The Forgotten Alamo: Beneath the Myth
The Alamo represents a pivotal yet profoundly misunderstood chapter in American history, serving as a battleground that encapsulates themes of sacrifice, struggle, and the complexities of national identity. In this discourse, we delve into the intricate narrative surrounding the Alamo, exploring not only its historical significance but also the myriad misconceptions that have emerged over time. We examine the motivations of the Texian settlers, the socio-political landscape of the era, and the consequences of their insurrection against Mexican authority. By scrutinizing the myths versus the realities of the Alamo, we aim to unearth the underlying truths that have shaped this enduring symbol of resistance. Join us as we unravel the layers of this historical enigma, illuminating the lessons it imparts for contemporary discourse on power, privilege, and the narratives we choose to uphold.
Transcript
What do you remember about the Alamo?
Speaker A: talking about that movie from: Speaker A:But do you know what it means?
Speaker A:Do you know the story?
Speaker A:Do you know why Ozzy Osbourne decided to pee on it?
Speaker A:Well, me neither, but, you know, the last one's anybody's guess because Ozzy is one of those parts of the universe that is unexplainable and unpredictable, and we love that about him.
Speaker A:If you do know anything about the Alamo, you might be aware that the tyrannical Mexican leader Santa Anna was destroying the lives of the innocent settlers of Texas.
Speaker A:And that the only salvation that they had was to defend themselves and their form and form their own country.
Speaker A:They were, you know, to make this standing defense against the massive Mexican army until reinforcements could relieve them.
Speaker A:I guess some of that is true, but it's not really the full story.
Speaker A:Today we're going to be looking at one of the most misunderstood stories of American history, A tale that can best be described as a modern myth of sorts belonging in the history books.
Speaker A:Next to events such as the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae or something like Stalingrad, we'll look into how Texas came to be, who lived there before, and why us settlers were so obsessed with a Spanish occupied region.
Speaker A:All that more on another episode of the Remedial Scholar.
Speaker A:That's ancient history.
Speaker A:I feel I was denied critical need to know information belongs to the museum room.
Speaker A:Stop skipping your immediate class.
Speaker A:Well, I did it again, folks.
Speaker A:I. I am your host, Levi, and this is the Ramito Scholar.
Speaker A:And I really need to stop abandoning you.
Speaker A:I. I come on here, tell you about all the cool ideas I have, and then just vanish.
Speaker A:Not really fair to you.
Speaker A:If it makes you feel any better, I do beat myself up about it.
Speaker A:So hopefully you guys miss me.
Speaker A:I missed you.
Speaker A:I'm sorry about the gaps between episodes.
Speaker A:I'm not gonna say I'm gonna do any better because I feel like that's just gonna make me feel worse if I do happen to skip a week again.
Speaker A:So no hollow promises other than I'm doing my best.
Speaker A:I'm doing my best by myself over here.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:I'm stressing out.
Speaker A:You're watching the video.
Speaker A:I got a big old zit on my lip.
Speaker A:I had, you know, this great idea.
Speaker A:Oh, I'm going to draw this stuff for these episodes, and then I forgot how long it takes me to draw stuff.
Speaker A:So I'm still going to draw companion pieces, but it's not going to Be.
Speaker A:It's not going to be to the level of like if you're a friend of mine, you might be used to.
Speaker A:It's going to be something fun and whimsical and think like, like an illust for like not a children's book but you know, you know what I mean?
Speaker A:It's not going to be crazy detailed.
Speaker A:It's going to be something neat that kind of encompasses the story or maybe it's a main character or something.
Speaker A:But you know, this is the, the idea itself really good in theory, but in practice, not to give you my whole life story, but I work, you know, a full time job, come home, go to the gym.
Speaker A:I guess I don't need to go to the gym but you know, it makes me hate myself less.
Speaker A:So I have to.
Speaker A:And then I get back from the gym and ideally in an ideal world I would work on the episodes that I need to, but lately I've just not been doing that.
Speaker A:And that is my cross to bear.
Speaker A:But you know, I would work on the episodes and then, you know, however long it takes me to research and write throughout the day, it leaves me very little time to actually do anything else.
Speaker A:And I got to have some free time to not go crazy.
Speaker A:So not really anything you need to know, but just to kind of let you behind the curtain, so to speak, a little bit.
Speaker A:Take a peek at the wizard.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So anyway, I'm doing my best.
Speaker A:I tried to ask my dog to help me write episodes, but you can probably guess how that turned out.
Speaker A:That's right.
Speaker A:He's got his own show and it's already has more, more listeners than Joe Rogan.
Speaker A:Not really.
Speaker A:I mean he probably would is Ragnar is very talented that way.
Speaker A:But kidding aside, we have a lot of ground to cover.
Speaker A:But before I get too far into it, I want to remind everybod about the links in the description.
Speaker A:You know, there's a, you know, a few in there that could be of use.
Speaker A:One being the merch.
Speaker A:I'm wearing my Nassau shirt.
Speaker A:It's spoof on NASA and that is from the Challenger episode.
Speaker A:That's honestly that might be one of my favorites just in terms of like running the gamut of like interesting and like uncovering a lot of like mystery involved and then also kind of like, well, not kind of super sad.
Speaker A:Anyway, so there's merch and that is a great way to help the show.
Speaker A:Like you're listening to this for free because I paid money to put it on a like on a platform that will put it to the streaming services, so that helps with hosting fees.
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Speaker A:That Victorian logo one that, like, if you're still feeling the Victorian spirit from hanging out with Jack the Ripper last time, you can check that out.
Speaker A:That's probably one of my favorite designs.
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Speaker A:I don't know, it's super fun.
Speaker A:I need to get me one of those.
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Speaker A:There's also the friends of the show you can support.
Speaker A:You know, they're my friends.
Speaker A:I don't put those shows in there for fun.
Speaker A:These are people that I know that I appreciate what they're doing, and I want you to check them out.
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Speaker A:Um, and then there's links to wherever you want to listen to the show, but there's also links for, like, the social media pages and accounts that you can follow and, like, and subscribe and do all that stuff.
Speaker A:So just trying to throw that at you in case you want to engage in some comments with conversations with some other history buffs.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Anyway, onto the main event.
Speaker A:The Alamo.
Speaker A:The end.
Speaker A:No, remember it, though.
Speaker A:Remember all those super interesting things.
Speaker A:You totally know about it and always will remember.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:But why?
Speaker A:Why do you need to.
Speaker A:Alamo is one of those things that kind of hangs over every American's head in a weird way.
Speaker A:Someone says Alamo, usually the word remember is waiting to be attached to it.
Speaker A:I don't really even know what inspired this episode other than morbid curiosity.
Speaker A:Like, I wasn't like, I need to do the Alamo.
Speaker A:I, like many of you, may or may not have very little understanding of it, or.
Speaker A:I did.
Speaker A:Well, still do.
Speaker A:There's a lot of stuff to sort out when it comes to this story.
Speaker A:Weirdly enough, as a child not living in Texas, growing up, the Alamo really was, you know, it's kind of a little more than a small note for some of our history classes.
Speaker A:I don't think I've ever really paid that much attention to it outside of the randomness that came with Texas always being described as, you know, once being its own country.
Speaker A:And that always confused me because it felt like we never talked about that any further than that.
Speaker A:And that's kind of an interesting thing to talk about.
Speaker A:It's like, oh, okay, yeah, I guess.
Speaker A:Why wouldn't we move on?
Speaker A: , I'm watching The Alamo from: Speaker A:And started looking things up as I'm watching it because I was just curious and I was like, you know what?
Speaker A:I need to.
Speaker A:I need to do this.
Speaker A:Because it's even in that movie, like, they do a good job in that movie of kind of portraying things close to reality.
Speaker A:There's still some, you know, mythologizing going on, but for the most part it's pretty good.
Speaker A:So anyway, this episode is the result of that.
Speaker A:So thank Billy Bob.
