It was on this day in 1836 that the news of the outcome of the Battle of San Jacinto reached New Orleans, Louisiana from which it was quickly communicated to the rest of the United States. Though Texas was decidedly not a part of the United States, and the Texas Revolution was not a matter of U.S. national involvement, nevertheless, the country was greatly interested in the outcome. News of the Texian victory made Sam Houston a national hero in the U.S. and it was widely assumed that the soon-to-be-independent Texas would become a state in the Union.

On April 21, 1836, Texian (as they then styled themselves) forces under the leadership of General Sam Houston defeated Mexican General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna’s army at the battle of San Jacinto. This victory won for Texas its independence from Mexico, and paved the way for the creation of The Republic of Texas, an independent nation for a decade.

Mexico’s loss of Texas really comes as no surprise under the circumstances: the population of Texas was overwhelmingly composed of Yanqui settlers who had been invited into Texas. Spain had claimed the land that would become Texas as early as 1536, but for the next 290 years made no effort to settle the vast and often inhospitable land. After the United States acquired the Louisiana Territory by purchase in 1803, Spain realized that the Americans would soon be looking westward at the open lands of Texas. In nearly three centuries, Spain had established just three settlements in Texas: San Antonio, Nacogdoches, and Goliad. By 1820, the population of Texas that was reckoned as Spanish subjects amounted to about 4,000 (no one bothered to count the native tribes, naturally!)

In order to strengthen their claim on the territory, Spain invited Americans to settle in Texas, so long as they swore allegiance to Spain and nominally adopted the Roman Catholic faith. Moses Austin and his son Stephen Fuller Austin organized American settlements in Texas, drawing heavily from Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi. With Mexico’s successful overthrow of Spanish rule in 1821, these newly imported Yanquis were theoretically citizens of Mexico. Mexico decided to maintain Spain’s policy of inviting more Yanqui settlers into Texas. So successful was this program, that by 1835 the population of Texas had grown to about 45,000!

Despite oaths of allegiance, most of these Yanqui settlers considered themselves Americans, and they enjoyed the relatively free hand they were given to manage their affairs within the Mexican federal system. As Mexico became more concerned about the loyalty of these settlers, it began to impose restrictions on immigration and also put limits on local autonomy. These impositions were greatly resented by the Yanqui Texians, (“Texian” is the demonym used to denote inhabitants of Texas prior to statehood) and several rebellious demonstrations took place.

In 1834, General Santa Anna, who had been democratically elected Presidente the year before, assumed dictatorial powers, and suspended the Mexican Constitution of 1824, which had granted significant local power to Texas. The Texians, both Yanqui settlers and native Tejanos, resented this restriction – and notably, they resented Santa Anna’s intention to prohibit slavery in Texas. Santa Anna swore to force the Texian back into submission. The Texians pledged to defend themselves against the oppressor. As armed conflict grew inevitable, popular sentiment moved toward complete separation from Mexico, though not as an independent nation: from the start, Texians felt that Texas should join The United States of America.

When General Santa Anna marched north into Texas, he headed a small but well-trained Army. Determined to capture San Antonio, then the most important city in Texas, Santa Anna learned that a small garrison was holding the city’s mission church known as The Alamo, as a fortress. Santa Anna decided that he would have to conclude this situation before he could make further advance.

The two weeks that Santa Anna devoted to taking the Alamo gave the Texian army time to regroup and reinforce. The brutality with which Santa Anna treated the Alamo’s defenders ignited a great fury and an even greater resolve among the Texians, who made “Remember the Alamo” a cry that echoes unto our own day. As is the case with most symbolically important events, the details of the Alamo are often obscured and exaggerated, but it is true that the time gained by the defenders of the Alamo was crucial to the ultimate success of the Texian rebellion.

On 26 March, Santa Anna’s troops captured the Texian defenders of the town of Goliad. Despite their formal surrender in accordance with military protocol, Santa Anna ordered all the captured Texian soldiers to be shot, beaten to death, or trampled by cavalry. This gross breach of the Law of Arms not only enraged the Texians and ultimately much of the outside world, it greatly demoralized Santa Anna’s own troops: not only had their general flouted the rules of warfare, his mercilessness would surely be returned by the Texians!

Six weeks after the fall of the Alamo, Santa Anna’s 2,400 man force was encamped on low ground near the present city of Houston at San Jacinto. In the late afternoon of 21 April, the Texian forces caught the Mexican Army literally as it slept: some 900 or so Texians announced their presence with a shout – it is claimed they shouted “Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad!”

What ensued was a slaughter, pure and simple. The unwary Mexican troops were unable to organize a coordinated response, and despite their formal military expertise, they were trained for set engagements on the battlefield, not hand to hand fighting in swampy mire. In about 18 minutes it was all over: more than 600 Mexican troops had been killed, nearly 800 captured. The Texian losses amounted to nine killed and thirty wounded. Though Santa Anna initially escaped, he was captured and forced to grant Texas’ independence.

General Sam Houston, wounded during the combat, survived and was later elected the first president of The Republic of Texas. He would later serve as Senator and Governor of the state after it was admitted into the Union. Texas remained an independent nation for almost ten years, and was widely recognized in Europe, but not by most Latin American nations. The four-vessel Texas Navy repeatedly attacked Mexican shipping during the years of independence, helping to deter Mexico from a new invasion. Finally, in 1845, the United States admitted Texas as the 28th state.

