DUANE
Duane's take
The official marker tells it this way, and I'm just the one fool enough to say it out loud. December 21, 1842. Right here.
A body of Texans camped on this very ground, intent on invading Mexico. You sit with that a moment. They knew what they were riding toward, and they camped here anyway.
Now, what happened next unfolded not here but deeper in — at a place called Salado, Mexico. That's where they were made prisoners. And once you're a prisoner of General Santa Anna, well, the story takes on a different kind of weight.
Santa Anna had a way of settling things. His way, on his terms. The Texans who'd been taken at Salado were brought together, and they were made to draw beans from a container.
White bean, you lived — life in prison, but life. Black bean, you died. That was the mathematics of it.
No appeals, no arguments, just your fingers reaching into that vessel and whatever you pulled out was your fate. Seventeen men drew black. March 25, 1843.
By order of General Santa Anna, those seventeen members of the expedition were shot. Seventeen men who had camped right here on December 21st, probably talking low around a fire, maybe not entirely reckoning what the draw of a single bean would one day mean. The State of Texas erected this marker in 1936.
Some stories are too heavy to leave unmarked.
What the marker says
A body of Texans intent on invading Mexico camped here on December 21, 1842. After being made prisoners at Salado, Mexico, they drew beans, white for life in prison, black for death. 17 members of the expedition were shot by order of General Santa Anna, March 25, 1843. Erected by the State of Texas 1936