History runs deep in San Antonio, perhaps never deeper than at the current moment. The Tricentennial year not only celebrates the city’s founding, but presents opportunities to delve beyond traditional narratives and legends.
A deeply researched, historically compelling exhibition at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, The Other Side of the Alamo: Art Against the Myth, proves that there are different ways to “Remember the Alamo.”
On one side of the Alamo legend, many Texans commemorate gallant heroes defending independence. Other Texans recall slavers who oppressed local populations and betrayed Mexicans and Tejanos.
The exhibition’s curator, Ruben C. Cordova, said that calling the Alamo the shrine of Texas liberty “only seems to address white people,” and that “it’s really the cradle of Texas slavery.”
“For Chicanos and many people of color, it has served as a symbol of oppression and domination,” he added.
Douglass McDonald, CEO of the Alamo, responded: “While slavery is intertwined in the history of all the Americas, linking the Alamo to slavery more often represents a contemporary political agenda rather than a real desire to advance historical knowledge.”
Before taking the helm of the Alamo last year, McDonald was CEO of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati from 2012-2015. In its current educational materials, the Alamo includes information on the slaving activities of key historical figures involved in the famous battle.
The Alamo Effect
The Texas Declaration of Independence was written in part to declare war over the issue of self-determination, McDonald said, in response to Santa Anna’s repeal of the Mexican Constitution of 1824.
Nevertheless, “the Alamo effect,” as Cordova characterizes circumstances before and after the famous battle, was “devastating for people of color,” and expanded slavery, lynching, segregation, and Native American genocide.
The exhibition immediately upends the traditional Battle of the Alamo narrative, with a controversial 1971 painting by Felipe Reyes.
Sacred Conflict depicts an Alamo rampart bearing a United Farmworkers (UFW) flag. The UFW movement gave Cesar Chavez his enduring fame, and the movement’s Aztec-themed eagle symbol became an emblem for Chicano power.
The painting’s title signals issues underlying the usual narrative, that while the losers of the pivotal battle are hailed as heroes, its Chicano winners won “vengeance … and the flag is the Chicano symbol for justice,” the Reyes quote accompanying the painting reads.
Among 26 artworks created between 1971 and 2018, another painting in the show serves as a history lesson in itself.
Albert Alvarez’s 2018 collage painting How the West Was Won charts the conflict from young William Travis’ purported “line in the sand,” to British rocker Ozzy Osbourne urinating in an Alamo planter, to Davy Crockett taking a cannonball to the gut, and another British rock star’s obsession with collecting Alamo artifacts.
A cartoonish Phil Collins appears above a quote on his music from the 2000 movie American Psycho. The bland quote overwrites the story of Collins receiving a local psychic’s vision of himself as the reincarnation of John W. Smith, a courier who escaped the conflict and went on to become mayor of San Antonio.
The painting also traces more personal connections, from legendary “Yellow Rose of Texas” Emily D. West’s sacrificial distraction of Santa Anna, to the artist himself meeting his wife.
“If the Alamo Battle would have never happened,” the artist’s caption of their portraits reads, “I would have never met my wife Rhonda Chula!”
Studious readers of the exhibition’s deeply researched informational placards will note that the Yellow Rose legend is highly questionable, and may even hide revealing facts about her master’s mixed-race wife.
Independence and Oppression
Another “myth” contended by the exhibition is the notion that the Battle of the Alamo was fought for independence. “The real reason for the Alamo battle was slavery,” reads the placard accompanying Raul Servin’s 2001 painting Olividate del Alamo #1, a reworking of the stars-and-stripes into an emblem of enforced servitude.
Another passage in Alvarez’s painting, a 1995 quote by historian Jim Crisp reflecting on the 150th anniversary of the state of Texas, reads:
“This may be the ultimate irony of the sesquicentennial, our belated recognition that the greatest measure of oppression in Texas came not before 1836, but after.”
Cordova is proud to display photographs of a notorious example of Chicano activism in San Antonio. Two black-and-white images taken at night, both from 1972 and titled Cenotaph Aguila, capture a UFW emblem spray-painted in black over the engraved words emblazoned on the Alamo cenotaph memorial The Spirit of Sacrifice.
Traces of the protest graffiti are no longer visible, but Cordova is proud to bring the moment to light.
