Every civilization erects monuments to the things its members wish to celebrate. It does us well to occasionally stop and reflect on the nature of these monuments and what they depict; they can reveal a great deal about the communities in which we immerse ourselves.
Texas is a different sort of place — while it’s now a state, it was once a nation for almost 10 years. A few other states also gave nationhood a go.
Vermont had a rather cantankerous past. It got its start as a group of rebellious New York counties with a reputation for tarring and feathering New York tax collectors. It operated as a republic for 14 years through 1791 though no nation recognized it. As the Revolutionary War started to turn against America, the state started to negotiate to rejoin the British empire as part of the Province of Quebec during the Haldimand Affair — but the British surrender at Yorktown in 1781 put an end to that.
The Republic of West Florida in present-day southwest Mississippi was a nation for just over two months until it was annexed by the U.S. in 1810. Hawaii had a republic for a few years after its monarchy was overthrown in 1893 with the help of some U.S. Marines.
And California was a republic for all of 25 days until it was handed over to a U.S. military governor for safekeeping amid the Mexican-American War in 1846.
My family moved from California to Texas in late 2011. Prior
