The scope of this document is not to discredit any of the Texas Hero's of the Texas Revolution, it is more about the many questions I have in my mind as to why it happened at all.

During this period, there was upheaval in Mexico, and a revolution took place making Mexico an independent country.

Let us go back in the history of our great state and look at what brought us to be what we are today. Texas has always been an area of great land mass, though most of it was not prime land, it was designed for cattle raising. When Texas was first being settled, Spain gave massive land grants to people to farm and ranch. Even with that in mind, there were still great expanses of land that was not claimed.

Meanwhile in the United States (as it existed at the time, early 1800's) people were moving West, from the coast inland, through Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee and Louisiana. Still many of these people felt 'crowded' and wanted to move where there was more freedom. Spain, established business with Land Speculators to provide people to live on the land, and land was at a very inexpensive (even for then) at the time. People like Stephen F. Austin's father, and Jim Bowie and others were Land Merchants. There were several stipulations with the purchase of the land, allegiance to Spain (and eventually Mexico) and the only religion was to be Catholicism. With those promises in hand many moved into the Tejas (soon to be Texas) region.

As time progressed, and several 'leaders' in Mexico City replaced each other, one came to power, Santa Anna. Santa Anna was a General in the Mexican Army, and all but a military coup. After coming to power, he looked at the settlement of the Tejas region, by the Americans, and became worried that the area would become 'foreign' to the Mexican Government. In addition, many of the Land Speculators felt that since Mexico City was distracted by it's war with Spain, they could come in, without permission, and just take over the lands.

Santa Anna learned of this, and sent an expeditionary force into the Tejas region to close the borders and remove the land jumpers. This whole expedition was construed by the Americans as affront to what they believed their right to take the lands. Take the lands is right, they were throwing Mexican Citizens off their rightful land, and taking them. Now mind you, this was not all the Americans, and in addition there were many citizens in the Tejas region that were not American, there were Mexican, Spanish, Polish, German, Alsatian, Canary Islanders and others. The core of the problem seemed to be with the Americans, the other nationalities that were settling there, were Mexican law abiding citizens, and had converted or worshiped the Catholic Religion. They were paying the taxes levied on them, Santa Anna and the Mexican Government was not concerned, for the most part, with these people, the concern again came from the Americans, who, for all appearances had decided that they did not need to pay the taxes, did not need to have allegiance for Mexico, did not have to worship with the Catholics. In effect they were bullying their way into and onto lands that they had no right to.

Santa Anna and the Mexican Government revoked many of the agreements made with the American Land Speculators, which angered the Americans, due to the fact their income had been cut off.

Their solution was to have their own revolution and make Texas an independent country. Their idea was a good one, for them. Santa Anna would have to fight a long distance war, and they were entrenched in the Tejas lands, with popular sentiment with them.

Now comes the problems, Santa Anna, being a General and Military man, handled the situation in a military manner, and not a political one. He sent a troop of his military to Gonzales to retrieve a cannon from the citizens, who had been given the artillery to help protect themselves from the Indians who ravaged the area from time to time. Santa Anna sent his brother in law, General Cos to accomplish this task, but word traveled much faster than the army did. The Americans and local citizens took the cannon, and buried it to keep it from the Mexican Army. They devised a flag with the script of "come and take it" on it, to show the discontent of the local people.

When General Cos arrived he was driven away without the cannon. On his retreat, General Cos encamped in San Antonio, in the same abandoned mission that was to make a name for itself just a short time later, the Alamo. General Cos dug trenches and stood fast, however, the opposing force drove him out of the Alamo, this was the First Battle of the Alamo. On his retreat, General Cos was again engaged in a battle outside of San Antonio, in the fields south of what is now the San Antonio City Limits near the town of Lemming, where he was again defeated on the field of combat.

Upon his final return to Mexico City, General Santa Anna, was enraged with the disrespect that was shown, and formed an expeditionary force to punish the Tejas rebels. Very quickly he formed the punitive force, it was ill equipped for the mission, and he lost many soldiers on the way, the ones who finally arrived in Tejas were tired and not ready for battle, due to the long trip.

At this point General Santa Anna, driving the punitive force, do get revenge for the loss of face by his brother in law, had to make a decision. Should he take the main route, through Goliad or should he go through the village of San Antonio and make examples of the rebel force there.

Rather than make the thrust up through Goliad, better roads and better food sources, he decided to regain face in San Antonio. He diverted his army to San Antonio, to a small group of rebels bunkered in a deserted mission, locally called the Alamo.

