New Honor Day - Treaties of Velasco

Two treaties were signed by ad interim president David G. Burnet and Gen. Antonio 

López de Santa Anna at Velasco on May 14, 1836, after defeat of the Mexican forces at 

the battle of San Jacinto. The public treaty was to be published immediately, and the 

secret agreement was to be carried into execution when the public treaty had been 

fulfilled. The public treaty, with ten articles, provided that hostilities would cease, that

Santa Anna would not again take up arms against Texas, that the Mexican forces would

withdraw beyond the Rio Grande, that restoration would be made of property

confiscated by Mexicans, that prisoners would be exchanged on an equal basis, that 

Santa Anna would be sent to Mexico as soon as possible, and that the Texas army 

would not approach closer than five leagues to the retreating Mexicans. In the secret

agreement, in six articles, the Texas government promised the immediate liberation of 

Santa Anna on condition that he use his influence to secure from Mexico 

acknowledgment of Texas independence; Santa Anna promised not to take up arms 

against Texas, to give orders for withdrawal from Texas of Mexican troops, to have the

Mexican cabinet receive a Texas mission favorably, and to work for a treaty of 

commerce and limits specifying that the Texas boundary not lie south of the Rio 

Grande. Gen. Vicente Filisola, in pursuance of the public treaty, began withdrawing the 

Mexican troops on May 26; the Texas army, however, refused to let Santa Anna be sent 

to Mexico and prevented the Texas government's carrying out the secret treaty. On May 20th

the government in Mexico City declared void all of Santa Anna's acts done as a captive. With

the treaties violated by both governments and not legally recognized by either, Texas

independence was not recognized by Mexico and her boundary not determined until

the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848.