Forget The Alamo!

Noted opponent of “cancel culture” uses his political position to cancel a discussion of a history book about the Alamo https://t.co/V4D7RnOXiE

— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) July 2, 2021

I was wondering when this book would get noticed by the right people.

The title, to begin with, is a quote. It was not invented by the authors for the sake of marketing.  It’s of historical provenance, actually.

The book calls itself an “historiography,” a history about history.  It’s pretty much a fancy word for “journalism,” since the three authors are primarily journalists.  That is not damning with faint praise,it’s just to note that half the book is about “current events,” if by that you mean events going back about 20 years from the present and coming forward to 2020 (when the book went to press).  The first half is, in fact, a review of the history of the battle of the Alamo and for Texas independence.  It seems that, up until the late 20th century, very little historical study had been made of both battles (Alamo and San Jacinto) because, well…nobody cared.  And the myth was so embedded, challenging it (which is all history would do) would just paint a target on your back.  Still, it was done; but nobody paid attention, except historians.

Kinda like CRT, before conservatives needed a new bugaboo to shout about.

So history says, in brief, that the battle of the Alamo shouldn’t have happened.  Sam Houston sent Jim Bowie there after Mexican forces had been driven from San Antonio, to blow the place up and leave.  (The mission you think of as the Alamo had a large walled compound in front of it.  Most of that wall was incomplete or broken.  There was no roof on the building; that was added by the Army in the ‘40’s.). Travis refused to leave, thinking he could defend the place since the Mexican troops had been routed so easily.  But Santa Ana came with a far larger contingent of troops.  If Travis didn’t anticipate that, it was probably due to the racism that made them think the Mexicans inferior to whites.  (Someone alert Sen. Cotton!). Anyway, Travis ignored and rejected reports of Santa Ana coming with a large contingent, until the place was surrounded and the situation hopeless.

It wasn’t, in other words, a brave stand, a David v. Goliath story.  For the Mexicans, it was shooting fish in a poorly constructed barrel.  The main siege took only a few hours, and Santa Ana didn’t take prisoners.   Bowie died in his sickbed, probably without firing a shot.  Travis was killed on the ramparts in the first minutes.  One woman, there with her husband, was allowed by Santa Ana to leave.  But Davy Crockett was caught, brought before Santa Ana, and slaughtered by his soldiers with their swords.

Houston withdrew what men he had to a ranch and drilled them for two weeks.  Santa Ana, meantime, headed to the seat of the colonists government only to find nothing (they’d fled) and followed them down to Galveston.  Santa Ana had spread his army out between San Antonio and Galveston (about 4 hours by car today, so quite a distance), and Houston came in behind him near San Jacinto.  Houston by now had acquired the aid of some artillery troops and their cannons, from the U.S. Army in Louisiana (unofficially acquired).  Houston’s men, once dispirited by news of the rout in San Antonio, became fired up to “remember the Alamo!” and “remember Goliad!”  The Mexican general slaughtered three thousand men there, on his way to Galveston.  Santa Ana thought he was terrorizing the Anglo settlers with his tactics; instead, he inspired them to fight.  The Battle of San Jacinto didn’t last any longer than the one at the Alamo, but the result was far different.

So then there’s the myth of the Alamo since the 19th century.  It was neglected until the middle of the 20th century.  It’s return to prominence was in part due to Walt Disney, who launched “The Wonderful World of Color” with a three part series on Davy Crockett.  Except now Crockett died swinging his rifle “Old Betsy” (probably a Disney invention, too) as he was overwhelmed by Mexicans.  Disney’s version was the stance of liberty loving Americans against Godless commies, here played by Mexicans.  This is the start of what the authors called the “Heroic Anglo Narrative,” which was boosted by John Wayne’s film “The Alamo.”  Which because so much a part of Texas history a painting of John Wayne as Davy Crockett swinging Old Betsy again, used to hang over the front doors of the Mission.  Which was run by the Daughters of the Republic of Texas more as a shrine than as anything to do with history and facts.

And it’s the Heroic Anglo Narrative that has prevailed ever since.

As for the cenotaph:  that was placed in the 1940’s (if memory serves), a marker with the names of all who died there.  The Texas General Land Office now operates the Alamo (as of the early 21st century) and George P. Bush (head of the GLO) suggested moving the Cenotaph the better to begin restoring the Alamo compound (which is now he mission building surrounded by cheap shops and busy streets.  To restore the compound as it was during the battle would extend the grounds of the mission into the federal courthouse nearby, if that gives you an idea how much of the place has been lost).  That was met with the fury usually reserved for removing Civil War statues.  Armed men actually surrounded the cenotaph for a time, although the mission building is 300 years old and the memorial stick is maybe 80 years old.

Most of the story of the Alamo, in brief, is bullshit.  Mexico “owned” what is now Texas, but they didn’t have the government sufficient to control it, mostly from Native Americans; and nobody was crazy enough to want to live there except Anglos.  Mexico needed settlers, the Anglos obliged. But the Anglos wanted to live there because East Texas is, geographically, western  Louisiana, and that meant cotton.  In the 19th century, cotton was Google and Amazon and Microsoft and Elon Musk all rolled up together.  Cotton was the industry of the time, but the only way to make it economically viable was with slave labor (things have barely changed in America, as many people have realized since the covid year).  But Mexico had fought a revolution against the Spanish peonage system, so slavery was not going to be allowed.  That fight finally exploded into the Texas war for independence. It was not, as John Wayne said in his speech in the movie, for freedom for a man to live the way he wanted; it was for the freedom for white men to own black men and to tell brown men to piss off.

Things haven’t changed that much from those days.  There is, in other words, a reason Texas left the Union less than 2 decades after joining it, to sign up for the Confederacy.  And also a reason Juneteenth happened in Galveston, as Texas was the last state to get the news that slavery was well and fully over.

Dan Patrick, in other words, is full of shit.  But he knows what pots to stir, and how to stir them.  Not that I think this will come to much.  People who take guns down to a rock memorial to keep it from being moved 30 feet don’t read much, and won’t pay attention to a book that isn’t being accused of CRT, even though it’s quite harsh on Texas racism and the Heroic Anglo Narrative, a narrative that is in its death throes as Texas becomes a minority/majority state.  And if anyone wondered what that transition would look like, keep watching.  We’ve only just started.

Lt. Gov, Dan Patrick takes credit for oppressing free speech and policing thought in Texas. @BullockMuseum proves it is a propaganda outlet. As for his fact-free comment, well, a dozen people professional historians disagree. #ForgettheAlamo #txlege https://t.co/SrKwpzb2HT https://t.co/jlIfZ6NSt5

— ChrisTomlinson (@cltomlinson) July 2, 2021

This ain't gonna go well; not for a long time.