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On Palm Sunday, March 27, 1836, approximately 425 Texian soldiers were executed by the Mexican Army at Goliad more American deaths than the Alamo, less than three weeks later, and almost entirely absent from popular history. The Goliad Massacre is a story with no clean heroes: the man who ordered the executions was enforcing his own nation's law, the men who died were fighting for a republic that would enshrine slavery, and two Mexican officers made very different choices when conscience and orders pointed in opposite directions. This episode explores the moral architecture of a founding atrocity that modern Texas still cannot agree on what to call — and why that argument matters more than ever.
By Richard G Backus
On Palm Sunday, March 27, 1836, approximately 425 Texian soldiers were executed by the Mexican Army at Goliad more American deaths than the Alamo, less than three weeks later, and almost entirely absent from popular history. The Goliad Massacre is a story with no clean heroes: the man who ordered the executions was enforcing his own nation's law, the men who died were fighting for a republic that would enshrine slavery, and two Mexican officers made very different choices when conscience and orders pointed in opposite directions. This episode explores the moral architecture of a founding atrocity that modern Texas still cannot agree on what to call — and why that argument matters more than ever.