Talk:Battle of the Alamo

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The Alamo and slavery[edit]

See the article https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/10/27/2054125/-Lies-about-history-in-Texas-can-be-traced-to-the-Lonestar-State-s-own-Big-Lie-The-Alamo?detail=emaildkre this seems to require major additions, revisions to the story of the Alamo. I hope someone can do that. davey (talk) 15:34, 31 October 2021 (UTC)lilliewilde[reply]

More articles https://texaspolitics.utexas.edu/educational-resources/transformation-texas-economy
and https://www.texasmonthly.com/being-texan/how-leaders-texas-revolution-fought-preserve-slavery/
Other wikipedia editors are fighting to paint a picture of Texas "settlers" as noble liberators struggling for freedom and liberty. They portray the war as a noble political struggle of federalism vs centralism.
The fact is, they were unwelcomed illegal immigrants who fought to take land against the will of the lawful government of Mexico and import and keep slaves that the government of Mexico had set free.GalantFan (talk) 17:32, 20 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]


Slavery was a very important issue to Austin, one he called "of great interest" to him.[1] Austin was a periodical slaveowner throughout his life; however, he had conflicting views about it.[2][3][4][5] Theoretically, he believed slavery was wrong and went against the American ideal of liberty. In practice, however, he agreed with the social, economic, and political justifications of it, and worked hard to defend and expand it.[6] Despite his defense of it, he also harbored concerns that the long-term effects of slavery would destroy American society. He grew particularly concerned following Nat Turner's rebellion in 1831, stating:

"I sometimes shudder at the consequences and think that a large part of America will be Santo Domingonized in 100, or 200 years. The idea of seeing such a country as this overrun by a slave population almost makes me weep. It is in vain to tell a North American that the white population will be destroyed some fifty or eighty years hence by the negroes, and that his daughters will be violated and Butchered by them."[7][8][9]

While Austin thought it would be advantageous some day for Texas to phase out of slavery, up until the Texas Revolution he worked to ensure that his colony's immigrants could bypass the Mexican government's resistance to it.[10] Doing so ensured the population growth and economic development of his colony, which was primarily dependent on the monocropping of cotton and sugar.[11][12][13] In August 1825, he recommended that the state government allow immigrants to bring their slaves with them through 1840, with the caveat that female grandchildren of the slaves would be freed by age 15 and males by age 25.[14][12][15] His recommendation was rejected.

In 1826, when a state committee proposed abolishing slavery outright, 25 percent of the people in Austin's colony were slaves.[12][16] Austin's colonists, mostly pro-slavery immigrants from the south, threatened to leave Texas if the proposition passed, while prospective Southern immigrants hesitated to come to Texas until slavery was guaranteed there.[15] Austin conceded that the success of his colony was dependent on slavery.[2][15][17] Without slaves, the colonists would lack the mass labor to cultivate the land, which would stall the pace of immigration needed to develop and increase the value of the land, and would deflate the economy and motivate his colonists to leave.[15][18][19]

Austin went before the legislature and pleaded that, at the least, his original 300 families should be allowed to keep their slaves.[15] He argued against the "bad faith" of freeing them, demanded reparations to slaveowners for every slave emancipated by the state, warned that the loss of slaves could leave some colonists destitute, and reasoned that freeing them would not only leave his settlers alone in the harsh Texas environment, but would also expose them to the discomfort and nuisance of living amongst freed slaves, who would become vagrants seeking retribution upon their former owners.[20] While he waited for the legislature's verdict of his request, Austin went into a deep depression over the issue and sent his brother, Brown Austin, to further lobby the legislature on his behalf.[10][17]

In March 1827, the legislature signed Article 13 into law. Despite the law complying with some of his requests, Austin called it "unconstitutional". He contested the law as it freed the children of slaves at birth, established a six-month grace period before fully emancipating all slaves in the state, and included provisions to improve the conditions of slaves and transitioning freedmen.[21][22][23][24] Austin –– who had been so effective in persuading the legislature, however, that the author of Article 13 (before its passage) requested to withdraw it –– helped his colonists evade the law by advising them to legally supplant the word "slave" with the words "workingmen," "family servants," and "laborers," and by working to pass a decree that banned freedmen from Texas and forced emancipated slaves to work for their former slaveowners until the accrued "debt" (e.g. clothing, food), incurred for their own enslavement, was worked off.[9][23][25]

In 1828, Austin petitioned the legislature to guarantee that slaveowners, immigrating to Texas, could legally "free" their slaves before immigrating, and contract them into a lifetime term of indentured servitude, thereby avoiding recognizing them as slaves.[26] He lobbied to help his colony elude president Vicente Guerrero's 1829 decree to legally emancipate slaves in the province, and to bypass the government's effort to prohibit slavery when it passed the Law of April 6, 1830.[13][27][28]

