The Alamo. Cross posting here for greater claification of this newly political issue.

[CTyankee]

I have an upcoming meeting with my book producer who has just returned from a conference in San Antonio and had visited the Alamo. He is a republican and I anticipate a discussion about the Alamo.

Let me interject here that I am a 3rd generation Texan who was pretty much instructed to believe that the Alamo was about Texas's freedom from oppression by the Mexican government at the time in history. Since then I have never given it much thought and I now live in blue CT.

I need some help from folks who have a better understanding of this historical battle (and the movie about that battle) and the truth, not the fiction, about it.

[Aristus]

1. Simple. Most of the men who fought at the Alamo were

slave-owners or supporters of slavery. They emigrated to the Mexican province of Texas on invitation of the Mexican government, which wanted to increase their population.

Mexico offered them citizenship if they converted to Catholicism and freed their slaves. They newly dubbed “Texians” didn’t want to convert to Catholicism, and really, really didn’t want to free their slaves.

Mexico sent an Army unit to enforce Mexican law, which prohibited slavery. And the volunteers defending the Texians holed up in the Alamo, and the rest is history.

The people who died at the Alamo weren’t fighting against repression; they were defending the repressive abomination of slavery. They were the villains, not the heroes. The “brave last stand at the Alamo” is literal white-washing.

[3Hotdogs]

2. As I recall, westward expansion included having Americans settling in Texas.

Texas was owned by Mexico. The deal was, settlers were allowed in Mexico, but they were not allowed to have slaves. Mexico outlawed slavery. But the problem was, who were those Mexicans to tell Americans what they can own or do?


Mexican authorities began to enforce the ban on slavery. Now, we can't have that shit going on, can we?

Edited to ad: The guy above, said it prettier than me.

[TwilightZone]

3. With the addition of Phil Collins' huge collection, the museum wants to tell a more complete story.

https://www.tpr.org/san-antonio/2023-03-03/alamo-invites-public-to-view-artifacts-assess-its-pledge-to-tell-diverse-story

Attempts have been made over the years to introduce more historical accuracy, with varying levels of success. This will be the most ambitious.

It's not "newly political". These efforts - and the arguments around them - have been ongoing for decades.

[Vogon_Glory]

4. It's lovely to believe that the men in the Alamo were

all slave-owning white bigots (which most of them were) and that the Texans only revolted to protect their slaves.

That would be false. During the 1835-36 time period, Santa Ana was consolidating political power under an authoritarian central government led by him.

The men who attacked the Alamo had busied themselves earlier that year and before squashing regional revolts by other Mexican rebels and massacring the survivors of losing battles of those who fought to resist. Santa Ana’s army had earlier squashed rebellion in Mexico’s Zacatecas state. FYI, Zacatecas is notably non-Anglo and is and was non-English speaking.

Too many progressives and Latino activists try to recast Santa Ana as some sort of proto-Juarez. That Santa Ana was not. He was an authoritarian strongman allied with Mexico’s wealthy and landowning classes. When the great Benito Juarez overthrew the conservatives in 1857, Santa Ana was NOT invited to return from exile.

I like the idea of Latino heroes. I admire Benito Juarez. I admire many Mexican presidents. But Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana ain’t one of them and IMO doesn’t deserve to be.

[CTyankee]

5. Thanks! I wish I had a copy of my textbook from the public school I was attending where I was taught this. It was

named the Stephen J. Hay School. I wonder if it is still there...

[Vogon_Glory]

6. It might not have done you that much good

Mexican history is a topic usually ignored in high school curricula, despite the fact that the US shares a long land border with the Mexican republic.

The effects of the long, bloody Mexican Revolution of 1910 are another topic likely to be slighted in American primary and secondary school. While many “Anglos” might know why their forebears left Ireland, Germany and the former Austrian and Russian empires during this time period, most of them either don’t have a clue that the Mexicans had a revolution at this time or just how bloody and devastating it was. Millions of people left. And no, they didn’t leave just to pick cotton or work in California’s orange groves. They left because their lives and safety were in danger or because they were starving.

That the Mexican Revolution was bloodier than the Irish uprising or what happened in the former Hungarian party of the Austrian Empire isn’t a thought that entered their pretty little heads. It still hasn’t, and probably won’t, (no) thanks to the reactionaries that hold Texas and other states with large Latino minorities (Or pluralities!) by the throat.

[CTyankee]

7. In Dallas in the 50s I was in a white bubble, not rich but privileged (largely at the expense of Mexicans and African

Americans). I left to go to school (Carnegie Mellon, then Carnegie Institute of Technology) and never went back to live there again. I moved to NYC and got married to a Harvard man who basically thought all Texans were dumb shits. I had 3 kids with this man before I divorced his pompous ass. Now happily remarried and living in CT.

You weren't supposed to leave Texas (in fact, I know one fellow Texan who recalls thinking he literally couldn't leave Texas when he was a kid!).

Texas is diverse, in fact if not in equality. I think it is only a matter of time until justice is served there (or I hope so).

[LeftInTX]

9. An overwhelming number of people in San Antonio came during the MX Revolution

Three of my husband's grandparents came here during that time.

One had a job in MX with Southern Pacific and got a job here. (Ironically his parents were married in San Antonio, but he was born and raised in Monterrey) His GGF also worked for SP in MX. His paternal grandmother was born on the border (MX) in a town eventually submerged by Falcon lake.


The other GF was a migrant laborer who eventually married a woman who was born here.
That grandmother had relatives who came from MX in the 2nd half of the 19th Century. Those relatives were scattered about from NM to San Antonio, but eventually some settled in San Antonio. Not much is known about their history, because records of them in both the US and MX are scant.

All of his great grandparents also came to the US.

[joshdawg]

8. Find and read "Lone Star" by

T.R. Fehrenbach. An excellent history. Should be a textbook, imo.