Come and Take It! The Gonzalez Cannon

[Jim McDougall]

The 'Spirit of 76' is well known in the United States of course as essentially the beginning of our nation from the fight for independence. There are many icons of that rebellion which are held dearly as symbolic of our fight for freedom.

In the 1830s, Texas (then Tejas) was a northern region belonging to Mexico, now independent from Spain since 1821, yet there was ongoing turbulence on the nature and control of its governing. There were opposing contenders either for or against Mexico's constitution of 1824.There had been numbers of American settlers from across the young United States 'going to Mexico' where they sought to find new lives and/or 'make their fortunes. These people became known as Texians.

This was the setting that became the Texian 'war' for independence in which the Alamo in March of 1836 became an icon of Texas heritage. There are of course many perspectives on this history, and as with most history, there is naturally a good deal of 'lore' amidst the commonly held knowledge.

Another of the iconic symbols of these events, and thus Texas itself, is the famed 'Come and Take It' flag of the town of Gonzalez near San Antonio.
This represents the flag that symbolized the defiance of its settlers in refusal to return a cannon provided by Mexico for its defense. When Mexico demanded its return, Gonzalez defiantly said, "come and take it" !
When Mexico tried on October 2,1835 unsuccessfully, the flag was created and became the banner of the Texians of the time just before the Alamo.

The question however has become, what became of the cannon of the dispute

While in one view, the actual cannon actually ended up at the Alamo with the sundry collection of cannon that were captured and added to those already there when the Alamo was taken by the Texians in December, 1835.
It was said to be a bronze six pounder of about 6 ft. length weighing about 100 lbs. After the fall of the Alamo, it was removed by the Mexicans and buried just after the Battle of San Jacinto.

This was dug up by a farmer on his property in the 1870s where it was donated and melted down to make a bell for St. Marks church.

However in a controversial rebuttal to this, is the story of a small cannon of 21.5" length, weighing about 69 pounds and of iron which was dug up neat the old Gonzalez-Bexar road in July, 1936. It seems that this interesting gun ended up unceremoniously held in the old Gonzalez post office where it remained virtually unnoticed for over 32 yrs until a new post office was being built. It was taken to a gun show where it began a certain consternation that it might be the famed 'Gonzalez' cannon. While it was in the dimensional range of a six pounder, its character was notably different, and unusually small bore only fired a half pound shot.

When it was declared to 'probably' be the famed cannon, it was placed on display in Gonzalez, where it remains today.
One of the rebuttals toward this being the cannon claims it was likely present at the battle there in 1835, however it is obviously NOT the cannon that the Mexicans were intent on retrieving, which was the more substantial bronze cannon previously described.

It is claimed this is actually a Spanish 'ESMERIL' and has characteristics of a gun reworked by local smiths in Gonzalez in some records regarding the famed cannon.

From all I can find, the 'esmeril' seems to be a small 'deck gun' similar to Spanish naval breech loaders (see attached) but there is little other reference as found yet. The example on display seems too small for a gun used in a pitched siege. It is of iron, but it is claimed that period descriptions by settlers would typically not differentiate between iron or bronze categorically but simply by familiar terms.

My question is, what exactly is an esmeril? what sort of term is this?
What kind of gun would this small dug up example be, and why would it have sat unnoticed for generations then suddenly be declared the missing cannon of Gonzalez?