The Alamo Deception Research Paper

The Alamo Deception

Many Americans, particularly Texans, see the Alamo as a symbol of pride, freedom and courage. In reality though, the story of the Alamo has a much different meaning that is very often overlooked. It was a battle fought for many reasons, one of them being, their belief in their right to own slaves. Unfortunately, even though slave abolition was a big instigator in the Texas revolution, it is something that seems to be swept under the rug by most historians.

In the 1820's, Mexico encouraged settlement of Texas by Americans from the states. These settlers were particularly planters so that they can make profit from the tax revenue off of the cotton farming they would bring and also help in the control of indigenous people. These settlers were also typically southerners, because southern Americans had more experience in dealing with the cotton trade and had a bigger slave administration. The settlers brought their own slaves along with them, so for every five Texans there was about one slave. The Texans had years of development in their planting and farming systems until they eventually established themselves in Texas. Their cotton investment created a potentially huge tax revenue source for Mexico. The Mexicans, by allowing Texans to use slaves to continue working on their plantation so that they can continue getting revenue from it, they built a good relationship. The Texans were producing large amounts of cotton that very much helped the cash starved Mexican government, who could not capitalize on the cotton industry in their own land because the Northern Mexican territories were believed to be very desolate. This also helped secure land against the Indians, due to several disputes they were having at the time. However, eventually certain events outside of the control of the Texans soon began to change this relationship they had.

Mexico had planned to abolish slavery immediately after their declaration of independence behind the rebellion of Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a Mexican priest and leader in the Mexican war for independence. In September of 1929 there was a slave abolition movement in Mexico that became successful when President Vicente Guerrero signed the decree to abolish slavery. Note that these laws also covered the Mexican owned Texas territory. Unfortunately though, there were many politically connected Texans involved who became outraged over the new law. The reason for the outrage is because the Texans relied heavily on the cotton industry, and without the slaves, Texans would lose profit and eventually go out of business. The Texan outrage though managed to pressure Mexico to alter its policy for Texas, and instead allowed it for short period of time. The Mexican slave abolitionist were pressured again to impose more restrictions on slavery, and thus the Mexican government passed a law that prohibited further American settlement, and banned