PRE-CIVIL WAR ERA DOCUMENTS
QUESTIONNAIRE:
- According to Santa Anna, why did the Mexican forces need to assault the Alamo? How does the Mexican military victory possibly carry another form of political significance in the eyes of the Mexican government?
- In comparison, examine the account by Vicente Filisola. How does his analysis of the battle for the Alamo contrast that of Santa Anna? What is his opinion of the war in general and why?
- How might the Texas Revolution been a conflict of cultures? How might slavery have influenced decisions to pick sides for or against the Texas revolutionaries?
- Examine the article of Santa Anna’s denouncement of the institution of slavery. What are Santa Anna’s and his secretary’s stand of the “cruel and sanguinary” system of the United States? How does the critique Manifest Destiny as a whole? Connect your discussion to previous class conversations regarding slavery in America during the 19th century.The Alamo
Digital History ID 3662Author: Carlos E. Castañeda
Date:Annotation: Few historical events are more surrounded with legend than the battle of the Alamo, where a couple of hundred Texas volunteers sought to defend an abandoned mission against between two thousand and five thousand Mexican soldiers. Texan bravery and sense of duty in the face of certain defeat has become a popular symbol of heroism.
Most Texans are unaware that Tejanos played a pivotal role in this battle for Texas independence. Gregorio Esparza, Antonio Fuentes, Toribio Losoya, Guadalupe Rodriguez, Juan Seguin, and other Tejanos joined Colonel William B. Travis, who is said to have drawn a line in the dirt with his sword and asked those willing to stay and fight to cross the line. They fought alongside the bedridden Jim Bowie, who later died of a bayonet wound, but not before leaving his famous knife in an attacker’s body. And they stood alongside of David Crockett, the fifty-year-old Indian scout and politician, who was either shot and killed or captured and executed.
For twelve days, Mexican forces laid siege to the Alamo. At 5 a.m., March 6, 1836, Mexican troops scaled the mission’s walls. By 8 a.m., when the fighting was over, 183 defenders lay dead.
Two weeks after the defeat at the Alamo, a contingent of Texans surrendered to Mexican forces near Goliad with the understanding that they would be treated as prisoners of war. Instead, Santa Anna ordered more than 350 Texans shot. These defeats had an unexpected side effect. They gave Houston time to raise and train and army. Volunteers from the southern United States flocked to his banner. On April 21, his army surprised and defeated Santa Anna’s army as it camped on the San Jacinto River, east of present-day Houston. The next day Houston captured Santa Anna himself and forced him to sign a treaty granting Texas its independence, a treaty that was never ratified by the Mexican government because it was acquired under duress. In 1837, Santa Anna presented his perspective on the battle of the Alamo.
Document: The enemy fortified itself in the Alamo, overlooking the city. A siege of a few days would have caused its surrender, but it was not fit that the entire army should be detained before an irregular fortification hardly worthy of the name. Neither could its capture be dispensed with, for bad as it was, it was well equipped with artillery, had a double wall, and defenders who, it must be admitted, were very courageous…. An assault would infuse our soldiers with that enthusiasm of the first triumph that would make them superior in the future to those of the enemy…. Before undertaking the assault and after the reply given to Travis who commanded the enemy fortification, I still wanted to try a generous measure, characteristic of Mexican kindness, and I offered life to the defendants who would surrender their arms and retire under oath not to take them up again against Mexico….
On the night of the fifth of March, four columns having been made ready for the assault under the command of their respective officers, they moved forward in the best order and with the greatest silence, but the imprudent huzzas of one of them awakened the sleeping vigilance of the defenders of the fort and their artillery fire caused such disorder among our columns that it was necessary to make use of the reserves. The Alamo was taken, this victory that was so much and so justly celebrated at the time, costing us seventy dead and about three hundred wounded, a loss that was also later judged to be avoidable and charged, after the disaster of San Jacinto, to my incompetence and precipitation. I do not know of a way in which any fortification, defended by artillery, can be carried by assault without the personal losses of the attacking party being greater than those of the enemy, against whose walls and fortifications the brave assailants can present only their bare breasts. It is easy enough, from a desk in a peaceful office, to pile up charges against a general out on the field but this cannot prove anything more than the praiseworthy desire of making war less disastrous. But its nature being such, a general has no power over its immutable laws. Let us weep at the tomb of the brave Mexicans who died at the Alamo defending the honor and the rights of their country They won lasting claim to fame and the country can never forget their heroic names.