The resulting conflict is referred to in Texas as the "Thirteen Days of Glory", it took thirteen days to defeat the defenders, the rebels, at the Alamo, even outnumbered some twenty to one (from some accounts). There were stories of heroics on the defenders side, even though the outcome was written from the beginning of the siege.

Now, there is documentation to dispel some of the heroic legends. Even though these valiant men fought to the end, several were taken prisoner, one alleged to be David Crockett. All defenders of the Alamo were killed, no survivors. There were several opportunities given to the defenders to surrender, but the defenders were determined to fight to the end, even though it was known to be death. When the prisoners were taken in front of Santa Anna, he ordered their death, they were criminals to him, and they had been given the chance to surrender, at that point some of his officers drew their swords and killed the surviving defenders.

You should know that Santa Anna was not known for his political savvy, he was, and always had been, since a very young man, a military man. He handled it as a military man of the era. No Prisoners.

Santa Anna buried his soldiers, and piled the defenders in piles of bodies to be funeral pyres. He did not have the resources or time to bury the bodies in the ground. He did, as they had done in battles in the past, and a common practice of the times, cremated the bodies, to prevent disease, he could have just left the bodies to the coyotes, but did not.

He then formed up his Army and headed to Goliad, where Col. Fannin was having his own problems, at La Bahia, he was attempting to form a relief force to reinforce the Alamo. His first attempt was a dismal failure, wagons stuck in the Texas mud, and turned back, this is when he learned of the fall of the Alamo. He had a major decision to make, defend La Bahia, or retreat to East Texas. He chose, initially, to defend the Mission La Bahia, however, after seeing the size of the force at his front, and a battle, he and many of his men surrendered. Santa Anna did not have the resources to maintain the prisoners, so, as he did at the Alamo, he ordered the prisoners executed, they were marched out into a field close to Mission La Bahia, and were executed, en mass, however, there were survivors of the execution, dead falling on wounded and live soldiers, the Mexican Army taking it's time to ensure all were dead, some escaped into the woods and grasslands, and made their way to General Sam Houston's army in East Texas.

Santa Anna was on a punitive mission, to show this, he did not go to Castroville and punish the loyal people there, nor to any of the other towns in the area, his mission was to punish the rebels who had taken arms against him and his nation.

From this point things started getting worse for Santa Anna, he did not know where the bulk of the rebel army was. He started marching to the northeast. His army tired and tattered from the two battles he had been in, the Alamo and La Bahia, he chose a small plain to rest his army. A place named San Jacento.

At this point, it is important to know that there was a spy within the Mexican Army, one Emily Morgan, later to be known as the 'Yellow Rose of Texas', she was a mulatto prostitute, that Santa Anna had picked up in San Antonio, and she was sending information to Sam Houston about the location and status of the Mexican Army.

It could have not been better for the rebels, they found the tired army encamped, they fresh, assaulted the force, and caused a complete route of the army. Santa Anna had been captured. Santa Anna, defeated and captured, surrendered, gave concession of the Tejas territories (to include what is part of OK, NM, UT and CO) to the Texans, and the Empire of Texas became a reality.

This was 1836, Texas had finally become a Nation to itself. Had it's own constitution its own President, and law bodies. As time progressed, the Americans saw the great potential of Texas and it's resources. A movement was started to annex Texas to the United States. To this day there are many arguments as to the legality of the annexation, however, the ability to secede, the ability to divide itself into four individual states, and other concessions were made to the new territory.

Another strange quirk of history now comes to play, 1862, the United States is no longer United. The war between the states has started, the state of Texas, joined the Confederacy, based on, not slavery issue, but States Rights, which the Union wanted to control, take away from the citizens.

As we all know the Texans fought valiantly on many of the bloody battles, however, the Confederacy lost the war, and Texas was forced back into the Union. The reason I say this is a quirk, is that Texas had the right to secede by law, and was forced to comply with governmental controls.

As you can see from this humble perspective is that Texas has a much different past than is normally presented in the history books, and Hollywood has idolized the hero's, many of which were only out to line their pockets. This writer does not want to change history, only bring to the attention, that Mexico, was not the villain that it's been made to be, though Santa Anna was bloody and uncaring, he was a Military man, and ruled as he was taught, in a military manner. The Texans were not inspired by freedom, they were inspired by the financial gains they could achieve.

Texans today are a dynamic people, when one thinks of the West, they think of Texas, when they think of Cowboys, they think of Texas. When they think of big, they think of Texas. When a Texan is asked where he is from, he does not say the United States, no, he says TEXAS!!!, and everybody knows where he is from. Texas is it's own Empire, though part of the United States, or as a Texan would say, the United States is part of Texas.

We are proud, we are Texan, and history has not done justice to us.