The Lone Star Flag: Come and Take It

By Bob Gariano

Sarah Seely was born on a warm summer morning in June 1787 in Brooks County, Virginia. Her father, Jonas Seely, was a wealthy planter who had hacked their family fortune out of the rolling hills of what was then their new country’s frontier. Sarah learned to hunt and drive a team of horses as a young woman, but she also learned the finer practices that separated the cultured young women of her era from the more common folk. She learned how to set a table for a fancy dinner, how to sew and hang draperies for the cabin windows, and how to read the classics.

Sarah had wanderlust and the heart of a pioneer. When she was 19 years old she and several of her cousins set out on a journey from her childhood Virginia home to some property that her family had purchased, sight unseen, in part of the Spanish held Louisiana territory called Missouri. It was a journey of over 1000 miles across a wilderness that contained ferocious wild animals and unfriendly Indians. Still, the Missouri territory was a chance for her build her own life in a new land just as her father had done in Virginia. Even though she expected and hoped for adventure, Sarah had no idea just how adventurous her life would eventually be.

That summer, Sarah met Green DeWitt, a handsome young adventurer who had come to Missouri from Kentucky with the same dreams. Green DeWitt’s language had that delightful accent that originated from his family’s roots in the hills of Kentucky. Green immediately fell in love with the pretty and confident young girl from Virginia. Her courage and self-assurance were even more impressive than her obvious good breeding and education. Green knew that he was fortunate to find such a wife on the frontier.

Sarah and Green married in a small church ceremony on a cold December day in 1808 when both were still only 21 years old. The couple began to build their family which would eventually include six children, four beautiful daughters, Eliza, Naomi, Eveline, and Minerva and two strapping sons, Christopher and Clinton. They farmed Sarah’s property in the Ozarks and Green began to talk about new ideas for the future of his family further west.

History interrupted their dreams. In 1812 Green volunteered to fight the British when hostilities broke out again between the United States and their old adversary. While Sarah ran the family and the farm, Green went away for two years to help his country win this war.

When he returned from the fighting Green had a new idea for Sarah to consider. During the war he had heard stories from other soldiers about the fertile plains of Texas. He wanted to travel to the Mexican territory of Texas to start a new colony of settlers. Sarah was supportive and braced herself for more months alone as her husband left to seek permission and select a place to set up the colony. At first, Green was unsuccessful in getting the Mexican government to approve his new venture. He asked for help from his friend, Stephen Austin, who had established his own colony in Texas.

In 1825, after several failed petitions to the Mexican federal government, Green was finally given permission to set up a permanent colony in the fertile vallies of the Guadalupe, San Marcos, and Lavaca Rivers. Green hired a young surveyor, James Kerr, to lay out his capital city at confluence of the San Marcos and Guadalupe Rivers. He called the new town Gonzales, named after the provisional governor of Coahuila y Tejas, Rafael Gonzales. The colony had a charter to bring in and settle “400 respectable, industrious, and Catholic families” into the new colony. Green was named empresario of the colony.

While he was away in the new colony, Sarah stayed in Missouri, raising and educating her family, running the farm, and talking to her neighbors about the fresh new lands in Texas. Even though she had never seen them herself, she believed in her husband. Her support even extended to selling some of her family’s Missouri acreage to help Green finance the risky venture. Sarah was all in.

In spring 1826 Sarah loaded all of the family’s possessions and their first four children into a primitive wagon drawn by a team of four massive oxen. She would lead a small caravan of similar pioneers on a 600-mile journey across primitive trails on their way to their new home in Texas. She was excited about the potential but she also knew that she was leaving behind everything that she had built in Missouri. Her friends and family were also left in the past. At 39 years of age she was no longer a young woman but her enthusiasm and courage infected all the other people around her on the journey.

The family invested everything that they had in making the new colony a success. The last of the property that her family had bequeathed to her in Missouri was sold to finance the effort. Even with all of their resources it was a battle for the family to survive. Sarah grew a garden to feed them during the winter months but the summer Texas heat was brutal. The neighboring Indians often visited but sometimes they also raided the farm. Sarah was near breaking one morning when she found the body of the family’s only pig riddled with arrows. The little pig was more than a source of protein. It was almost a pet. Sarah wept when she saw it.

