The Briefing Room
State Chapters => Texas => Topic started by: corbe on June 17, 2021, 06:50:41 pm
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We've Been Telling the Alamo Story Wrong for Nearly 200 Years. Now It's Time to Correct the Record
BY BRYAN BURROUGH AND JASON STANFORD JUNE 9, 2021 5:43 PM EDT
Imagine if the U.S. were to open interior Alaska for colonization and, for whatever reason, thousands of Canadian settlers poured in, establishing their own towns, hockey rinks and Tim Hortons stores. When the U.S. insists they follow American laws and pay American taxes, they refuse. When the government tries to collect taxes, they shoot and kill American soldiers. When law enforcement goes after the killers, the colonists, backed by Canadian financing and mercenaries, take up arms in open revolt.
As an American, how would you feel? Now you can imagine how Mexican President Jose Lopez de Santa Anna would have felt in 1835, because that’s pretty much the story of the revolution that paved the way for Texas to become its own nation and then an American state.
If that’s not the version of history you’re familiar with, you’re not alone. The version most Americans know, the “Heroic Anglo Narrative” that has held sway for nearly 200 years, holds that American colonists revolted against Mexico because they were “oppressed” and fought for their “freedom,” a narrative that has been soundly rebutted by 30-plus years of academic scholarship. But the many myths surrounding Texas’ birth, especially those cloaking the fabled 1836 siege at the Alamo mission in San Antonio, remain cherished in the state. Even as the nation is undergoing a sweeping reassessment of its racial history, and despite decades of academic research that casts the Texas Revolt and the Alamo’s siege in a new light, little of this has permeated the conversation in Texas.
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https://time.com/6072141/alamo-history-myths/?utm_source=pocket-newtab (https://time.com/6072141/alamo-history-myths/?utm_source=pocket-newtab)
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Time and Time again, they get History WRONG!
(https://media.giphy.com/media/11EeYuRAdVuwNy/giphy.gif)
Counting Crows - Time And Time Again
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Mxo-FJ8W0Y (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Mxo-FJ8W0Y)
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I read the article a few days ago.
Most people know some of the things that they said we get wrong, like Davy Crockett dying after the battle.
He was executed.
The fact that many Tejanos — Texas Latinos— allied with the Americans, and fought and died alongside them at the Alamo, has generally been lost to popular history.
Not true, most people I know understand this.
They left this out:
After Santa Anna was elected, Santa Anna transformed himself into a centralist dictator, ultimately replacing the 1824 Mexican constitution with a new document, the Seven Laws (1836), that formally put power in the hands of the landed aristocracy (with property qualifications established for holding office and voting) and reconstituted the Mexican states as military districts.
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I'm all for telling history the way it is - how about a chapter on Santa Ana taking over a democratic government and breaking all of the promises of a US-style Constitution made to those immigrant Texians the Mexican Government solicited in order to tame a wilderness it could not control or make productive itself.
After that we can add the story of siege at Goliad, General Fannin and his entire command of 425+ souls executed by Santa Ana after surrendering to our grade school history books.
Journalists these days are so friggen ignorant.
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I'm all for telling history the way it is - how about a chapter on Santa Ana taking over a democratic government and breaking all of the promises of a US-style Constitution made to those immigrant Texians the Mexican Government solicited in order to tame a wilderness it could not control or make productive itself.
After that we can add the story of siege at Goliad, General Fanning and his entire command of 425+ souls executed by Santa Ana after surrendering to our grade school history books.
True, they couldn't get enough people from Mexico to immigrate to Texas in the numbers they wanted, so they asked Americans to.
Also, Fannin and his men were executed on Palm Sunday.
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True, they couldn't get enough people from Mexico to immigrate to Texas in the numbers they wanted, so they asked Americans to.
Also, Fannin and his men were executed on Palm Sunday.
Apparently the Mexicans couldn't handle the Comanches & Apaches & thought letting the gringo do it was a swell idea. Of course thats just what they did, creating ranches, farms & WEALTH, at which time Santa Ana decided on a rules change.
Yes by all means lets look at the real history.
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True. The Comanches were one of the reason Texas ended up joining the U.S., for the military protection against the attacks.
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It began with Father Hildago's Insurrection against the Spanish monarchy in 1810 (Texas Green Flag Revolution) and cumulated with Gen Scott occupying Mexico City in 1847.
WTF President Polk ever gave it back to them, is forever lost on me.
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It began with Father Hildago's Insurrection against the Spanish monarchy in 1810 (Texas Green Flag Revolution) and cumulated with Gen Scott occupying Mexico City in 1847.
WTF President Polk ever gave it back to them, is forever lost on me.
:yowsa: 888high58888
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It might have been the origins of the Chamber of Commerce lobbying for cheap labor, as some have purported here to conquer the Country and then under pressure from the affluent pro slavery lobbies, abandoned the idea and just left.
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True, they couldn't get enough people from Mexico to immigrate to Texas in the numbers they wanted, so they asked Americans to.
@GrouchoTex
MY memory tells me that many of the white immigrants were from places like Germany and Poland. They weren't really Americans until Texas became a US state.
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@GrouchoTex
MY memory tells me that many of the white immigrants were from places like Germany and Poland. They weren't really Americans until Texas became a US state.
I get what you're saying about them being Americans. But for info's sake there are lists of the Alamo defenders and their places of origin. There were 6 or 8 from Scotland, Ireland and England, maybe a couple from Germany and/or Poland. And a half dozen amerindian/mestizos. But from what I've seen most were born in what was then the US.
Interestingly there were a few European officers among Santa Ana's army.
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@GrouchoTex
MY memory tells me that many of the white immigrants were from places like Germany and Poland. They weren't really Americans until Texas became a US state.