Speaker A:That's right.
Speaker A:Let's get into it.
Speaker A:Of course it would, you know, would not be natural if we did not set up some context for the situation.
Speaker A:How on earth did the people whose names paint half of modern day Texas find themselves entrenched against the Mexican military?
Speaker A:Talking about people like that was his name Austin something?
Speaker A:Stephen F. Austin.
Speaker A:You know, those kinds of people, these, these like founding fathers of Texas, right?
Speaker A:What were they fighting about?
Speaker A:I want you to take a second and really think about the Alamo.
Speaker A:Like what.
Speaker A:What do you actually know?
Speaker A:What do you remember besides the Alamo?
Speaker A:You know, do you have a good idea of who was involved or why they were there?
Speaker A:If so, then you do remember the Alamo.
Speaker A:I'm willing to bet not many of you do know, though.
Speaker A:Many of my Texas listeners are probably thinking about 7th grade history class when they learned about it.
Speaker A:That's right.
Speaker A:I got the inside scoop.
Speaker A:I know what's happening.
Speaker A:They might feel like they have a good grasp on things, but there's a lot to be know about the story and even less that is actually shared in schools in Texas.
Speaker A:We're going to talk about that later on, but just keep it in mind.
Speaker A:The Alamo has played a role in many arguments revolving around authentic and genuine history versus myth making.
Speaker A:Make no mistake, this is a story of incredible moments.
Speaker A:And people in this story did fight to the bitter end for what they believe was right.
Speaker A:But there's just so much needed context to be had.
Speaker A:This says, and that's, you know, that's where I come in.
Speaker A:That's my.
Speaker A:My gift to you.
Speaker A:As I researched this, it kind of continued to just blow my mind.
Speaker A:How much has been left out in the telling of the fight for Texas's independence and they're being their own country and all that.
Speaker A:Sure, you know, that has been in the back of my head for a long time, but what does that mean?
Speaker A:Texas wanted to become independent.
Speaker A:From who?
Speaker A:Who are the people who wanted this?
Speaker A:Well, it's a little complicated.
Speaker A:So we're.
Speaker A:What we're going to do today is follow along the history of Texas up to the point of the Alamo, stopping off to meet some of the key players during and after, then lead into the battle itself, which actually lasted less time than this episode's probably going to take.
Speaker A:So kind of crazy.
Speaker A:After the battle, we are going to learn about the building of the myth and how it was used to inspire troops in the Mexican American War.
Speaker A:Then we look into the history, how the history was shaped and how it was used to preserve this myth and how that has affected things for us now, essentially.
Speaker A:So sounds like it's going to be a lot, but, you know, it's going to be interesting.
Speaker A:I think so.
Speaker A:I know I say that every time, but it's true.
Speaker A:Texas was founded when a cactus blossom sprouted and landed right in the heart of.
Speaker A:No, that's not true.
Speaker A:But I do want some Texas roadhouse.
Speaker A:Now.
Speaker A:Texas shares a similar path to modern times as Florida does, if you remember that in the Seminole wars episode.
Speaker A:If not, you're just joining me on this journey.
Speaker A:Well, fear not.
Speaker A:Papa's got you covered.
Speaker A:Texas, like the rest of North America, was inhabited by indigenous people possibly as long as 30,000 years ago or more.
Speaker A:This went on for a long time until the Spanish made their way across the Atlantic and several different conquistadors traveled into mainland America.
Speaker A: would eventually be Texas in: Speaker A:They had 30 different expeditions that had gone into the Texas region alone.
Speaker A:Spain made their claim on the region.
Speaker A:But you may also remember, remember from the seminal episode, that Spain claiming a region does not necessarily equate to them owning it by any means.
Speaker A:Spain had begun to dwindle in influence by the 18th century, still, you know, formidable, but constantly fighting.
Speaker A:England made them unable to police the regions that they claimed.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Florida became this wild west, land of, well, not west, but you know what I mean, as a wild land outside of a few colonies.
Speaker A:And Texas had a similar feel to it.
Speaker A: In: Speaker A:They did not come easy.
Speaker A:The Spanish had struggled intensely with the native populations there from the crown down.
Speaker A:Spain was in a hurry to quell the fighting against their rule in the New World.
Speaker A:They were also competing with France along with England, albeit, you know, the French were a little more concerned with England than they were with Spain.
Speaker A: In one expedition in: Speaker A:Yeah, say that five times fast.
Speaker A:It's a tribe in the Rio Grande area.
Speaker A:This Frenchman was able to show the Spanish where Fort St. Louis was.
Speaker A:St. Louis, which had been destroyed by another tribe.
Speaker A:Once word got back to Mexico City, the Spanish very excited to learn the French had been kind of driven out, so to speak.
Speaker A:Spain began to make deals with the tribes in the area and establish missions in the region to further explore spreading Christianity to the tribes.
Speaker A:Some of the tribes that they had talked to, you know, is positive conversations about conversion were the Caddo people and the Hassani or Hassanite.
Speaker A:Hassanite.
Speaker A:I don't know.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:The latter were referred to.
Speaker A:Referred to as the Teos by the Spanish, which would eventually lead to the name of the state today.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A: In: Speaker A:Mission San Francisco de los Teos was built in May of that year.
Speaker A:And it was not really a home for many who made the journey, though three of the 110 soldiers who had accompanied the missionaries were allowed to stay when it was finished.
Speaker A:So, hey, thanks for protecting us all the way here.
Speaker A:See you.
Speaker A:Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
Speaker A: In: Speaker A:Under his appointment, seven new missions were built.
Speaker A:But he found that San Fran mission was struggling at the hands of the indigenous people.
Speaker A:You know, kind of kept, like, barging in and taking their cattle and horses and stuff.
Speaker A:Eventually, Tehran would leave Texas, and many of the mission missionaries left with him, feeling as though it was a fruitless endeavor.
Speaker A:But what they left behind would thrash the indigenous population in their absence.
Speaker A:They left smallpox when they left, which, you know, as you may or may not be aware, kind of rampage through the native population who had zero immunity.
Speaker A:This is something we are familiar with, and one of the most unfortunate aspects of colonial expansion into the new world.
Speaker A:Now, it's a.
Speaker A:A thing that the indigenous people couldn't even defend themselves against.
Speaker A:Like, bad enough conquest, right?
Speaker A:Like, you're.
Speaker A:You're conquesting and subjugating these people.
Speaker A:The new rules.
Speaker A:But, like, the silver lining there is they at least got to fight, right?
Speaker A:They.
Speaker A:They had at least had an opportunity to win.
Speaker A:But with smallpox, that's nobody.
Speaker A:Nobody gets an opportunity to win against smallpox.
Speaker A:Everybody knows that.
Speaker A:Anyway, this created.
Speaker A:Oh, sorry, hold on.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:This created more animosity between indigenous people and the missionaries who remained in the region.
Speaker A:The Caddo people had to inform the missionaries that they should leave or they would be killed.
Speaker A:And so they did.
Speaker A:They burned their mission and left back to Mexico.
Speaker A:So Spain failed their first colonizing efforts in Texas, in the Texas region.
Speaker A:And it'd be a few decades before they decided to try again.
Speaker A:So this let the French enter Spain the region in the meantime, while Spain told France they're not allowed to trade in the region, but as we know, they did not have the infrastructure to prevent any such trading.
Speaker A:Spain was also grappling with the War of Spanish Succession, deciding which successor of Charles the Second.
Speaker A:There's a lot of S's in that would be taking the throne because of their allegiances in mind.
Speaker A:It's not super important, but just briefly, there's two factions of the successors that could.
Speaker A:The successors could be tied to one being tied to France and the other being England, Austria and some others.
Speaker A:Not seen as only as a like a Spanish or Spain only issue.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Depending on who joined up with who, it could completely shift the power balance in Europe.
Speaker A:Spain shell of its former self by this time, but still like I mentioned up top formidable, especially if they join the right side.
