Recently, I had a chance to visit the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas. As a child, you don’t really understand why these events happen and how they impact the future of the world. And in this case, Texas is a huge part of the United States of America and holds great influence today. I had a chance to tour the Alamo.
Since we were staying at the Emily Morgan hotel, I walked across the street to tour the Alamo. There were 3 options. I chose the self-guided tour which got me access to the Church and Exhibit. The cost was $14 for the exhibit entry and additional $6 for the audio guide. Most of the tour was outside. It mainly focused on the Spanish Mission and the barracks. Then I decided to go into the church. The church visit was underwhelming to say the list, but I did learn about Six Flags. All this time, I thought Six Flags was a theme park, but the Six Flags represent the six nations that governed Texas. After exiting the church, it led me to the gift shop. I do say it was an exceptional gift shop. The last part was the exhibit. It had two levels and it was mostly filled with relics. One interesting thing was that Phil Collins donated over 200 Alamo artifacts to the exhibit. Those artifacts are on display. Some of the artifacts were legendary such as David Bowie knife and Davy Crockett raccoon skin hat. After the Alamo, I went back to the hotel and woke Shell up so we could eat lunch. We walked over to the River Walk and ate at the Biscuit Company by Panaderia.
The Alamo was one of tragedy. Everyone who defended it died, the only survivors were some women and children. Let's set the time period in 1833, this was the wild west where you had vast amounts of land, adventure was around the corner, and settlers were looking to start the American dream. At the time Mexico controlled the area of present day Texas. The Americans moving to the area were considered outcast. Famous Americans like Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, and William B. Travis to name a few of these people. All in all, there were about 40k people living in the area and things seemed okay. During this time in American history, the people living here were called Texians and they enjoyed certain governance. Even though they were immigrants to the area, the Mexican government let them hang out and gave them certain freedoms such as creating their own laws and freedom to practice their religion. Texians also owned slaves.
In the year 1833 Antonio López de Santa Anna became the President of Mexico. The Texians didn’t like how he ruled so they rebelled. This became the Texas Revolution. The fighting came to a head in 1835 as Antonio López de Santa Anna and his Mexican Army surrounded The Alamo. There were around 180 Texians, the famous ones were Davy Crockett, William B. Travis, and Jim Bowie.
Then when Antonio López de Santa Anna came to power in 1833, he made drastic changes. He enacted strict immigration laws, abolished slavery, and got rid of the Mexican constitution. The Texians thought this was bullshit and rebelled.
Eventually things got so heated that on October 2, 1835, the Texas Revolution began with the Battle of Gonzales. After a few more battles, Texians declared independence from Mexico. However, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna got wind of this and made the decision to put an end to this. He put together 2000 Mexican soldiers and marched north. Santa Anna’s army surrounded the Alamo for 13 days using cannons and heavy artillery to flush them out. Finally Santa Anna gave the go ahead and the Mexican Army tried to enter the compound. Nearly all the 180 Texians which included Tejanos died during the raid, with only a few women and children survivors. Word spread of what happened at the Alamo. Instead of giving up, Texian started to rally and were even more determined to defeat the Mexican Army. The war cry Remember the Alamo was used to motivate the troops.
The Texas Revolution ended a few months later at the Battle of San Jacinto where General Sam Houston made a surprise attack on Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna Mexican Army and that’s how Texas gained independence from Mexico.