Copyright 2012 Digital History
Remembering the Alamo
Digital History ID 3663Author: Amelia Williams
Date:Annotation: In a retrospective account of the battle written in 1849, Vicente Filisola, one of the Mexican soldiers, offers a critical perspective on Santa Anna’s strategy at the Alamo.
Document: On this same evening, a little before nightfall, it is said that Barrett Travis, commander of the enemy, had offered to the general-in-chief, by a woman messenger, to surrender his arms and the fort with all the materials upon the sole condition that his own life and the lives of his men be spared. But the answer was that they must surrender at discretion, without any guarantee, even of life, which traitors did not deserve. It is evident, that after such an answer, they all prepared to sell their lives as dearly as possible. Consequently, they exercised the greatest vigilance day and night to avoid surprise.
On the morning of March 6, the Mexican troops were stationed at 4 o’clock, A.M., in accord with Santa Anna’s instructions. The artillery, as appears from these same instructions, was to remain inactive, as it received no order; and furthermore, darkness and the disposition made of the troops which were to attack the four fronts at the same time, prevented its firing without mowing down our own ranks. Thus the enemy was not to suffer from our artillery during the attack. Their own artillery was in readiness. At the sound of the bugle they could no longer doubt that the time had come for them to conquer or to die. Had they still doubted, the imprudent shouts for Santa Anna given by our columns of attack must have opened their eyes. As soon as our troops were in sight, a shower of grape and musket balls was poured upon them from the fort, the garrison of which at the sound of the bugle, had rushed to arms and to their posts. The three columns that attacked the west, the north, and the east fronts, fell back, or rather, wavered at the first discharge from the enemy, but the example and the efforts of the officers soon caused them to return to the attack. The columns of the western and eastern attacks, meeting with some difficulties in reaching the tops of the small houses which formed the walls of the fort, did, by a simultaneous movement to the right and to left, swing northward till the three columns formed one dense mass, which under the guidance of their officers, endeavored to climb the parapet on that side…. Our loss was very heavy. Colonel Francisco Duque was mortally wounded at the very beginning, as he lay dying on the ground where he was being trampled by his own men, he still ordered them on to the slaughter. This attack was extremely injudicious and in opposition to military rules, for our own men were exposed not only to the fire of the enemy but also to that of our own columns attacking the other Fronts; and our soldiers being formed in close columns, all shots that were aimed too low, struck the backs of our foremost men. The greatest number of our casualties took place in that manner; it may even be affirmed that not one-fourth of our wounded were struck by the enemy’s fire, because their cannon, owing to their elevated position, could not be sufficiently lowered to injure our troops after they had reached the foot of the walls. Nor could the defenders use their muskets with accuracy, because the wall having no inner banquette, they had, in order to deliver their fire, to stand on top where they could not live one second.
The official list of casualties, made by General Juan de Andrade, shows: officers 8 killed, 18 wounded; enlisted men 52 killed, 233 wounded. Total 311 killed and wounded. A great many of the wounded died for want of medical attention, beds, shelter, and surgical instruments.
The whole garrison were killed except an old woman and a Negro slave for whom the soldiers felt compassion, knowing that they had remained from compulsion alone. There were 150 volunteers, 32 citizens of Gonzales who had introduced themselves into the fort the night previous to the storming, and about 20 citizens or merchants of Bexar [San Antonio]….
Finally, the place remained in the power of the Mexicans, and all the defenders were killed. It is a source of deep regret, that after the excitement of the combat, many acts of atrocity were allowed which are unworthy of the gallantry and resolution with which this operation had been executed, and stamp it with an indelible stain in the annals of history. These acts were reproved at the time by those who had the sorrow to witness them, and subsequently by the whole army, who certainly were not habitually animated by such feelings, and who heard with disgust and horror, as becomes brave and generous Mexicans who feel none but noble and lofty sentiments, of certain facts which I forebear to mention, and wish for the honor of the Mexican Republic had never taken place.
