Exodus From the Alamo: The Anatomy of the Last Stand Myth by Phillip Thomas Tucker Page B
Authors: Phillip Thomas Tucker
Tags: United States, General, Mexico, History, Military, Latin America, Other, State & Local, Modern, 19th century, Southwest (AZ; NM; OK; TX), Texas - History - to 1846, Alamo (San Antonio; Tex.) - Siege; 1836, Alamo (San Antonio; Tex.)
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fortified position so relatively low? Why have generations of historians failed to recognize or acknowledge the truth about the Alamo, refusing to face obvious facts? Why have so many reliable Mexican primary accounts, which coincide with official Mexican Army reports, been overlooked and ignored for so long? Investigation of such key questions not only requires us to strip away the long-accepted romantic mythology of the Alamo, but to re-examine the deeply ingrained racial and cultural stereotypes on which it has been founded.
First and foremost, Texas and American historians, writers, and journalists have conveniently overlooked the best Mexican sources contemporary to the battle. These are more reliable, accurate, and authentic than the controversial Jose Enrique de la Pena diary-turned-memoir, which contains post-1836 Alamo-related material—including the story of David Crockett’s execution—from a host of other published sources, including Mexican and United States newspapers. In addition to being romantic and melodramatic, de la Pena’s work is largely a post-war political document whose notorious anti-Santa Anna sentiments make some of its descriptions and conclusions highly suspect. These include an exaggeration of both casualties and resistance, in order to demonstrate Santa Anna’s folly in launching an assault.
Problems with the de la Pena memoir, which essentially appeared out of nowhere in Mexico City in 1955, exemplify the need to carefully re-evaluate primary documents to separate fact from fiction by comparing them with more reliable accounts. Unfortunately, many Anglo and Mexican accounts have been equally biased and self-serving. Comparative readings are especially necessary for Anglo accounts, but they are also essential for other questionable Mexican sources in addition to de la Pena. My own attempt to separate fact from fiction has sometimes meant that I have accepted parts of accounts that previous historians have dismissed, while I have sometimes discounted elements of others that were formerly considered as definitive.
For the most part, American and Texas nationalist historians have casually dismissed the truth of the Alamo because the legend has always shored up a sense of Anglo-Celtic superiority over a mixed-race people of Catholic faith. The romantic mythology of the heroic last stand has long provided a comforting sense of cultural, racial, and national selfsatisfaction for many Americans. Over time, the sacrifice of the Alamo garrison has popularly come to represent the inevitable price of national expansion, progress, and the spread of civilization. Generations of Americans have thus viewed the garrison’s slaughter as not only a necessary, but also an understandable sacrifice for a greater good.
In an ironic twist of historical memory, latecoming interlopers, primarily from the United States, of the Mexican province of Texas were transformed into the righteous defenders of a white bastion of AngloCeltic civilization, while Mexican troops, who were defending their republic’s home soil in a struggle that was but one chapter of a larger Mexican civil war, were tarnished as godless invaders and barbarians. This mythical Alamo justified a sense of moral supremacy and righteous entitlement to Texas at the expense of the Indian, Tejano, and Mexican people. The mythical last stand, in which a relatively small band of white heroes defy the mixed-race horde, demonstrated the moral, racial, and cultural superiority over Latino brown people needed to justify and rationalize one of the greatest land-grabs in American history.
The military incompetence and glaring failures at every level of the Texas political and military leadership that doomed the Alamo garrison to unnecessary slaughter have been largely dismissed. Instead, “history” has given us a hallowed trio of Alamo leaders—David Crockett, William Barret Travis, and James Bowie—transformed into immortal figures. Meanwhile,
First and foremost, Texas and American historians, writers, and journalists have conveniently overlooked the best Mexican sources contemporary to the battle. These are more reliable, accurate, and authentic than the controversial Jose Enrique de la Pena diary-turned-memoir, which contains post-1836 Alamo-related material—including the story of David Crockett’s execution—from a host of other published sources, including Mexican and United States newspapers. In addition to being romantic and melodramatic, de la Pena’s work is largely a post-war political document whose notorious anti-Santa Anna sentiments make some of its descriptions and conclusions highly suspect. These include an exaggeration of both casualties and resistance, in order to demonstrate Santa Anna’s folly in launching an assault.
Problems with the de la Pena memoir, which essentially appeared out of nowhere in Mexico City in 1955, exemplify the need to carefully re-evaluate primary documents to separate fact from fiction by comparing them with more reliable accounts. Unfortunately, many Anglo and Mexican accounts have been equally biased and self-serving. Comparative readings are especially necessary for Anglo accounts, but they are also essential for other questionable Mexican sources in addition to de la Pena. My own attempt to separate fact from fiction has sometimes meant that I have accepted parts of accounts that previous historians have dismissed, while I have sometimes discounted elements of others that were formerly considered as definitive.
For the most part, American and Texas nationalist historians have casually dismissed the truth of the Alamo because the legend has always shored up a sense of Anglo-Celtic superiority over a mixed-race people of Catholic faith. The romantic mythology of the heroic last stand has long provided a comforting sense of cultural, racial, and national selfsatisfaction for many Americans. Over time, the sacrifice of the Alamo garrison has popularly come to represent the inevitable price of national expansion, progress, and the spread of civilization. Generations of Americans have thus viewed the garrison’s slaughter as not only a necessary, but also an understandable sacrifice for a greater good.
In an ironic twist of historical memory, latecoming interlopers, primarily from the United States, of the Mexican province of Texas were transformed into the righteous defenders of a white bastion of AngloCeltic civilization, while Mexican troops, who were defending their republic’s home soil in a struggle that was but one chapter of a larger Mexican civil war, were tarnished as godless invaders and barbarians. This mythical Alamo justified a sense of moral supremacy and righteous entitlement to Texas at the expense of the Indian, Tejano, and Mexican people. The mythical last stand, in which a relatively small band of white heroes defy the mixed-race horde, demonstrated the moral, racial, and cultural superiority over Latino brown people needed to justify and rationalize one of the greatest land-grabs in American history.
The military incompetence and glaring failures at every level of the Texas political and military leadership that doomed the Alamo garrison to unnecessary slaughter have been largely dismissed. Instead, “history” has given us a hallowed trio of Alamo leaders—David Crockett, William Barret Travis, and James Bowie—transformed into immortal figures. Meanwhile,
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