Texian in the context of "Tejanos"

The Texas Revolution (October 2, 1835 – April 21, 1836) was a rebellion by Anglo-American immigrants as well as Hispanic Texans (known as Texians and Tejanos respectively) against the centralist government of Mexico in the Mexican state of Coahuila y Tejas. Although the uprising was part of a larger revolt against the Centralist Republic of Mexico that included other provinces opposed to the regime of President Antonio López de Santa Anna, the Mexican government believed the United States had instigated the Texas insurrection with the goal of annexation. The Mexican Congress passed the Tornel Decree, declaring that any foreigners fighting against Mexican troops "will be deemed pirates and dealt with as such, being citizens of no nation presently at war with the Republic and fighting under no recognized flag". Only the province of Texas succeeded in breaking with Mexico, establishing the Republic of Texas. It was eventually annexed by the United States about a decade later.

The Battle of Gonzales was the first military engagement of the Texas Revolution. It was fought near Gonzales, Texas, on October 2, 1835, between rebellious Texian settlers and a detachment of Mexican Army soldiers. In 1831, Green DeWitt asked the Mexican authorities to lend the Gonzales colonists a cannon to help protect them from frequent Comanche raids. One was supplied, on the condition that the cannon would be returned to the Mexicans on request. Over the next four years, the political situation in Mexico deteriorated, and in 1835 several states revolted. As the unrest spread, Colonel Domingo de Ugartechea, the commander of all Mexican troops in Texas, felt it unwise to leave the residents of Gonzales with a weapon and requested the return of the cannon.

When the initial request was refused, Ugartechea sent 100 dragoons to retrieve the cannon. The soldiers neared Gonzales on September 29, but the colonists used a variety of excuses to keep them from the town, while secretly sending messengers to request assistance from nearby communities. Within two days, up to 140 Texians gathered in Gonzales, all determined not to give up the cannon. On October 1, settlers voted to initiate a fight. Mexican soldiers opened fire as Texians approached their camp in the early hours of October 2. After several hours of desultory firing, the Mexican soldiers withdrew. Although the skirmish had little military significance, it marked a clear break between the colonists and the Mexican government and is considered to have been the start of the Texas Revolution. News of the skirmish spread throughout the United States, where it was often referred to as the "Lexington of Texas".

Martín Perfecto de Cos (1800–1 October 1854) was a general for the Mexican army and a politician during the mid-19th century. Born in Veracruz, the son of an attorney, he became an army cadet at the age of 20, a Lieutenant in 1821, and a Brigadier General in 1833.

Cos is perhaps best known as a commander of Mexican forces during the Texas Revolution in the 1830s. In September 1835, he was sent by President-General Antonio López de Santa Anna to investigate the refusal of Texians to pay duties during the Anahuac Disturbances. General Cos dispersed the legislature of Coahuila y Tejas, then in session at Monclova, landed 300 men at Matagorda Bay, established a headquarters in San Antonio, and declared his intention of ending Texian resistance in Mexican rule. He attempted to arrest several Texian critics of Santa Anna, but his demands were resisted; a force of Texians under Stephen F. Austin and Edward Burleson held the Mexican troops for two months in the siege of Béxar until Cos surrendered after an attack led by Benjamin R. Milam in December 1835. Cos and his men were released on their pledge not to oppose further the Constitution of 1824, which Santa Anna had recently repealed.