The Battle Of The Alamo
The Battle of the Alamo (February 23 – March 6, 1836) is considered to be a Texas Revolution’s pivotal point in the. Mexican troops under commandment of General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, the President of Mexico, after a 12 day siege, launched an assault on the Alamo Mission in San Antonio de Bexar (currently San Antonio in Texas). All members of the small Texan garrison, except for two persons, were killed. Santa Anna’s cruelty in that battle enraged many of the Texans, who in seek of revenge joined the Revolution. Inspired Texans army several weeks later defeated the Mexican Army at the Battle of San Jacinto and ended the Texan Revolution.
Texas Revolution: Background and Outbreak
In nineteenth-century America, no place had a larger reputation for wild living than Texas. Men tired of society could move to the frontier; if the frontier offered too little excitement, room, danger, opportunity, they could go to Texas. The history of Texas justified this reputation. For nearly three centuries Texas had belonged to Spain, but hundreds of miles of deserts and mountains separated Texas from the other Spanish lands, and fierce Plains Indians – mainly Comanches and Apaches – did not take kindly to life at the Spanish missions. The land, which Mexico inherited with its independence, lay long ungoverned.
When Mexico became independent, Texas was joined to its state of Coahuila, with a promise that when its population was large enough, it would become a separate Mexican state. The newly-established Mexican government planned to develop Texas by encouraging Americans to settle there and farm, provided they became at least nominal Catholics and Mexican citizens. The plan worked, perhaps too well. By 1831, 20,000 settlers had poured in, most of them from the United States. By 1834 population of Anglos in Texas amounted to 30,000 compared to only 7,800 Mexicans (Manchaca, 2001) and the Mexicans envisioned this potentially rich province slipping from them. So they banned further immigration, raised tariffs, restricted trade, and reinforced their military presence.
The situation was further complicated by unstable Mexican politics. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, Mexico’s most brilliant general, was challenging his own government. The Texans, led by Stephen F. Austin, who had brought 300 families in 1825, petitioned for separate statehood. Texans attempted to receive more political freedom and issued Convention of 1832, which, among other issues, demanded immigrate to allow immigration from US and requested state status for Texas (Davis, 2006). When Texans attempted to reiterated their demands at the Convention of 1833, their representative, Stephen F. Austin was jailed for 2 years in Mexico City on suspicion of treason.Mexican government implemented several measures to appease the colonists.
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