Speaker A:This could really turn the tide against whoever they were opposed to.
Speaker A:Ultimately, the Bourbon house won out and Philip V was crowned and thus France and Spain became somewhat friendly.
Speaker A: This would not last as: Speaker A:It really doesn't mean much like it's okay.
Speaker A:It's a war of four sets of alliances, right?
Speaker A:Or maybe two, I don't know.
Speaker A:But like, I don't know.
Speaker A:It's a fun thing to say.
Speaker A:Anyway, I'll move on.
Speaker A:This war was Spain fighting all three of the nations that I just mentioned.
Speaker A:So, you know, the alliance didn't last super long.
Speaker A:In this war, which was mostly focused on who could control Italy, the opposing forces took the opportunity to strike at some of Spain's settlements across the pond.
Speaker A: Frenchmen in: Speaker A:In response, Spain had assembled a 500 soldier strong army to invade Louisiana.
Speaker A:But when the fighting in Europe stopped, Philip V told them to turn around, find a way to recapture East Texas instead.
Speaker A: In: Speaker A:So it's not crazy, but it's weird to think of a capital of the Texas region.
Speaker A:Being not really inside of it that much.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So with this foothold, more missions began to sprout up forts in the region.
Speaker A: ew Spain had dwindled down in: Speaker A:This caused troops to be removed from the region, from the forts and the missions and the settlements and such.
Speaker A:Spanish crown was insistent that settlers would be more than willing to defend their lands.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Is you want to live here, you're going to protect it.
Speaker A:Which I mean, makes sense when it's already in your own boundaries, but when you already didn't have a solid hold of it, you're basically making these farmers into a militia national guard situation, which is, you know.
Speaker A:Yeah, the cost of troops was too much.
Speaker A:So, you know, that was, that was the alternative.
Speaker A:This was kind of an oversight as the lands that would be called Texas were not super enticing to new settlers.
Speaker A:Also, like you're going to cut the budget and take soldiers out of this land and settlers will defend it.
Speaker A:We don't have a lot of settlers bad, bad news.
Speaker A:The environment was harsh, the soil kind of unforgiving, depending on what you're trying to plant.
Speaker A:Tribes in the area also super unpredictable and very anti settlement weird.
Speaker A:And if they weren't, they're at the very least very pro stealing livestock.
Speaker A:So you know that to deal with the Spanish government tried alternate, alternate tactics to settle the region, Even bringing in people from the Canary Islands to settle and farm.
Speaker A:But then this caused a rift with the people who had already been settling there because the government decided that these people from the Canary Islands were actually nobles.
Speaker A:And so the people that were already there are like, they just got here.
Speaker A:Why are, why are they making all the decisions?
Speaker A:We've been working the lands.
Speaker A:Eventually things would iron themselves out as the locals and imports began to intermingle and intermarry.
Speaker A:You know, I'm saying they're doing it.
Speaker A:So still the colonies struggled.
Speaker A:Similar to the American colonies of Britain.
Speaker A:Spain forced unrealistic expectations and unnecessary restrictions on the people in New Spain.
Speaker A:One example is the high import fees for people in Texas because of the fact that Spain discouraged, for whatever reason, manufacturing in their colonies and then had like weird trade route stipulations.
Speaker A:Most of the ports in Texas were non commercial.
Speaker A:Goods had to be transported to the region via Mexico City after they had been brought from Veracruz.
Speaker A:So this is like this very confusing route that they had to do.
Speaker A:And then because of this, it made everything more expensive.
Speaker A:This prompted many settlers to trade with the French, which, you know, makes sense because it was a lot cheaper.
Speaker A: In: Speaker A:Captured five Frenchmen built the fort near where they were encamped, I guess, which was an effort to dissuade any further encroachments.
Speaker A: In: Speaker A:And now Spain finally feels like their efforts in North America can be pursued without intervention.
Speaker A:This is all, you know, fallout from the Seven Years War.
Speaker A:And Spain lost some land to England at the time as well, you know, including Manila in the Philippines.
Speaker A:And Havana.
Speaker A:Right, Havana.
Speaker A:Havana, whatever.
Speaker A:I don't know why I made it all Havana because it's in Britain now.
Speaker A:Still Spain excited to assess their new lands, they sent a man named Marquis of Ruby to check the forts, outposts, settlements, missions, and report back.
Speaker A: He started in early: Speaker A:And he was not pumped.
Speaker A:He felt that basically only San Antonio and La Baya la Bahia, I don't know, were quality enough to remain on the rest of them.
Speaker A:They needed close the rest of the missions and bring people to those places.
Speaker A:Shortly after, after San Antonio became the new capital, okay, Spain was relieved with the lack of European incursions to the land.
Speaker A:But, you know, when one door closes, another opens.
Speaker A:The tribes of the region now occupied by Spain hadn't really changed much.
Speaker A:You know, the passing of one flag to another over an outpost you don't visit is kind of a hardly, hardly a reason to change your life up.
Speaker A:The Apache were the more active against the settlements, having raided San Antonio many times over the years.
Speaker A:Not always unprovoked either.
Speaker A: One instance in: Speaker A:Then, with the Comanche coming south and causing the Apache to panic, they decided to side with the Spanish.
Speaker A:This wasn't as beneficial as the Spanish would believe, only causing the Comanche and tribes aligned with them to attack the Spanish for then helping their enemies.
Speaker A:So kind of lose, lose situation.
Speaker A:The raids were not decimating, but they, you know, strained the region more than the government would have liked.
Speaker A: the second treaty of Paris in: Speaker A:The new western edge of the country was placed alongside the Mississippi river and people they were stoked.
Speaker A:In the first year alone, 50,000Americans traveled across the Appalachian Mountains to homestead.
Speaker A:This number dwarfed the amount of settlers currently in the Texas region, which was around 3,500 colonists.
Speaker A:So this influx of settlers to the north had strained the Spanish ports.
Speaker A:Many preferred to travel down the Mississippi to trade rather than hike through the mountains.
Speaker A: osed ports to foreigners from: Speaker A:One story I found is a man named Philip Nolan.
Speaker A:He was arrested several times crossing the border into Texas to capture wild horses and then trade with the natives.
Speaker A:He was eventually killed in a battle with the Spanish, which the Spanish had aimed at capturing him out of fear that he was a spy.
Speaker A:Ooh, mysterious.
Speaker A:Americans had figured out a loophole to the trading, as they were primarily trading with tribes in the region, right.
Speaker A:Kind of like a middleman action, often trading guns and ammo for livestock.
Speaker A:The Comanche were one of the tribes to engage in international trades, so to speak.
Speaker A:A drought actually had prevented their herds from growing naturally.
Speaker A:So they used a little creative problem solving and raided San Antonio to meet their trade demands.
Speaker A:Basically par for the course for the region until the end of the 18th century.
Speaker A: In: Speaker A:Not exactly sure why Spain made this deal.
Speaker A:You may remember that the French Revolution kind of still going on at this point, you know.
Speaker A:And, you know, after, shortly after that, our buddy Napoleon sold Lou Louisiana to the United States to help fund his trounce the monarchy campaigns.
Speaker A:Thomas Jefferson understood Louisiana as being as far west as the Rocky Mountains, all of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers and their tributaries south to the Rio Grande, which all of the Mississippi and its tributaries.
Speaker A:That's basically the whole country.
Speaker A:I mean, have you looked at that?
Speaker A:It's crazy.
Speaker A:Spain disagreed.
Speaker A:They did not think it included Texas and only believe that it reached Nacogdoches if it did.
Speaker A:Spain did feel that there's.
Speaker A:There's pressure, right?
Speaker A:As westward expansion by the United States and their settlers.
Speaker A:And in response decided to send thousands of colonists to Texas to provide population support for their buffer zone.
Speaker A:They had canceled.
Speaker A:They had to cancel this, however, due to insufficient funds.
