The Alamo

My trip to the Alamo was both exciting and enlightening. I was able to glean quite a bit of information from the new historical photo-wall that has been set up. Paintings have also been added to the exhibit. Sadly, I did find some bias in that they did not delve into the fact that Texas was initially rebelling against its mother country. The Alamo was the pinnacle of a movement that had started long before. There were some excellent reasons for the independence movement, but they did not even mention the negative side.

In the Alamo exhibit there are heroes like Stephen F. Austin and Jose Antonio Navarro, who are portrayed as the blameless leaders who only wanted to bring more people to Texas. The murals show a prestigious Austin who is brave and honorable, but it does not tell of the darker side to his motives. It is a well known fact that Austin had intended to make money off of the endeavor. One of the main reasons for this war was because Texans wanted to retain their rights to own slaves, which had been ruled inhuman by the Mexican government. Instead the wall only refers to the fact that many feared the fact that Santa Anna had liquidated the Mexican constitution and was planning to create a dictatorship.

These facts are all accurate, but again only one side has been presented. Austin and Navarro had money on the mind and were willing to do anything to get it. They even went as far as drawing up contracts for each one of their slaves then forcing them to sign. All this was done in order to circumvent the Mexican governments ruling. These contracts were two sided agreements in which one side had no say in the matter, and simply signed ninety-nine years of his/her life away. Again, I state that both sides of the story have not been covered, and probably will never be. There will always be a bias! -333 words