Site of "Orozimbo"
West Columbia, Brazoria County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Home of Dr. James Aeneas Phelps, a member of "Old Three Hundred" of Austin's colony, hospital surgeon of the Texas Army at San Jacinto. Here Santa Anna was detained as a prisoner from July to November, 1836.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Orozimbo was the plantation home of Dr. James Aeneas Phelps, one of the "Old Three Hundred" families of Stephen F. Austin's colony and a surgeon for the Texas Army at San Jacinto. Following that decisive 1836 battle, the captured Mexican general and president Antonio López de Santa Anna was held here as a prisoner from July to November of that year. The site marks where the defeated commander was detained during the fragile first months of Texas independence.
Why it matters
The detention of Santa Anna at Orozimbo was a pivotal aftermath of San Jacinto, the moment when captured Mexican leadership was managed as the new Republic of Texas secured its independence.
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Related people
- · James Aeneas Phelps
- · Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna
Related events
- · Battle of San Jacinto
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Dr. James Aeneas Phelps
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James Aeneas Phelps left Mississippi for Texas in 1822, joining the earliest wave of Anglo-American colonists, and served as a hospital surgeon at the Battle of San Jacinto in 1836. That decisive fight won Texas its independence, and the wounded depended on the handful of physicians like Phelps. He died in 1847, a decade after the revolution he helped tend.
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