Speaker A:Embarrassing.
Speaker A:Spain did increase the troop presence in the region, but only after the United States had done so as well.
Speaker A:King Charles IV had ordered official borders to be figured out.
Speaker A:Charlie died before this could be done.
Speaker A:And his replacement, Ferdinand vii, was kicked to the curb the same year by our boy Napoleon.
Speaker A:Napoleon put his cousin in charge, Joseph and Joseph Bonaparte, as the king of Spain.
Speaker A:But power would switch back to Ferdinand eventually.
Speaker A:Before he had returned though, a constitutional government had formed.
Speaker A:But when firds came Back he was not willing to accept.
Speaker A: ventually he would, though by: Speaker A:Who is watching the children?
Speaker A:Has anybody checked the children?
Speaker A:That was unnecessarily creepy.
Speaker A:Good question.
Speaker A:I'm glad you asked.
Speaker A:Nobody really knew.
Speaker A:You know, this would kind of.
Speaker A:This would give perfect conditions for the Mexican War of Independence to take place.
Speaker A: Riots occurred in: Speaker A: moments came In September of: Speaker A:The group leading this coup was the Peninsular Spaniards, People of Spanish blood, but they were born on American soil.
Speaker A:Non Spanish blood.
Speaker A:People living in the region fell.
Speaker A:This was not the move.
Speaker A:One man, Miguel Hidalgo, is best known for this moment.
Speaker A:He had inspired thousands to stand up against the government, even though he had no real frame of goals.
Speaker A:He's just, I don't like the government and I want to fight him.
Speaker A:And that was kind of it.
Speaker A:And he just.
Speaker A:I don't know, he hoped that somebody else was going to come up and create something better, but he's like, I'm not.
Speaker A:I'm not the guy.
Speaker A:I'm.
Speaker A:I'm the guy that knocks those guys down.
Speaker A:And then the other guy comes in and sets everything up.
Speaker A:But the evidence for a need for change can be found in the fact that Hidalgo had amassed such a following without having any real distinct plan.
Speaker A:I think people wanted things to be different.
Speaker A:Hidalgo made a few errors for the most part, but people are like, yeah, love this guy.
Speaker A:And he did end up getting captured and then executed.
Speaker A:And then also his head, with three other people were hung on walls of a building.
Speaker A:But, you know, the inspiration was there.
Speaker A:Ignacio Lopez Real takes over leadership after Hidalgo's capture and execution.
Speaker A:He organizes the Suprema Junta Gubernita Uber Nativa de America.
Speaker A:Yeah, Bueno.
Speaker A:A group that aims to lead the insurgency against Spanish rule.
Speaker A:Meanwhile, Jose Maria Morales Morelos emerges as a key leader, using guerrilla tactics to fight royalist troops under Felix Maria Calais.
Speaker A:Man, I am not happy.
Speaker A:I failed Spanish class in high school because this is.
Speaker A:I'm not doing so hot on these pronunciations.
Speaker A: into the southern regions in: Speaker A:Morelos.
Speaker A:Morello.
Speaker A:Morelos.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Morelos convenes the Congress of.
Speaker A:Oh, boy.
Speaker A:Chip on.
Speaker A:Chingo.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Where they just they declared independence from Spain and enshrined Catholicism as the region of the region.
Speaker A:Religion of the region.
Speaker A:There we go.
Speaker A:Nailed it.
Speaker A:Can't even speak regular words.
Speaker A:Now.
Speaker A:The solemn act of independence is signed recognizing Mexico's sovereignty after Morelos death.
Speaker A:Vincent Vicente Vicente Guerrero leads insurgents into Mexico.
Speaker A:Southern Mexico using guerrilla warfare.
Speaker A:And then it ends up being kind of a stalemated against royalist forces until the arrival of Acostin de eter.
Speaker A:Eater.
Speaker A:Bide.
Speaker A:Yeah, this guy.
Speaker A:Either, either, either.
Speaker A:Bide initiates contact with Guerrero, proposing a plan of.
Speaker A:A plan to achieve.
Speaker A:There's another word that I didn't want to butcher.
Speaker A:Achieve independence while guaranteeing equality and Catholic religion.
Speaker A:They form an alliance.
Speaker A:And this kind of this, this alliance leads to the creation of the army of the three Gourantes.
Speaker A:The plan of this guy.
Speaker A:This or not this guy, this treaty is to recognize Mexican independence under Iturbet or iterabide's leadership.
Speaker A: ,: Speaker A: ared Emperor of Mexico in May: Speaker A:The United States was actually the first to recognize this new country on their independence.
Speaker A:My guess is probably too quickly gain their trade value, right?
Speaker A:Like yeah, you're, you're.
Speaker A:You're a country.
Speaker A:Trade with us.
Speaker A:Buy our stuff.
Speaker A: n Republic was established in: Speaker A:But you know, it had a long way to go before it was sovereign.
Speaker A:Meanwhile, more Americans are starting to head westward.
Speaker A:One notable example is that of Moses Austin.
Speaker A:Father Stephen F. Austin.
Speaker A:These are the guys I was talking about.
Speaker A:Family of entrepreneurs.
Speaker A:Mo why am I doing that?
Speaker A:Voice Moses Austin started as a dry goods store owner owner before shifting into lead mining in Virginia and then in Missouri.
Speaker A:His success in Missouri was only short lived.
Speaker A:After having built a mansion, founded a bank.
Speaker A: But then The Panic of: Speaker A:And soon he was without any ideas or money.
Speaker A:And he wasn't the only one.
Speaker A:Many Southerners found their eyes fixated on virtually the untouched lands of Texas as a possibility.
Speaker A: The post: Speaker A:Texas was seen as an attractive destination due to its cheap land potential for cotton cultivation.
Speaker A:However, the core attraction of the region was not just the land, but also the opportunity to, you know, hey, we're going to grow cotton.
Speaker A:You know what you need to grow cotton?
Speaker A:Well, apparently you need slaves.
Speaker A:Settlers made it very clear that they would only come to Texas if Slavery was allowed.
Speaker A:Stephen F. Austin stated, quote, nothing is wanted but money.
Speaker A:And this is his words, the Negroes are necessary to make it all right.
Speaker A:So he's pretty not cool.
Speaker A:And you know, this is basically because so many southerners had no idea how to do work without slaves.
Speaker A:Like they are just incompetent at performing tasks.
Speaker A:They're lazily leaning on slave labor because they have no idea how to grow crops without it, which is, you know, just a sad institution to grow up in.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Like you can't even conceptualize how to plant stuff without slaves.
Speaker A:Like you don't know how to run a business.
Speaker A:Like you can't pay people what was going on.
Speaker A:So that, that's kind of their mentality.
Speaker A:Texas had ideal cotton, ideal conditions for cotton.
Speaker A:Long growing seasons, rich bottomlands, proximity to markets like New Orleans.
Speaker A:Estate was also filled with what the settlers saw as virgin cotton land.
Speaker A:You know, it's not really been used to grow anything, although it was already home to, you know, the native people and Tejano populations.
Speaker A:Land grants were generous, making Texas more accessible than any other states in the south as well.
Speaker A:Mexico's distant and weak enforcement of laws, especially anti slavery laws and relig requirements, made Texas pretty attractive.
Speaker A:Settlers knew they could ignore these laws with pretty much little consequences.
Speaker A:Austin assured colonists that the anti slavery rules would not be enforced, which is a thing that he was kind of working on the government with.
Speaker A:Some would.
Speaker A:Some came to speculate on the land expecting it, expecting it would eventually become part of the United States.
Speaker A:Others viewed Mexican governance as weak or illegitimate and assumed Texas was ripe for Americanization or annexation.
Speaker A:Many settlers arrived with little regard for Mexican law, culture, institutions they refused to assimilate, clung to the English Protestantism and US style governance.
Speaker A:This cultural and legal disconnect was one of the main tensions that would start fracturing this relationship.