“The photographs have never been exhibited anywhere,” he said, “but they’re kind of legendary” among members of the Con Safo movement, a group of Chicano artists in San Antonio that Cordova has studied and exhibited before.
“What I wanted to do was give a voice to views that have been completely ignored, as far as I know, by museums and by the dominant institutions,” Cordova said.
“There’s a lot more to this story than being the cradle of Texas liberty,” he said, then pointedly asked, “Liberty for whom?”
Whatever its role, the Alamo can at least appropriately be deemed a “key” to Texas history. The Alamo’s current exhibition Fortress Alamo: The Key to Texas offers a counterpoint to The Other Side of the Alamo, presenting a traditional perspective of the military’s role in maintaining the frontier outpost.
In the spirit of education, Texas General Land Office Press Secretary Brittany Eck offered a link to the genealogy of those behind the Texas Revolution.
Readers interested in other viewpoints can follow up by reading more here about assertions of the Alamo’s history as a site for protests and historical redress.
The Other Side of the Alamo: Art Against the Myth runs through July 20 at the Galería Guadalupe, alongside the Common Currents 1868-1917 Tricentennial exhibition at the Guadalupe Center’s Progresso Building through Apr. 29.
More Information
Cordova’s exhibition, and the accompanying catalogue to be released during a Juneteenth-themed book signing event at the Guadalupe Center on Sat., June 16, joins the growing list of events, exhibitions, and publications that illuminate the sometimes lesser known facets of San Antonio’s long history as a settlement.
The March 3 Founder’s Day Feast and the March 10 El Nacimiento pageant in Main Plaza presented the intrinsic contributions of Native Americans and Canary Islanders to the earliest traces of the city’s settlement.
San Antonio 1718: Art from Viceregal Mexico, at the San Antonio Museum of Art through May 13, charts the transition from New Spain to Mexican independence, while the Witte Museum’s Confluence and Culture, running through Jan. 6, 2019, tackles all 300 years of local history.
The documentary film Walk on the River: A Black History of Alamo City, tentatively to be screened Aug. 17 at the Carver Community Cultural Center, will add an African-American dimension to considerations of the city’s development.
Perhaps Douglass McDonald could read some history — rather than the myths promulgated by the white slave-owning (and in the case of Jim Bowie, slave selling) participants in the Battle of the Alamo — before implying that knowledge isn’t advanced by linking the battle to slavery.
History, not contemporaneous work, shows that Mexico outlawed slavery in 1829, and banned the importation of slaves into Texas in 1830. The Anahuac Disturbances of 1831 concerned the territorial government’s refusal to return two slaves to their owner and led to the Turtle Bayou Resolutions, which included claims of interference with slave ownership. It was no coincidence that the end of the War of Independence resulted in the Constitution of 1836, which explicitly made slavery legal in Texas.
Is it too much that the Alamo would be led by an individual who would understand the critical importance to Texans of all races and cultures of getting this right? In the meantime, congratulations to the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center for reminding us that slavers’ hands rocked the “cradle of Texas liberty” so that Anglo men could own Black men.
BRAVO!
Well if you’re interested in the whole story let’s begin even earlier than the evil Anglos:
1. Spanish took the Caddo land in East Texas to build missions in order to contest the French for rich farm lands in new territories. Neither of those people are Anglos. Does anyone realize that Anglo is actually not a catch-all for white?
2. Spanish built the Alamo and mission in Nac using native resources, including the Caddo and Coahuiltecan people for labor. Still, no Anglo involvement.
3. Spanish disease in central Texas annihilated a great deal of the Coalhuiltecan and Caddo population, those that survived were just as terrified of the plains natives such as the Apaches and then the Comanches as they were of the Spanish. They chose to convert to Catholicism-join us or die style-and also became dependent on Spanish technology. In fact, later super progressive Mexico required that all of it’s citizens be Catholic and the Texians also refused this mandate. But wait, we’re still not to the Anglos yet.
4. Spanish were the first to bring African slavery to the Americas in the 1500s…beating the Portuguese and the Anglos. Remember–it was called a “conquista”….not a “viaje para conocer mas amigos”. I think you can tell by the modern religion and language of the region who had a greater impact on whom.
