Click on the photo for complete transcription. 2023 A&E Television Networks, LLC. Texas State Historical Association (TSHA) Some men reportedly deserted the Alamo and ran off in the days before the battle. So, he set out to tell the story of the Alamo, a story that, he believes, belongs to all of us through the diversity of its defenders. The only person spared in the retaking of the Alamo was Joe, the personal slave of William Travis. Meanwhile, issues of race and slavery at the Alamo remain unresolved. A popular telling of the battle holds that in early 1836 a small group of brave Texans defended the mission-fort known as the Alamo against thousands of Mexican soldiers, knowing it meant certain death. But no one knows exactly how Joe got there. Rather, what is surprising is that some men snuck into the Alamo in the days before the fatal attack. He observed a grand review of the Mexican army before being interrogated by Santa Anna about Texas and its army. Two and a half million people visit the Alamo each year where, according to its website, men made the ultimate sacrifice for freedom, making it hallowed ground and the Shrine of Texas Liberty.. Davy Crockett, a famous frontiersman and former U.S. congressman, was the highest-profile defender to fall at the Alamo. Almeron Dickinson and her infant daughter, Angelina: Dickinson later reported the fall of the post to Sam Houston in Gonzales. 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. As a part of that debate, which has been ongoing since the publication of the 1619 Project, the nation's founding has come under the most scrutiny. Mexican dictator and general Antonio Lpez de Santa Anna won the Battle of the Alamo, taking back the city of San Antonio and putting the Texans on notice that the war would be one without quarter. This tense situation was resolved by three events: the advance of a common enemy (the Mexican army), the arrival of the charismatic and famous Davy Crockett (who proved very skilled at defusing the tension between Travis and Bowie), and Bowie's illness just before the battle. Come or go, buy or sell, drunk or sober, or however they choose." It is the third largest country in Latin America and has one of the largest populationsmore than 100 millionmaking it the home of more Spanish speakers than any other read more, From the stone cities of the Maya to the might of the Aztecs, from its conquest by Spain to its rise as a modern nation, Mexico boasts a rich history and cultural heritage spanning more than 10,000 years. More information is available at http://escapefromtexas.com. On how Mexican Americans were largely written out of Texas history. At a time when newsroom resources and revenue across the country are declining, The Texas Tribune remains committed to sustaining our mission: creating a more engaged and informed Texas with every story we cover, every event we convene and every newsletter we send. There were four people enslaved at the Alamo where we know their names : Joe and Bettie (enslaved by William Travis); "Tom", who may have been Bowie's servant, and "Charlie", about whom nothing is known. The Legacy of Slavery. "It was the thing that the two sides had been arguing about and shooting about for going on 15 years. A woman named Andrea Castan Villanueva, better known as Madam Candelaria, later made a career of claiming to be a survivor of the Alamo, but many historians doubt her story. Some controversy and debate has surrounded the exact number and their identity, but most were wives, children, servants and slaves whom the Alamos defenders had brought with them into the mission for safety after Santa Annas troops occupied San Antonio. That left at least $200 million to be raised through donations. And the Alamo is more than just a battle of 13 daysit was a Spanish mission for more than 100 years before it became a fort. "There is a definite, deliberate attempt in mainstream Texas history to start Texas history in 1836, with the arrival of the anglos," Joe Lopez, a columnist for the Rio Grande Guardian, told Fusion. As the Alamo was under siege in March 1836, the convention of Texans that voted for independence selected Houston as commander-in-chief of . Now, neither we nor the academic authors who first found this say that this means anybody was a coward. Joe escaped to Mexico on two stolen horses. