Nacogdoches (the 'g' is silent) may be a sleepy college town nestled in the Piney Woods of East Texas NOW, but in the 1830s and 1840s, it was a hotbed of republicanism and revolt.
A colorful display in the beautiful visitor's center (formerly the downtown Post Office) in the revitalized downtown tells the tale of the NINE flags to fly over this part of Texas. One short-lived republic flag (that of the Long Expedition) actually flew over this part of Texas TWICE, as did the flag of the United States, a MUCH longer-lived republic.
Those flags flew, in rough reverse chronological order, over Texas in these years:
The United States of America (1845-1861; 1865-present)
The Confederate States of America (1861-1865)
The Republic of the Rio Grande (17 Jan 1840-6 Nov 1840)
The Republic of Texas (1836-Jan 1840; Nov 1840-1845)
The Republic of Fredonia (Dec 1826–Jan 1827)
The Republic of Mexico (1821-1826, 1827-1836)
The Long Republic (Jun-Aug 1819; 19-25 Sep 1821)
The Gutiérrez-Magee Expedition (Aug 1812–Aug 1813)
The Kingdom of France (1685-1690)
The Kingdom of Spain (1519-1685; 1690-1813, 1813-1819, 1819-1821)
In my photo, the flags are, from left to right:
The United States of America
The Confederate States of America
The Republic of Texas
The Long Expedition
The Fredonia Rebellion
The Gutierrez-McGee Expedition
The Republic of Mexico
The Kingdom of France
The Kingdom of Spain
For more on the colorful history of Nacogdoches, see: (
visit link)
"Nacogdoches, known as the oldest town in Texas, has a long and storied history to celebrate. Caddo tribes had long lived in the area before Spain founded a settlement in 1779. Nine flags have flown here—three more than the Spanish, French, Mexican, Texan, Confederate and U.S. flags that have flown over most of Texas—because of localized attempts to rebel from Spanish and Mexican rule.
In recent years, Nacogdoches has combined a celebration of its history with the holiday season during the month-long Nine Flags Christmas Festival. . . ."
A state historic marker on the campus of Stephen F. Austin University reads as follows:
NINE FLAGS OF NACOGDOCHES
Throughout the storied history of Nacogdoches, nine different flags have flown over the region. The six flags of Texas are well known, but three others have also been raised. The traditional six flags include those for Spain (1519 – 1685; 1690 – 1821), France (1685 – 1690), Mexico (1821 – 1836), the Republic of Texas (1836 – 1845), the United States of America (1845 – 1861; 1865 – present) and the Confederate States of America (1861 – 1865).
The earliest of the other flags was an emerald banner for the Gutiérrez-Magee Expedition (1812 – 1813). Lt. Augustus Magee and Col. Bernardo Gutiérrez organized an army which controlled territory east of San Antonio. However, Gutiérrez lost support, a Mexican force regained San Antonio, and the army disbanded.
Another flag contained red and white stripes with one white star on a red field, representing the Long Republic (1819). Col. James long set up a government from Nacogdoches, which fell to Spanish forces; he was later captured and killed. The final of the three flags was red and white, and inscribed with the words, “Independence, Freedom and Justice.” It belonged to the Republic of Fredonia (1826 – 1827). Empresario Haden H. Edwards proclaimed a new republic following the Mexican Revocation of his colonial charter. When he failed to enlist aid, Edwards fled, ending the rebellion.
Nacogdoches has been a gateway to Texas for hundreds of years, not only for settlers but also for ideals. The nine flags of Nacogdoches represent revolutionary activity that was essential to the spirit of Texas. In 1997, residents began celebrating the nine flags festival, which commemorates the city’s importance as a center of freedom and a community vital to Texas history."
The best article we have seen (with great graphics of the different flags) was written for the Nacogdoches Visitor Center, and can be read here: (
visit link)
"THE NINE FLAGS OF NACOGDOCHES 1519-Present
THE FLAG OF THE KINGDOM OF SPAIN 1519-1821
The Spanish Flag of Castile and Leon flew over Texas for three hundred years.
Spanish involvement in Texas began with Alonzo Alverez de Pineda's mapping of the Texas coast in 1519. Then, in 1542 Luis de Moscoso came to Nacogdoches and East Texas with the remnants of the Hernando de Soto expedition that had begun four years earlier in Florida. Spain's claim to Texas went back to the DeSoto-Moscoso
Expedition, which claimed all of southeastern United States as Spanish Florida.
