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The Alamo is the most iconic name, place and event in Texas history. That’s why it’s worth pushing back on new interpretations of what happened at the San Antonio Mission from Feb. 23 to March 6, 1836, according to panelists at a discussion sponsored by the Texas Public Policy Foundation on Oct. 26.
Sherry Sylvester, a distinguished senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, served as the moderator. Sylvester is a political communications and public policy expert who has directed multimillion dollar statewide campaigns in New York and New Jersey and has been involved in dozens of Texas political campaigns. She also has worked as a journalist and has a deep and abiding interest in history.
Sylvester said the new book “Forget the Alamo” is getting a lot of attention, but a close review reveals it is deeply flawed. She said “anti-Texas rhetoric” must be challenged and the truth told.
Sylvester said the Texas revolution led to the creation of an independent nation and then “the greatest state in the nation” with the world’s ninth-largest economy and a sterling record of productivity, innovation and pride.
Panelists included historian, professor and author Stephen Hardin, former Texas general land office commissioner Jerry Patterson and Alamo curator Ernesto Rodriguez III.
The Texas Public Policy Foundation describes its mission is "to promote conservative public policies."
Patterson is a former Marine who served as a Republican state senator and then as public lands commissioner from 2013-15, ran for lieutenant governor and later tried to return to his old job. Rodriguez is a San Antonio native who works at Texas' most important historic site. He focuses on the scholarly research underpinning the planning for the Alamo museum as well as promoting a deeper understanding of the Alamo’s place in history through examining its archives and artifacts.
Hardin, who works at McMurray University in Abilene, Texas, has published numerous award-winning books, written dozens of scholarly articles and been recognized for his scholarship and expertise of the subject. He is considered a leading expert on Texas history.
Hardin said Texas has battled image problems from the start.
“We had a public relations problem because a lot of the people who came to Texas were what came to be known as ‘Go Ahead Men,’” he said. “And that expression came from an aphorism by Congressman David Crockett. He never encouraged anyone to call him Davy, but he said, ‘Always be sure that you're right, then go ahead.’”
These settlers believed bureaucrats were “too damn meddlesome.” They also found themselves in the midst of political turmoil in Mexico, as President Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna sought to seize control, dismissing local authorities and assuming dictatorial power.
Patterson said the suggested new narratives are false, based on misinformation and misinterpretation of Texas and Mexican history. He was named to the 1836 Project Advisory Committee by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, along with Sylvester.
Nine people will be named to the committee. They are charged with crafting a pamphlet to explain the Alamo’s history and to further spread the true story of the battle and the fight for Texas independence.
He said there have been some positive contributions from new histories, including a greater appreciation for the role Tejanos played in helping Texas win its freedom. Hardin also praised revisionists, saying history is alive and must be updated and improved as new facts emerge.
But the panelists said some modern accounts have more to do with contemporary politics and not what actually happened nearly two centuries ago in Texas. They also rejected the central theme of the new book, which claims the Alamo defenders were fighting to uphold slavery.
“Slaveowners were folks who came to Texas for opportunity. Most of them came from the Southern states, which were cotton states, slave states and they brought their property,” Hardin said. “You mentioned slavery being slaves being imported from Africa. That was before this. Most of the slaves came to Texas were brought as property by people who settled here because the land was available and not free, but cheap. That's just the way it was. It was an extension of that time. And then slavery came here. If you had cotton and cane, you need the slaves. If you had wheat or corn, you probably didn't need slaves.
“We also need to remember that prior to 1836, there were very few [slaves]," he added. "There were cotton farmers and cotton planters, and the difference was a question of scale. There were very few cotton plantations, something we think of Tara and ‘Gone With the Wind,’ maybe one or two of those in all of Texas. But most of the cotton grown prior to 1836 was grown on cotton farms and cotton farmers. If they had any slaves at all may have had one or two, and they worked beside their hands in the field, sometimes forging friendships and close bonds with them.”
In addition, he said, many of the men who fought and died at the Alamo came from other states and nations, and some were fervent abolitionists. Hardin admitted things changed after Texas became a free nation.
“The summer of 1836 was a phenomenal time because there had been a lot of people who had wanted to come to Texas," Hardin said. "But they heard about all these problems, and they were, you know, putting their finger to the wind and after San Jacinto, only all in free. So over the summer of 1836, you have a demographic tidal wave of mostly Southerners coming into Texas and bringing their slaves with them.”
Rodriguez said it’s important to remember that Joe, a slave owned by William Travis, was a noncombatant and survived the battle. He provided invaluable information on what really happened.
“Where do we get the story? From a slave,” he said. “He was a witness.”
The reason Texans sought their independence was because they were opposed to Santa Anna trying to seize power and rule as a despot. Tyranny was the main issue, not slavery, the panelists said.
Hardin said propaganda that passes as news is nothing new. He said “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was a powerful book, but it painted a wildly distorted tale. The same thing is happening now.
“This is a major narrative being pushed by Woke Inc. about America to destroy our institutions and also about Texas," he said. "It's not history, it's written by journalists. Obviously, you would certainly want to undermine the conservative state, the reddest state in the union, you would certainly want to undermine their history. Its part we see it as much part of much part of a larger movement, not just an anti-Texas movement, but also an anti-American movement.”
Hardin said he is well aware of this story that is being pitched and sees it as part of a much grander effort to rewrite American history.
“That plays very closely into what has been called the shame narrative," he said. "For those of you who aren't familiar with that term, the shame narrative, in a nutshell, is that European Americans crossed the Atlantic, stole the land from the Native Americans and then performed genocide against them and then stole the American Southwest. All the while embracing capitalism, which is, of course, immoral, and we owe, as a result of the shameful past, we owe certain constituencies restitution. And how is that restitution best achieved? Well, through socialist policies, obviously.”
That’s why it’s so important for the real story of the Alamo, the men who fought and died there, and the founding of Texas be told, the panelists said.