Your humble correspondent was taken to task by his beautiful Texan of a wife for forgetting March 6. For those of us who suffered under the PC gulag that is public education in America, March 6, 1836, was that glorious day when less than 150 brave men defended the Alamo against Gen Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, the dictator of Mexico. Rather than write my own encomium of that brave effort (an American Thermopylae if there ever was one) I direct your attention to this brilliant essay.
Enjoy!
By Chuck Baldwin on March 1, 2012 at 7:00pm
March 6 marks the anniversary of the fall of the Alamo back in 1836. For more than 13 days, 186 brave and determined patriots withstood Santa Anna’s seasoned army of over 4,000 troops. To a man, the defenders of that mission fort knew they would never leave those ramparts alive. They had several opportunities to leave and live. Yet, they chose to fight and die. How foolish they must look to this generation of spoiled Americans.
It is difficult to recall that stouthearted men such as Davy Crockett (a nationally known frontiersman and former congressman), Will Travis (only 23 years old with a little baby at home), and Jim Bowie (a wealthy landowner with properties on both sides of the Rio Grande) really existed. These were real men with real dreams and real desires. Real blood flowed through their veins. They loved their families and enjoyed life as much as any of us do. There was something different about them, however. They possessed a commitment to liberty that transcended personal safety and comfort.
[…] Read the entire article here.
Forget The Alamo? Herman Engelhardt is locking and loading!
Thanks, George, for the reminder. While we’re remembering The Alamo, don’t forget to remember Goliad!
“The Goliad Massacre, the tragic termination of the Goliad Campaign of 1836, is of all the episodes of the Texas Revolution the most infamous. Though not as salient as the battle of the Alamo, the massacre immeasurably garnered support for the cause against Mexico both within Texas and in the United States, thus contributing greatly to the Texan victory at the battle of San Jacinto and sustaining the independence of the Republic of Texas. Read more here. to an article from the Texas State Historical Association on the Goliad Massacre.
When I was there, I found that visiting the museum, Fort Defiance and the chapel at Presidio La Bahia where the prisoners were held before they were massacred was as moving, if not moreso, than visitng the Alamo. I’ve never forgotten it. Goliad is a dusty little town about thirty miles to the west of San Antonio, but without Goliad, where would we be? Certainly there are a lot fewer tourists there, and less hooplah. But you can have a nice, quiet lunch in the square in town, and it’s very much worth the visit if you’re in the area.
Sorry, Goliad is more like 97 miles from San Antonio. I suppose that’s why people don’t flock there. But you can’t get the full effect unless you know about it.
Southeast of San Antonio, southwest of Houston. Poignant place. Well worth a visit.
Great that you are publishing this article about Alamo and Public Education is far from perfect in this country but without it we for sure will give away our Democracy as a uneducated population will fall pray easily to a populist leader.
And which “PC gulag that is public education in America” would that be? The one that told the usual historical propaganda from the POV of the victors? in this case the Anglos who afterward drove Mexicans who had settled San Antonio in the 1600s from their homes and lands and perpetrated other bigoted atrocities against them? So much for “property rights” if you’re not “white”.
Oh but shut my mouth!, there’s that PC speech that just ain’t “right”!
Sorry, but I attended the PC gulag when Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie were all the rage, and I just can’t bring myself to believe in such antiChristian Manifest Destiny, American “civil” religious fairy tales. “The Alamo” is what it is — yet another power struggle within humanity of one people to overlord another.
D.Stall, the Anglos did not drive any Mexicans from their homes in San Antonio. Mexicans (“Tejanos”) actually fought every bit as hard for independence from Mexico as the Anglos. Tejanos were at the Alamo.
The irony of it all was that Texas was hardly populated at all by Tejanos, estimates put the total population at 3000. The reason so few were there was because they were civilized and the real natives –the Comanche–were very savage. Gen Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna tried to get Mexicans to move north of the Rio Grande in order to cultivate it but based on their very real fear of the Comanches, they refused. Santa Anna then made generous offers to Anglos living in the US to come and live there because he believed that they had excellent Indian-fighting skills. By the time of the events of the Alamo, Anglos were already a majority in Texas.
George, you are absolutely right about the Comanches. They held up the advance of the American frontier for about 50 years. They could not be defeated in battle by anyone including the Americans until the invention of the repeating rifle. The average American frontiersmen, riding large, slow, horses would get into a battle with the Comanches and lose; the Indian would loose about six arrows from under the neck of their very swift mustangs while the Americans was trying to reload. They were finally defeated by the repeating rifle, the killing of all the buffalo, their main source of food, and pure attrition of manpower. Historically, when they came south out of the Rockies, they drove the Apaches into the SW deserts, not an easy feat; their only allies, most of the time, were the Kiowa.
You also are absolutely right about who was the larger part of the Texas population; they were primarily Americans rather than Hispanics. It is the same situation here in California, we have all of these Hispanics picketing, etc, making demands for the return of the state to Mexico. There were very few real Mexicans in the state around 1846, mostly those of pure Spanish descent, local Indians, and a mixed American/European population. Americans quickly outnumbered everyone else before the ‘theft’ of the state from Mexico in 1846 (result of war). Mexico freed itself from Spain in 1810 and they never controlled any of the disputed lands to the north, i.e. New Mexico, Texas, Arizona and California. Spain actually built a fort at Neah Bay, Washington one year on what is now the Makah Indian Reservation. When they returned the next year, there was no fort and no Spanish soldiers; the Makah were a very fierce people. Knowing this, some could claim Oregon and Washington for Mexico also. lol
In defeating the Comanche, Anglos had a much more lethal weapon than the repeating rifle–smallpox and cholera.
OK, so blame evolution because Europeans and Amerindians experienced 12,000 years of genetic drift.
Well, personality, some parts of Texas would have been better to remain in the hands of Mexico. The border area is one of the poorest parts of the US and the Demographics is similar to Mexico than the US.
Santa Anna sounds like he made the same mistake that common US Politicians he invited American whites while US Politicians for either labor interest or voted invited indirectly Mestizos Mexicans. Mestizos is not an insult since in Mexico most people considered themselves a mixture of European and Indian.
This is a different subject, i think taxing the Olympic medals is stupid. I knew swimmers and water polo players back in the 1970’s that went to the Olympics, so for a lot of sports like swimming, water polo, gymnastics and so forth getting an Olympic medal is the best medal since the world population pays attention more to that than world championship medals.
This is off topic here but as a young person I got into Roman History because of a little bio of Julius Caesar in 7th grade and studied on my own and even learn some things about Caesar.Pompeius. and Cicero. and so forth in the late republic.