Speaker A: After Mexico's: Speaker A:So it was combined with which was form.
Speaker A:The state itself was.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:With the capital in Satillo.
Speaker A:Mexican liberal lawmakers were influenced by enlightenment anti slavery ideals.
Speaker A:They were tasked with writing a state constitution.
Speaker A:Article 13 banned slavery outright, which made the Anglo settlers panic leaders, including Stephen F. Austin and his allies who mobilized quickly to block or amend it.
Speaker A:And I think, you know, it's important to note why Mexico was so anti slavery.
Speaker A:This is a group of people who were largely mixed race, right?
Speaker A:I mean there's a lot of Spanish people, but at this point Mexico is made up of a variety of different types of people.
Speaker A:So Very much in the.
Speaker A:In the realm of, hey, just because they're not white doesn't mean their property basically is essentially like they.
Speaker A:They had no desire to see that happen.
Speaker A:Settlers argued that Texas would be.
Speaker A:It would wither away without slavery and saw it as a direct threat to the colony's survival.
Speaker A:Issue wasn't just about laws, also about immigration, economics, revolt, since they feared it.
Speaker A:If slavery was ban, settlers would leave, immigration would stop, and the fragile economy would collapse.
Speaker A:And the letter from San Antonio leaders to set Saltillo called Article 13 a death blow and demanded that the vote on it be postponed until Texas representatives could be heard.
Speaker A:Jose Antonio Navarro, a prominent Tejana lawyer and ally of Austin, led the legal opposition, arguing that Texas would perish without slavery.
Speaker A:The compromise reached out, allowed settlers six more months to bring in slaves and kept commercial slave trade banned.
Speaker A:And children of enslaved people would be freed at the age of 14, which was widely ignored.
Speaker A:This compromise quieted the panic, but didn't really resolve the issues as Austin saw it.
Speaker A:Not just, not just as a law, but, you know, this.
Speaker A:This could lead to poverty for a long time as.
Speaker A:As well as fearing slave revolts and public unrest if suddenly emancipated.
Speaker A: ,: Speaker A:The law aimed to limit migration from the United States and restrict slavery, which only exacerbated tensions among these white settlers.
Speaker A:1829, a compromise of a compromise allowed the six more months, right?
Speaker A:And then also there's a weird thing on the back end where the Anglo people, the white guys are like, I got it.
Speaker A:We're not going to have slaves.
Speaker A:We're going to sign them to contracts and they're just going to work for us until the contract expires.
Speaker A:And the contract would be like 80 years or something crazy.
Speaker A:So Stephen F. Austin, he's kind of becoming more and more the, like, center point of the white people opposing this.
Speaker A:And as that, he.
Speaker A:He kind of grows his faction a little bit.
Speaker A: By: Speaker A: s movement gained momentum in: Speaker A:Delegates drafted a constitution and sent Austin to Mexico City to present their demands.
Speaker A:He spent months navigating bureaucratic red tape and political infighting, trying to broker a deal that would allow Texas more autonomy while maintaining loyalty to Mexico.
Speaker A: letter back to Texas in late: Speaker A:He advised that if separation couldn't be achieved legally, Texas should proceed to form their own state government.
Speaker A:It's a pragmatic but illegal stance that kind of sealed the fate of him and many others.
Speaker A: est and imprisonment in early: Speaker A:Austin's incarceration marked a turning point, transforming him into, from a moderate voice of compromise into a radical figure convinced that reconciliation with Mexico was now impossible.
Speaker A:His imprisonment also radicalized the settlers.
Speaker A:The, the white settlers mostly, but also there's some, some Tejanos that were like, I mean, let's try it out.
Speaker A: to centralism, abolishing the: Speaker A:This move by Santa Ana alienated many Mexicans, including federalists in other states like Zacatecas.
Speaker A:Zakas.
Speaker A:Yep, okay, nailed it.
Speaker A:Who rebelled against his crackdowns.
Speaker A: ng of Austin's release in mid-: Speaker A:As he returned to Texas convinced that peace was no longer achievable, he aligned himself with a growing faction of people who were advocating for armed resistance or independence.
Speaker A:And the arrival of new settlers during this period only kind of exacerbated tensions.
Speaker A:Many were economic refugees from the United States.
Speaker A:Refugees in the sense that they were fleeing debt, legal trouble, personal scandals.
Speaker A:Many of them young, single, heavily armed, often very much ready to like, just fight anybody for any reason.
Speaker A:Some had military experience, either from militias or skirmishes with Native Americans, making them, you know, not nothing.
Speaker A:Among these settlers were slaveholders, slave traders who saw Texas as part of the Cotton kingdom.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:King Cotton.
Speaker A:Despite Mexican bans on slavery, they engaged in legal trade, smuggling enslaved individuals into Texas, exploiting land speculation schemes.
Speaker A:Others were mere opportunists, drawn to the promise of profit from war or chaos rather than any ideological commitment to liberty.
Speaker A:Individuals like William Barrett Travis, a failed lawyer fleeing personal scandals in Alabama, merged as a key figure here.
Speaker A:Known for his hot headed behavior and inflammatory rhetoric, Travis was already involved in organizing militias and agitating against the Mexican authorities before the war began.
Speaker A:We also have Jim Bowie.
Speaker A:Famous, famous Jim Bowie.
Speaker A:He is land speculator and also fraudster.
Speaker A:He very good at scamming people.
Speaker A:He also had a reputation as a violent knife fighter.
Speaker A:His Bowie knife, very famous, symbolic, gigantic knife, basically a sword.
Speaker A:You know, these are, these are the kinds of guys that are, he's like, you know what, time for me to go.
Speaker A:He's the life of lying to people about land that I'm selling them and smuggling slaves.
Speaker A:It's time for me to move on.
Speaker A:He was too running out of opportunities.
Speaker A:In the United States we also have people like Davy Crockett, former U.S. congressman.
Speaker A:We learned a little bit about him in the red, the.
Speaker A:Well he fought in the Red Stick wars, part of the Seminole wars episode.
Speaker A:He was kind of trying to reinvent Texas.
Speaker A:Sam Houston kind of inspired him like hey, come to Texas, check it out.
Speaker A:Basically things are basically done.
Speaker A:We're ready to go.
Speaker A:There's not really going to be anything crazy going on.
Speaker A:He was lied to, swindled into this situation.
Speaker A:These men, these, these men represented the harsh reality of the frontier life.
Speaker A:They're fighters, gamblers, risk takers who saw Texas as an opportunity for profit or redemption or both.
Speaker A:The combination of economic struggles, political radicalization and available troublesome arrival of troublesome individuals really set the stage for this rebellion.
Speaker A:The idea of taking Texas by force had already been embedded in their behavior and worldview way before the first shots were ever fired.
Speaker A: the compromise on slavery in: Speaker A:But these efforts were met with frustration because you know you give a mouse a cookie and it's just going to keep going right.
Speaker A:The settlers self centered attitudes and demand for greater autonomy couldn't be satisfied by any temporary fixes or symbolic gestures.
Speaker A:And the dynamic of this appeasement followed by the rebellion was, was a recurring theme throughout the period.
Speaker A:While Mexico attempted to maintain control through concessions, the settlers mindset remained focused on their own goals.
Speaker A:Prioritizing American style independence over collaboration with Mexico.
Speaker A:You're doing it wrong.
Speaker A:You guys don't know what you're doing.
Speaker A:We have a better plan.
Speaker A:You guys specifically, you guys don't know how to do it.
Speaker A:Take that as you will.
Speaker A:Combination of these factors, Mexican appeasement attempts and the settlers unyielding self interest it does, it's gonna make things a little tough now.
Speaker A: By early: Speaker A:Over.
Speaker A:The Texians had expelled General Cos from San Antonio, a Mexican general and just, just a few months prior.
Speaker A:And many believe naively that Mexico wouldn't come back or at least anytime soon.
Speaker A:Winter had set in.
