Was it a war justified for the Americans or was the war justified by the Mexicans?

What do you believe the story is really about?

Both Mexicans and Americans settled on to that area and they all were under a constitution with Mexico. Then the president at the time, Santa somethng- sorry, changed things and wanted a dictatorship. Then they all fought badly. And the Alamo was not a fortress it was an old church actually.. So that is what I think happened and remember being "taught."

As a German we where not taught about the Alamo, although we do have the information if one is interested. I just want to see how Americans interpet this war. I know Mexicans have a different view of the Alamo then the Americans.

I am actually watching the movie now, but it doesn't say much.

Alot of fighting is happening.

Wasn't Texas, Mexican territory at first?

If so this means Americans came in to live under Mexican law?

If not then the reason why they went to war is because General Santa Ana had a dictatorship for his country?

Was it not because of slave labor? The Texans had slaves and the Mexicans where against this or forbid it?

I went on vacation one time, and actually drove my Gran Prix right up to the front door of the Alamo!! This was in the wee hrs of the morning, I didn't know that the walkway, was just that...NOT a driveway! Tourist... go figure!

Davey Crockett would have liked that

He was known for the extrodinary exxagerated stories anyway.

So anything unusual would have been his calling.

Just imagine for a moment, you drove up a historical event in history without even knowing it

I knew it was historic...but didn't know that you DON'T just drive up to the front door of such a famous site! The police was nice about it, they were most likely thinking..."another dumb tourist"! I guess the only thing missing in that event, was to knock on the front door. haha

that is too funny.

When you went there did you study the site and history of what the war was really about?

Do you have information on what the story is really about?

History is always written from one side's bias side. The only way to know for sure would to have been there. I'm sure the Mexicans thought they were in the right, just as the Texans thought that also. According to the history I've read they were Texans, not Americans. They wanted the territory to be a nation free from America.

By March 5, 1836, Col. William Barrett Travis had known for several days that his situation inside the old Spanish mission called the Alamo had become hopeless.

Several thousand soldiers under the command of Mexican Gen. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna had Travis and some 189 other defenders surrounded.

The young Texas colonel - only 26 - was a lawyer, not a professional military man, but Travis knew enough history to understand that in a siege, the army on the outside usually prevails over the army on the inside.

So he gathered his fellow defenders that Saturday afternoon and gave them a speech.

"We must die," he began. "Our business is not to make a fruitless effort to save our lives, but to choose the manner of our death."

He saw three possibilities: Surrender and summary execution, trying to fight their way out only to be "butchered" by Mexican lancers or "remain in this fort�resist every assault, and to sell our lives as dearly as possible."

Then, with a flourish, Travis drew his sword and slowly marked a line in the dirt. "I now want every man who is determined to stay here and die with me to come across this line."

Young Tapley Holland made his decision quickly, proclaiming "I am ready to die for my country!" as he jumped over the line. It's hard to picture it as a stampede - the men knew they were voting to die - but all but two of them walked over the line. Co-commander Jim Bowie, lying sick on a cot, asked some of his men to carry him across. Only Louis Moses Rose, a French soldier of fortune, remained behind.

That night, Rose slipped out of the Alamo and managed to make it through the enemy lines. He ended up in Louisiana and supposedly lived until 1850.

Every Texan knows what happened the morning after Rose made his escape. In the predawn of March 6, Santa Anna's forces breached the walls and killed every Texas combatant.

No one disputes the outcome of the battle, but historians are still fighting over whether the sword story is true. Unfortunately for die-hard Texans, the current thinking is that it probably did not happen. On the other hand, so far as is known, anyone who could have vouched for the story died in the final assault that morning 170 years ago this March 6.

The dramatic tale did not appear in print until 1873, nearly 40 years after the battle. The man who wrote the story for the Texas Almanac - William Physick Zuber - later admitted that while he reconstructed major portions of Travis' speech, he included only one paragraph of fiction. Unfortunately, he did not say which paragraph that was.

Zuber might have been inspired by what happened in December 1835. Ben Milam, during the Texian siege of San Antonio de Bexar, did draw a line and urge his fellow revolutionaries to follow him in attacking the soldiers of Mexican Gen. Martin Perfecto de Cos.

"Who will follow old Ben Milam?" he asked.

The Texans won the battle but Milam lost his life in the effort.

But other than Zuber's telling of the tale, which he said he heard from his parents, who had given Rose shelter for a time after his escape from the Alamo, no documentation has been found to support it.

