of America (1861 – 1865). The earliest of the other flags was an emerald banner for the Gutiérrez-Magee Expedition (1812 – 1813). Lt. Augustus Magee and Col. Bernardo Gutiérrez organized an army which controlled territory east of San Antonio. However, Gutiérrez lost support, a Mexican force regained San Antonio, and the army disbanded. Another flag contained red and white stripes with one white star on a red field, representing the Long Republic (1819). Col. James long set up a government from Nacogdoches, which fell to Spanish forces; he was later captured and killed. The final of the three flags was red and white, and inscribed with the words, “Independence, Freedom and Justice.” It belonged to the Republic of Fredonia (1826 – 1827). Empresario Haden H. Edwards proclaimed a new republic following the Mexican Revocation of his colonial charter. When he failed to enlist aid, Edwards fled, ending the rebellion. Nacogdoches has been a gateway to Texas for hundreds of years, not only for settlers but also for ideals. The nine flags of Nacogdoches represent revolutionary activity that was essential to the spirit of Texas. In 1997, residents began celebrating the nine flags festival, which commemorates the city’s importance as a center of freedom and a community vital to Texas history.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
A frontier gateway for centuries, Nacogdoches has flown nine flags rather than the six familiar to Texas history. Beyond Spain, France, Mexico, the Republic of Texas, the United States, and the Confederacy, three short-lived banners rose from failed bids for independence: the emerald flag of the 1812-13 Gutiérrez-Magee Expedition, the star-and-stripes of James Long's 1819 republic, and the red-and-white flag of Haden Edwards's 1826-27 Republic of Fredonia. Each rebellion collapsed, but together they marked the town as a crucible of revolutionary ferment on the Texas frontier.
Why it matters
The nine flags capture how the contested Texas-Louisiana borderland became a staging ground for the filibusters and revolts that led toward Texas independence.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Nacogdoches calls itself the oldest town in Texas, and for centuries it has been a gateway — the eastern doorway into Texas along the old road, the El Camino Real, that linked the Spanish borderlands. Sitting close to the contested line between Spanish Texas and French, then American, Louisiana, it stood exactly where empires and ambitions rubbed against one another.
That position made it a crossroads of flags. The familiar six flags of Texas — Spain, France, Mexico, the Republic of Texas, the United States, and the Confederacy — all flew here across the centuries, tracing the sweep from first European contact through statehood and civil war. But Nacogdoches flew three more, and those extra banners are what set its story apart.
The early nineteenth century, spanning the Colonial and Early Republic eras, was a time of filibusters and would-be revolutionaries testing whether this borderland might be pried loose and made into something new. Nacogdoches, on the frontier's edge, became a natural staging ground for those attempts.
People & events
The earliest of the three additional flags was an emerald banner carried by the Gutiérrez-Magee Expedition of 1812-13. Lieutenant Augustus Magee and Colonel Bernardo Gutiérrez organized a fighting force — sometimes called the Republican Army of the North — that seized control of territory east of San Antonio. But the venture unraveled: Gutiérrez lost support, Magee did not survive the campaign, a Mexican force retook San Antonio, and the army was ultimately broken and disbanded.
Next came the flag of James Long's short-lived republic in 1819 — red and white stripes with a single white star on a red field. Colonel Long set up a government from Nacogdoches, but it fell to Spanish forces, and Long himself was later captured and killed in Mexico. His star-and-stripes banner remains one of the frontier's evocative might-have-beens.
The last of the three belonged to the Republic of Fredonia, 1826-27, its red-and-white flag inscribed with the words "Independence, Freedom and Justice." When the empresario Haden Edwards had his colonial charter revoked by Mexican authorities, he proclaimed his own republic in defiance. He sought allies, including among the Cherokee, but the support never materialized; when it failed to come, Edwards fled, and the rebellion collapsed almost as soon as it began.
Its place in the American story
Each of these three rebellions failed, and yet together they matter enormously to the American story of how Texas came to be. They show a borderland in ferment years before the Texas Revolution — a place where the idea of independence was being rehearsed, tried, and defeated again and again until, finally, it succeeded.
The filibusters and short-lived republics were part of a larger current of expansion and unrest pressing westward across the continent in the early nineteenth century. Adventurers, settlers, and revolutionaries kept pushing at the edges of Spanish and then Mexican authority, and Nacogdoches sat squarely in the path of that pressure.
The failed uprisings also had consequences that outlived them. The repeated attempts by outsiders to seize Texas helped convince Mexican authorities to tighten control over immigration and colonization — tensions that would eventually help spark the revolution of 1836. The nine flags, in other words, are not just local color; they mark Nacogdoches as a crucible where the long, contested road to Texas independence was forged.
If you visit
You're visiting the self-styled oldest town in Texas, a place that wears its layered history openly. The natural anchor for any visit is the Old Stone Fort, a landmark tied to the town's revolutionary past, where several of these very flags were raised; the replica on the Stephen F. Austin State University campus lets you stand close to that history.
Walk the old streets and imagine the town as a doorway — settlers, soldiers, and dreamers of independent republics all passing through along the El Camino Real. Nacogdoches makes a rewarding stop on a route through deep East Texas, and it pairs well with the piney-woods country and historic corridors that surround it.
If your timing is lucky, the community's Nine Flags festival, begun in 1997, celebrates exactly the heritage this monument commemorates. Either way, come ready to think about the many banners that flew here — six familiar, three nearly forgotten — and about how a frontier town on the edge of empires helped set the stage for Texas itself.
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
- · Bernardo Gutiérrez
- · Augustus Magee
- · James Long
- · Haden Edwards
Related events
- · Gutiérrez-Magee Expedition
- · Long Expedition
- · Fredonian Rebellion
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Sam Houston's First Home in Texas
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When Sam Houston left Washington for Texas in late 1832, he chose Nacogdoches as his first home, drawn by fellow Tennesseans and Masons like Adolphus Sterne and Henry Raguet. He boarded with the Sternes, set up a law practice, and was baptized Catholic so he could own property under Mexican law. From here he was elected a delegate to the conventions that led toward revolution, and his lifelong friendship with Thomas J. Rusk — later a fellow Texas senator — was forged in this town.
General Thomas J. Rusk
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Remembered as a patriot, soldier, statesman, and jurist, Thomas J. Rusk fought for Texas independence at the Battle of San Jacinto in 1836. The South Carolina native made Nacogdoches his home and gave much of his life to the young Republic and, later, the state. This monument, raised by the State of Texas, bears the simple tribute that "He lived for Texas."
John S. Roberts
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Once a sheriff in Natchitoches, Louisiana, John S. Roberts threw himself into the Texas cause, helping lead the 1832 Battle of Nacogdoches and commanding the Nacogdoches company in the 1835 storming of Bexar. He served in the 1835 Consultation and signed the Texas Declaration of Independence in 1836. A Virginia native, he lived out his years in the town he had fought for, dying in 1871.
Haden Edwards
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A Virginia-born empresario, Haden Edwards received a contract to settle American families around Nacogdoches but fell into bitter conflict with Mexican authorities and existing residents. In 1826-27 he led the short-lived Fredonian Rebellion, an early and premature bid for Anglo independence in Texas that collapsed quickly. A decade later, during the Texas Revolution, he was sent to the United States to raise funds for the cause.