Velasco: Where Texas Was Born and Bound

The ground near Velasco on the Texas Gulf Coast witnessed three pivotal moments in the birth of Texas. In eighteen twenty-one the Lively landed here, carrying the first emigrants to Stephen F. Austin's colony, the original Anglo-American settlers of what would become Texas.

A decade later, in June of eighteen thirty-two, the Battle of Velasco erupted here, one of the first armed conflicts between Texans and Mexican forces, foreshadowing the revolution to come. And in May of eighteen thirty-six, just weeks after San Jacinto, both the public and secret Treaties of Velasco were signed here between the Republic of Texas and the captured General Santa Anna, agreements that effectively ended the Texas Revolution. In a single stretch of coastline, Texas was settled, first fought over, and finally set free.