Forget the Alamo

History has seen more than its share of distortion. Myths and misconceptions have sprung up that many people now take as fact. However, historical interpretation must be based on evidence, which in many cases is either lacking or contradictory. The perpetuation of the myth of the Alamo is a dishonest exploitation of history. Myths are powerful because they say things people want to believe.

Mexico owned Texas, plain and simple. For those of you in the slow section, that means Texas was Mexican land. Mexican hospitality (and naivety) in initially allowing Americans to settle in Texas was met with a huge influx of slave-owning settlers whose constitution stated that "all men are created equal" - that is, of course, unless you were black, or Native American or Mexican. The Texans living there were colonists who’d agreed to a contract with Mexico. And then they decided they didn’t have to live up to their end of the deal; that they could just decide the land was theirs.

As the United States expanded west, land got more expensive. The Austin family under an agreement with Spain and then Mexico, offered land in sparsely-populated Texas for 1/10th of what it was selling for in the US, and under better terms. Payment could be extended over years. The Mexican constitution of 1824 granted rights to these newcomers, and they prospered. As Santa Anna came to power, and suspended the constitution of 1824, the Texians and their Tejano neighbors revolted. All Mexicans and American immigrants who wished to remain in Mexico were required to be Catholic and slavery was severely restricted. More on that later. Also, the amount of land an immigrant could hold was drastically reduced. By 1835, militias were being organized to defend the rights granted by the old constitution. Santa Anna declared recalcitrant immigrants as "pirates,"  The Texians were promised something, and it was taken away from them. But it's important to remember that the vast majority of Americans and Europeans flooding into Texas were doing so after Santa Anna had suspended the constitution. They were illegal aliens, and as they came with arms, they could also be considered an invading force.


Not only did the Mexican government offer land grants to any person or family who agreed to settle in Texas; it also, under the Mexican Constitution of 1824, guaranteed that newcomers would pay no taxes for at least seven years. And to sweeten the deal, Mexico—despite having abolished slavery in the republic—would allow Anglo settlers to bring along with them any slaves they already held.

Historian H.W. Brands has written, the Battle of the Alamo’s “contribution to the strategy of the Texas Revolution was nil or negative.” At best, it was “a military mistake of mythic proportions.” The defenders of the Alamo had no idea that Texas declared its independence from Mexico on March 2, 1836. The assault on the Alamo began on Feb. 23, 1836, and the fort finally fell on March 6, 1836.  Nevertheless, the Alamo garrison was in favour of independence and fully expected the delegates to secede from Mexico.  Texas’ Declaration of Independence would not have surprised them — it was what they desired and expected.

 There were many native Texans – Mexican nationals referred to as Tejanos – who joined the movement and fought every bit as bravely as their Anglo companions. It is estimated that of the nearly 200 defenders who died at the Alamo, about a dozen were Tejanos dedicated to the cause of independence, or at least restoration of the 1824 constitution. While the Tejanos were defending their homes against what they saw as a despotic ruler. These are only ones who could legitimately call themselves revolutionaries were Mexicans who lived in Texas and wanted to separate from Mexico – and about whom you seldom hear a word when it comes to remembering those who lost their lives at The Alamo. Most of the men at the Alamo were illegal aliens. James Crisp, a historian at North Carolina State University says some were Americans paid by New Orleans merchants who saw the potential for big profits if the state seceded. Out that of the 187 men who fought during the battle “only thirteen were native-born Texans. Although most of the province’s inhabitants were Anglo colonists, hundreds of Mexican-born Tejanos supported the cause and fought for it.

The fact that Tejanos died fighting the central government of Santa Anna at the Alamo was generally ignored in the historical and popular literature on the battle before the 1950s. Earlier writers tended to share Travis’ opinion of the Hispanic residents of San Antonio de Béxar: “The citizens of this municipality are all our enemies, except those who have joined us heretofore. We have three Mexicans now in the fort; those who have not joined us in this extremity should be declared public enemies, and their property should aid in paying the expenses of the war.” Juan Seguín, commander of a Tejano company at the fort and a captain in the Texas army, rode into the Alamo with Travis. On the night of February 25, accompanied by aide Antonio Cruz y Arocha, Seguín made a daring ride through the encircling Mexicans to carry a message from Travis to General Sam Houston. After delivering his message, Seguín raised another company of 25 Tejanos and hurried to Cíbolo Creek, planning to rendezvous with Colonel James Fannin’s men from Goliad and march with them to the Alamo. But Fannin never came. Seguín waited impatiently as time ran out for the Alamo defenders. On April 21 he fought heroically at San Jacinto, the decisive battle of the Texas Revolution. Later as Texas became flooded with adventurous and land-hungry North Americans who were unfamiliar with the native Texans' history and their support of Texas. Seguin's loyalty was challenged by these newcomers. False charges that he was aiding the Mexican army proved too much to bear. He fled to Mexico to "seek refuge amongst my enemies," where he was captured, arrested and coerced to enlist in the Mexican army as a staff officer. Later Hispanics woul be subject to persecution through what can be described as Juan Crow laws

According to legend, fort commander William Travis drew a line in the sand with his sword and asked all of the defenders who were willing to fight to the death to cross it: only one man refused. Legendary frontiersman Jim Bowie, suffering from a debilitating illness, asked to be carried over the line. This famous story shows the dedication of the Texans to fight for their freedom. The only problem? It probably didn’t happen. The first time the story appeared in print was some 40 years after the battle, and has never been corroborated. Although the idea that the Alamo defenders refused even to contemplate surrender is an article of faith for many people, Crisp says “it is just a myth that they pledged to die no matter what. That’s the myth that is pervasive in the Fess Parker and John Wayne versions. But these were brave guys, not stupid ones.”