So, we stole it from the Spaniards/Catholicism who stole it from the (Feather) Indians who stole it from the JP Morgans who stole it from the Kardasians.
We need to give this $hit back.
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I get what you're saying about them being Americans. But for info's sake there are lists of the Alamo defenders and their places of origin. There were 6 or 8 from Scotland, Ireland and England, maybe a couple from Germany and/or Poland. And a half dozen amerindian/mestizos. But from what I've seen most were born in what was then the US.
@skeeter
I stand corrected. Seems like I have always known about,and didn't think it was very remarkable,that there were " amerindian/mestizos/Mexicans there fighting for independence from Mexico. I have always thought it was funny that some people get mad when you mention this.
Interestingly there were a few European officers among Santa Ana's army.
OK,that was news to me also,even though it shouldn't have been. Back in those days it was pretty common for experienced officers from countries not at war to rent themselves out to anyone wanting to hire them.
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So, we stole it from the Spaniards/Catholicism who stole it from the (Feather) Indians who stole it from the JP Morgans who stole it from the Kardasians.
We need to give this $hit back.
@corbe
Bleep them! If they want it,let them pick up their rifles and come to try and take it back.
AND....,IF it "belonged" to anyone at that time,it was wandering bands of people we misnamed "Indians",not Mexicans or anyone else.
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Many of the Texans were lifelong residents, and many of the Americans who moved there had lived there for several years. They give the lie to Slime Mag’s American invaders narrative.
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@skeeter
I stand corrected. Seems like I have always known about,and didn't think it was very remarkable,that there were " amerindian/mestizos/Mexicans there fighting for independence from Mexico. I have always thought it was funny that some people get mad when you mention this.
OK,that was news to me also,even though it shouldn't have been. Back in those days it was pretty common for experienced officers from countries not at war to rent themselves out to anyone wanting to hire them.
Recommend Wm Davis’s Three Roads to the Alamo. Outstanding book and more detail than I’ve ever seen on Bowie, Travis and Crockett.
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Recommend Wm Davis’s Three Roads to the Alamo. Outstanding book and more detail than I’ve ever seen on Bowie, Travis and Crockett.
@skeeter
I thank you for the recommendation,but I am just now STARTING to get back to reading after 10 months of "chemo brain". I would try to read before,and by the time I got to page 2,I had already forgotten what happened on page one,so I pretty much quit reading and am just now starting to try to catch up on my horde of unread books.
I THINK I have now gotten to the point where I am having more "good reading days" than "bad reading days",but wouldn't bet any money on it.
I have really,really missed reading.
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@GrouchoTex
MY memory tells me that many of the white immigrants were from places like Germany and Poland. They weren't really Americans until Texas became a US state.
@sneakypete
@corbe and @Bigun know as well, (among others at TBR) Germans and Czechs.
Jak Se Mas, everybody?
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So, we stole it from the Spaniards/Catholicism who stole it from the (Feather) Indians who stole it from the JP Morgans who stole it from the Kardasians.
We need to give this $hit back.
Who is stealing it from us now?
The O'Rourke's?
The Californians?
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Only LEFTS....want to go back in history. 200 years ago? DIFFERENT TIME and mores. Now, they want to use 2021 as some standard, to test those behaviors 200 years ago. Bogus. Women also did not vote till 1920. Women could not be in any male profession...women were used as chattel. Going back in time, has ZERO VALUE.
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Only LEFTS....want to go back in history. 200 years ago? DIFFERENT TIME and mores. Now, they want to use 2021 as some standard, to test those behaviors 200 years ago. Bogus. Women also did not vote till 1920. Women could not be in any male profession...women were used as chattel. Going back in time, has ZERO VALUE.
@LegalAmerican
Depends on if you are talking about government actions or just customs. Customs change with the times,but our Constitution and Bill of Rights are supposed to be carved in stone.
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No matter the details, Texas was founded by a bunch of folks (no matter where they were from) that wanted to establish homes, families and careers in an environment of freedom. They fought who they needed to and got it done. (Same thing happened in MA, VA, etc too.)
I lived all over the country and the world in the US Army and retired in Texas. My neighbor's ancestors were originally from Spain but his family has been here for hundreds of years. They are Americans... and not "dash-Americans". They don't speak Spanish. My family came from Europe but I don't speak Gaelic. I was born in the Bronx, making me a NATIVE AMERICAN. (You are a NATIVE of the place you are born.)
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Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick says he pushed Texas museum to cancel 'Forget the Alamo' book event
Houston Chronicle by Taylor Goldenstein, Jeremy Blackman, Austin Bureau 7/2/2021
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/lt-gov-dan-patrick-forget-the-alamo-book-event-16290288.php (https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/lt-gov-dan-patrick-forget-the-alamo-book-event-16290288.php)
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick on Friday acknowledged putting pressure on the state’s history museum to shut down a virtual discussion of “Forget the Alamo,” a book that reexamines the history of the Texas landmark.
“As a member of the Preservation Board, I told staff to cancel this event as soon as I found out about it,” the Republican and former conservative radio talk show host wrote on Twitter. “Like efforts to move the Cenotaph, which I also stopped, this fact-free rewriting of TX history has no place @BullockMuseum.”
Patrick has called efforts to push the board to relocate the Alamo Cenotaph, a monument to the Alamo defenders killed by the Mexican army in 1836, the product of “cancel culture” as recently as January.
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I've lived in Iraq, Pakistan, Kuwait and other places where freedom remains elusive. Those experiences made me appreciate the fact that I am an American. I have lived in California, New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Those experiences made me appreciate that I now live in Texas.