Geopolitical Aspects of the 1836 Battle

. . a short mavin too, lasting only about seven months. And it was certainly fought in what was at the time one of the most obscure corners of the world." in time so, it assumed such "legendary" status that even those who recognize nothing in of its particulars are likely to have a sense of its importance and may even feel that they are informed about what happened at the Alamo in 1836.

To be sure, roughly of the key actors at the Alamo in 1836 have in pop imagination the status of folk heroes, notably Stephen F. Austin, Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie, as easy as Sam Houston, who was instrumental in instigating the Texas War and in getting Texas admitted to the Union. The power of personality has, however, obscured a more Byzantine authority that in one sense overwhelmed evolving human motivations and aspirations in Texas and in other sense had the effect of making contend there inevitable. The complexity has to do with how Texas came to be a theater in the basic place, and that has to do with the decline of European over-embellished ambitions in North America and Mexico in the early nineteenth century and the growing importance in the United States of the model of Manifest Destiny, the name given to the idea that U.S. territory should operate from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean and enlarge as outlying(prenominal) south toward Mexico and as far north toward Canada as possible.

Although in the earliest rush of global exploration Spain was the most hearty presence in the New World,

by the early 19th century the Spanish conglomerate go oned almost nothing of her 16th- and 17th-century luster. Like other Continental states, Spain was vexed by Napoleon's invasion, and by 1830 all of the Spanish colonies of substitution and South America had achieved independence. In 1821, after a 10- course of instruction innovation abetted by installation of a progressive political relation in Madrid in 1920, it was Mexico's turn. Independence gave Mexico territory that stretched from Texas to California.

Further complicating the calculate at the time was Mexico's perennial flirtation with some form of civil war and Santa Anna's on-again, off-again presence in the country's public administration.

The situation as of 1834 was that Santa Anna came out of voluntary exile to assume leadership. His first move was to put down secularist opposition and consolidate his centralized power in Mexico, in the process disposing of several mebibyte people. Alarmed, the Americanos in Texas redoubled their efforts to arm, whereupon Santa Anna released Austin from jail as a goodwill gesture.

Mere independence, however, did not settle the matter. Mexico's new brass was unstable. It began as a reform monarchy under Agustin Iturbide, former royal commander, but Iturbide's monarchy was replaced within a year with a democracy proclaimed by Brigadier General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. The republican government enabled Santa Anna to consolidate power vis-a-vis the erstwhile anti-Royalist revolutionaries. Even so, Mexico experienced "frequent changes of government, as political and military leaders vied for power," with Santa Anna managing to retain power in one form or another from 1823 until his final exile in 1845. The internal politics of Mexico are germane to this research because in the key intervening year of 1836, Santa Anna was Mexico's leading politician and the decisive figure at the Alamo.

A similar tone can be discerned in the instruct entries in Davy Crockett's diary, which ended on March 5, 1
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