"We’ve Been Telling the Alamo Story Wrong ..." Topic

…for Nearly 200 Years. Now It's Time to Correct the Record

"magine if the U.S. were to open interior Alaska for colonization and, for whatever reason, thousands of Canadian settlers poured in, establishing their own towns, hockey rinks and Tim Hortons stores. When the U.S. insists they follow American laws and pay American taxes, they refuse. When the government tries to collect taxes, they shoot and kill American soldiers. When law enforcement goes after the killers, the colonists, backed by Canadian financing and mercenaries, take up arms in open revolt.

As an American, how would you feel? Now you can imagine how Mexican President Antonio López de Santa Anna would have felt in 1835, because that's pretty much the story of the revolution that paved the way for Texas to become its own nation and then an American state…"

Main page

link

Armand

And so, for this storyline, let's ignore the dictatorial actions of Santa Ana towards the Texan settlers. The initial fight was to return to the Mexican Constitution of 1824. But that was ignored by Santa Ana, who continued his tyrannical ways. Things went south from there!

Poor Mexico, so far from God, so close the United States.

Starting a serious examination by citing hypotheticals and making assumptions is a very poor approach.
Bashing a Hollywood script as a measure of contradiction to an Anglo-position is also a pathetic approach.
Many scholars agree that Crocket was executed by firing a quad but that is only an aside.
The real focus should be on Santa Anna. Santa Anna had used Texan Filibuster units to fight several attempts to by various Generals prior to 1830.
Santa Anna had been on campaign in the south. Fighting separatist Native tribes. His execution of the Golid troops and soldiers found on impounded ships on the coast. The idea that the Americans put him back in power after his capture. Was bad.
The first of many American mistakes in foreign diplomacy.

I don't think he went back to power then. He had been overthrown while still being held prisoner by Texas and then in the US. US didn't put him back into power until during the Mex-Am War.

+1 Major Dundee.

Bunkermeister

But was Davy Crocket there in his hat?!

Tally Ho!

Santa Anna was a gift to the Texas cause – if he been a better general – or, if for example José de Urrea had been in overall command – the US/Mexican border would be a lot further north

Santa Anna discovered the hard way that violating the Constitution had consequences. Let that be a cautionary tale…

Hmm, could it be you are talking about someone who said he never took an oath to defend the Constitution while being president perhaps?

Thanks.

Armand

"But was Davy Crocket there in his hat?!"

Of course. He wore it to conceal his wild front ear.

I know you guys are joking but during the Creek War in Alabama, he was a hunter/ scout and wore a wide brim sleuth hat. Many of the Tennessee troops wore the top hat but he wore the sleuth hat. Skin caps lacked any protective brim so was not popular on campaign.
So I am hesitant to say that he wore a skin cap at the Alamo.

I own a classic coonskin cap and wear it with comfort and warmth in the winter. Raccoon fur is thick and water resistant. I can attest that it is very good protection in cold weather, properly made it covers the ears and the tail hanging behind gives cover to the back of the neck. You could even put a frontal brim on it if so inclined.

There are eyewitness accounts of Crockett departing from his home and also at stops en route to San Antonio that describe him in hunting clothes and indeed, the coonskin cap that has become his trademark. All this traveling and then the siege of the Alamo taking place in the winter, a coonskin cap would have made perfect, practical sense. Survivor Susanna Dickinson's seeing Crockett's body after death (and she always indicated he'd fallen during the fighting, not executed afterward) with his "peculiar cap" by his side supports this.

Returning to Armand's original post, I will only note that the Alamo story is complex and often misunderstood, romanticized, mythologized, criticized, and demonized. It's not simple, even though many amateur writers and commentators try to simplify it and fail to understand the context of those times, those individuals, and the verifiable historical facts. At the same time, there is much that is unknown about those events that can only be surmised, but not proven. It's easy for someone to make a big splash about declaring a new twist to the received wisdom, challenging convention, or proposing a revisionist hypothesis. Historians will continue debating forever, but new discoveries keep being made and Alamo scholarship in the past generations has never been better. Lots of excellent new books out there! And plenty of diligent researchers who don't attract as much attention as the sensationalists and propagandists.

PS: For a start, it's wrong to imply that all the Alamo defenders were slave holders or even pro-slavery. Those men came from all sorts of places, Southern states, Northern states, some were born in Europe and some were native Tejanos. Most had not been in Texas very long and most were ordinary farmers, laborers, tradesmen -- no plantation owners among them unless you count a few of the Tejanos like Juan Seguin who came from established landowning, rancher families. Dr. Amos Pollard, the surgeon of the Alamo garrison, was himself a New Yorker and an ardent abolitionist, documented in surviving letters he wrote to friends and family. So the Texians of 1836 were far from a monolithic pseudo-Confederacy.

Men like Travis (a lawyer) and Bowie (a famous adventurer,land agent, smuggler, and rogue), or Austin (impressario) who were slave owners, were atypical.

Thanks also…

Some years ago I translate for a thread here the memories in spanish of one Mexican Officer who was there…. very interesting to know the other side opinion…

Armand

True Pipper,

Plus defenders also included Blacks and Hispanics. Not jus white Southerners.

African Americans en the Alamo… were not only slaves and survive because of that?… the Mexican didn't kill or accepted slaves…

Armand

In regards to Mexicans and slavery, you need to check their history against the Native Americans of the region. Being, tied to the local land and not allowed to move was a Slav tactic.
Santa Anna was attacking Native tribes in the south that same year.

Who gave the Indians good treatment?… any European power nor any new "American" citizens …

Slaves is other thing…

Armand

Manifest destiny. 'Nuff said.

The US would have taken Texas eventually (and soon) whether the Mexicans had succeeded in their ethnic cleansing of Texas or not. It was empty land -- Bexar had barely a thousand residents -- and yes, manifest Destiny.

And any narrative needs to take into account Lorenzo de Zavala. Who WROTE the Mexican constitution of 1824, that SA overthrew, then helped write the Texas constitution and served briefly as Texas' Vice-president.

link