Velasco
Surfside, Brazoria County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Here was fought a battle-- the first collision in arms between Texas colonists and the Mexican military-- a conflict preliminary to the Texas War for Independence. On June 26, 1832, when Texans under John Austin and Henry Smith came down river with cannon for use against Mexican forces at Anahuac, they ran against the resistance of Lt. Col. Domingo de Ugartechea. As commander of Mexican forces at Velasco, Ugartechea refused passage through the mouth of the Brazos River to the vessel bearing the cannon to Anahuac. Some 112 Texans attacked the port at midnight, and after 9 hours under the fire of Texas rifles and cannon, the Mexican garrison was forced to surrender. The Battle of Velasco, brought on by a customs quarrel at Anahuac, was unknowingly fought after the dispute at Anahuac had been peaceably settled. After the victory at San Jacinto 4 years later, President David G. Burnet moved the capital of the Republic of Texas temporarily to Velasco. Here the Treaty of Velasco, ending hostilities between Texas and Mexico, was signed on May 14, 1836. (1965)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
On this ground in June 1832, roughly 112 Texans hauling a cannon downriver ran into the guns of Lt. Col. Domingo de Ugartechea, who refused them passage at the mouth of the Brazos. After nine hours of fire the Mexican garrison surrendered — the first armed clash between Texas colonists and the Mexican military, ignited by a customs quarrel and fought, ironically, after the underlying dispute had already been settled. Four years later Velasco briefly served as capital of the Republic, where the Treaty of Velasco was signed in 1836.
Why it matters
The Battle of Velasco was a first spark of the Texas Revolution, and the treaty signed here later ended the war — bookending the birth of the Republic on one stretch of coast.
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Related people
- · John Austin
- · Henry Smith
- · Domingo de Ugartechea
- · David G. Burnet
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.
William Jarvis Cannan
Freeport, TX
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.
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.
Colonel Robert M. Coleman
Freeport, TX
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.