gracchusdixit

Next to Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty or give me death” and Nathan Hale’s “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country,” there may be no phrase in the lexicon of patriotic American rhetoric that is more quoted than “Remember the Alamo!”  From the day this phrase was first uttered 185 years ago, it has been invoked, repeatedly, reflexively, and with little thought, to signify heroic self-sacrifice.  It has also become the de facto motto of the state of Texas, where everything must, by definition, be heroic or just plain big.  

Despite all that, this famous rallying cry begs a fundamental question, which is:  Precisely what are we being called upon to remember?  The answer is not so obvious as it might seem.

The phrase, “Remember the Alamo,” commemorates a 13-day siege in the winter of 1836 that took place at a run-down mission church in the town of San Antonio, Texas, then part of the newly independent nation of Mexico.  A rag-tag group of roughly 200 North American émigrés, who called themselves “Texians,” had holed up within the crumbling walls of the mission in an act of rebellion against Mexico’s entirely legitimate authority.  After a good deal of dithering on both sides, the siege reached a boiling point and came to a swift end when the Mexican army, in the space of 90 minutes, breached the mission walls and overwhelmed its defenders, killing all but a few.  

A few months later, the winds of fortune turned.  Sam Houston, the leader of the rebellion against Mexico, won the battle of San Jacinto, egging on his troops with the slogan, “Remember the Alamo”.  He promptly declared Texas to be an independent republic and all but anointed himself as its first president.  This state of affairs lasted a mere 10 years, until Texas was annexed by the United States and admitted to the union as the 14th “slave state,” briefly tipping the balance away from “free states” toward the slave-owning states of the south.  

And therein lies the real meaning of “Remember the Alamo”.

For almost 200 years, we have been brainwashed into thinking that the Alamo’s defenders were “heroes” who sacrificed their lives for a cause greater than themselves.   At the same time, we have been asked to forget what that cause actually was—which was nothing less than the perpetuation of chattel slavery. 

Twenty years before the siege, the Mexican people had declared their independence from the empire of Spain and, after ten years of bloody struggle, won their freedom.   The constitution of the new republic they created outlawed slavery and awarded the franchise to everyone, regardless of religion or race.  This enlightened conception of democracy and freedom was then unthinkable in the so-called “land of liberty” to the north.  Not only unthinkable, but to the slave-owning whites who exercised a stranglehold over the politics of the United States, positively loathsome.  

All the legendary “heroes” of the Alamo—William Travis, Jim Bowie, and Davey Crocket of coonskin cap fame—owned or traded slaves, or both.  So, too, did the patron saint of Texas, Sam Houston.  Houston’s political mentor was none other than Andrew Jackson, a genocidal racist who, when he wasn’t butchering American Indians, was lashing those of his own slaves who dared to disobey or run away.  To such men, the prospect of Mexico reasserting its historical sovereignty over the American southwest was nothing less than an existential threat.  The end of slavery would have sent them all to the poor house.  

The unpleasant reality is that men who died at the Alamo weren’t “heroes” defending the cause of liberty; they were slave-owners defending their property rights.  The story behind the words, “Remember the Alamo,” is a lie. 

It is not, however, the first, let alone the biggest, of the many big lies that underpin the traditional narrative of American history.

Christopher Columbus, to begin with the most obvious example, did not “discover” America.  By the time the Great Navigator accidentally landed in the Caribbean, ignorantly convinced that he had reached India, the “new world” was already inhabited by a population of at least 50 million. 

The Puritans who stepped off the boat at Plymouth Rock were not pious innocents seeking religious freedom.  They were bigoted fanatics.  The only freedom they were seeking was the freedom to impose their cramped and toxic theology on everyone else—which they promptly set about doing, hunting down “heretics” and hanging “witches” at every opportunity.

The stalwart “pioneers” who “settled” the American west didn’t risk their lives to civilize a barren wilderness populated by barbarous savages.  They stole the land from its Native American owners.  When the rightful owners predictably resisted, the “pioneers,” backed by the federal government, proceeded to evict or exterminate them.  

The motives of our venerated “founding fathers” were mixed at best.  For all their talk of equality and human rights, the constitution they bequeathed to us was explicitly designed to suppress democracy and uphold slavery.  For more than 100 years, the “checks and balances” they concocted did precisely that.  Long after the abolition of slavery, our anti-democratic constitution still ties us up in political and institutional knots, making it all but impossible for millions of Americans to receive the simple justice they deserve.

The men and women of the armed forces of the United States are not “heroes” defending an imperiled nation with blood and self-sacrifice, though that is how they are endlessly told to think of themselves.  The reality is that Americans haven’t fought a “defensive” war in more than half a century, nor have we had a citizen army since the dark days of Vietnam.  The members of our present-day military are paid mercenaries doing the dirty work of a hegemonic global power.  Their “mission” is not to defend an imperiled nation but to enforce the economic and political interests of a de facto empire.  If they were told the truth, and not spoon-fed lies, I have little doubt that many of them would throw down their weapons and walk away.

These are but a few of the many lies that Americans believe about our country and its history. 

So, if you’re wondering why Republicans in Texas are determined to eviscerate voting rights, why the current governor of Texas is ready to violate the constitution by building his own wall on the border with Mexico, why so many Americans are positively eager to embrace the outrageous falsehood that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election, and why so many Republican members of Congress are ready to defend and excuse the seditious mob that stormed the nation’s capitol on January 6th, I have only this to say:  

Remember the Alamo!