What is irrefutable is that the story of Travis drawing a line with his sword - be it truth or legend - gave Texas, America and eventually, the world, one of its most enduring metaphors.

Travis' line in the dirt - people did not start saying sand until the first President Bush used the term in 1990 before the first Gulf War - is a story equal to Homer or Shakespeare, as compelling as almost anything in the Bible or from the best Hollywood screen writer.

As J. Frank Dobie put it, "It is a line that not all the piety nor wit of research will ever blot out. It is a grand canyon cut into the bedrock of human emotions and historical impulses."

The line-in-the-sand metaphor gets its power because it represents something that is absolutely true: Making a courageous decision often comes with a high price.

On the upside, that courageous decision usually proves to be the right one, even if it takes years for people to appreciate it. Think Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation. It might cost your life or your office, but chances are, someday you will be remembered for doing the right thing by crossing that figurative line in the sand.

Nah...only knew what we were taught in school, and seen in the movies. Never dug into the history...only knew it was something to do with the Mexicans, and Texans! When I got out of the car, I should have actually knocked on the door, and ask if Davy was there! But if I had done that, the police may have had me to seek some professional help! I didn't realize the humor to the whole thing, till I had gotten home. I guess I could have pulled up to the door, and blow my horn...but it was something like 3am...so, just drove the front door...and headed home!

Not many can claim the action of "just take a drive over to the Alamo front door"...but no one was at home!

Besides...I didn't really think that much about it. Back home(Alabama)we can just pull up to your front door, when we come to visit. Besides...the mobile homes are not that far off the dirt road anyway...!

A lot of radical Mexicans, Hispanic Extremists and Illegals are calling for the taking back of land they claim was stolen by Texas and the US.

They already have a name for it and have divided the States. Aztlan.
These are older maps. You can imagine how much larger the population is now.

Yes I can see the structure of where the majority of spanish speaking people live. The very places where they once did live all along in the 1800s.

I can also imagine that many of the Mexicans want to reclaim this territory back today.

A good book I read was from Pat Buchanon called "Emergency of State" where he explains what is in his view what is going on. Of course a view that many Mexicans don't agree with.

In the end what is right?

Are the Mexicans right to reclaim the land that they feel belongs to them?

Are they wrong not to oblige that this states belong to the United States of America, which all leads perhaps to the Alamo's reasons.

What where the real reason for this war?

Was it territory or was it idealogy of what is right or wrong?

At the end of the movie when General Santa Ana signed over for exchange to his life the rights to Mexico to Texas it shows that 9 years later Texas became a state of the United States of America.

Does this mean that Texas was a independent country for 9 years called Texas at the time?

So this means the people of Texas agreed to be part of the states when they had a chance to say no, we want to be a independent country???

The movie has ended and I can't help but feel sad. I am not even an American, Texan, or a Mexican!

What a sad part of history indeed.

What did I learn about it?

That decisions can be vital to the outcome of a person's life.

That decision determines the outcome of other lives even.

If a peaceful solution could have happened instead of a war keeps running in my mind. Somehow a political solution to the problem without the resort of war?

Perhaps there was no solution, but in the end many lives have gone away at the time leaving loved ones to mourn at the time.


Why didn't they get along?

Was it the harsh rules the Mexican had that didn't allow a Texan to live a comfortable life? Was it the taxes they had to pay?

Was it the language barrier problem?

Was it because of slave labor that Texan's still adhered to and the Mexican's didn't?

To bad I can't find a history professor that specializes on this war. I would be very interested in knowing the core of the problem and the alternatives that could have been taken for the outcome of this misfortune.

the walkway to the alamo isn't something you can just drive up to the front door.

texas has had 6 flags flown over the state. spain was first. as far as the alamo...it really depends on who you ask. the like of Davey Crockett, William Travis and Jim Bowie came to help fight the war against Santa Ana. the Alamo was a mission

http://www.thealamo.org/history.html

thanks for the site. Interesting

my mom's family (mostly) still lives in San Antonio. Mom grew up there....so I know a little about it lol.

just like any history though (IMO) it depends on who you ask. there are some hard core facts but things like reasons, this and that are subjective to the person.

last time I was at the Alamo was a couple of years ago when I was teaching at a dance convention down there. the history was interesting (I love history) but there is really only so much you can see. I also went on the mission trails which is a trail named for several old missions there.

i hope that site helped some. if you get a chance, san antonio is actually kinda cool...with the alamo, missions and river walk

smiles...you seem to be an old west history buff like me....so we can swap sites. let me know if you find anything interesting