In our opinion the blood of our soldiers as well as that of the enemy was shed in vain, for the mere gratification of the inconsiderate, purile, and guilty vanity of reconquering Bexar by force of arms, and through a bloody contest. As we have said, the defenders of the Alamo, were disposed to surrender, upon the sole condition that their lives should be spared. Let us even grant that they were not so disposed–what could the wretches do, being surrounded by 5,000 men, without proper means of resistance, no possibility of retreating, nor any hope of receiving proper and sufficient reinforcements to compel the Mexicans to raise the siege? Had they been supplied with all the resources needed, that weak enclosure could not have withstood for one hour the fire of our twenty pieces of artillery which if properly directed would have crushed it to atoms and leveled down the inner buildings…. The massacres of the Alamo, of Goliad, of Refugio, convinced the rebels that no peaceable settlement could be expected, and that they must conquer, or die, or abandon the fruits of ten years of sweat and labor, together with their fondest hopes for the future.
The Texas Revolution: A Conflict of Cultures?
Digital History ID 550Date:1828
Annotation: During the Texas Revolution, Tejanos faced a test of conflicting loyalties: whether to fight for independence with Texas Anglos, or to side with General Antonio López de Santa Anna. Gregorio Esparza, a Tejano, was one of 183 Texans who died defending the Alamo. His brother Francisco was in the victorious Mexican army. Families, like the Esparzas, were split by the fight for Texas independence.
Was the Texas Revolution essentially a conflict of cultures? The answer is ambiguous. Anglo-Texans provided most of the leadership for the revolution. Some Anglo-Texans, including Stephen Austin, made statements that suggest deep ethnic hostility. In 1836, Austin wrote that the conflict in Texas pitted “a mongrel Spanish-Indian and Negro race, against civilization and the Anglo-American race.” But a significant number of Tejanos took an active role in the Texas Revolution. The Texans who captured San Antonio in 1835 included 160 Tejanos and seven Tejanos died defending the Alamo. Many elite Tejanos, who regarded slave-grown cotton as the key to the region’s prosperity, opposed Mexico’s 1829 decree prohibiting slavery. They also favored repeal of an 1830 law forbidding further immigration from the United States, and wanted improvements in the court system, lower tariffs, and separation from Coahuila.
Among the rebel Tejanos was Juan Seguin. Seguin, the son of a wealthy rancher, recruited a company of Tejano volunteers which helped defend the Alamo. During the siege of the former mission, Seguin and some of his men went to look for reinforcements. Later he did essential service harassing and delaying Santa Anna’s army, which gave Sam Houston time to gather reinforcements from the southern United States. He served as mayor of San Antonio until 1842, when Anglos accused him of supporting a Mexican invasion of Texas. He was forced to flee to Mexico, having become “a foreigner in my native land.”
Another rebel was Tejano Gregorio Esparza, who died defending the Alamo. His brother Francisco was in the victorious Mexican army. Families, like the Esparzas, were split by the fight for Texas independence.
After Texas secured its independence in 1836, and especially after two failed Mexican invasions of Texas in 1842, anti-Mexican sentiment soared. Anglo-Texans threatened to banish or imprison all Tejanos unless Mexico accepted the Rio Grande River as the southern border of Texas.
This selection examines the attitudes of the Tejanos and Anglo-Texans, eight years prior to the Revolution. It is excerpted from a journal kept by José María Sánchez, who served on a Mexican government directorate commissioned in 1827 to survey the boundary between Texas and Louisiana.
