If you remember the Marx Brothers movie “Duck Soup”, you’ll be familiar with Freedonia, where Rufus T. Firefly was installed as leader by Mrs. Teasdale, who was rich enough to bail out the country’s empty treasury. Meanwhile Sylvania, a bordering country, wants to take over Freedonia. The countries declare war, although it mostly amounts to dancing around. Remember, it’s a Marx Brothers movie.

But there was a real Freedonia (they spelled it “Fredonia”), and it came into existence on December 21, 1826. It all started the year before, when Haden Edwards obtained a land grant from Mexico. Mexico named Edwards an “empresario” — a role in which you’re given the right to settle on land in exchange for recruiting more settlers in the hope that the area would become a legitimate part of the nation rather than a mostly empty territory. The empresario system mostly operated in what’s now Texas — but at the time was Mexican. One example is Stephen Austin — he had a contract with Mexico to settle the area that’s now Austin, Texas.

Haden Edwards’ grant was in the eastern part of Texas, just north of Stephen Austin’s colony. There was already a town there: Nacogdoches, which had been settled for decades by both English- and Spanish-speaking families. It wasn’t a wealthy town, and Edwards, who was a wealthy plantation owner from Virginia and Mississippi, arrived with a plan to eject poor families from their land and create more large plantations for his US colleagues.

Either he didn’t know or he didn’t care.

Edwards’ deal with Mexico didn’t include the authority to validate or cancel existing land deeds, but either he didn’t know that or didn’t care. He announced that any resident who couldn’t provide written proof that they owned their own land would be evicted and their land sold at auction. The residents complained to the Mexican official in the town, Luis Procela, who sent word to Mexican President Guadalupe Victoria. In June, 1826, Victoria finally heard about what Edwards was up to. Edwards’ empresario contract was cancelled and he was expelled from Mexico.

But first they had to inform Edwards and everyone else around Nacogdoches, and in 1826 that took time. Months, in fact. By the time Edwards was told to get out of town, it was November. Instead of leaving he gathered a group of supporters and arrested (or took hostage) the Nacogdoches Mexican officials. Edwards and his gang rode off, got organized, and on December 16 rode back into town with a new flag they’d made, announcing that the land of Edwards’ original grant was now the independent “Republic of Fredonia”.

Mexico was not amused. Neither were the other empresarios, including Stephen Austin. The Mexican Army was on the way, along with an armed militia from Austin. Edwards fled back to Louisiana on January 28, 1827. The real-life Republic of Fredonia had lasted all of 42 days. They didn’t even have a chance to choose a national anthem. That might be just as well, though; “Duck Soup” ends when Mrs. Teasdale (Margaret Dumont) begins to sing the national anthem of the fictional Freedonia and gets pelted with fruit.

*Groucho Marx