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/facts-about-the-battle-of-the-alamo-2136256. During the first couple of days, however, Santa Anna made no attempt to seal the exits from the Alamo and the town: the defenders could very easily have slipped away in the night if they had so desired. he Alamo Cenotaph, also known as the Spirit of Sacrifice, is a monument in San Antonio, Texas, United States, commemorating the Battle of the Alamo, which was fought at the adjacent Alamo Mission. It was just that the place was overrun. The first time the story appeared in print was in 1888, in Anna Pennybackers' "New History for Texas Schools." In point of fact, there's large disagreement about how many men Travis commanded at the fort, anywhere from 182-250. Its a common misconception that the Texans who rose up against Mexico were all settlers from the U.S. who decided on independence. On April 15, the city council voted to go forward with a new plan that leases much of the plaza to the state for at least 50 years and leaves the Cenotaph in place. As more slaves came into the Republic of Texas, more escaped to Mexico. Between 1795 and 1801, 385 payments were made to the owners of African American enslaved people. https://www.tshaonline.org, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/joe. A United Nations committee is expected to announce this weekend whether the Alamo will receive UNESCO World Heritage status, putting it in the same league as Stonehenge, the Taj Mahal, and the Statue of Liberty. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Bridget Bentz and Molly Seavy-Nesper adapted it for the web. Santa Anna's Mexican army killed virtually all of the roughly 200 Texans (or Texians) defending the Alamo, including their leaders, Colonels William B. Travis and James Bowie, and the legendary. And while the entire defending force was annihilated in the final assault and its aftermath, Joe survived, and his accounts of the siege and final battle form the basis of much of what we know about the Alamo from inside the fort. The Mexican government, for its part, encouraged the slave runaways, often with offers of land as well as freedom. "Slavery was the undeniable linchpin of all of this," author Bryan Burrough says. Recognition willget more people to read the actual history of the Alamo instead of the awful Hollywood myths.. battle cry while fighting against Mexican forces. Even though the Texans were fighting against a certain kind of tyranny, they were also fighting for an independent republic where slavery was legal, Crisp told Fusion. The 4.2-acre site includes some original structures dating back to the mission period. The story, and the heroismof frontiersman Davy Crockett, was mythologized in movies and taught to schoolchildren. It is the countrys economic and cultural hub, as well as home to the offices of the federal government. One of the points that often gets lost amid the flag-waving and coonskin caps is that by the time of the Texas Revolution, Mexico had abolished slavery, and Texas hadn't. Because Joe could speak Spanish, he was able to be interrogated afterward. Its one of the most famous historic places in the world, he said. ThoughtCo, May. One of the points that often gets lost amid the flag-waving and coonskin caps is that by the time of the Texas Revolution, Mexico had abolished slavery, and Texas hadn't. Martin Perfecto de Cos at Bexar arrived in late 1835 and put the Alamo into "fort fashion" by building a dirt ramp up to the top rear of the church wall and covering it with planks. The 1793 law enforced Article IV, Section 2, of the U.S. Constitution in authorizing any federal district judge or circuit court judge, or any state magistrate . But three writers, all Texans, say the common narrative of the Texas revolt overlooks the fact that it was waged in part to ensure slavery would be preserved. If they want to bring up that it was about slavery, or say that the Alamo defenders were racist, or anything like that, they need to take their rear ends over the state border and get the hell out of Texas, said Brandon Burkhart, president of the This is Freedom Texas Force, a conservative group that held an armed protest last year in Alamo Plaza. Todd Hansen, editor of The Alamo Reader, found an account of Bettie staying with the Mexican troops at first, but later working as a servant and fleeing to Mexico to avoid being enslaved again in Texas. If you change your mind, you can easily unsubscribe. Joe was sold four times in his life, with his most well known owner being William B. Travis, [1] a 19th century lawyer and soldier, who would later be the lieutenant colonel for The Battle of the Alamo. Handbook of Texas Online, Joe claimed that when Gen. Antonio Lpez deSanta Anna's troops stormed the Alamo on March 6, 1836, he armed himself and followed Travis from his quarters into the battle, fired his gun, then retreated into a building from which he fired several more times. The small (63 feet wide and 33 feet tall) adobe structure known as the Alamo was started in 1727 as a stone and mortar church for the Spanish Catholic Mission San Antonio de Valero. Every other day they send off these plaintive, dramatic letters asking for reinforcement that, by and large, never came. The main economic drivers in the states central valley region are agriculture and livestock breeding. Estimates of the number of enslaved people today range from around 38 million [1] to 46 million, [2] [3] depending on the method used to form the estimate and the definition of . Historians estimate that one million slaves were taken in a . It was rebuilt by Maj. E. B. Babbitt in 1854, but then the Civil Warinterrupted. It's just that not everyone inside the Alamo died that day. The story of the Alamo has been central to the "whole Texas creation myth," Burrough says. A hearty man of six feet, Bowie was a walking contradiction; a slave trader who fought for freedom, a generous and congenial man who had his thunderous temper, and a commanding leader . All Rights Reserved. The attack on the Alamo in 1836 was not a 13-day siege and slaughter as often portrayed in film and television. "Republic. 