Spain's occupation of Texas began in 1690 with the founding of Mission San Francisco de los Tejas on the Neches River. It continued in 1716 with the founding of six missions from the Neches River to Los Adaes in Western Louisiana, and 1721 with
the founding of Presidio Nuestra Señora de Pilar de los Adaes --near present day Robeline, Louisiana. Los Adaes was the first capital of the Province of Texas. Texas was under the Spanish flag until Mexico gained its independence from Spain in 1821.
Interestingly, the first flag used by the Spanish to claim Texas was not the familiar flag of Castile and Leon; it was a banner that had the Virgin of Guadalupe on one side and the crucified Christ on the other.
THE FLAG OF THE KINGDOM OF FRANCE - 1685-1691
France's claim to a part of Texas went back to 1682, when Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, explored the Mississippi and claimed all the land in its drainage for France. For some mapmakers and politicians, this included Texas. He named this land Louisiana.
La Salle came to Texas in 1685, after he accidentally sailed past his destination at the mouth of the Mississippi. He established Fort St. Louis and a French settlement on Garcitas Creek off Matagorda Bay. The settlement was ill fated from its beginning.
LaSalle was murdered by his own men near Navasota in 1687, and the settlers and soldiers who remained at Fort St. Louis were killed or captured by the Indians in 1689. The Spanish found Fort St. Louis and burned it to the ground in 1690.
This French intrusion into Spanish territory caused the Spanish to begin the occupation and settlement of East Texas to prevent further French invasions.
THE FLAG OF THE MEXICAN FEDERAL REPUBLIC 1821-1836
Spanish Nacogdoches came under the Mexican flag in 1821, when Mexico finally won its independence from Spain.
Mexico, in order to prove its ownership of Texas, began settling its eastern parts with the Anglos as early as December 1821. In that year Stephen F. Austin was allowed to bring the first of his Old Three Hundred Settlers into his grant on the Brazos. Thereafter, Americans poured through Nacogdoches, the Gateway to Texas, in search of cheap land. By the time of the Texas revolution in 1836, Anglos greatly outnumbered the Spanish-Mexican population.
The Mexican flag that flew over Nacogdoches and still flies over Mexico was adopted in 1825. It has three vertical green, white, and red fields of equal width. In the center of the white field is the Mexican eagle sitting on a nopal cactus holding a snake in its beak. In Mexican legend, this was a sign to the Aztecs that they had reached the land that was to be their home.
THE FLAG OF THE GUTIERREZ-MAGEE EXPEDITION 1812-1813
Bernardo Gutiérrez and Lieutenant Augustus Magee flew their green flag of the new Republic of Texas over the Stone Fort in Nacogdoches in August of 1812. The Republican Army of the North, as these filibusters called themselves, had come from Natchitoches to Nacogdoches to recruit and train troops with the help of Samuel
Davenport. They stayed for two months, drilled an army of over five hundred men, and then marched on to capture Goliad and San Antonio.
Magee died at Goliad, and his place was taken by Samuel Kemper. Kemper and Gutiérrez captured San Antonio and issued a Declaration of Independence of the Republic of Texas on April 6, 1813. This brief time of Texas Independence was over when the Spanish general Joaquín de Arredondo destroyed the remains of the Republican army at the Battle of Medina on August 18, 1813.
Augustus Magee and Samuel Davenport, who were in charge of the militia in Nacogdoches, were both Irishmen. That might have governed their choice of the Emerald Green flag as the Republican army's standard.
THE FLAG OF THE FREDONIA REBELLION - 1826-1827
For a brief while, the flag that flew over Nacogdoches was the red-and-white banner of Haden Edward's thirty-seven-day Fredonia Rebellion.
Edwards had obtained a grant from Mexico to settle eight hundred families in East Texas in the Nacogdoches area. Unfortunately for him, most of the land had already been settled-- legally and illegally -- by the early Spanish, by Indians, and by Anglo squatters. His intrusion caused such a disturbance that the Mexican government revoked his grant.
Disappointed over the loss of his grant, on December 16, 1826, Haden and his brother Benjamin rode into Nacogdoches, planted their flag in front of the Stone Fort, and proclaimed the Republic of Fredonia. They had formed an uncertain alliance with the Cherokees, thus the reason for the red and white colors of the flag. The flag carried the words "Independence Freedom and Justice" and the Signatures of sixteen of the original Fredonians.
