Auction Name: 2026 February 26 Historical Manuscripts & Texana Signature® Auction

Lot Number: 47014

Shortcut to Lot: HA.com/6328*47014

José Justo Corro Decree Commuting the Death Sentences of Texas Prisoners. Both sides of a single sheet, 8 1/16 x 11 7/8 inches, [Mexico City]; April 14, 1836. Decree issued by the Mexican General Congress, approved by ad interim president José Justo Corro, and promulgated the same day by José Maria Tornel commuting the death sentences of captured Texas prisoners in favor of perpetual exile from Mexico. This is the first printing of the decree, and Streeter cites only one copy (now at Yale) though there was a second copy offered at the Streeter sale. Heritage sold a copy of this very broadside in 2023 for $6875 in the Ted Lusher Texas History Collection.

Listing five articles regarding Texian prisoners, and seven articles for its implementation, the decree reads (translated into English), "Art. 1. Prisoners captured in the Texas war up to the date of this decree who, according to the laws, had incurred the death penalty, are now commuted from this charge, even if they were apprehended with weapons in their hands. Art. 2. The same clemency will also be dispensed to those who voluntarily submit themselves to the Government in the following manner. Art. 3. Principal actors in the revolution, those who formed part of the so-called General Council of Texas: those who served as Governor and Vice, invaders: those who were apprehended commanding any maritime or terrestrial armed forces, and those who have committed any assassination, are excluded from this clemency in all cases. Those who do not submit themselves to the Government in the precise manner instructed by this decree, will also be excluded from the commutation, according to art. 2; nor will this clemency remain valid in cases of recidivism for those who had previously received it according to this law." Signed in type, Tornel.

This policy marked a sharp turn from the decree issued only four months earlier. The Tornel Decree, issued on December 30, 1835, designated all foreigners living in Texas who actively opposed Santa Anna as "pirates and dealt with as such, being citizens of no nation presently at war with the Republic and fighting under no recognized flag." Accordingly, it authorized the Mexican President to execute all prisoners captured in the War for Texas Independence.

By the spring of 1836, Santa Anna had defeated the Texans at the Alamo and Goliad, leading Mexican politicians to believe that the war would soon be over. In response, this present decree allowed combatants to turn themselves in without facing punishment and metaphorically return to the fold of the Mexican Republic. To everyone's surprise, events at San Jacinto only a week later would negate the necessity for such a decree.

Streeter writes, "This decree was passed in the flush of the victory at the Alamo, applied to those rebellious Texans who surrendered within fifteen days or such greater or lesser time as Santa Anna might fix, and gave Santa Anna the right to fix the times and places of embarkation of those banished. Those not already subject to the death penalty might be punished by ten years imprisonment in interior regions of the Mexican republic, distant at least 70 leagues from the coast and land frontiers."

Condition: Irregular left margin where the integral blank has been removed. Two small diagonal folds at top left. Small tear at right margin not touching any text. Some showthrough from printed text on verso.

References: Eberstadt Texas 162:839; Streeter 876.

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