Beyond the Alamo: Forging Mexican Ethnicity in San Antonio, 1821-1861

by Raúl Ramos

Introducing a new model for the transnational history of the United States, Raul Ramos places Mexican Americans at the center of the Texas creation story. He focuses on Mexican-Texan, or Tejano, society in a period of political transition beginning with the year of Mexican independence. Ramos explores the factors that helped shape the ethnic identity of the Tejano population, including cross-cultural contacts between Bexarenos, indigenous groups, and Anglo-Americans, as they negotiated the contingencies and pressures on the frontier of competing empires.

Genres: History

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[Tony · Rating 5 out of 5]

Purchased during a 1-day tour of historic sites in San Antonio proper, a walking tour from San Antonio de Valero Mission (aka currently known as 'The Alamo', located just east of the San Antonio River), via the very tourist-oriented River Walk, to San Antonio de Béxar across the river culminating in a visit to both the restored Spanish Presidio and the preserved Casa Navarro (the latter located just west of the San Pedro Creek, which used to back up against the property according to the docent on site), all of which was frontier country in what was previously part of las Provincias Internas de Oriente, including the easternmost reaches of the Spanish Empire in N.America—the book provides an interesting corrective, or perspectival history, of what Spanish colonization north of the Gulf of Mexico looked like, from the point of view of the Spanish province's capital city, what we now call San Antonio, TX, as the Spanish frontier moved northwards and eastwards—as opposed to the more mainstream version of history focused on Anglo-American expansion westward.

Very much a frontier city, or borderlands crossroads, a traveler to the city in the eighteenth century described the Bexareño elite as "a ragged band of men of all colors" (mentioned here p.66). As late as 1820, Béxar was still only a town of 1,600 souls, reflecting the difficulties of finding colonists and/or friendly indigenous settlers to populate it, even if "Villa de Bejar" was founded by Spanish explorers in 1718, a century earlier. The land north of the city was basically conceded to the Comanche, with whom the Bexareños signed a treaty in 1822 (to stop the raiding), who were thereafter welcomed as visiting traders in the city, given gifts to placate them, and afforded a Comanche-language interpreter in town, to receive them (pp.61-3). Somehow there are enough records from the tumultuous 1810s, 20s, 30s to string together a story of the early days of the city's history. After Mexican Independence, Tejanos both in the city and across all Texas lost their power as "the receiving culture" (p.82), swamped by Anglo-American arrivals. There are passing mentions (pp.116, 121-2, 142-3) of two forts (or presidios) established by Mexicans within their province of Texas at a late date in an attempt to hold back the demographic wave spreading westwards, namely Fort Tenoxtitlán on the Brazos River (est'd 1830, its first commander a Bexareño; evacuated 1832; site abandoned 1841) and Fort Anáhuac on Galveston Bay (est'd 1830; fell to Texians in 1835; year abandoned?). The Mexican Republic attempted "to put an end to any future immigration of enslaved peoples" but the Béxar elites were on the wrong side (pp.116ff). Later chapters include accounts of the siege of Béxar (or Béjar), the siege of Alamo, etc. San Antonio goes on to become "the most populous city in Texas in the antebellum period." (p.230).

I enjoyed the book mostly as a contribution to urban history; others will appreciate more its larger thesis about identity politics, as a contribution to the anthropological study of ethnicity. Students of American history will appreciate the book as adding depth to textbook accounts of Hispanic ethnic groups as among the founding peoples of the United States, as in the textbook The American People: Creating a Nation and a Society, by Gary Nash et.al., esp. vol.1, chps. 2, 3, 4 & 13, or as in the budding field of transnational history.