Jim Bowie's reason for emigrating to Texas was simple: he was running from the law. Shortly after the War of 1812, he and his brother Rezin went into business as slave traders with the pirate Jean Lafitte. In the 1820’s they used their profits from the slave trade to become land speculators and eventually established a sugar plantation with slave labour in Louisiana. Ten years later they sold that business, and the 82 slaves who worked on it. Bowie took his share of the profits and went to “Texas” to join Stephen F. Austin’s group of Anglo colonists. He then became involved in a scheme to fraudulently acquire land grants from the Mexican government and ultimately garnered thousands of acres of land.


Texas has a very bad history when it comes to race, but slavery is just a part of the story of the birth of Texas. Slavery was indeed a part of the reason Texas wanted to secede from Mexico. There's barely a mention of slavery at the Alamo today, but many of those who went to Texas in the 1830s were pro-slavery, and intended to uphold the institution. At all times until the end of the American Civil War, Texas was strongly in favor of slavery. One need only read the Constitution of the Republic of Texas to see how important slavery was. Section 9 of the General Provisions of the Constitution of Texas addresses the greatest qualm fighters for the Texas Revolution had living under Mexican rule.

It stated:

“All persons of color who were slaves for life previous to their emigration to Texas, and who are now held in bondage, shall remain in the like state of servitude … Congress shall pass no laws to prohibit emigrants from bringing their slaves into the republic with them, and holding them by the same tenure by which such slaves were held in the United States; nor shall congress have power to emancipate slaves; nor shall any slaveholder be allowed to emancipate his or her slave or slaves…no free person of African descent either in whole or in part shall be permitted to reside permanently in the Republic without the consent of Congress...All persons, (African, the descendants of Africans and Indians excepted,) who were residing in Texas on the day of the Declaration of Independence shall be considered citizens of the Republic and entitled to all the privileges of such.”

Not only was slavery legal, it became illegal to free slaves. And those freed slaves who already lived there had virtually all their rights revoked. If they were ever found guilty of a crime, they were slaves once again. What's more, the few Indians living in Texas were also denied citizenship. There is much irony in people claiming to fight on behalf of lost rights subsequently removing the rights of others. But to say The Alamo was only about slavery is to go a little too far. It was much more about land-grabbing. Unlike Confederates, who explicitly said they were fighting for slavery (despite the bogus “state’s rights” argument dreamed up years after the end of the Civil War), the Texan insurgents were more interested in local autonomy.


There were only 2,000 to 3,000 slaves in Texas, and the issue was not a major factor in the rebellion. Mexico had abolished slavery in 1829, causing panic among the Texas slaveholders. They sent Stephen Austin to Mexico City to complain. Austin was able to wrest from the Mexican authorities an exemption for the department -- Texas was technically a department of the state of Coahuila y Tejas -- that would allow the vile institution to continue. But it was an exemption reluctantly given, mainly because the authorities wanted to avoid rebellion in Texas when they already had problems in Yucatán and Guatemala. All of the leaders of Mexico, in itself only an independent country since 1821, were personally opposed to slavery, in part because of the influence of emissaries from the freed slave republic of Haiti. The exemption was, in their minds, a temporary measure and Texas slaveholders knew that. Once the rebels succeeded in breaking Texas away from Mexico and establishing an independent republic, slavery took off as an institution. Between 1836 and 1840, the slave population doubled; it doubled again by 1845; and it doubled still again by 1850 after annexation by the United States. On the eve of the Civil War, which Texas would enter as a part of the Confederacy, there were 182,566 slaves, nearly one-third of the state’s population. Mexico demanded that the settlers produce corn, grain and beef and dictated which crops each settler would plant and harvest. Texian's wanted to grow cotton, which was in high demand throughout Europe - and the needed slavery for that.

When the actual battle for the Alamo started on March 6th, it was short, and took place at dawn while most of the defenders were sleeping. Some say the battle lasted only 30 minutes, others stretch that to 90 minutes or two hours. Texians exaggerated Mexican casualties while Santa Anna under-reported them. A sizeable fraction, half or better probably, of Mexican casualties (which totalled around 300) were friendly-fire casualties, from the untrained Mexican infantry firing blindly, from the hip, in the dark, into the backs of their countrymen.



The Alamo was portrayed as a race war between Mexicans on one side and American settlers thirsting for freedom on the other so to continue the persecution of Mexican-Americans