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Lack, "Slavery and the Texas Revolution," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 89 (July 1985). May 10, 202110 AM Central. Every penny counts! Along the way they crossed paths with another survivor, a man named Joe, who had been William Travis slave. Under the plan, the Cenotaph would be moved 500 feet south and deposited in front of the historic Menger Hotel. Meanwhile, the Alamo had been under siege for days, and it fell early on March 6, with the defenders never knowing that independence had been formally declared a few days before. Share your thoughts about this episode on Twitter at: @MandoFun and on our Facebook group. The reality is a lot more complicated, says James Crisp, a historian at North Carolina State University whos written a book about the myths and the reality of the Alamo. I like the sound of the word," John Wayne's Davy Crockett lectures Laurence Harvey as William Travis in The Alamo. by Richard Webner, The Washington Post Visitors walk around the outside of the Alamo in San Antonio. They also established the nearby military garrison of San Antonio de Bxar, which soon became the center of a settlement known as San Fernando de Bxar (later renamed San Antonio). Though exact numbers do not exist, as many slaves may have escaped to Mexico as escaped through the more famous underground railway to Canada. And of course, it doesn't happen. I can truly say that I hate that place and everything it stands for.. Santa Annas army arrived in San Antonio in late February1836. James W. Russell, University Professor of Sociology at Eastern Connecticut State University, is the author most recently of Escape from Texas: A Novel of Slavery and the Texas War of Independence. "use strict";(function(){var insertion=document.getElementById("citation-access-date");var date=new Date().toLocaleDateString(undefined,{month:"long",day:"numeric",year:"numeric"});insertion.parentElement.replaceChild(document.createTextNode(date),insertion)})(); FACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. These days, Trevio wonders whether the city would have been better off redoing Alamo Plaza on its own. But he adds it's past time to look critically at the "heroic Anglo narrative" associated with the site. For many years afterward, the U.S. Army quartered troops and stored supplies at the Alamo. This is their journey. They and the Daughters of the Republic of Texas started a movement to rebuild the monument to its 1836 configuration. But city and state leaders are optimistic that the site will be recognized. Casey Tolan is a National News Reporter for Fusion based in New York City. There were 41 Europeans, two African Americans, and the rest were Americans from states in the United States. A notice offering fifty dollars for his return was published by the executor of Travis's estate in the Telegraph and Texas Register on May 26, 1837. Portrait of Jim Bowie, circa 1820. In early April 1836, Santa Anna had the structural elements of the Alamo burned, and the site was left in ruins for the next several decades, as Texas became first a republic, then a state. Thats where attorney-turned-author Lewis Cook picked up the story. Phil Rosenthal and Bill Groneman, Roll Call at the Alamo (Fort Collins, Colorado: Old Army, 1985). The Alamo has been commemorated on everything from postage stamps to the 1960 film The Alamo starring John Wayne as Davy Crockett. It's generally believed that Joe left Texas to return to Travis's family in Alabama and lived with them for many years. But then you have to understand: The Texas revolt, for 150 years, was largely ignored by academics, in part because it was considered dclass, it was considered provincial, and because the state government of Texas, much as they're doing now, has for 120, 130 years, made very clear to the University of Texas faculty and to the faculty of other state-funded universities that it only wants one type of Texas history taught and that if you get outside those boundaries, you're going to hear about it from the Legislature. 