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A church built after 1744 as part of a Spanish mission in San Antonio, Texas, and converted to a fort in 1793. During the Texas Revolution against Mexican rule it was besieged (February 24 to March 6, 1836) by the Mexican army, who killed all 187 members of the Texas garrison.
For more information on Alamo, visit Britannica.com.
The Alamo was the site of a legendary battle in Texas's struggle for independence from Mexico (1835-1836). Texans had been chafing under the Mexican government, which legislated against slavery, allowed the military to intrude upon civil affairs, and was chronically unstable. In December 1835, a volunteer Texan force drove government troops out of San Antonio and settled in around the Alamo, a mission compound adapted to military purposes after the 1790s. In January 1836, Mexico's president, Gen. Antonio López de Santa Anna, concentrated forces south of the Rio Grande. Sam Houston, the commander of Texas's armies, ordered San Antonio abandoned, but troops under James Bowie and William B. Travis chose to remain. They were joined by others, notably the "Tennessee boys" led by Davy Crockett.
When Santa Anna's army reached San Antonio, Travis, in full command because Bowie had fallen ill, declared from within the Alamo, ""I shall never surrender or retreat."... victory or death." The latter increasingly became the more likely prospect. The Mexican force has been estimated at from 2,400 to over 5,000, the Alamo's defenders numbered only about 185, and Santa Anna declared he would give no quarter. On March 6, after thirteen days of siege, the Mexicans stormed the citadel. It took three assaults and close combat to overcome the insurgent garrison. Apparently, only one Texan combatant survived--José María Guerrero, who persuaded his captors he had been forced to fight. Noncombatants--women, children, and a black slave--were also spared. "Best estimates" of Mexican dead have ranged from six hundred to nearly sixteen hundred.
Both the Texan and the Mexican decisions to fight at the Alamo have been criticized on military grounds. But the battle gave the insurgent cause its martyrs and its battle cry. Shouting "Remember the Alamo!" Texans overwhelmed a Mexican force six weeks later at San Jacinto (April 21, 1836). There, Santa Anna was captured and independence won.
See also Texas Revolution and Annexation.
Bibliography
See A. G. Adair and M. H. Crockett, ed., Heroes of the Alamo (2d ed. 1957); Lon Tinkle, 13 Days to Glory (1958); W. Lord, A Time to Stand (1961); W. C. Davis, Three Roads to the Alamo (1998); R. Roberts and J. S. Olson, A Line in the Sand (2000).
A fort, once a chapel, in San Antonio, Texas, where a group of Americans made a heroic stand against a much larger Mexican force in 1836, during the war for Texan independence from Mexico. The Mexicans, under General Santa Anna, besieged the Alamo and eventually killed all of the defenders, including Davy Crockett.
The Alamo
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| (U.S. National Historic Landmark) | |
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| Location: | San Antonio, Texas |
| Coordinates: | |
| Built/Founded: | 1744 |
| Added to NRHP: | October 15, 1966 |
| NRHP Reference#: | 66000808 [1] |
| Governing body: | Daughters of the Republic of Texas |
 
Alamo
The Alamo in Texas
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The Alamo (San Antonio de Valero Mission) is a former mission and fortress compound, now a museum, in San Antonio, Texas. [2] The compound, which originally comprised a sanctuary and surrounding buildings, was built by the Spanish Empire in the 18th century for the education of local Native Americans after their conversion to Christianity. [3] After its abandonment as a mission, it was used as a fortress in the 19th century and was the scene of several military actions, including most notably the 1836 Battle of the Alamo, one of the pivotal battles between the forces of the Republic of Texas and Mexico during the Texas Revolution.[4]
The mission was authorized in 1716 by the viceroy of New Spain. It was established two years later in 1718 by Fray Antonio de Olivares, who brought Indian converts and records with him from Mission Francisco Solano near San Juan Bautista on the Rio Grande. Olivares named the mission after St. Anthony of Padua and the viceroy of New Spain, Baltasar de Zúñiga y Guzmán Sotomayor y Sarmiento, Marquess of Valero and second son of the Duke of Béxar (or Béjar). The present site was selected in 1724 and the cornerstone was laid on May 8, 1744.