But slowly the settlers made peace with the Indians. They signed a treaty with the neighboring Karankawa and Tonkawa tribes. The even more fierce Commaches would not join their other Indian brothers. These were stone age warriors who had only recently acquired horses and these had turned them into the fearsome light cavalry of the west. To help the colonists, the Mexican consulate in Bexar sent the settlers a small copper canon with enough shot and powder to scare of the Commaches when they came on their raids.

To add to these Indian problems, Green was not able to persuade enough settlers to immigrate to the colony. When the colony’s contract with the Mexican government expired in April 15, 1831 the DeWitt colony had only 166 families. The Mexican government called the contract and all the unassigned land in Gonzales reverted to government ownership. In 1835, Green decided to leave his family once more to try a last attempt to make the colony successful. He had little choice. The effort now had absorbed all of the family’s resources. They had nowhere else to turn.

In spring time 1835 Green set of for the Mexican town of Monclova where he hoped to persuade the authorities to grant the colony more premium land. Then tragedy struck. While in Monclova, Green contracted cholera. He died without seeing his wife or family again. When the news reached Sarah at the end of May, she was devastated. But she did not give up.

Later that summer, the Mexican federal government decided to bring the Texican settlers under tighter control. As a first step, they sent a troop of regular troops to approach Gonzales and reclaim the cannon. They felt that the weapon might now be used by the settlers against any Mexican troops sent to enforce the government’s will. It was a challenge to all the settlers in the Gonzales colony.

The men gathered in a compound behind the settlement’s little adobe church. Sarah DeWitt knew that as a widow she had to attend the meeting to represent her late husband’s wishes. The men debated for several hours and slowly began to convince themselves that it was better to avoid a fight and turn the cannon over to the approaching dragoons. After all, they were Mexican citizens and they should obey the rules of even this new despotic government. More important, the help that they requested from Austin and other settlements was weeks away if it came at all. They were only farmers. How could they resist the Mexican army?

Sitting behind the men with her daughter, Naomi, Sarah’s emotions reached a fever pitch. Without speaking, a thousand thoughts ran through her head. Sarah could not believe what the men were saying. She had not invested all of her family’s wealth to give control of the colony back to the federal authorities. Her husband had died trying to make the settlement a success. The canon was symbol of their independence and their tenacity. She would not allow it to be surrendered without a fight. She jumped to her feet.

“When I was a little child in Virginia, we studied the ancient Greeks. There is a story from antiquity about a small group Greek warriors who faced insurmountable odds as they defended their homeland. At Thermopylae the invaders demanded that the nearly vanquished Greeks hand over their weapons. The Greek commander answered the demand with two words. ‘Molon Labe’”.

The men of Gonzales looked at each other and then studied the strong woman standing ram rod straight in front of them. They asked each other what she could mean by this uninvited outburst. “Molon Labe means, Come and take it.” She said. Not a man in that council circle was willing to debate with her. They were ashamed of how easily they were willing to give up their homes and their dreams. But Sarah’s strength was enough for them all and it seemed to multiply as the circle of men considered her advice. They finally all agreed to resist the approaching troops.

Sarah then sent her daughter to fetch her Sunday dress. Naomi came back with the white garment, some sewing supplies, and a few scraps of black cloth. The two women cut and sewed the dress into a battle flag. The design was simple.

A single star representing Texas shone over the silhouette of a cannon. Underneath, in bold black letters, they sewed the letters of the words, “Come and Take It.” The settlers who earlier had come so close to surrendering raised a cheer as the banner, rough as it was, was hoisted on a lodge pole pine over the common area. The Mexican commander saw the flag as he approached the walls of the settlement. He considered attacking but his timidity and indecision got the best of him. After several shots were fired at each other without causalities, the Mexicans withdrew.

This exchange became the spark that began the Texas revolution and eventually led to Texas independence. The little cannon was mounted in a log block house in Gonzales. The act of defiance and the symbols on the flag became rallying points for Texas independence fighters. The strong stand of a forceful widow started a movement that created the Texas that we know today.

Sarah Seely DeWitt died in 1854 after Texas won their independence and became part of the United States. She lived long enough to see the spark she struck turn into a successful revolution. She is buried in her beloved Gonzales.

The flag that she and her daughter sewed that day in the summer of 1835 became a standard for the entire revolution. The lone star became a proud symbol of the state of Texas. It serves as a reminder to this day of one person’s ability to defend their homeland and to inflame a people to resist oppression.