4. A central goal of independence would be to remove that uncertainty. How much did 1776 have to do with race and . Older slaves were. There was a problem with that, though. The story runs, that this one man, Rose by name, who refused to step over the line, did make his escape that night. By the time of annexation a decade later, there were 30,000; by 1860, the census found 182,566 slaves -- over 30% of the total population of the state. Its one-room exhibit space can hold only a fraction of key artifacts. The original plan, announced in 2017, called for repairing the Alamo, fixing up the plaza and building a world-class museum for artifacts, including a collection donated by rock musician Phil Collins, an Alamo enthusiast. But as the smoke cleared after the bloody battle, around 15 survivors of the battle on the Texan side remained. But it was an exemption reluctantly given, mainly because the authorities wanted to avoid rebellion in Texas when they already had problems in Yucatn and Guatemala. In 1845, the United States annexed Texas. About this time it was renamed the Alamo ("cottonwood" in Spanish), after the Spanish military company that occupied it. In his book, Cook tells a different story from what is commonly told in textbooks, film, and TV shows. They had been kidnapped from their homes and were forced to work on tobacco, rice, and indigo plantations from Maryland . In early 1836, a small group of Texas volunteers at the Alamo held off the Mexican army for 13 days before being defeated (and executed). It represented a rare alliance between the states Republican leadership and one of its more liberal cities, with San Antonio committing $38 million to the budget and the state of Texas pitching in $106 million. Matamoros in the 1840s had a large and flourishing colony of ex-slaves from Texas and the United States. It fits in nicely with a narrative that the United States has always been and continues to be dedicated to principles like individual responsibility and freedom. Texas became an independent republic, and nine years later, it was annexed as an American state. Texas State Historical Association (TSHA). Nearly half of the board members of the nonprofit raising funds for the Alamo renovation resigned in protest raising doubts about where the rest of money would come from. The mayor of San Antonio, however, claimed to have seen Crockett dead among the other defenders, and he had met Crockett before the battle. William F. Gray reported that Joe impressed those present with the modesty, candor, and clarity of his account. He attacked on March 6, 1836, overrunning the approximately 200 defenders in less than two hours. In December of 1835, a group of Texan volunteer soldiers had occupied the Alamo, a former Franciscan mission located near the present-day city of San Antonio. There can be no doubt that the symbolism of the Alamo is at the center of the creation myth of Texas: that the state was forged out of a heroic struggle for freedom against a cruel Mexican dictator, Santa Ana. (2021, May 22). He was listed as a resident of Harrisburg in May 1833. We need your support because we are a non-profit organization that relies upon contributions from our community in order to record and preserve the history of our state. Some Texians and Tejanos wanted the federalist constitution back, some wanted centralist control to be based in Mexico: That was the main basis for the turmoil in Texas, not independence. Sign up for The Brief, our daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news. BestsellerThe Barista Express grinds, foams milk, and produces the silkiest espresso at the perfect temperature. Meanwhile, Alamo Plaza became a focus of San Antonios Black Lives Matter protests. After the battle, Santa Anna sent Susanna and Angelina to Sam Houstons camp in Gonzales, accompanied by one of his servants and carrying a letter of warning intended for Houston. Pennybacker included a later often-quoted speech by Travis, with a footnote reporting that "Some unknown author has written the following imaginary speech of Travis." Both of those stories are way overly simplistic.. "15 Facts About the Battle of the Alamo." Protests have become less common in the past few decades, as the city made an effort to include more of the contested histories in its educational material. The Alamo was originally a Spanish mission but was turned into a fort for Spanish soldiers. The Tap Pilam Coahuiltecan Nation, an Indigenous group, is still fighting to have the complex treated as a cemetery and to tell the story of the Indigenous people buried there, said Ramn Vsquez, one of its leaders. Santa Anna. A popular historical anecdote is the design of the famous M1 carbine by convicted murderer David Marshall Williams. accessed March 04, 2023, The Mexican government was opposed to slavery, but even so, there were 5000 slaves in Texas by the time of the Texas Revolution in 1836. The 1836 battle for the Alamo is remembered as a David vs. Goliath story. Part of the narrative of the 1836 Battle of the Alamo is that the defenders were there to liberate Texas from the tyranny