Martin Parmer

On March 2, 1836, Martin Parmer seconded Sam Houston's motion to adopt the Texas Declaration of Independence from Mexico.

this is to Command you in the name of the State to take the Body of the Said Martin Parmer and bring him forthwith before me so as he may be delt with as the Law directs in case of murder wherein fail not as given under my hand this 15th Oct. 1826.

Neither of these options appealed to Parmer, so six weeks later, on November 23, 1826, Martin Parmer rode into Nacogdoches at the head of a force of men from the Ayish Bayou District and arrested all the government officials including Samuel Norris and Hayden Edwards and assumed control of the local government.

With the exception of Hayden Edwards, Martin Parmer found all the government officials guilty and sentenced them to death.

Following the trial, Parmer left Joseph Durst in charge as the Alcalde in Nacogdoches and returned to Ayish Bayou.

The preamble of the Fredonian Declaration of Independence set out the grievances of the parties: Whereas, the Government of the Mexican United States, have by repeated insults, treachery and oppression, reduced the White and Red immigrants from the United States of North America, now living in the Province of Texas, within the Territory of the said Government, into which they have been deluded by promises solemnly made, and most basely broken, to the dreadful alternative of either submitting their freeborn necks to the yoke of an imbecile, faithless, and despotic government, miscalled a Republic; or of taking up arms in defence of their unalienable rights and asserting their Independence; They—viz:—The White emigrants now assembled in the town of Nacogdoches, around the Independent Standard, on the one part, and the Red emigrants who have espoused the same holy cause, on the other, in order to prosecute more speedily and effectually the War of independence, they have mutually undertaken, to a successful issue, and to bind themselves by the ligaments of reciprocal interests and obligations, have resolved to form a Treaty of Union, League and Confederation.The Fredonian Declaration of Independence was signed as follows: In faith whereof the Agents of the respective contracting parties hereunto affix their names.

Empresario Stephen F. Austin strongly opposed the Fredonian rebels and encouraged the settlers in his colony to fight on behalf of Mexico in the conflict.

In a letter to his colonists dated January 1, 1827, Stephen F. Austin mentioned Martin Parmer's role as leader of the rebellion: A small party of infatuated madmen at Nacogdoches have declared Independence and invited the Indians from the Sabine to the Rio Grande to join them and wage a war of Murder, plunder and desolation on the innocent inhabitants of the frontier--The leader of this party is Martin Parmer...The Fredonian Republic stood for just over a month; Parmer fled to Louisiana when the Mexican army arrived in Nacogdoches at the end of January 1827.

[7] Frank W. Johnson, a leader in the Texas Revolution, provided the following account of Parmer's return to Texas in 1831 in the company of James Bowie: Colonel Martin Parmer, a prominent actor in the Fredonian affair, who had left the country in consequence, returned, and as if to beard the lion in his den, in company with Colonel James Bowie visited San Antonio.

They first took alarm at the rising at Nacogdoches in 1826 ...which may be said to be the germ seed of their subsequent troubles, and the war of independence.During the Texas Revolution, Parmer served as a delegate from the District of Teneha to the Consultation of 1835 at San Felipe.

[10] Shortly thereafter, Parmer was elected a delegate from the Municipality of San Augustine to the Convention at Washington-on-the-Brazos which began on March 1, 1836.

[11] On March 2, 1836, delegate Sam Houston moved for the adoption of the Texas Declaration of Independence and Martin Parmer seconded the motion.

I shall be at home in ten or fifteen days, we have alarming news continually from the west; Frank Johnsons division is all killed but five, it is supposed.

He was a unique character but with all he was a man with the best of impulses - honest, brave and heroic.Parmer's activities during the Texas Revolution did not end with his services at the Convention.

On March 16, 1836, as the Convention neared its conclusion, delegate Thomas Jefferson Rusk, the newly appointed Secretary of War, wishing to alleviate the shortage of supplies within the Texas army, proposed the following resolution giving Martin Parmer some rather extraordinary powers: Mr. Rusk introduced the following resolution.

- Resolved: That Col. Martin Parmer be, and he is hereby authorized to demand, receive, and dispose of as the exigencies of circumstances may require any and all public property, whether money, provisions, horses, waggons, and teams, arms and other munitions of war to be found within the Municipalities of Nacogdoches, or of San Augustine, giving the corresponding receipts, and that he be also: fully authorized within said municipalities to make requisitions for, horses waggons and teams, arms and other munitions of war not the property of the public, as may be needful for the efficient equipment and sustenance of the army, or any portion thereof, rendering the proper vouchers to individuals and being accountable to the Government for what he may do in pursuance of this Constitution.

He was buried some thirty feet away from the grave of Stephen F. Austin who had so vigorously opposed Parmer's early attempt to declare Texas independent of Mexico during the Fredonian Rebellion.

In 1966, Martin Parmer appeared as a character in Giles A. Lutz's book The Hardy Breed an historical fiction about the Fredonian Rebellion.