Come and Take It Day

What the day is

Come and Take It Day is observed on October 6. The phrase is a challenge, offered by people refusing to surrender something, and it has a longer and more specific history than the day's cheerful framing suggests.

Origin and background

The best-documented American use comes from the Texas Revolution. In 1835, Mexican authorities sent soldiers to reclaim a small cannon they had previously lent to settlers at Gonzales for defense against raids. The settlers refused, raised a white flag painted with a black cannon and the words come and take it, and the resulting skirmish on October 2, 1835 is generally counted as the first engagement of the revolution.

The flag survived as an emblem long after the event, and it has been adopted by a range of modern political movements, particularly around firearms, which gives the phrase a contemporary charge it did not have in 1835.

The formula is much older. Ancient sources attribute a version to Leonidas at Thermopylae in 480 BC, answering a Persian demand that the Spartans surrender their weapons with a two-word reply usually rendered as molon labe, come and take them. Like most famous ancient one-liners it was written down long after the fact, and should be treated as tradition rather than transcript.

What has kept the phrase alive across two and a half thousand years is its structure: it refuses without pleading, and it shifts the burden of action to the other side.

How to take part

• Read about the Battle of Gonzales. It is a small engagement with outsized consequences and takes ten minutes to understand.
• Look up molon labe and how the phrase traveled from Thermopylae to Texas.
• Notice where the flag appears today and what it is being used to say. The history and the modern usage are not the same thing.
• If the day appeals as a prompt rather than a history lesson, use it for something you have been hesitant to claim: ask for the raise, submit the application, take the opportunity.