5. Though the practice of slavery had been ended in Mexico just a few years prior to the fall of the Alamo and it was continually supported by the Texians (not every defender of the Alamo was white Anglo), it had already existed in the Americas due to the Spanish for hundreds of years. To suggest this was somehow an Anglo invention or that it was only the Anglos who perpetuated it over time or merely choosing to start the script at the bloody hands of the Anglos in the New World while ignoring everyone else’s bloody hands is absolutely false and politically loaded in nature.
6. What is being called stolen from Mexico was actually called New Spain, as a blockade against the French, and the landmass of the entire country of what is now Mexico was stolen from the native people such as the Aztecs before them. This wasn’t Mexico until 1821, then for 15 years this land was Mexico, and later Texas in 1836. Ever heard of 6 flags over Texas? So why do we only tell 2 perspectives now? This place hasn’t been Mexico for almost 200 years, and has had a great deal of history before it was Mexico too.
To blame everything on the Anglos –or the people descending from the British isles–in the telling of the story of slavery in New Spain is absolutely political in modern society as it is absolutely just lightly veiled anti-white rhetoric. That is the only purpose served by this. It’s a green light to make an art show about your anger for white people and a stage for brown nationalism which is already very abundant in San Antonio culture. Brown nationalism to combat perceived white nationalism in the telling of the Alamo? Very progressive indeed. How about we all just be happy that this place didn’t end up as Mexico today? Not many people here exactly hopping the border south and getting sent back.
The history of slavery in the Americas goes back a lot farther than just the “Anglos”. I’m all for telling the ugly side of history but when you tell it from this perspective in today’s divided climate it’s absolutely loaded because you are leaving out centuries of hypocrisy to demonize one group of people….specifically white men….on purpose.
Reference first and last lines of Legal Beagle’s comment to see where the vitriol is clearly directed.
Oh, I see. Since the Spanish laid the foundations for slavery and oppression for Indigenous people, it was Ok for Anglos to fight for and perpetuate slavery in Texas.
Evil is evil. The Texas fight for freedom was really a fight for freedom to own slaves and impose a racist system in the land.
People are awakening to the myths and lies that reaked havoc on the indigenous population (Native and Tejano).
Could you please point out where I said it was okay for Anglos to fight for slavery?
“laid the foundations” Ok so you mean 300 years of importing Africans and ruining indigineous populations were just laying of foundations? Tell me, when were they really going to get started? With the Anglos? Thats my point you can’t just be so convenient about ugly historical facts…everyone has blood on them.
The Alamo, before the Anglos arrived, was a factory of conversion and cultural hegemony. If you want to awake to the “myths and lies that reaked havoc on the indigenous population (Native and Tejano)” then maybe advocate that the Alamo be removed like the statue in Travis Park. Perhaps advocate for no more Catholicism or speaking Spanish. That’s who you should really be looking at with your hatred and vitriol from being oppressed. That was my whole point. Anglo involvement in the story of the Alamo is actually quite small, that was my whole point. Not that fighting for slavery is ever okay. I’m also advocating that we tell the whole story — but the whole story — not the lets just hate more white people side. Which I hear all the time in San Antonio by the way.
The only real symbol of oppression for the natives in this area is that building and the other ones like it. Awaken to that and love your Anglo brothers and sisters. We give good hugs.
Don’t mess up our name game by the way. Using beagle twice is just lame.
The current political and cultural narrative has been built such that it is this versus match of power between the straight white men (inherently carrying the evil of everyone they descended from) against everyone else…which is why it seems like I have to be reminded almost daily of the past evils of the white man while it seems as though every other race and people seemed to make it out of history morally unscathed.
This piece does more to push that hate the straight white man perspective and divide. It’s not about telling a personal story of the oppressed its about associating whiteness with evil and gaining political momentum for democrat votes. At least just come out and say it. So tired of the wrapper just gimme the freakin candy.
The art world is saturated with this message in San Antonio. You know what would be a truly unique art exhibit in San Antonio? One that didn’t have anything to do with gender or race. One that didn’t hate on straight white men constantly. That would actually be thinking outside of the box around here.
I’m sure the democrats will win again eventually, that’s how it works in democracy. Swings back and forth…but this demonizing of white men and fanning hatred for votes has to stop or I’ll vote Republican every single time just to spite all of you actual bigots.
