The Alamo mission at San Antonio was assaulted by 6,000 troops.
By the 13th day, Santa Anna's "take-no-prisoner" policy had all the defenders killed, including Jim Bowie and former U.S. Congressman Davy Crockett.
The only Texas army left in the field was Col. James Fannin's.
It departed Goliad to rescue the Alamo but was surrounded in open ground and captured.
Santa Anna ordered all 350 prisoners executed.
When the Mexican officer hesitated, Santa Anna sent another officer who executed nearly all of them.
Bodies were stripped, piled, burned and left exposed to vultures and coyotes.
A few dozen of the Texans were spared execution through the courageous intervention of Francita Alavez, the "Angel of Goliad," and Mexican Colonel Francisco Garay.
Had Fannin's troops been left in prison, Texas would have been disheartened, but instead, Santa Anna's Goliad Massacre aroused world outrage.
A month later, Sam Houston defeated Santa Ana at the Battle of San Jacinto.
Santa Ana had ignored Mexico's Constitution, declared himself a dictator, demanded citizens surrender their guns and incited killings.
Get the book, American Minute-Notable Events of American Significance Remembered on the Date They OccurredThe Texas Declaration of Independence, signed MARCH 2, 1836, stated:
"When a government has ceased to protect the lives, liberty, and property of the people, from whom its legitimate powers are derived...
and so far from being a guarantee for their inestimable and inalienable rights, becomes an instrument in the hands of evil rulers for their oppression....
In such a crisis...the inherent and inalienable right of the people to... take their political affairs into their own hands... enjoins it as.... a sacred obligation to their posterity to abolish such government,
and create another in its stead, calculated to rescue them from impending dangers, and to secure their welfare and happiness....
The late changes made in the government by General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, who having overturned the constitution of his country...
denies us the right of worshiping the Almighty according to the dictates of our own conscience...
It has demanded us to deliver up our arms, which are essential to our defense, the rightful property of freemen, and formidable only to tyrannical governments...
It has, through its emissaries, incited the merciless savage, with the tomahawk and scalping knife, to massacre the inhabitants of our defenseless frontiers.
It hath...exhibited every characteristic of a...corrupt, and tyrannical government...
We fearlessly and confidently commit the issue to the decision of the Supreme Arbiter of the destinies of nations."