Document: The Americans from the north have taken possession of practically all the eastern part of Texas, in most cases without the permission of the authorities. They immigrate constantly, finding no one to prevent them, and take possession of the sitio [site] that best suits them without either asking leave or going through any formality other than that of building their homes. Thus the majority of inhabitants in the Department are North Americans, the Mexican population being reduced to only Béjar, Nacogdoches, and La Bahía del Espíritu Santo, wretched settlements that between them do not number three thousand inhabitants, and the new village of Gudalupe Victoria that has scarcely more than seventy settlers. The government of the state, with its seat at Saltillo, that should watch over the preservation of its most precious and interesting departments, taking measures to prevent its being stolen by foreign hands, is the one that knows the least not only about the actual conditions, but even about its territory…. Repeated and urgent appeals have been made to the Supreme Government of the federation regarding the imminent danger in which this interesting Department is becoming the prize of the ambitious North Americans, but never has it taken any measures that may be called conclusive….
The Americans from the North, at least the great part of those I have seen, eat only salted meat, bread made by themselves out of corn meal, coffee, and homemade cheese. To these the greater part…add strong liquor, for they are in general, in my opinion, lazy people of vicious character. Some of them cultivate their small farms by planting corn; but this task they usually entrust to their Negro slaves, whom they treat with considerable harshness.
Mexico’s Leaders Condemn Slavery in Texas
Digital History ID 3657Author: Santa Anna
Date:1836Annotation: In a letter describing the situation in Texas, Santa Anna denounces Texans who continue to bring slaves into the region, and who circumvent Mexican law by calling slaves apprentices.
Document: …There is a considerable number of slaves in Texas also, who have been introduced by their masters under cover of certain questionable contracts, but who according to our laws should be free. Shall we permit those wretches to moan in chains any longer in a country whose kind laws protect the liberty of man without distinction of cast or color?
José María Tornel, Relations between Texas, the United States of America and the Mexican Republic by Secretary of War during the Texas campaign, 1837
Mexico’s Secretary of War
…Greater still is the astonishment of the civilized world to see the United States maintain the institution of slavery with its cruel laws to support it and propagate it, at a time when the other nations of the world have agreed to cooperate in the philanthropic enterprise of eradicating this blot and shame of the human race. Don Lorenzo de Zavala in his Trip to the United States, a work which he seems to have written to laud them to the stars while depreciating his country to the lowest depths, at a time when perhaps he was already meditating his dark treason, cannot resist the natural instinct of repulsion inspired by the contrast of the humane and truly liberal policy of Mexico and the cruel and sanguinary one of the United States in regard to the slaves. “In crossing from the Mexican Republic to the states of our sister Republic,” says Zavala, “the philosopher cannot help but feel the contrast presented by the two countries, nor can he fail to experience a grateful feeling for those who abolished this degrading traffic in human flesh, removing from our midst every vestige of so humiliating a spectacle of misery.” As a matter of fact, without having proclaimed as pompously as the United States the rights of man, we have respected them better by abolishing all distinctions of class or race and considering as our brothers all creatures created by our common father. The land speculators of Texas have tried to convert it into a mart of human flesh where the slaves of the south might be sold and others from Africa might be introduced, since it is not possible to do it directly through the United States. “It seems,” says Mrs. Trollope, “that it is a general and deep-rooted opinion throughout the United States that the black race cannot be trusted. According to the prevailing opinion of the country, fear is the only force that moves a slave. It is not strange, therefore, that these poor wretches should act in keeping with such a policy.” This mutual distrust, this reciprocal fear between master and slave will some day result in the freedom of more than three million men, a fact to which the thinking men of the neighboring republic are not blind….. What will be the course followed by the United States? To maintain and encourage this institution as long as possible and when the fatal hour of destiny arrives which is to destroy this tyrannous and opprobrious system, to treat them as the Indians, driving them into Mexican territory also…. It is upon Texas and perhaps upon New Mexico and the two Californias that the anxious eyes of those who even now are giving their attention to the future destinies of the colored race rest. As in the United States nothing is done without a preconceived plan, and since everybody works by common accord as if by an admirable instinct for the realization of the ends pursued, it is incredible that the slow working out of the means by which some day certain difficulties whose transcendental importance has been fully realized will be solved should have been ignored in their reckoning. Thus we see the concurrence of an infinite number of interests of the United States converging for the stimulation of their policy of expansion…..
