It was the first of five missions built in the area meant to convert local Indigenous people by force and to teach them Spanish. They lived, farmed, and worshipped within the stone walls of the Valero complex, which was eventually secularized in the s, its land and buildings given to residents.
In the s, as Mexico sought independence from Spain, the mission became a fortress, first for Spanish forces, then for Mexicans, and finally, Texians. Army storage depot. Today, the five missions form a National Historical Park. Ideally, the Alamo Plan will find a way to cover not only the famous battle, but also the complexities of these other eras. Controversies have come close to halting the project. Texas Monthly ran a June cover story about doubts over the Collins collection; the Alamo Trust rebutted that it has meticulously vetted all artifacts.
But this spring, after years of debate, there were small signs of change. It looks down on the entrance to the present-day River Walk , where I sipped margaritas in college. The Alamo Trust announced it would break ground this summer on a state-of-the-art exhibit hall, much larger than the current one, to showcase historic artifacts, including the Collins collection.
Follow her on Instagram. Robert Pluma is a multimedia journalist descended from San Antonio mission residents and an Alamo defender. Follow him on Instagram. All rights reserved. Travel News. Remember the Alamo? A plan to restore and rethink it for visitors has been highly controversial.
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Go Further. Animals Climate change is shrinking many Amazonian birds. Animals Wild Cities This wild African cat has adapted to life in a big city. Mexico provided little oversight, though tensions soon developed over the issue of slavery. Mexico imposed several measures to end or limit slavery, and the Anglo-American colonists skillfully found ways to amend, delay, or defy them.
But no one doubted that slavery was a temporary expedient that Mexico would abolish unequivocally. Alarmed by the volume of Anglo-American immigration, Mexico attempted to end it in But by , that number had doubled from 10, to 21, Unauthorized immigrants, some of them in the form of organized militias recruited within slave states in blatant violation of the Neutrality Act, played a significant role in the revolt that broke out in The conjunction of slavery interests in the U.
The slavocracy funded and equipped an invading army, hoping to ultimately create one or more slave states out of Mexican territory. The men who fought against Mexico were promised free land. Most of the combatants were relatively recent arrivals, as were most of the delegates to the convention where independence was declared on March 2, Speculation in Mexican land had become rampant, and it was not confined to the Southern U.
But the scripts they traded only had value if the land could be wrenched from Mexico with finality. Cotton was booming. Slavery enabled enormous profits. Most of the official Anglo-American colonists and the undocumented immigrants came from the Southern U. They were comfortable with — and often passionately dedicated to — the white supremacist ideology that prevailed in slave states.
All of the combatants inside the Alamo during the battle knew that they were fighting for the institution of slavery, as surely as they knew they were fighting for Mexican land. James Bowie, a slave trader and smuggler who William C. Bowie married well and quickly amassed claims on enormous amounts of Mexican land. His desire to keep Texan forces in San Antonio prevailed, though it was distant from the precious East Texas cotton fields, and of much less strategic value than other garrisons.
General Sam Houston thought the Alamo should have been blown up and abandoned. His stricter immigration laws provoked the Texans to revolt.
In the rebels declared independence. The strong Mexican army surrounded the Alamo and laid siege for days. After fierce fighting, the Texans were overpowered and General Anna reclaimed the Mission Alamo killing everyone inside. They defeated the Mexican army at the Battle of San Jacinto within 50 days of the Alamo massacre, ending the revolt and paving the way to the Texas Republic.
The historic grounds of the Alamo in Downtown San Antonio declared as a World Heritage Site by the UN stands as a poignant reminder of the resistance efforts by a small group of determined fighters for Texan independence from Mexico.
Today the Alamo, the jewel of Texas heritage, consists of the iconic Church, gardens and Museum exhibits. This monument made of Texas granite with a pinkish hue incorporates the images of the Alamo garrison leaders and the names of defenders. Does my mask protect me if nobody else is wearing one?
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