{"id":303215,"date":"2021-07-20T03:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-07-20T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/forget-the-alamo-woke-iconoclasts-come-for-texas-heroes\/"},"modified":"2021-07-20T03:00:00","modified_gmt":"2021-07-20T00:00:00","slug":"forget-the-alamo-woke-iconoclasts-come-for-texas-heroes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/forget-the-alamo-woke-iconoclasts-come-for-texas-heroes\/","title":{"rendered":"#Forget the Alamo? Woke iconoclasts come for Texas’ heroes"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Forget the Alamo? Woke iconoclasts come for Texas’ heroes<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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No\u00a0one is trying to topple the Alamo quite yet, but a new revisionist book on the foundational event of Texas history partakes of the iconoclastic spirit of our time.<\/p>\n

The book, titled \u201cForget the \u00adAlamo<\/a>,\u201d is a harsh call for Texans, and Americans, to get over a battle deeply etched in our popular memory.<\/p>\n

According to the authors, the Texans (then the Texians) were foolish to try to defend the indefensible. Some of the defenders tried to make a run for it. Santa Anna, the Mexican general<\/a> central to the fight at the Alamo, wasn\u2019t so bad. And given the importance of slavery to the early history Texas, the story of the Alamo and the Texas Revolution is due an overall post-George Floyd re-evaluation.<\/p>\n

If there are legitimate disputes over the historical record, it really isn\u2019t hard to understand why the event \u2014 a badly outnumbered garrison of men fought ferociously against a government force that massacred the few survivors, providing a rallying cry for a rebellion that quickly swept to success \u2014 occupies an outsize place in our imagination.<\/p>\n

Especially given that two of the most famous Americans of the time, Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie, died there.<\/p>\n

\"alamo\"
The book is a call for Texans, and Americans, to get over a battle deeply etched in our popular memory.<\/figcaption>
Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Such an event is inevitably catnip for myth-making, but even when strip<\/a>ped down to its essence, the Alamo and the aftermath were truly extraordinary.<\/p>\n

Santa Anna, president of the country eleven separate times, first took power as a federalist, then switched sides and became a centralizer. A new constitution squashed Mexican states that had been run largely autonomously. He put down the ensuing revolt in the province of Zacatecas in horrifyingly brutal fashion, and then he came for Texas.<\/p>\n

About 150 defenders holed up in the Alamo, and the rest isn\u2019t just legend, but history.<\/p>\n

\"UNESCO
UNESCO World Heritage Site The Alamo Mission is seen closed for Covid-19 on July 15, 2020 in San Antonio, Texas.<\/figcaption>
Josh Brasted\/Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Santa Anna did indeed signal that his force of thousands would give no quarter.<\/p>\n

William Barret Travis, commander of the garrison, did \u00adindeed make his immortal call in a letter signed, \u201cVictory or death.\u201d He made a plea for reinforcements that never came. \u201cIf this call is neglected,\u201d he wrote, \u201cI am determined to sustain myself as long as possible and die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor and that of his country.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Antonio
Santa Anna served as president eleven times during the course of his career.<\/figcaption>
Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Santa Anna\u2019s troops did indeed launch an early-morning attack that was bloodied by the defenders but quickly overwhelmed the fortification. Santa Anna insisted that roughly half a dozen survivors be executed and followed up this atrocity with the murder of about 350 other captured rebels in the Goliad Massacre.<\/p>\n

Sam Houston, his forces swelled by volunteers, did indeed tell his troops prior to the Battle of San Jacinto that established Texas \u00adindependence, \u201cWe will meet the enemy. Some of us may be killed, and must be killed. But soldiers, remember the Alamo, the Alamo, the Alamo!\u201d<\/p>\n

Who wouldn\u2019t want to make a movie of such events?<\/p>\n

Of course, such popularizations aren\u2019t usually going to be rigorous.<\/p>\n

Pushing back, the authors of \u201cForget the Alamo\u201d assail the character of Bowie and William Travis, and, sure, you wouldn\u2019t trust them to manage your real-estate holdings. Texas at the time was a hard place, though, and the Mexicans and Comanche who contended for control of the territory weren\u2019t paragons, either.<\/p>\n

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\"Mexican
Mexican soldier, president and dictator Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.<\/figcaption>
Hulton Archive\/Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

The authors note the contribution of the Tejanos, native Texans of Mexican descent, and regret how it\u2019s missing from many \u00adaccounts of the Texas Revolution, which is fair enough but doesn\u2019t detract from the basic story.<\/p>\n

They make much of how Mexico abolished slavery, whereas Texas planters depended on the institution. Yet Mexico tolerated slavery in Texas and had its own rigidly \u00adhierarchical economic system.<\/p>\n

By all means, let\u2019s be as truthful as possible about the Alamo and the Texas Revolution. But it\u2019s pointlessly destructive to tear down what deserves to be honored and to forget what \u2014 as Sam Houston insisted so ringingly and aptly \u2014 should be remembered.<\/p>\n

Twitter<\/a>: @RichLowry<\/em>\n <\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#Forget the Alamo? Woke iconoclasts come for Texas’ heroes” No\u00a0one is trying to topple the Alamo quite yet, but a new revisionist book on the foundational event of Texas history partakes of the iconoclastic spirit of our time. The book, titled \u201cForget the \u00adAlamo,\u201d is a harsh call for Texans, and Americans, to get over…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":303216,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/07\/woke-alamo-650.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[112185,5378,6474],"class_list":["post-303215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-7-19-21","tag-history","tag-texas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}