Speaker A:Most of the volunteers had gone home and a sense of fragile confidence hung over the region.
Speaker A:But what few anticipated was the sheer determination of Santa Ana.
Speaker A:He launched a punishing winter campaign.
Speaker A:Crossing more than 600 miles of brutal terrain.
Speaker A:Reassert control over the rogue province.
Speaker A:He lost hundreds of men to desertion, disease, and cold along the way.
Speaker A:But by February 23, he stood at the gates of San antonio with nearly 2,000 soldiers prepared to make a brutal example of the Texas.
Speaker A:Inside the Alamo, a former Spanish mission turned makeshift fort, were fewer than 200 men, volunteers, irregular irregulars, adventurers, and idealists like people like William Barrett Travis that I mentioned before.
Speaker A:James Bowie, Davy Crockett.
Speaker A:These are the famous people, right?
Speaker A:And unfortunate for David Crockett.
Speaker A:Apparently, he.
Speaker A:He also went by David.
Speaker A:Davey is like a Persona.
Speaker A:Anyway, he had kind of just showed up, and when he showed up, he's like, all right, cool.
Speaker A:Let's start settling stuff.
Speaker A:And they're like, hey, Mexico's on their way.
Speaker A:And he's like, I thought.
Speaker A:I didn't think we were fighting.
Speaker A:Unfortunate timing for him, but they didn't know how fast he would be.
Speaker A:They knew he would be coming, but they kind of figured he would not be doing it in the middle of winter.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:The decision to defend the Alamo was kind of flawed from the beginning.
Speaker A:Strategically, the compound didn't.
Speaker A:It wasn't a good fort.
Speaker A:It was, you know, way too far into hostile territory, too far west to be easily reinforced, and its walls, old, crumbling, never designed for military warfare.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:It was very little protection against the type of siege equipment that Santa Ana was going to be using.
Speaker A:Sam Houston himself had ordered Travis to destroy the fort, fall back to a more defensible position further east, and that order was ignored.
Speaker A:Whether out of overconfidence, pride, or desperation, the Texians, they dug in.
Speaker A:They believed that holding the Alamo would stall Santa Anna, perhaps deter him.
Speaker A:In truth, it was only served to gather his wrath.
Speaker A:The siege began on February 23rd and would stretch for, you know, 13 tense, miserable days.
Speaker A:Santa Anna demanded surrender.
Speaker A:Travis replied with a cannon blast, you know, like a normal guy does.
Speaker A:From that moment, the standoff was sealed.
Speaker A:Mexico was like, all right, you don't want to surrender.
Speaker A:We're not going to let you.
Speaker A:So not good for them.
Speaker A:The artillery from the Mexican army battered the compound pretty much every day.
Speaker A:Supplies were tight, morale low.
Speaker A:Men tried to slip out in the night, hoping to escape what they suspected was a death sentence.
Speaker A:Others clung to hope, believing that reinforcements from Goliad or Houston's command would arrive soon.
Speaker A:None did.
Speaker A:Bowie.
Speaker A:Bowie.
Speaker A:Jim Bowie, he is bedridden.
Speaker A:He's sick.
Speaker A:He can't do anything.
Speaker A:He's literally laying in a bed, unable to focus on anything other than been dying.
Speaker A:Basically, Crockett, he.
Speaker A:You know, he Kind of he's doing his best to inspire hope.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A: ting note from the movie from: Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:They're sharing legends with one another.
Speaker A:And Billy Bob Thornton as Crockett is kind of like, you know, these, these men, they expect those stories to be real and we have to do our best to live up to that expectation.
Speaker A:And essentially it's like a morale play.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Like we have to show them or make them believe that that's true because if we don't, they're going to lose hope and we're all going to die, essentially.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Anyway, the end came in the pre dawn hours of March 6th when Santa Ana launched a full scale assault fault on all four walls.
Speaker A:Fully surrounded of the fort, Mexican soldiers rushed forward in columns, taking heavy losses.
Speaker A:At first the cannon shot really kind of messing them up as, as it would do.
Speaker A:But ultimately they scaled the north wall and then began breaching the compound.
Speaker A:What followed was a brief and bloody battle.
Speaker A:Slaughter Texians they fought desperately.
Speaker A:Rifles, pistols, bayonets, hitting people with empty muskets.
Speaker A:You know, fell back from the walls room by room, fighting hand to hand in the courtyards.
Speaker A:Travis was killed pretty early.
Speaker A:You know, the, the reports are that he was shot in the head and then fell down.
Speaker A:But there's also like some, some misunderstanding of how that happened.
Speaker A:I don't know.
Speaker A:Bowie, he was cut down.
Speaker A:He was ran up upon with bayonets in his bed.
Speaker A:Some stories say that he shot and slashed his way as they were killing him.
Speaker A:Others say he was too sick and probably was too sick to defend himself.
Speaker A:Crockett, his fate kind of a mystery.
Speaker A:Part of the legend really of the Alamo.
Speaker A:There's, you know, there's a story that he, you know, fought to the bitter end.
Speaker A:He's got two rifles shooting at people.
Speaker A:He's swinging the rifles until the bitter end.
Speaker A:And there' like a pile of dead Mexican soldiers underneath him.
Speaker A:But then there's also like a Mexican general who said that he was.
Speaker A:He surrendered and then Santa Ana executed him.
Speaker A:So who knows?
Speaker A:By the time the actual mourning began, it was over.
Speaker A:The every defender from the Alamo was dead.
Speaker A:Estimates range from 180 to 250 men.
Speaker A:Santa Ana, determined to erase the rebellion at its root, ordered the bodies to be burned in Mass.
Speaker A:P.S.
Speaker A:he spared only a few women, children and the enslaved individuals to tell the story.
Speaker A:Ironically, his attempt to prevent martyrdom only actually ended up fueling it.
Speaker A:This remember the Alamo War cry would be because of these survivors that would tell the story.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And that's, you know, that's what.
Speaker A:What came after the Alamo battle is more enduring than the invisible event itself.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:The Alamo.
Speaker A:In death, it was crafted into a legend, molded over time into a symbol of noble sacrifice that, you know, the story includes some of the most enduring and questionable tales in American folklore.
Speaker A:The Line in the sand by Travis is one of the big ones.
Speaker A:Nobody really knows if that's true, but Travis apparently gathered people and drew a line in the sand with a sword and told anybody that anyone willing to stay and die should cross the line.
Speaker A:And apparently everybody except for one, did.
Speaker A:But, you know, there's no way to prove that that actually happened.
Speaker A:Yeah, and the guy who didn't left, and he's the one that told that story, but also told it like 50 years after it happened.
Speaker A: , it didn't even appear until: Speaker A:Okay, not 50 years, 30 years.
Speaker A:And it was actually told by the son in law of a woman who survived.
Speaker A:So not even the guy.
Speaker A:There's also romantic notions of Travis's final speech.
Speaker A:You know, he had this give me liberty or give me death kind of thing.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Delivered right before dawn.
Speaker A:And again, no evidence, no survivors among the fighting men to recall such a moment.
Speaker A:And, yeah, Crockett, again, his.
Speaker A:His epic finale, you know, different movies.
Speaker A:John Wayne played him.
Speaker A:There's also this him playing the fiddle in the firelight before charging into this last stand.
Speaker A:And, you know, he might have been captured, he might have fought.
Speaker A:It might have been both.
Speaker A:I don't know.
Speaker A: The movie in: Speaker A:Like, he charges and then he gets captured and then.
Speaker A:Then they execute him.
Speaker A:And he's like, I'm a screamer, which quite frankly is pretty badass line.
Speaker A:But like I said, one of the officers, the Mexican officers, wrote in his journal that Crockett and several others found alive and then begged for mercy and then were executed.
Speaker A:But, you know, these myths, they didn't.
Speaker A:They didn't come out by accident.