of Mexico. What Happened To The Slaves At The Alamo. But those plans have always presented logistical challenges the Alamo is owned by the state, while the adjoining plaza is owned by the city as well as ideological ones. History Early History Even without trying, people of color tended to fade into the obscurity of history. As a nation we're finally reexamining that narrative and acknowledging that it's all very well and good, as far as it goes, but for too long it hasn't gone far enough. The battle cry of remember the Alamo later became popular during the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848. The Texans held out for 13 days, but on the morning of March 6 Mexican forces broke through a breach in the outer wall of the courtyard and overpowered them. Although Texas declared itself an independent republic in 1836, the Mexican state did not recognize Texas until the signing of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848. Private Visions, Public Culture: The Making of the Alamo, San Fernando Cathedral and the Alamo: Sacred Place, Public Ritual, and Construction of Meaning. and the Mexican army defended it in the battle of December 1835, when it was further damaged. The Barista Express grinds, foams milk, and produces the silkiest espresso at the perfect temperature. . The day after the council vote, Nirenberg appeared with Bush and Patrick in Alamo Plaza to unveil a new exhibit with a replica of a cannon that fired upon the Mexican army. After the battle, Mexican troops searched the buildings within the Alamo and called for any Blacks to reveal themselves. But conservative groups rallied in armed protest and turned up at public meetings chanting Not one inch!, State leaders took up the cause, including Lt. Gov. Many of the defenders of the Alamo believed in independence for Texas, but their leaders had not declared independence from Mexico yet. Every day during the siege, the defenders of the Alamo looked for Fannin and his men but they never arrived. Juana Navarro Alsbury, the adopted sister of Bowies wife and the niece of Texian leader Jos Antonio Navarro, survived the battle with her young son and her sister, Gertrudis. Many myths and legends have grown about the Battle of the Alamo, but the facts often give a different account. Afterward, they fortified the Alamo, a fortress-like former mission in the center of town. The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all . After the Alamo battle, the soldiers under Sam Houston's command were the only obstacle between Santa Anna's attempt to reincorporate Texas into Mexico. Don't get me wrong - the defenders of the mission-turned-fortress were killed en masse as Mexican troops stormed the structure. Immigrants to Texas usually came from the South and brought slaves with them to work their agricultural enterprises, says History News Network, but if slavery was outlawed? Julin Castro and Jorge Ramos Team Up to Destroy Joe Biden on Immigration, Oh My Lord What a Shockingly Ruthless Attack on Joe Biden, Breville Barista Express Espresso Machine, Trump Pulls a Charlottesville and Says He Hates All Kinds of 'Supremacy'. The Tejanos, who were the Texians' key allies and a number of which fought and died at the Alamo, were entirely written out of generations of Texas history [as it was] written by Anglo writers. explicitly said they were fighting for slavery. Their accounts provided much of the backbone of what was known about the Alamo. By 1835, there were 30,000 Anglo-Americans (called Texians) in Texas, and only 7,800 Texas-Mexicans (Tejanos). These defenders, who despite later reinforcements never numbered more than 200, included Davy Crockett, the famous frontiersman and former congressman from Tennessee, who had arrived in early February. The social, economic, and legal positions of enslaved people have differed vastly in different systems of slavery in different times and places. https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/joe. Because of the wine production in the area, the city of Parras de la read more, San Luis Potos, which has some of the richest silver mines in Mexico, is also where Gonzales Bocanegra wrote the Mexican national anthem in 1854. In early March, Nirenberg took the unusual step of replacing a city council member, Roberto Trevio, who had been leading two committees coordinating the project and had been staunchly in favor of moving the Cenotaph. It was the site of numerous protests from Latino rights groups in the '70s and '80s, led by activists like Rosie Castro, a leader of La Raza Unida and the mother of former San Antonio Mayor and potential future Vice President Julian Castro. Beyond where he lived, what did he do? Not until the late 1890s did two women, Adina De Zavala and Clara Driscoll, collaborate to preserve the Alamo. Sam, James Bowie's slave, was also reported to have survived the battle, but no further record of him is known to exist.