The Fredonian army consisted of no more than thirty men, the Cherokees never joined them, and Stephen F. Austin raised a militia to put down the East Texas rebellion. The Fredonians gave up their cause on January 22, 1827, and retreated eastward across the Sabine River.
THE FLAG OF THE DR. JAMES LONG EXPEDITION - 1819 and 1821
Some Americans believed that Texas was part of Louisiana as claimed by LaSalle in 1682 and should have been included in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. One of those was Dr. James Long of Natchez, Mississippi, who came to Nacogdoches in June of 1819. Dr. Long proclaimed himself the president of his newly declared Republic of Texas.
Dr. Long's red-striped Lone Star flag flew but briefly over the Stone Fort and his Republic of Texas. The Spanish caught Long when he went to Galveston, where he was seeking the assistance of pirate Jean Lafitte. There they defeated him and his meager army and chased him back to Louisiana.
Dr. Long returned to Texas with a small army in 1821 and quickly captured the poorly manned garrison at Goliad. However, he was soon under siege by Spanish troops from San Antonio, who recaptured Goliad and took him captive. Dr. James Long was taken to Mexico City, jailed, then freed, and then murdered under mysterious circumstances by a Mexican soldier.
THE FLAG OF THE REPUBLIC OF TEXAS - 1836-1846
Mexican Texas became the Republic of Texas after Sam Houston defeated Santa Anna on the plains of San Jacinto on April 21, 1836.
The first official flag was a white upside-down star on a blue background with T-E-X-A-S written between the points of the star. This flag never flew. The second flag of the Republic was adopted by the first Texas congress in December 1836. It bore a single, large gold star on a blue field. This flag was the same design as the "Bonnie blue flag that bears a single star" that was so popular among the Southern troops during the Civil War.
The Lone Star flag that we now use was designed by Texas Senator William H. Wharton and was officially adopted by the Senate under President Mirabeau B. Lamar in 1839. The new flag kept the white star on the blue field, but now the blue field was a vertical stripe which occupied one-third of the flag, and it was balanced by horizontal white and red stripes, on the other two-thirds. This Texas flag has been prominently displayed for over 150 years.
THE FLAG OF THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA - 1861-1865
For four years, the Stars and Bars flew over Nacogdoches and Texas.
After years of conflicts of interest between the North and the South over states rights, slavery, and the right of secession, the Civil War began in March of 1861. Texas seceded and joined the Confederate States of America.
It sent its Texas brigades into battle, and suffered for four years with the rest of the Confederacy before General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865.
The most enduring of the Confederate flags during the War was the Stars and Bars with the square of blue holding a circle of the seven original seceding states. Texas was the seventh star.
Because the Confederate Stars and Bars and the Union Stars and Stripes were easily confused in the heat of battle, General P. G. T. Beauregard introduced a Confederate battle flag. This was a square red flag with a white-bordered blue cross running diagonally from corners to corners. The cross contained thirteen stars representing the eleven Confederate states plus Kentucky and Missouri. This battle flag became the flag most closely identified with the Southern cause.
The Confederate Stars and Bars came down in Texas after April 1863 and Appomattox, and the United States Stars and Stripes have been flying over this State ever since.
THE FLAG OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - SINCE 1845
On February 19, 1846, the Lone Star flag was lowered over the Texas state capitol in Austin, and the Stars and Stripes was raised. The Republic of Texas had become the State of Texas.
From the beginning of the Republic in 1836, the majority of the Texians, most of whom had come directly from the States, had wanted Texas to join the Union. But many in the Union did not want Texas in the United States. Some did not want one more Southern slave-holding state, and some were afraid of causing a war with Mexico. Nevertheless, on July 4, 1845, the Texas congress voted to accept the articles of annexation offered by United States President James K. Polk, and on December 29, 1845, the congressional resolution proclaiming Texas as a
state in the Union was signed by President Polk.
The Old Glory that was raised above the Texas state capitol on the following February 19, 1846,
had twenty-eight stars in four rows of seven stars each. Except for the four years of the Civil War, 1861 to 1865, these Stars and Stripes have since 1846 flown over the State of Texas."