DUANE
Duane's take
The way the marker at this site tells it, here's how the whole affair went down. Now, there are rebellions, and then there are rebellions that end before a single shot gets fired — and this one, friends, falls into that second, considerably more embarrassing category. We are standing at the site of the Battle of Fredonia, in San Augustine County, and the story starts with a man named Hayden Edwards.
In 1826, Edwards was a colonizer in East Texas, and when Mexico handed him expulsion orders, he did not pack his bags. He defied those orders and founded something he called the Republic of Fredonia, raising a flag that promised — and I want you to hear these words — Independence, Liberty, and Justice. That is a flag with some ambition stitched into it.
But a republic needs more than a flag. It needs people. So Edwards turned to the settlers along Ayish Bayou and asked them to join up.
They refused. Edwards, apparently not a man who took no for an answer, ordered their banishment. Not the most winning diplomatic move, as it turns out.
The Fredonians were holding a log fort — right here at this very site — and on January 21, 1827, they were ordered to march out and take Ayish Bayou. That was the plan. What actually happened on January 21, 1827, is one of those historical moments that has a certain quiet thunder to it.
Stephen Prather showed up with nine Anglos and sixty native Americans. Two hundred Fredonian soldiers held that log fort. And without a single shot fired, Prather's force took the fort and those two hundred soldiers.
Every last one of them. Word traveled fast. When Hayden Edwards heard what had become of his rebellion, he fled to the United States.
Just like that, the Fredonia Rebellion was over. The climax of the first Anglo-American rebellion in East Texas lasted exactly as long as it took for news to reach one man — and for that man to run.
What the marker says
Climax of first Anglo-American rebellion in East Texas. In 1826 colonizer Hayden Edwards defied expulsion orders of Mexico and founded Republic of Fredonia - raising flag of "Independence, Liberty and Justice." When Ayish Bayou settlers refused to join, he ordered their banishment. Fredonians, from log fort at this site, were ordered to take Ayish Bayou on Jan. 21, 1827. That day, however, without a shot, Stephen Prather's nine Anglos and sixty native Americans took the fort and 200 soldiers. At news of this, Edwards fled to the U.S., ending the Fredonia Rebellion. (1966)