A small cannon became the center of a confrontation at Gonzales on 2 October 1835. The brief clash marked the opening of the Texas Revolution.
Explore all six stories from 2 October.
Why a cannon mattered
The cannon at Gonzales was small, but the dispute around it was not. Mexican authorities had supplied it in 1831 to help defend the settlement against Indigenous raids. Four years later, relations between the Mexican government and the Anglo-American colonists in Texas had deteriorated. The demand to surrender the gun became a practical test of authority: would the local militia obey the Mexican command or resist it? This was a struggle over political power and sovereignty, not simply a colorful anecdote about a weapon.
The approach to Gonzales
The Texas State Historical Association identifies Domingo de Ugartechea as the Mexican commander who ordered the cannon retrieved. On 27 September 1835 he sent Francisco de Castañeda with about one hundred dragoons. Castañeda tried to avoid an armed clash. The colonists at Gonzales refused to give up the gun, and local militia gathered under John Henry Moore. Each side had reason to see the other as escalating a dispute that could no longer be settled by a routine exchange.
The morning of 2 October
Fighting broke out on 2 October 1835. The association describes it as a brief skirmish between Castañeda’s force and the local militia, ending in a Mexican withdrawal. Later memory condensed the episode into the famous “Come and Take It” challenge. That phrase is an enduring symbol, but it should not obscure the limited scale of the battle or the wider arguments over Mexico’s government, settlement and armed self-rule. The exact date of the clash is firmly documented by the association.
An object and its uncertain history
The photograph here was taken at the Gonzales Memorial Museum in 2005. Its Commons description calls the cannon the real thing and the carriage a reproduction. Historians have debated the identification and later path of the Gonzales cannon; the museum image should not be treated as a photograph of battle conditions or as independent proof of every claim about the artifact. It conveys how a material object came to stand for a much larger confrontation.
A beginning, not an inevitable ending
Gonzales is often called the first battle of the Texas Revolution. That label describes the outbreak of fighting, not a preordained result. The revolutionary movement, Mexican authority, Tejano participation and the position of Indigenous communities all belong to the history that followed. A careful account can acknowledge the colonists’ resistance without treating the later creation of a separate republic as inevitable on that morning. For another account of a conflict’s contested meaning, see our story on the Battle of Rancagua.
Sources and method
The Texas State Historical Association establishes the date and battle sequence. The photographed museum object is identified as a modern display with a reconstructed carriage.