No I didn’t vote for Trump or Clinton but I really am so sick of this racially charged garbage.
Racism is America’s original sin. Genocide against Native Anericans, enslavement of Africans and discrimination towards Mexicans and other groups. To state these facts is not
racism or racially charged but rather acknowledgement of actual history and not myth or fantasy.
It is interesting that you are offended by perceived attacks on whiteness. Whiteness is actually a social construct that values and gives preference to one racial group over all other others. It was one of the fundamental ideas of Manistest Destiny that preordained the dominance of white people in America. Today, whiteness grants extensive privileges to one group to the detriment of others. This can easily be seen in the vast disparities in all sectors of society (housing, education, wealth, etc.). These disparities are the result of structures and processes created over many, many years.
If we are to move into a post racial society, we have to be a aware of this made up social construct and be willing to create a more equitable society rather than feel persecuted or singled out. Having honest and difficult conservations is one way to achieve racial reconciliation.
We are all in this together.
Slavery in the new world has a long, long history. In Texas, it began with the Spanish and continued with the arrival of white southerners. No one is denying the brutality of the Spain in its conquest of the indigenous populations of Texas. The Spanish crown and church dominated and manipulated Native American and local born Tejano populations into accepting their worldview and understanding of civilization. Their annihilation of Native groups across the Americas is a tragic story. Unfortunately, this domination or cultural hegemony continued with the arrival of white southerners. The myth of the Alamo and Texian fight for freedom is the latest version of cultural hegemony in this part of the world. What is left out of this story are the economic motivations and drives that brought new people to Texas.
The Anglo American strategy and goal for developing Texas was through slavery and land. In 1821, Stephen Austin stated, “Texas must be a slave country [because] circumstances and unavoidable necessity compels it [and] it is the wish people there.” He also wrote, “My object and ambition was to succeed with the enterprise and lay a foundation for the fortune of thousands.” This fortune was based on the cruelty and suffering of fellow human beings. The new arrivals to Texas reflected the attitudes and mores of the deep South from which they originated. Dr. Phillip Tucker in his insightful and ground breaking book, Exodus from the Alamo: The Anatomy of the Last Stand Myth, states that many of the soldiers of the Alamo were, “…either slave-owners, defenders of the right to maintain slavery, or aspired to own slaves..”
White men in the story of the Alamo are not victims. No one is seeking to demonize them but rather to gain a deeper understanding of history. The oppressive forces that were at work in the establishment of Texas continue to this day. San Antonio today is one of the most economically segregated cities in the United States. This reality did not begin yesterday. It is the result of centuries of racism and marginalization of people of color. Your inflammatory reference to “brown nationalism”, snide remarks about people not ‘”exactly hopping the border south and getting sent back”, sarcastic suggestions to do way with Catholicism and the use of the Spanish language all point to anti-Mexican and Hispanic attitudes and a continuation of past practices.
The purpose of the exhibit is to offer a wider perspective and understanding of the Alamo beside the moral mythic story of good Anglo freedom fighters versus evil Mexicans. It is told from the perspective of local inhabitants (native Chicanos and Tejanos.) For too long, the history of the Alamo and Texas revolution has been told by a dominant group of historians, writers and politicians that told their stories from an Anglo American perspective. My hope is that you can open your mind to alternative understandings of history. Then perhaps we can all enjoy some good hugs.
Slavery in the new world has a long, long history. In Texas, it began with the Spanish and continued with the arrival of white southerners. No one is denying the brutality of Spain in its conquest of the indigenous populations of Texas. The Spanish crown and church dominated and manipulated Native American and local born Tejano populations into accepting their worldview and understanding of civilization. Their annihilation of Native groups across the Americas is a tragic story. Unfortunately, this domination or cultural hegemony continued with the arrival of white southerners. This is the whole story. The myth of the Alamo and Texian fight for freedom is the latest version of cultural hegemony in this part of the world. What is left out of this story are the economic motivations and drives that brought new people to Texas.
