The struggle over the Cenotaph ended in September when the Texas Historical Commission, a state board whose members are appointed by Gov. On February 23, a Mexican force. Likewise, its victims have come from many different ethnicities and religious groups. Not everyone in the fort was killed. Meanwhile, issues of race and slavery at the Alamo remain unresolved. "It means people can live free. 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 . The attack on the Alamo in 1836 was not a 13-day siege and slaughter as often portrayed in film and television. The Mexican armies that entered the department to put down the rebellion had explicit orders to free any slaves that they encountered, and so they did. Someof the men defendingthe Alamo were slaveholders, and manyof them werent even Texans: they were Americans paid by New Orleans merchants who saw the potential for big profits if the state seceded. Among them was Susanna W. Dickinson, widow of Capt. My view, which is shared by the vast majority of San Antonians and Texans, is that regardless of your feelings on the Cenotaph moving, its not moving. As the Texans were facing the whole Mexican army, desertions are not surprising. 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. Many myths and legends have grown about the Battle of the Alamo, but the facts often give a different account. 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. By 1835, there were 30,000 Anglo-Americans (called Texians) in Texas, and only 7,800 Texas-Mexicans (Tejanos). 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. William Fairfax Gray, From Virginia to Texas, 1835 (Houston: Fletcher Young, 1909, 1965). But no one knows exactly how Joe got there. The only person spared in the retaking of the Alamo was Joe, the personal slave of William Travis. It has been used just anecdotally for generations to put down Mexican Americans, a big beefy white guy going up to the little Mexican guy and punching him in the arm and saying, "Remember the Alamo," that type of thing. 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. Among the 187 men in Travis's forces who died were 13 native-born Texans, 11 of Mexican descent. The battle cry of remember the Alamo later became popular during the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848. "Most academics now believe, based on Mexican accounts and contemporary accounts, that, in fact, [Crockett] did surrender and was executed," Burrough says. 10 Facts About the Independence of Texas From Mexico, The Texas Revolution and the Republic of Texas, The Battle of Concepcion of the Texas Revolution, The Life and Legend of David "Davy" Crockett, The Most Important Inventions of the Industrial Revolution, No One Knows What Happened to Davy Crockett, Who Won the Battle of the Alamo? Jim Bowie, the famous knife fighter and all-around badass (look up The Sandbar Fight sometime) made a tidy sum dealing in slaves in the years before the Alamo, says Smithsonian, and brought at least two with him into the fort, a man named Sam and a woman named Bettie. Click on the photo for complete transcription. In February 1778, while Boone was traveling with a group of Boonesborough men along Kentucky's Licking River, he was captured by a group of Shawnees. The mayor of San Antonio, however, claimed to have seen Crockett dead among the other defenders, and he had met Crockett before the battle. Telegraph and Texas Register, March 24, 1836, May 26, August 26, 1837. The legality of slavery had thus been at best tenuous and uncertain at a time when demand for cotton -- the main slave-produced export -- was accelerating on the international market. 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. These men only listened to Jim Bowie, who disliked Travis and often refused to follow his orders. Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. Handbook of Texas Online, We'll send you a couple of emails per month, filled with fascinating history facts that you can share with your friends. "The stunning discovery that Joethe slave of Alamo commander William Barret Traviswas the brother of the abolitionist William Wells Brown has opened an entirely new chapter in the history of Texas. BestsellerThe Barista Express grinds, foams milk, and produces the silkiest espresso at the perfect temperature. On how the Anglo-centric narrative of the Alamo history has affected Latino kids. Perhaps the most well known Alamo survivor was Susanna Dickinson, wife of defender Almaron Dickinson, who spent the battle hiding in a small dark room with her infant daughter, Angelina. Sam, James Bowie's slave, was also reported to have survived the battle, but no further record of him is known to exist. Share your thoughts about this episode on Twitter at: @MandoFun and on our Facebook group. This was mirrored very much in the kind of ethnic cleansing that went on after the revolution in which hundreds of Tejanos were pushed out of San Antonio, in Victoria and existing towns, their lands taken, laws passed against their ability to marry white women and hold public office. "One of the reasons that it matters most is that Latinos are poised to become a majority in Texas, according to census data," he says. Forget the Alamo: Race Courses as a Struggle over History and Collective Memory. The Battle of the Alamo was part of the Texas Revolution, in which American settlers in the Mexican state of Texas fought for secession fromthe increasingly centralized and autocratic Mexican government. Davy Crockett, a famous frontiersman and former U.S. congressman, was the highest-profile defender to fall at the Alamo. ", On how Texas history often fails to address slavery. Because of Joe, a slave, we can remember as much as we do about the Alamo. Owing to itscomplicated history, the Alamo has been controversial in the cityfor decades. The history of slavery spans many cultures, nationalities, and religions from ancient times to the present day. 