RSS Feed
News
Today in History: The Fall of the Alamo
03/06/10
On March 6, 1836, the famous fort in San Antonio, Texas, known as the Alamo fell to Mexican Army forces under General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna following a 13-day siege. An estimated 200 Texan defenders were killed during the final assault, including such well-known American frontiersmen as Davy Crockett and James Bowie.
In the early 1830s Texas was a part of Mexico, but growing numbers of immigrants from the United States outnumbered Spanish-speaking Tejano residents. The new arrivals resented the Mexican government’s efforts to solidify its control over the region and began fighting for independence. Hoping to quell the Texas Revolution, Santa Anna surrounded the Alamo with an estimated 2,000 Mexican troops on February 23, 1836. While the siege was going on, a group of 54 revolutionaries met at Washington-on-the-Brazos and formally approved the Texas Declaration of Independence. (We are unable to display the text of the document at this time. To view the text of the Texas Declaration of Independence, please visit this website: http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/treasures/republic/declaration.html.)
Despite being terribly outnumbered, the Texan defenders held out for nearly two weeks before the Alamo finally fell. Santa Anna’s men executed everyone who survived the attack with the exception of around 20 women and children. The Battle of the Alamo was widely viewed as a heroic struggle for freedom against overwhelming odds, and “Remember the Alamo!” became a rallying cry in the fight for Texas independence. On April 21, 1836, General Sam Houston led a Texan army to victory over Santa Anna in the Battle of San Jacinto, which effectively ended Mexico’s efforts to reclaim Texas. Houston was elected as the first president of the Republic of Texas. After a decade as an independent nation, Texas was annexed by the United States and was admitted as the 28th state in 1845.