patron saint of Mexico, and was flown in tri- 

 umph for a time; but disaster overtook: him 

 and, with several of his generals, he was shot 

 to death at Chihuahua in 1811. -Two subset 

 quent revolutions were also led by priests, 

 Padres Morelos and Mier, and they, too, met 

 Hidalgo's fate. They died upon the threshold 

 of success, however, for Mexican independ- 

 ence of Spain was accomplished in 1821. The 

 banner of Hidalgo is preserved in the National 

 Museum in Mexico City. 



435. Treaty— of Tordesillas.— These flags 

 appearing on maps of the sixteenth century in- 

 dicate the division of territory for exploration 

 and conquest by Spain and Portugal effected 

 by the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494. Pope 

 Nicholas V had given the Portuguese exclusive 

 right to the ''road to-the- Indies" in 1454, but 

 he had in mind only the coast of Africa. Com- 

 plicating the situation came the discovery of 

 land in the west by Columbus, who believed 

 that he had found the eastern shores of Asia. 

 Pope Alexander VI, a Spaniard, was appealed 

 to and he drew a line north to south a hundred 

 leagues west of the Azores, giving the Span- 

 iards the right to all that lay beyond. The 

 Portuguese protested and the diplomats met at 

 Tordesillas, Spain, with the result that the line 

 was shifted 270 leagues farther west, approxi- 

 mating the 50th meridian of longitude west of 

 Greenwich. This line strikes South America 

 at the mouth of the Amazon, and the Span- 

 iards therefore laid claim to the greater part 

 of the continent and sought to exclude all 

 other nations. This probably explains why 

 Portugal secured only Brazil from all this vast 

 domain. 



436. Order of, Christ. — This flag is to be 

 found on old maps of Brazil, where it indi- 

 cates the control of territory by the members 

 of the Brazilian section of this ancient order, 

 which was instituted by Denys, King of Portu- 

 gal, in 1231, to expel the Moors from Betica, 

 adjoining Portugal. According to eighteenth 

 century historians, the order "added many gal- 

 lant Countries in Asia, Africk, and Brazil, to 

 the domains of Portugal, and so improved 

 their own Estates, that all the Isles in the At- 

 lantick do belong to them ; besides the Rents 

 of the Aline of St. George in Guinea, amount- 

 ing to 100,000 Ducats of yearly Income." 



437. Brazie Empire. — Driven from their 

 kingdom by the invading armies of Napoleon, 

 the royal family of Portugal in 1808 took ref- 

 uge in Brazil, and for the first time in the his- 

 tory of the world a colony became the seat of 

 government of its mother country. The prince 

 regent, coming to the throne as Dom John VI, 

 raised this standard of empire. In 1889 the 

 colonists threw off the imperial yoke and estab- 

 lished a republic, retaining in their national 

 ensign (see 458) some of the characteristic 

 features of the empire flag — the yellow dia- 

 mond and the green field. The shield and im- 

 perial crown of the old flag, however, were 

 replaced by the blue globe and the republican 

 motto, "Ordem e Progresso." 



438. Spanish Flag ix Mextco. — The old 

 flag from which this illustration has been made 

 was carried by Spanish troops in the war of 

 Mexican independence and it now reposes, 

 among other relics of that struggle, in the mu- 



seum at Mexico City. Its peculiar design is 

 an adaptation of the raguled cross of the Span- 

 ish Bourbons, which may also be seen in the 

 earlier flags of Ostend and Biscay (1143 and 

 1 146), but with an added feature of crown- 

 crested coats-of-arms on the ends of the cross. 



439. Mexico Feag. — Migrating Aztecs, suc- 

 cessors to the Toltecs in Mexico, in 1325 came 

 to the shores of a lake ,in the valley of Mexico, 

 or Anahuac, and there,- as had been foretold by 

 their oracle, -"they beheld, perched on the stem 

 of a prickly^pear^which shot out from the 

 crevices of a rock that was washed by the 

 waves, a royal eagle of extraordinary size and 

 beauty, with a serpent in his talons and his 

 broad wings open to the sun." This deter- 

 mined the location of Tenochtitlan, now the 

 City of Mexico. From this legend was devised 

 the coat-of-arms which appears in the center 

 of this flag, adopted when Mexico became in- 

 dependent, in 1821 (see new coat-of-arms and-. 

 Mexican flags 489-492-493). ; , 



440. Alamo Flag. — This was the_..flag that 

 floated in 1836 over the historic mission for- 

 tress, the Alamo, at San Antonio, when Texas 

 was fighting for her independence. For twelve 

 days the garrison of 178 Americans held out 

 under the heavy bombardment of a force of 

 4,000 Mexicans. On the 6th of March the gar- 

 rison was so weakened that the Mexicans were 

 able to make assaults. Twice beaten back, the 

 invaders were successful at last only through 

 sheer weight of numbers. They gained an en- 

 trance to find but five of the brave defenders 

 alive. These Santa Anna ordered bayoneted 

 in cold blood. The war cry, "Remember the 

 Alamo," echoed over many a battlefield, lead- 

 ing the Texans to ultimate victory. The date 

 indicated the adherence to .the constitution of 

 1824, and for this reason the numbers were 

 used in place of the eagle, serpent, and cactus 

 of the Mexican national flag. 



441. Texas Flag (Xaval). — When Texas 

 seceded from Mexico and became an inde- 

 pendent republic, the first flag that seems to 

 have been adopted was the naval flag, with its 

 single star and thirteen stripes, the latter evi- 

 dently borrowed from her neighbor to the 

 north, the United States. The date given for 

 this is April 9, 1836, antedating by several 

 months the adoption of the first national stand- 

 ard of Texas, the design of which was "an 

 azure ground with a large golden star central." 



As to the origin of the lone star there are 

 several legends. One gives the honor to Henry 

 Smith, head of the Provisional Government, 

 who is said to have sealed his State papers 

 with the impression of a brass_ button on his 

 coat, which had in relief a single star sur- 

 rounded by an oak wreath. Another story 

 gives the credit to a Mrs. Venson, who pre- 

 sented a flag with that device to a Texas regi- 

 ment in 1836 (see State flag 328). 



442-443. New Granada (Colombia). — 

 These were the flags of New Granada, the 

 confederation of South American States now 

 mainlv embraced in the Republic of Colombia. 

 In 1863 these States effected a closer union 

 and changed their flag from three broad verti- 

 cal stripes of yellow, blue, and red to the pres- 

 ent Colombian flags (shown in 462-463). The 

 old and new ensigns (442 and 462) are much 



360 



