Battle Of The Alamo: Texan Revolution Against Mexico

“Remember the Alamo!”

“In this war, you understand, there are no prisoners.” General Santa Anna told this to his generals after the surrender of Bexar and Cos. Some of the factors leading up to the Battle of the Alamo were the different languages, religions, and different ways of thinking. Americans wanted Manifest Destiny, or the idea that they had a right to move west to Califorina, while Mexicans could barely stay united as a country. Americans took advantage of Mexico’s disabilty to stay together and claimed part of Texas, starting the idea of the Texan Revolution against Mexico. During the Texan Revolution, one of the most important battles was the Alamo or “El Alamo”, named after the cottonwood trees surrounding it. The Alamo was built by the Spanish in the 18th century as a mission to convert Native Americans to Christianity, but was later converted into a fort by Mexican soldiers in the 1800s. In the summer of 1821, around 300 American citizens entered Texas and settled down in San Antonio. The American citizens entering Texas increased over the next few decades, starting a revolutinary movement that would blossom into an armed conflict with Mexico by the 1830s. By Feburary 1836, things had become heated and the Texans had grown tired of Mexican rule.

On April 21, 1836, Sam Houston and some 800 Texans defeated General Santa Anna’s Mexican force of 1500 men at San Jacinto, shouting, “Remember the Alamo!” as they attacked. Against impossible odds, Texas won the war for independence from Mexico in 1836. The Alamo was one of the most celebrated battles of our nation’s youth, a lost cause whose story never grows old. The plot: a band of frontiersmen, hopelessly outnumbered, fights to the last man against a vast encircling army and is propelled into immortality by a battle waged at the crumbling Spanish