In 1829, John Durst, a prominent landowner and politician, wrote about the president's emancipation of slaves, “We are ruined forever should this measure be adopted” . Stephen F. Austin replied,

"I am the owner of one slave only, an old decrepit woman, not worth much, but in this matter I should feel that my constitutional rights as a Mexican were just as much infringed, as they would be if I had a thousand."[29]

In 1830, Austin wrote that he would oppose Texas joining the United States without guarantees that he should "insist on the perpetual exclusion of slavery from this state [Texas]".[28] In 1833, he wrote:

"Texas must be a slave country. Circumstances and unavoidable necessity compel it. It is the wish of the people there, and it is my duty to do all I can, prudently, in favor of it. I will do so."[15]

In May 1835, Austin's colonists learned that Mexico's tolerance for the evasions of slaveowners was drawing to a close, with its proposal of new abolition legislation.[9] Alarmed, and with Austin imprisoned in Mexico for pushing for independence, colonists turned against the Mexican government, calling it "oppressive" and a "plundering, robbing, autocratical government" without regard for the security of "life, liberty or property".[9][30] Resisting the impact a changed slavery policy would have on economic growth, and fearing rumors of Mexico's plan to free the slaves and turn them loose upon the colonists, shortly after Austin returned from Mexico, he and his colonists took up arms against the Mexican government. Austin later gained U.S. Government support for his revolution when he wrote to Senator Lewis F. Linn and pleaded that Santa Anna planned to "exterminate" all of the colonists and fill Texas "with Indians and negroes [freed slaves]".[9][31][32]GalantFan (talk) 17:56, 20 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

WP:TLDR & WP:WALLOFTEXT. Nobody is going to go to the trouble of reading that. I certainly didn't. 86.186.4.139 (talk) 17:33, 21 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Whenever I see the "TLDR", I just think some people just like to wallow in ignorance, or suffer from attention deficit. GalantFan (talk) 11:35, 17 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
What is extraordinary in the wikipedia article on the Alamo is not just the zero reference to the deep commitment to slavery which was the common characteristic of it's commanders, but the zero reference to US plotting from Andrew Jackson down to fight a racial war to grab land and establish slavery throughout Texas. 209.93.113.76 (talk) 09:42, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Austin, Stephen F. (7 Aug 1826). "The Papers of Stephen F. Austin". Letter to José Antonio Saucedo.
  2. ^ a b Cantrell, Gregg (2001). Stephen F. Austin: Empresario of Texas. Yale University Press. pp. 8–9.
  3. ^ Austin, Stephen F. (30 May 1833). "The Papers of Stephen F. Austin". Letter to Wiley Martin.
  4. ^ Historic Missourians: Moses Austin (1761–1821). State Historical Society of Missouri.
  5. ^ Cantrell 2001, pp. 85, 204
  6. ^ Cantrell 2001, pp. 9, 204.
  7. ^ Barker, Eugene C. (1926). The Life of Stephen F. Austin, Founder of Texas, 1793–1836: A Chapter in the Westward Movement of the Anglo-American People. University of Texas Press. p. 201.
  8. ^ Cantrell 2001, pp. 189–190
  9. ^ a b c d e Lack, Paul D. (Oct 1985). "Slavery and the Texas Revolution". The Southwestern Historical Quarterly. 89 (2): 181–202.
  10. ^ a b Cantrell 2001, p. 190.
  11. ^ Barker 1926, p. 204.
  12. ^ a b c Cantrell 2001, p. 191.
  13. ^ a b "Stephen Fuller Austin". Texas State Historical Association.
  14. ^ Barker 1926, pp. 203–204.
  15. ^ a b c d e f Barker, Eugene C. (July 1924). "The Influence of Slavery in the Colonization of Texas". The Southwestern Historical Quarterly. 28 (1): 1–33.
  16. ^ "Juneteenth—the Day Slavery was Abolished in Texas". Texas General Land Office. 16 June 2016.
  17. ^ a b Barker 1926, p. 206.
  18. ^ Morritt, Robert D. (2011). "Lure of Texas". Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
  19. ^ Campbell, Randolph B. (1991). An Empire for Slavery: The Peculiar Institution in Texas, 1821—1865. LSU Press. pp. 32–34.
  20. ^ Barker 1926, pp. 204–206, 208.
  21. ^ Barker 1926, p. 208.
  22. ^ Cantrell 2001, pp. 192, 203.
  23. ^ a b Bugbee, Lester G. (Sep 1898). "Slavery in Early Texas. I". Political Science Quarterly. 13 (3): 389–412. doi:10.2307/2140047. JSTOR 2140047.
  24. ^ "Constitution of the State of Coahuila and Texas (1827)". University of Texas at Austin, Tarlton Law Library.
  25. ^ Austin, J.E.B. (10 Oct 1826). "The Papers of Stephen F. Austin". Letter to Stephen F. Austin.
  26. ^ Cantrell 2001, p. 204.
  27. ^ Cantrell 2001, pp. 85, 204.
  28. ^ a b Barker, Eugene C. (Jul 1918). "Stephen F. Austin". The Southwestern Historical Quarterly. 22 (1): 1–17.
  29. ^ McCullar, Emily (October 29, 2020). "How Leaders of the Texas Revolution Fought to Preserve Slavery". texasmonthly.com. Retrieved October 22, 2022.
  30. ^ Travis, William B. (21 May 1835). "The Papers of Stephen F. Austin". Letter to David G. Burnet.
  31. ^ Campbell, Randolph B. (1991). An Empire for Slavery: The Peculiar Institution in Texas, 1821—1865. LSU Press. p. 42.
  32. ^ Austin, Stephen F. (4 May 1836). "The Papers of Stephen F. Austin". Letter to Senator L.F. Linn.

