History Spotlight, 3/6

"There's no basement in the Alamo!"

The Battle of the Alamo ends after an 13-day siege on this day in 1836. The territory of Texas had always been a thorn in the side of Mexico. Technically a part of Mexico, but settled and occupied by people who didn't consider themselves Mexicans. Of course, for their part, Mexico had been considered a part of Spain up until the Mexican War for Independence and had only been a sovereign nation since 1824. What, exactly, comprised this new country called Mexico was a matter for debate. Still is, depending on who you talk to.
At the end of the war, like the US at the end of the American Revolution, Mexico was flat broke and didn't have the money to field an army to keep the domestic peace. In a place like Texas, which was sparsely populated and what population it did have was mostly really, really angry Comanche Indians. To try to kill two birds with one stone, the Mexican government encouraged the Texans to start their own militias and also loosened up immigration policies into the territory. This started a flood of immigrants from the US into Mexico and soon the native-born Mexicans were outnumbered by the immigrant Americans (I think that's pretty funny).
After that, it was the same old story: Immigrants bringing in their own culture (in this case, slavery), the host culture belatedly trying to rescind the laws that made immigration so attractive in the first place (Anglo immigrants weren't supposed to have to pay property taxes for ten years). The Anglos mostly ignored the new laws that were inconvenient to them and the new Mexican government, being 700 miles away in Mexico City couldn't do much about it. By 1834, there were 30,000 Anglos and 5,000 slaves to 7,800 Mexicans in Texas.
Texas was not a choice assignment for soldiers serving in the Mexican military and many, if not most of the in Texas were hardened criminals who were given the choice of Texas or the noose. Mexico was also trying to dictate which crops the Anglo Texans were to grow. Texans wanted to grow cotton, which was fetching very high prices on the international market and the Mexican government wanted corn and wheat. Along with all of this, the Mexican government was staunchly Catholic and expected the Protestant settlers to tithe (that is, give 10% of their earnings) to the Mother Church.
Geez, I'm not even up to the actual battle yet. OK, so tensions rose and everyone said, "Let's have a war."
On February 23, 1836, the Mexican army arrived at the sometime-capital of Texas, San Antonio and laid siege to the city's defenders who occupied the Alamo mission. Things stayed that way for a few weeks until March 6 when 3000 Mexican troops started an all-out assault on the 187 defenders inside. Things went downhill rapidly. The first two assaults were repulsed, but the third one did the trick and the walls were breached. The defenders retreated to interior rooms where room-to-room fighting began. This didn't last long and of the 187 defenders, only five survived and they were swiftly executed.
News of the prolonged defense of, and defeat at the Alamo spread swiftly and, rather than demoralize the colonists, it only swelled the ranks of Texan General Sam Houston's army. The battle cry of "Remember the Alamo!" was raised and Santa Anna was soon driven out of the Texan territory which became the Republic of Texas until it joined the Union on December 29, 1845.