“Site for court sessions at various times from 1846 to 1870. Capital sentences called for by the courts were carried out immediately, by means of a rope and a convenient limb. Hangings not called for by regular coursts occurred here during the 1857 “cart war”—a series of attacks made by Texas freighters against Mexican drivers along the Indianola-Goliad/San Antonion Road.
About 70 men were killed, some of them on this tree, before the war was halted by Texas Rangers.”
—State Historical Survey Committee Texas Marker near the tree
Last 5 TripAdvisor Reviews of Goliad’s Hanging Tree, as of 6/23/18
Title: Love old court houses (6/20/18)
Review: This hanging tree was just a bonus on the court house square and the history that took place there was moving.
Title: Spooky when you think of the tree’s use! (6/18/18)
Review: One of the sites in Goliad is the hanging tree a beautiful tree which was used to mete out “justice” after trials.
Title: Beauty of a tree (6/19/18)
Review: Well the name sort of says it all, but that is a beautiful tree. The courthouse is a class Texas courthouse, so the day was great.
Title: Interesting in a gruesome kind of way (5/27/18)
Review: This is a huge oak tree outside of the courthouse in Goliad. You really can picture the sentences being carried out.
Title: Huge old live oak tree (5/7/18)
Review: The tree is located in the center of town on the grounds of the county courthouse. The tree has quiet the history.
When convicted, the prisoner was walked outside and hanged from this magnificent live oak tree.
El árbol, No. 10, as a series of narrowing translations:
El que a buen árbol se arrima, buena sombra le cobija. |...| He who nears a good tree, is blanketed by good shade. |...| The one that comes to a good tree, good shadow blankets them. |...| To near the tree, receive a blanket of shadow. |...| To near the tree is to blanket yourself in darkness.
From Borderland Apocrypha (Omnidawn Publishing, 2020) by Anthony Cody. Copyright © 2020 by Anthony Cody. Used with permission of the Permissions Company on behalf of Omnidawn Publishing.
“The office of sheriff is a critical part of the Anglo-American heritage of law enforcement. We must never erode this historic office.”
-Jeff Sessions, former U.S. Attorney General, February 12, 2018 to the National Sheriffs’ Association
1. The inheritance of the heir is never a dandelion disbursal. Scattershot. Floating beyond fences. Growing elsewhere.
2. The inheritance of the elsewhere is a cave of collapse.
3. The cave of collapse is work.
4. The work is never inheritance of the heir’s or of the heir’s heir, as well as the heir’s heir’s heir.
5. The inheritance of repetition is a soundless gavel buried in a shallow grave.
6. The shallow grave is the redness of the bouquet a florist selects.
7. The bouquet is a leaning into the quiet of a funeral.
8. The quiet of a funeral is the Americas.
9. The Americas is a platform, built by the settlers, sheriffs, and miners, for the lynching of the other.
10. The lynching is in a vigilance committee of NAFTA, Operation Wetback, Maquiladoras, ICE, silences, the
agricultural prison industrial complex, congressmen, and US presidents.
11. The silences is a gerrymandering of census data.
12. The census data is learning about the word incarceration through the storytelling project playing on public radio.
13. The incarceration is an ombligo of shirts in a forest of screams.
14. The ombligo is feeding again and never hungry.
15. The feeding is a church of excommunications inside a cage of teeth.
16. The cage of teeth is elected into office.
17. The elected are voting to eliminate whatever and everything.
18. The voting are no longer asking permission.
19. The permission is trafficking.
20. The trafficking is now asked to self-report.
21. The self-report is now asked to fill out a binary form in ink, online.
22. The binary is seeking a fourth option during the election.
23. The election is a wall.
24. The wall is a type of silence.
25. The silence is a type of America.
26. The type of America is in the arrest.
27. The arrest is defined as the cessation or stoppage of motion.
28. The cessation or stoppage of motion is the fabric veiling the artifice.
29. The fabric veiling the artifice is a factory of harps.
30. The factory of harps is a maker of a stringless harp.
31. The stringless harp is the mute progeny.
32. The mute progeny is now the inheritance of the heir.
From Borderland Apocrypha (Omnidawn Publishing, 2020) by Anthony Cody. Copyright © 2020 by Anthony Cody. Used with permission of the Permissions Company on behalf of Omnidawn Publishing.