But for Santa Anna’s overwhelming and unjustified confidence, and his Texas-sized ego, Texas might have remained under Mexican rule. But for the Battle of San Jacinto, Texas would never have become independent. There is a massive monument at the battle site – taller than the Washington Monument, of course! – and Texas still take pride in the stories and myths that make up the history and traditions of this great state!

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Jamie Rawson
Flower Mound, Texas

— General W.T. Sherman

And here is a poem that my Texan Grandfather used to recite, and which
my Mom taught me before I was in school; it has always colored
my impressions of Texas:

Hell in Texas

He quickened the buck of the bronco steed,
And poisoned the feet of the centipede;
The wild boar roams in the black chaparral
It’s a hell of a place that we’ve got for a hell.
He planted red pepper beside of the brooks;
The Mexicans use them in all that they cook.
Just dine with a Mexican and then you will shout,
“I’ve hell on the inside as well as the out! “

from American Ballads and Folk Songs, Lomax

It was on this day, 13 April, that George Frideric Handel’s magnificent oratorio Messiah was premiered in the Great Music Hall on Dublin’s Fisamble Street. Though in this day and age Messiah is most often performed for Christmas, it was written for specifically for Easter. The thirteenth of April in 1742 was Tuesday of Holy Week according to the older Julian calendar which Great Britain and Ireland used at the time of the premier. Messiah has remained one of the most frequently performed of all choral works. Because the full oratorio can take more than two and a half hours to perform, Messiah is today most often performed as selected excerpts.

The first performance on 13 April 1742 was realized by a rather modest orchestra and chorus. As Messiah gained in popularity, it became common to include bigger and bigger choirs with larger numbers of instrumentalists and more complex instrumentation. No less a musical luminary than Mozart felt moved to orchestrate a more elaborate, grander orchestral setting of Handel’s “greatest oratorio.” The trend toward ever more immense productions perhaps reached a zenith with an 1857 rendition in London’s Crystal Palace which included an orchestra of 500 and a chorus of 2,000 singers! The end of the Victorian Era saw a decline in the great numbers of choral societies that had characterized the 19th Century musical landscape. Accordingly, in the 20th Century, a revival of more “authentic,” smaller scale performances gained adherents. These performances returned to the surviving 18th Century manuscripts for musical details and aimed to more nearly match the original scope and scale of the productions of Handel’s day.

The enduring popularity of Messiah and the nearly perfect musical expression of deep religious sentiment which appropriately pervades Messiah have fostered various tales and legends about the creation of the masterpiece. Some of these remarkable stories are quite true: Handel did, in fact, compose the entire oratorio in a mere 24 days between 22 August and 14 September 1741. The surviving autographic score does contain certain errors, but surprisingly few for a piece of such length. Handel himself has often been quoted as asserting that while composing Hallelujah, “I did think I did see all heaven before me and the Great God Himself!” Though the quotation does not appear in sources contemporary to Handel, (it first appears in print in Horatio Townshend’s 1852 Handel’s Visit To Dublin) it has become an inextricable part of the tales surrounding Messiah.

Certainly, Handel did feel moved by religious sentiment in creating this great work; he concluded the manuscript with the abbreviation SDG, (Soli Deo Gloria; “Only to God the Glory”) and he later noted that he was pleased that so many of the performances in his lifetime, including the premiere, were charitable benefits.

Of the many beautiful and noteworthy choruses throughout Messiah, surely none is more famous or more familiar than he glorious Hallelujah which concludes Part II of the oratorio. By tradition, the entire audience rises at the start of the chorus and remains standing until its conclusion. King George II attended the first London performance of Messiah in 1743. Moved by the opening of Hallelujah, the King rose to his feet. Etiquette required that his subjects do the same. Because this tribute seemed an especially apt recognition of the inspired music, the practice of standing for the Hallelujah chorus has been maintained to this day. The great classical composer Franz Josef Haydn, upon first hearing the chorus in London’s Westminster Abbey, stood with the audience, and wept from emotion. At the conclusion, he proclaimed, “He is the master of us all.”

This chorus has been both praised frequently and criticized for the frequency with which it is heard in innumerable versions and parodies. However, there can be no more sincere tribute to this iconic masterpiece than that from Ludwig van Beethoven: “Go and learn from [Handel] how to achieve great effects with simple means.”

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Jamie Rawson
Flower Mound, Texas

I should be sorry if I only entertained them, I wish to make them better. – George Frideric Handel, upon being informed that the audience for the premiere had found Messiah entertaining.

Sources:

The Oxford Companion To Music, Tenth Edition, edited by John Owen Ward; Oxford University Press, 1995

Handel: Messiah, edited by Watkins Shaw; Novello Handel Edition, 1992

Accompanying booklet from Messiah, recorded by The Smithsonian Chamber Players, the American Boy Choir, with tenors and basses of the Norman Scribner Chorus, conducted by James Weaver, 1981.

The Life of George Frederick Handel, William Smyth Rockstro; MacMillan and Company, London, 1883

Handel’s Visit To Dublin, Horatio Townsend, Esq; William S. Orr and Company, and J. A. Novello, London, MDCCCLII