Speaker A:You know, they were all kind of concocted to kind of help paint a picture of, A, the viciousness of the Mexican army, and B, the resilience of these people defending Texas.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:They're defending them.
Speaker A:We gotta.
Speaker A:We gotta make it right by them.
Speaker A:Because the war is.
Speaker A:It was this thing that was actually kind of about land, power, slavery, but now it was about the Alamo.
Speaker A:Right, but the Alamo was this weird thing in Reality, it's a miscalculation.
Speaker A:A poorly defended outpost just held in defiance of better judgment.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:But yet it's still, still part of this story, right?
Speaker A:And, and part of the story is that the Texians, they were, you know, trying to fight against tyranny, but they're not.
Speaker A:They're land hungry, mostly Americans who violated Mexican law over and over and over.
Speaker A:Not Sam Houston.
Speaker A:Stephen F. Austin, over and over and over declared that he was going to gonna, you know, throw overthrow the government.
Speaker A:Like, yeah, I mean, they kind of had to respond.
Speaker A:It's not saying that what Santa Anna did is great, but I mean, realistically, like, that's kind of what happens.
Speaker A:So it's kind of funny because, you know, Santa Anna, he was trying to send a message with the Alamo.
Speaker A:He said, I'm gonna kill all these guys.
Speaker A:And then that message actually gets spun around on him.
Speaker A:This is kind of of one of history's ironic move moments, you know, and, and Santa Ana didn't really even care about the outpost itself.
Speaker A:He wasn't going to use it.
Speaker A:It was.
Speaker A:He's just moving on.
Speaker A:He's like, all right, well, we got to get rid of these guys and then keep going.
Speaker A:So in the days after the Alamo fell, the Texian leadership wasted no time turning tragedy into strategy.
Speaker A:While the Mexican army burned bodies and prepared to march east, Sam Houston and his Alamo guys are already spinning the story into something way bigger, something that would, you know, be the, the war cry that they needed.
Speaker A:The, remember the Alamo vengeance cry, right?
Speaker A:The massacre of every single one of these defenders, valiant defenders, heroic defenders who tried to fight the good fight against tyranny, right?
Speaker A:This narrative weapon that Houston wielded, he actually learned from Andrew Jackson this, this value of myth, you know, simplifying a messy situation into a fight between good and evil.
Speaker A:You know, the Texian rebellion had really been about a thousand things, but they boil it down to one thing, and good and bad.
Speaker A:So that what mattered now wasn't just all the things that they were fighting for is it was the Alamo.
Speaker A:So six weeks after the Alamo fell, the symbol inspired the men in the Battle of San Jacinto.
Speaker A: ,: Speaker A:The Texians shouting, remember the Alamo.
Speaker A:As they charged.
Speaker A:And then pretty much within 20 minutes, they had killed or captured hundreds.
Speaker A:Santa Anna himself caught the next day disguised as a lowly soldier trying to flee.
Speaker A:What a trickster.
Speaker A:The rage over the Alamo had done more to energize, or more than just energize the troops, though, because it completely flipped the script of what Santa Anna was trying to do is super big, right?
Speaker A:And with Santa Anna's capture, the war essentially over.
Speaker A:We captured your guy.
Speaker A:Texas now declared itself independent, but now independence was not enough.
Speaker A:The new republic, weak, broke, and surrounded.
Speaker A:What it really needed with Houston and many others had always wanted was annexation, right, by the United States.
Speaker A:And that's, you know, know, the Alamo myth kind of goes in overdrive here.
Speaker A:It became the story that they sold to the American public.
Speaker A:We fought, we lost all these people to defend you guys.
Speaker A:Essentially.
Speaker A:No longer was Texas a rogue province full of slaveholding, defying their host country.
Speaker A:It was land of liberty, freedom fighters, right?
Speaker A:We're standing up against tyranny.
Speaker A:Let us in.
Speaker A:Andrew Jackson, president at the time, time, he liked Texas joining the Union, but also did not like the fact that it might make Mexico want to fight them, which it would.
Speaker A:He delayed.
Speaker A:But the American public, especially in the south, had already been won over by the imagery of the Alamo.
Speaker A:This story captured the hearts of so many people.
Speaker A:They're like, guys, did it work?
Speaker A:We're proud of you boys.
Speaker A:Private support poured across the border in form of men, guns, money.
Speaker A:This, the story really fed.
Speaker A:Fed this people, right?
Speaker A:And, you know, the Texians, they revolted.
Speaker A:The story itself, the people being happy about it, they didn't ask why the Texians had revolted in the first place or who really benefited from this land grab or what role slavery played.
Speaker A:And then they probably wouldn't have cared anyway.
Speaker A:But it.
Speaker A:It was just a good story, and stories like that have consequences.
Speaker A: And in: Speaker A:Very not happy.
Speaker A:Were now totally about fighting the United States.
Speaker A:Like Andrew Jackson predicted that war would end with the United States seizing half of Mexico's territory, stretching the American flag all the way to the Pacific.
Speaker A:Now, like, through California and everything.
Speaker A:The Alamo had helped light that fuse.
Speaker A:It had become more, you know, than just this.
Speaker A:This story.
Speaker A:It was like weird donation program almost.
Speaker A:They're like, you guys want to help?
Speaker A:Remember the Alamo pitch in, which is crazy, but part of the.
Speaker A:Part of the part.
Speaker A:Part of the part.
Speaker A:Part of the rougher part.
Speaker A:I don't know if I phrase that right, is that in the myth building, a lot of the truce did get lost.
Speaker A:And maybe because they didn't Want them to.
Speaker A:You know, you got a lot of, a lot of facts omitted.
Speaker A:And one of the biggest things, the forgotten pieces is the Tejanos who fought and died for the cause and they just never were brought up again.
Speaker A:Like people didn't want to say that non white people fought against Mexico.
Speaker A:They, they just wanted to.
Speaker A:I don't know, it's.
Speaker A:It's a weird thing.
Speaker A:After Texas joined the United States, the Alamo quickly became sacred.
Speaker A:Lore, war, right?
Speaker A:Classrooms, school books, all of the things were taught.
Speaker A:They were like, you gotta.
Speaker A:This is, this is what we're teaching.
Speaker A:This is what happened.
Speaker A:You know, this brave frontiersman defied against this cruel dictator.
Speaker A:And the Tejano allies who had risked everything for the Texian cause were kind of written out of it.
Speaker A:The role of slavery rule, of the economic engine behind the rebellion, barely mentioned broader context of why Mexico had grown weary of these people in Tex.
Speaker A:Not, not part of it.
Speaker A:The story became a clear morality play tailor made for children and citizenship ceremonies.
Speaker A:Politicians found it super useful.
Speaker A:Throughout the 19th century, Texas leaders regularly invoked the battle to stir patriotic fervor.
Speaker A:Oh, you're not going to vote for me?
Speaker A:Guess you forgot the Alamo, which is crazy and wild that people don't still do stuff like that.
Speaker A:Confederate ideologies, you know.
Speaker A:And Southern nationalists eventually co opted the Alamo as part of the Lost Cause narrative.
Speaker A:Way to romanticize noble doomed rebellion and tie it into white supremacy and states rights.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:In that way the Alamo stopped being just a Texas story and now it's a Southern story and more broadly an American one.
Speaker A:The cultural machine picked it up from there.
Speaker A:19th century saw a flood of historical fiction and newspaper embellishments that transformed the Alamo into something closer than to legend, than history.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Writers and journalists dressed it up with dramatic flair, filling the unknowns with the kind of heroics that would make up for good reading, make for good reason.
Speaker A:Reading Davy Crockett in particular morphed into a larger than life figure.
Speaker A:Part of.
Speaker A:Like he already was during his lifetime.
Speaker A:He's basically a demigod at this point, portrayed as.
Speaker A:He's this rugged American Moses gunslinging Odysseus, just swinging on these people, climbing a stack of bodies.
Speaker A:By the end of the century, almost nothing that people believed about the Alamo had any real basis in fact.