The Alamo battle was proven false[edit]

It is entirely based in myth and I'm surprised this isn't acknowledged at all here given it's widely accepted by modern historians to be false. 134.41.117.133 (talk) 23:32, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If you have verifiable and reliable cites that adhere to Wikipedia standards, please feel free to do the editing yourself. That's how this works. THX1136 (talk) 20:30, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Article comments[edit]

Just got done reading the article and wanted to commend those that have worked on it. I found it well cited and written.THX1136 (talk) 20:28, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Walker[edit]

The statement that Jacob Walker "attempted to hide behind Susannah Dickinson" is unsubstantiated. The reference mark 125 cites Tinkle (1985), p. 218. But Tinkle actually never says anything like this. On p. 217, Tinkle writes, when "his wounds had put him out of the battle, [he, Jacob Walker] had made his way to the side of Mrs. Dickinson in one of the chapel side rooms. Perhaps he hoped like young Galba Fuqua and many another [sic] that she would be spared to carry messages to the living." Twelve lines later on this same page (p. 217), beginning a new paragraph, Tinkle continues: "When the Mexicans found Jacob he was beside Mrs. Dickinson trying to give her a message. In his agony Walker pleaded for his life. It was in vain. Mrs. Dickin- [p. 218] son reported that the Mexicans 'tossed his body on their bayonets as a farmer would toss a bundle of hay.'

[new paragraph] "Walker's death may well have been the last one in the Alamo."

There is nothing in Tinkle's interpretation of the history based on primary sources that suggests that Jacob Walker was trying to hide when he was in the proximity of Mrs. Dickinson. Tinkle's comment that "Perhaps he [i.e., Walker] hoped . . . that she [i.e., Mrs. Dickinson] would be spared to carry messages to the living" suggests that Walker approached Mrs. Dickinson in order to tell her a message to pass on to his family.

The other reference mark, 126, cites Lord (1961), p. 166. Again, nothing in Lord's book here suggests that Walker was trying to hide behind Mrs. Dickinson. Here is what Lord writes on p. 166: "Suddenly Jacob Walker, the little gunner from Nacogdoches, burst into the room. He ran to a corner and seemed trying to hide. But it was no use. Four Mexican soldiers rushed in, and as Mrs. Dickinson fell to her knees in prayer, they shot Walker and savagely hoisted him on their bayonets iike a bundle of fodder."

There is nothing in Mrs. Dickinson's report of what transpired nor in the interpretations of Tinkle and Lord that suggests that Jacob Walker ever tried to hide behind Mrs. Dickinson at any point. What really occurred is lost. Perhaps Walker did approach Mrs. Dickinson with the intention to tell her a message to pass on to his family, when suddenly the Mexican soldiers burst into the room, and he ran to a corner. To hide? To find something to shield himself with? One can only surmise his intentions. But where is the statement in Mrs. Dickinson's account, or in Tinkle and Lord's books that "Jacob Walker . . . attempted to hide behind Susannah Dickinson"? This statement besmirches the reputation of an Alamo defender, and it either needs to be removed or else be labeled as currently unsubstantiated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by David H. Warren (talk • contribs) 06:06, 7 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've updated the article to better reflect those sources. Station1 (talk) 17:35, 7 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Susanna Dickinson[edit]

The spelling of Mrs. Dickinson's first name in this article is wrong, where the claim is made that Jacob Walker "attempted to hide behind Susannah Dickinson." Her first name was "Susanna," not "Susannah." The article on "Susanna Dickinson" in Wikipedia correctly spells her first name. This article here on the "Battle of the Alamo" does not. The museum in Austin, Texas, that bears her name is called the "Susanna Dickinson Museum." David H. Warren (talk) 06:27, 7 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

 Fixed. Thanks for pointing that out. Station1 (talk) 17:35, 7 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The Mexicans Outnumbered[edit]

Led by general Santa Anna, the Mexicans outnumbered the Texians 20 to 1. 12.174.104.162 (talk) 19:28, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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