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. It was on March 2, 1836, that delegates meeting in Washington-on-the-Brazos formally declared independence from Mexico. The fort was on 3 acres of land and contained several buildings with cannons along the walls and on roofs. Did you know? In the end, it would not be enough. That left at least $200 million to be raised through donations. Its just that not everyone inside the Alamo died that day. It makes absolutely no sense of why they stayed there, except for the fact that these are men who, by and large, have never been in war. And yet it still surprises me that slavery went unexamined for so long.". The 350-Year Old Alamo Was a Fort for Only a Decade. Fannin had decided that the logistics of reaching the Alamo in time were impossible and, in any event, his 300 or so men would not make a difference against the Mexican army and its 2,000 soldiers. FACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. "The Alamo is part of that.". The Mission San Antonio de Valero housed missionaries and their Native American converts for some 70 years until 1793, when Spanish authorities secularized the five missions located in San Antonio and distributed their lands among local residents. As more slaves came into the Republic of Texas, more escaped to Mexico. In their new book, Forget the Alamo, Burrough and co-writers Chris Tomlinson and Jason Stanford challenge common misconceptions surrounding the conflict including the notion that Davy Crockett was a martyr who fought to the death rather than surrender. October 10, 1807. and the Mexican army defended it in the battle of December 1835, when it was further damaged. 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. Mexico had in fact abolished slavery in 1829, causing panic among the Texas slaveholders, overwhelmingly immigrants from the south of the United States. But the truly perplexing thing is that in the two weeks leading up to the arrival of Santa Anna's forces in San Antonio, Travis and Bowie are getting almost daily warnings of the progress. Matamoros in the 1840s had a large and flourishing colony of ex-slaves from Texas and the United States. The first time the story appeared in print was in 1888, in Anna Pennybackers' "New History for Texas Schools." There was a problem with that, though. Thats how we came to know of Joe just Joe, any other names he had are lost to history now. Texas became an independent republic, and nine years later, it was annexed as an American state. https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/joe. Cookies collect information about your preferences and your devices and are used to make the site work as you expect it to, to understand how you interact with the site, and to show advertisements that are targeted to your interests. It was really the thing that more than anything, caused the Alamo to become the international icon that it's become. He installed an 18-pounder cannon and mounted a half-dozen other cannons. Amelia W. Williams, A Critical Study of the Siege of the Alamo and of the Personnel of Its Defenders (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Texas, 1931; rpt., Southwestern Historical Quarterly 3637 [April 1933-April 1934]). The following year, the family acquired 200 acres (80 ha) along the Red River. "International travelers seem to use world heritage as a bucket list item," Richard Oliver, a spokesperson for the San Antonio Convention & Visitors Bureau, told Fusion. Last summer, the Cenotaph was spray-painted with graffiti decrying white supremacy. Paul D. Lack, "Slavery and the Texas Revolution," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 89 (July 1985). Every penny counts! [Wayne] made the movie basically because he wholeheartedly believed that America was falling apart, that it was going to the dogs and that somebody needs to stand up for what are today called "patriotic values," "family values," "American values." All Rights Reserved. He was listed as a resident of Harrisburg in May 1833. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/facts-about-the-battle-of-the-alamo-2136256. Along the way they crossed paths with another survivor, a man named Joe, who had been William Travis slave. Joe did so and was struck by a pistol shot and bayonet thrust before a Mexican captain intervened. The treatment of slaves in the United States often included sexual abuse and rape, the denial of education, and punishments like whippings. On February 23, a Mexican force comprising somewhere between 1,800 and 6,000 men (according to various estimates) and commanded by General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna began a siege of the fort. Summary "Among the fifty or so Texan survivors of the siege of the Alamo was Joe, the personal slave of Lt. Col. William Barret Travis. 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 . ThoughtCo, May. 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 states population. Legendary frontiersman Jim Bowie, suffering from a debilitating illness, asked to be carried over the line. They used to take us there when we were schoolchildren, she told the New York Times Magazine in 2010. Santa Anna ordered his men to take no prisoners, and only a small handful of the Texans were spared. Do you value our journalism? 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. 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. 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. More information is available at http://escapefromtexas.com. 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. And yet it spoke to a certain cross section of American and international viewers. Audible: For you, the listeners of the Mandatory Fun podcast, Audible is offering a free audiobook download with a free 30-day trial to give you the opportunity to check out some of the books and authors featured on Mandatory Fun. Even without trying, people of color tended to fade into the obscurity of history. 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. From March to May, Mexican forces once again occupied the Alamo. 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. t. e. Contemporary slavery, also sometimes known as modern slavery or neo-slavery, refers to institutional slavery that continues to occur in present-day society. Sign up for The Brief, our daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news. Some historians believe slavery was the driving issue in the showdown at the Alamo, arguing that Mexicos attempts to end slavery contrasted with the hopes of many white settlers in Texas at the time who moved to the region to farm cotton.