Speaker A:It was no longer a battle, it was a brand.
Speaker A:And the myth grew for them.
Speaker A:And then the Tejano figures like Juan Seguin, who had actually fought for independence were pushed to the margins or cast in ambiguous roles.
Speaker A:Survivors like Joe William Travis's enslaved servant, whose first hand account was one of the most detailed and valuable, were forgotten cotton, you know, because he's a slave, or was motivations of the rebellion, particularly the drive to protect and expand slavery, less and less mentioned.
Speaker A:And it's very deliberate in that way.
Speaker A:And by the end of the 19th century, the Alamo myth was now basically gospel as a cornerstone of Texas identity.
Speaker A:Cultural touchstone for the American frontier myth, key pillar of post war Southern nationalism.
Speaker A:The real Alamo, the broken, neglected ruins, ironically stood largely forgotten.
Speaker A:Which is hilarious to like, not, not great that like people are forgetting the actual building, you know, but it's just very like people are using it as this political tool.
Speaker A:And then the actual Alamo nobody cares about.
Speaker A:It's very ironic, right?
Speaker A:I think part of it ended up being a grocery store for a little bit, like just very, very much.
Speaker A:Nobody cared about this building.
Speaker A:Each generation, you know, added their own layers to this, this thing and into the 19th century or 20th century, I guess.
Speaker A:And it kind of the, the myth itself kind of shapes how the nation sees itself a little bit today.
Speaker A:You see it in our sense of exceptionalism.
Speaker A:The idea that Americans, even when flawed, destined to triumph for our cause, is just inherently just.
Speaker A:The myth of the Alamo helped reinforce that belief by turning an illegal rebellion into sacred struggle for liberty.
Speaker A:And noble sacrifice was planted, you know, this echo through the Civil War, both world granted, World War II, we were on the good side that time, but then you get Vietnam, Iraq, you know, all these things.
Speaker A:We're the good guys, we promise changes, how we talk about failures, losses, valor, right.
Speaker A:And this, this kind of thing, you know, they would kind of repeat this, the same idea, like during the, in the sorry blanket, the annexation of Hawaii, for instance, Cold War interventions and like I said, the Middle east, you know, all the, these, these things, they're, they're kind of tied to this idea or the ideals of the Alamo.
Speaker A:And you know, weirdly enough, as time moves on and people learn more things, some cracks began to form in this polished marble of that legend.
Speaker A:A new generation of historians, educators, writers started looking at the story a little closer, started to make, track down original letters and firsthand accounts, the Mexican records, overlooked testimonies from survivors.
Speaker A:And you know, and a lot of these things they're finding didn't line up with the, the story.
Speaker A:And so this is revision.
Speaker A:Revisionism is Alamo revisionism, which, you know, revised rewriting.
Speaker A:A lot of politicians and die hard people are like, why are you trying to change everything?
Speaker A:And it's like, yeah, we're just trying to make a little more accurate dog.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:And it's something that kind of continues, right?
Speaker A:We have things like that still going on.
Speaker A:We have things about Confederate statues going on.
Speaker A:What's in the curriculum, the school curriculum.
Speaker A:Part of this story, the Texas Alamo story, it is pitched in Texas curriculum that the people at Alamo were heroes.
Speaker A:That, that.
Speaker A:That's.
Speaker A:That's what they are.
Speaker A:You can't say that they're not heroes, which is crazy.
Speaker A:And meanwhile, you have, like, you have all of these things where you're.
Speaker A:You're trying to.
Speaker A:I don't know, you're decide what this story means for other people instead of just saying the truth.
Speaker A:And over the 19th century, 20th century, like I said that that building nobody cared about.
Speaker A:And there was basically.
Speaker A:So there's a.
Speaker A:A faction of people called the Daughters of.
Speaker A:I don't even know what it's called for Texas.
Speaker A:There's.
Speaker A:It's like the Daughters of the Confederacy, but for, like, Texas.
Speaker A:And they were in charge of the Alamo for a long time, and they were not.
Speaker A:Not like, gonna let anybody do anything to preserve it.
Speaker A:They wanted to turn it into a park, a pub, like a park.
Speaker A:And they had a gift shop.
Speaker A:And they, like, is this whole thing that they're trying to market off of this.
Speaker A:This story that's supposed to be like this heroic, inspiring event.
Speaker A:And they're like, we don't take care of it and we don't really care about it, and we're not going to tell you the real story.
Speaker A:Like, even the.
Speaker A:The Tejanos, the nosy, non Anglo people that fought at the Alamo, like, they have a plaque now, but that's kind of it.
Speaker A:It's like they just smooth over a lot of these facts.
Speaker A:And I don't know, it's.
Speaker A:It's kind of weird.
Speaker A:And I think the story, it's, you know, the Alamo.
Speaker A:Remember the Alamo.
Speaker A:Like, the ultimate irony is that nobody seems to know what the heck happened.
Speaker A:Like, you have to go and read books to figure it out and stuff, instead of just being like, hey, Texas, what happened?
Speaker A:So that's kind of crazy.
Speaker A:The reality of it is that, you know, these myths.
Speaker A:These myths endure because we're comfortable.
Speaker A:You know, they tell us what we want to believe about ourselves.
Speaker A:They offer simple answers.
Speaker A:But the truth is.
Speaker A:Is messy and, you know, it doesn't always feel good.
Speaker A:It complicates things.
Speaker A:It makes us ask harder questions about power, privilege, morality, whatever.
Speaker A:We're willing to ignore, to keep the story tidy.
Speaker A:And yet if we want to grow as a country, we have to kind of face that truth.
Speaker A:We have a lot of skeletons in our closet.
Speaker A:We don't have to erase things, you know, but maybe try and understand it better.
Speaker A:The Alamo, when you strip away the legend becomes, I don't think smaller.
Speaker A:It becomes more human.
Speaker A:It's flawed.
Speaker A:It's real, though.
Speaker A:Like we don't need it to be a myth.
Speaker A:We can and let it be a real story, you know, I think that's the more interesting thing.
Speaker A:Like, yeah, well, maybe we could learn from that.
Speaker A:What should they have done differently?
Speaker A:Maybe.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So that's what we got today.
Speaker A:The story Alamo.
Speaker A:The people who kept the myth alive, the economic interests, Southerners basically being kicked out of the south focus their sights on the seemingly untamed and unclaimed Texas landscape.
Speaker A:They found it was not unclaimed, but untamed.
Speaker A:And the fight to take this land for themselves spanned decades.
Speaker A:Culminated in the Mexican American War and ultimately the short lived state or country of Texas, I guess, being annexed by the United States.
Speaker A:The story of heroes inspired the soldiers to fight off Santa Ana and then sold.
Speaker A:And the stories they told continued to provide a basis for not only the history of Texas, but the attitude of the American people in general.
Speaker A:The erasure of the Tejanos and the other non anglo people in these myths that make, you know, the white man the savior once again in.
Speaker A:Although, you know, it would never have been in the position they were in had they just respected the rights of the people with darker complexions than them.
Speaker A:So no.
Speaker A:But I hope you all learned something today.
Speaker A:I hope that you take this information and apply it to things you might be curious about.
Speaker A:The stories that create the myths of the things around us, you know, they're darker than what we would like to be, but you know, that's important nonetheless.
Speaker A:History always constantly unraveling, usually dark and clouded by the lies of people who write it.
Speaker A:But it's our job to decide what we live, what we leave as myths or illuminate the truths.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:So thank you for joining me on this adventure through the tangled web of a brief history of Texas and the Alamo.
Speaker A:Thank you to the friends of the show whose links again are in the description.
Speaker A:Wherever you're listening, thank you.
Speaker A:Those of you who have reviewed the show, bought merch, I appreciate you all with that as always, keep questioning the past, the future.
Speaker A:Will they?
Speaker A:Thank you.
Speaker A:See you next time.