The Alamo was the first in a chain of missions established nearby along the San Antonio River. Several of these other missions have been preserved as part of San Antonio Missions National Historical Park.[5]
After 1765, the missionary activity began to wane and in 1793 the mission was abandoned, with the archives being removed to nearby San Fernando Church. In 1803, the abandoned compound was occupied by the Second Flying Company of San Carlos de Parras, a company of Spanish soldiers from Álamo de Parras (in the modern-day Mexican state of Coahuila). [6] It is believed by some historians that the name "Álamo" derives from this. [3] An alternate theory of the origin of the name is that it derives from the Spanish word álamo (cottonwood), after the grove of nearby trees.[citation needed]
The building was occupied by Mexican forces almost continuously until December 1835, when it was surrendered to Texan forces by General Martín Perfecto de Cos during the Texas Revolution. Two months later, on February 23, 1836, Lieutenant Colonel William B. Travis entered the Alamo with a force that later totaled approximately 187 men to defend it against the advance of the Mexican army. Approximately 6,000 Mexican soldiers under the command of General Antonio López de Santa Anna laid siege to the fortress for 13 days. The siege climaxed on March 6 and resulted in the death of all of the Texan defenders. Mexican casualties probably amounted to approximately 200 killed and 400 wounded.[4]
Although the military significance of the battle has been debated by scholars, the bravery of the Texan forces and their sacrifice inspired the battle cry "Remember the Alamo" used in the subsequent battles of the Texas Revolution.[7] Since that time the structures that remain have traditionally been regarded with reverence by Texans as illustrated by the words of Edward Burleson in 1842.
After the siege, the building was nearly in ruins. Little attempt was made to restore it, and on January 13, 1841, the Republic of Texas passed an act returning the sanctuary of the Alamo to the Roman Catholic Church. After the annexation of Texas, the United States claimed the ruined building, which was used for quartermaster purposes by the Army until the Civil War. During the Civil War the Confederacy used the building, but after the war, the United States government reclaimed the building and used it until 1876.[8]
The ownership of the building was in dispute for much of the later half of the 19th century. In April 23, 1883, the State of Texas officially purchased the church building from the Catholic Church and gave it to the city of San Antonio with the provision that the city should pay for the care of the building. From the 1890s through 1905 two women made themselves responsible for the preservation of the site: historian and teacher Adina De Zavala, and philanthropist Clara Driscoll, who acquired the site with her own personal funds. The two women later clashed over the treatment of the convent. Driscoll wanted it torn down.
On January 25, 1905, the Texas Legislature passed a resolution purchasing a part of the mission occupied by a business concern, with the further instruction that the purchased property and the church building be put in the custody of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, who currently maintain the buildings and welcome visitors. Disputes over the ownership of the compound persisted throughout the 20th century. In 1908 De Zavala barricaded herself in the building for three days in a successful attempt to prevent commercial exploitation. The building has been restored on several occasions, most notably for the Texas Centennial in 1936. It was designated a National Historic Landmark on December 19, 1960.
In 1918, Private David B. Barkley, the U.S. Army's first Hispanic Medal of Honor recipient, lay in state at the Alamo, before his burial in nearby San Antonio National Cemetery.[9] Others who had had the honor of lying in state at the Alamo were Major General Frederick Funston in 1917 [10], and Clara Driscoll in 1945.[11]
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 | Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| US History Companion. The Reader's Companion to American History, Eric Foner and John A. Garraty, Editors, published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/ Read more |
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| History Dictionary. The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Edited by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Joseph F. Kett, and James Trefil. Copyright © 2002 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Alamo Mission in San Antonio". Read more |
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