The Anglo American strategy and goal for developing Texas was through slavery and land. In 1821, Stephen Austin stated, “Texas must be a slave country [because] circumstances and unavoidable necessity compels it [and] it is the wish people there.” He also wrote, “My object and ambition was to succeed with the enterprise and lay a foundation for the fortune of thousands.” This fortune was based on the cruelty and suffering of fellow human beings. The new arrivals to Texas reflected the attitudes and mores of the deep South from which they originated. Dr. Phillip Tucker in his insightful and ground breaking book, Exodus from the Alamo: The Anatomy of the Last Stand Myth, states that many of the soldiers of the Alamo were, “…either slave-owners, defenders of the right to maintain slavery, or aspired to own slaves..”
White men in the story of the Alamo are not victims. No one is seeking to demonize them but rather to gain a deeper understanding of history. The oppressive forces that were at work in the establishment of Texas continue to this day. San Antonio today is one of the most economically segregated cities in the United States. This reality did not begin yesterday. It is the result of centuries of racism and marginalization of people of color. Your inflammatory reference to “brown nationalism”, snide remarks about people not ‘”exactly hopping the border south and getting sent back”, sarcastic suggestions to do way with Catholicism and the use of the Spanish language all point to an anti-Mexican and Hispanic attitude and a continuation of past practices.
The purpose of the exhibit is to offer a wider perspective and understanding of the Alamo beside the moral mythic story of good Anglo freedom fighters versus evil Mexicans. It is told from the perspective of local inhabitants (native Chicanos & Tejanos.) For too long, the history of the Alamo and Texas revolution has been told by a dominant group of historians, writers and politicians that represented a one-sided Anglo American perspective. My hope is that you can open your mind to alternative understandings of history. Then perhaps we can all enjoy some good hugs.
It is good that the Alamo myths are finally be exposed. Little has been said about Stephen F. Austin writing the first slave codes in Texas or the degrees issued by the black president of Mexico abolishing slavery and the one issued by Santa Anna a few days the Alamo small skirmish. Both abolished slavery. It is also not generally known that most of the Alamo defenders ran leaving only about 60 behind to defend themselves.
McDonald’s statement linking the content of this exhibit to a political agenda is unfortunate. While the Alamo does provide a wide range of information about the people and events at that place, the fact remains that although this is a place very rich in history, one single moment in time is valorized over all other historical events. The Alamo is a very significant place, for both good and bad, virtuous and cruel; and that the story told there (and cultivated by popular culture) is not balanced creates a vacuum begging to be filled. The questions of the day seem to be: when did the Alamo become the cultural sensation known as The Alamo? who valorized the 1836 battle?, and most importantly to this conversation… what’s due to members of this community that valorize the events before and after the battle, but not necessarily the battle? This is not a political agenda, this is people telling their story in a community unaccustomed to having history challenged.
We can continue to beat our breast about slavery but it’s not unique to the US or Caucasians. It’s still a horrible reality in the Arab world but their is no political or financial advantage so it’s not discussed.
Advancing Historical Knowledge – The Alamo Effect
By Rolando Briseño
RE: The Rivard Report, Remembering the Alamo – As A Story With Many Sides, By Nicholas Frank, March 15, 2018
Douglas McDonald, the new CEO of the Alamo, is the former CEO of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center doesn’t know about the other freedom railroad – the one heading to Mexico! He is quoted as saying “While slavery is intertwined in the history of the Americas, linking the Alamo to slavery more often represents a contemporary political agenda rather than a real desire to advance historical knowledge”.
As an historical record Mexico abolished slavery right after it separated from Spain in 1829. In 1836 there were 5000 slaves in Tejas which were brought by the southerners coming in from the U.S. It was decreed in the new Texas that any free person of color or mixed race were to be re-enslaved. And Steven F. Austin’s statement, “Texas is destined to be ruled by a pure race and not a mongrel race”, made it a shoe-in for slavery to be re-introduced into Texas. Mexico at that time offered African Americans a free place to live in neighboring Coahuila – its called El Nacimiento de los Negros. So there were two freedom railroads, one to the north and one to Mexico. I encourage Mr. McDonald to visit the other freedom center just across the border in Mexico. The Other Side of the Alamo: Art Against the Myth, which is skillfully curated by Ruben Cordova, PhD. It runs through July 20 at the Galería Guadalupe, alongside the Common Currents 1868-1917 Tricentennial exhibition at the Guadalupe Center’s Progresso Building through Apr. 29.