Remember the Alamo!

Remember the Alamo!

Michael C. “Mikey” Sproat, Curator of Education, Sam Houston Memorial Museum

 Published in the Huntsville Item on April 22, 2012

“Remember the Alamo” was the battle cry of the Texan Army during the Battle of San Jacinto exactly 176 years ago.  General Sam Houston called for a cease fire after only 18 minutes of combat – the small amount of time it took for his army to break through the Mexican Army’s breastworks, confiscate the “Golden Standard” cannon, and wreak havoc on the soldados during their afternoon nap.  The fighting, hatred, and violence of the Texas Army drew on throughout the afternoon, for more than two hours beyond General Houston’s orders, as soldados were being picked off like fish in a barrel.  Too many people today have the inclination to think of this battle, through the lens of the evermore common revisionist’s version of history, as an ethnic war between the United States and Mexico.  This was not a battle of ethnic proportions.  This revolution, this hatred, this fight started long before the Alamo.

Southern Methodist University, Central University Libraries, DeGolyer Library, Image available on Flickr.

Mexico gained its independence from Spain in 1821, and finalized a Federalist-style government with a constitution in 1824 loosely based on the political styles of 1787-era United States.  Enter Santa Anna.  General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna was for all practical purposes an evil, manipulative person.  He rose and fell from power in Mexico on several occasions, swapping political sides supporting the popular views of the day to advance his public impression.  He was elected president of Mexico more than ten times, mostly by Machiavellian means. By the mid 1820’s, colonization of the upper regions of Mexico were in full effect, and an influx of families from all over the world were flocking to Tejas to claim their free land.  Mexico’s single greatest asset was her land, and most of the land in the northwest needed to be populated in order to create a buffer from the encroaching U.S. and marauding native Indians that thought the land still belonged to them.  Those who settled the northern land did so under the 1824 government, enjoying those rights, liberties, and citizenship entitled through that political system.  Santa Anna declared himself dictator in 1827, and in 1828 decided to rip the Constitution of 1824 in half.  He organized a Centralist government with himself at the head and told everyone who settled land in Tejas as an immigrant that they were no longer welcome.

Texas was not an isolated incident.  Other provinces in Mexico rebelled against the dictator.  Santa Anna and the Army of Operations marched through countless towns and raped, looted, and killed those in opposition to his government.  In Zacatecas in 1835, for example, Santa Anna ordered those folks not involved in the combat at one town to leave the dead on the battlefield.  He wanted to see the bones bleached by the sun as a testament to those who dared to challenge the dictator’s directives.  

Oregon State University, Special Collections, found on Flickr.

In the spring of 1836, when after several years of attempting to regain a voice in the government – which had been limited to the point of almost non-existence – and after several years of militaristic incursions – which was another way of oppression by the government – and after years of being taxed for questionable reasons, the citizens of Tejas rebelled also.  They, too, were persecuted and punished.  For just under two weeks in San Antonio, for instance, about two hundred soldiers and volunteers struggled for Texas’ freedom from the tyranny of Santa Anna’s nearly one thousand troops.  Jim Bowie stated that “the salvation of Texas depends in great measure in keeping Bejar out of the hands of the enemy.”  They chose to defend the fort in order to protect the rest of Texas.  The rest of the Texas military, hearing of the terrible battlefield losses like those at Goliad and at the Alamo, finally won the war.  Enter San Jacinto.  Texas declared its independence on paper on March 2, 1836.  Texas won its freedom on the battlefield at San Jacinto on April 21, 1836.  Unlike the other provinces in Mexico, Texas defeated Santa Anna.  To say that Sam Houston was an integral part of that is an understatement.  

To learn more about the events in the Spring of 1836, or more on the many battles for Texas’ independence, visit the Sam Houston Memorial Museum.  For more information, visit www.samhoustonmemorialmuseum.com or call 936-294-1832.  This must see event will leave you inspired about Texas history and your hometown’s favorite hero.  You, too, as a proud Texan, may very well instinctively cry out “Remember the Alamo!”  I shout it with pride all the time.