Beyond the Battleground: the Competing Legacies of San Jacinto by James E

Beyond The Battleground: The Competing Legacies Of San Jacinto BY JAMES E. CRISP you were to ask the average Houstonian to describe the legacy of the Battle of I f San Jacinto, the answer might well be: “Look around you!” In other words, all that Houston is today – all of the political and economic development of Texas and the American Southwest through the last 171 years – is sometimes attributed to the outcome of the test of arms and courage on that pivotal day of April 21, 1836. But put aside for a moment the claim of the battle’s “decisiveness.” It is, after all, a very dubious proposition that a different outcome on that single day would have permanently put a stop to the expansion of the United States across the territories of northern Mexico, given the growing disparity in power and population between Mexico and the United States in the mid-nineteenth century. Rather than imagining what might have been had Santa Anna won the contest that day, think instead about another kind of “legacy.” How does this event from the distant past shape the way we think about ourselves and our world today? 6010845_UofH_Text.indd 12 10/13/10 6:12:34 AM Henry A. McArdle, Dawn at the Alamo, 1905. Courtesy Texas State Library & Archives Commission. 6010845_UofH_Text.indd 13 10/13/10 6:12:35 AM A legacy is by definition a powerful For the Texas story, San Jacinto the Mexican dictator. Trouillot is closer link between the past and the present. is doubly important, because as to the truth when he argues that it was Whatever the precise physical realities the anthropologist, Michel-Rolph actually the outcome of the Battle of of critical events such as the Battle of Trouillot, noted in Silencing the Past: San Jacinto which made possible the San Jacinto, it is the broader narratives Power and the Production of History, traditional Texan interpretation of in which we embed such events that the Mexican General Antonio Lopez the Alamo’s meaning. It would have determine for us their historical de Santa Anna lost two battles there. been a very different story–in both significance and their meaning Santa Anna, said Trouillot, “was senses of the word–if Santa Anna had for our own lives. The events and doubly defeated” on April 21, 1836: prevailed and become the victorious narratives that are celebrated through He lost the battle of the day, but he narrator of the war in Texas. monuments, commemoration, and also lost the battle he had won at the Alamo. [Texan General Sam] Houston’s Instead, as Trouillot’s fellow- historical art become a part of the men had punctuated their victori- anthropologist, Holly Beachley Brear, “collective memory” of a people. They ous attack on the Mexican army with has found in her native San Antonio, are the stories that we tell–again and repeated shouts of “Remember the speakers–that is, story-tellers–at again–to explain our world, to anchor Alamo! Remember the Alamo!” With the Fiesta celebrating San Jacinto our values, and to assert our identities. that reference to the old mission, they doubly made history. As actors, they Day recount a “unified narrative These stories, in other words, become captured Santa Anna and neutral- with the sacrificial fall of the Alamo the sacred myths of our societies. ized his forces. As narrators, they gave and the victory at San Jacinto as the Alamo story a new meaning. The the inseparable alpha and omega of military loss of March [sixth] was no the Texas creation mythology.”2 longer the end point of the narrative but About the author: A native Texan a necessary turn in the plot, the trial of Moreover, in her book, Inherit the and a Rice graduate, James E. the heroes, which, in turn, made final Alamo: Myth and Ritual at an American Crisp is associate professor and victory both inevitable and grandiose.1 Shrine, Brear describes what she takes assistant head in the Department In Texan historical mythology, the to be a racist sub-text within the of History at North Carolina heroic sacrifice at the Alamo made sacred narrative of blood sacrifice State University in Raleigh, and is and miraculous redemption: “In this the author of SLEUTHING THE ALAMO: the victory at San Jacinto possible by DAVY CROCKETT’S LAST STAND AND OTHER critically delaying Santa Anna long ideology, Fiesta [marks] the end of MYSTERIES OF THE TEXAS REVOLUTION. enough for Sam Houston to pull chaos and backwardness characterizing together the army which finally defeated Texas under Mexican dominance; to ‘the faithful,’ Fiesta San Antonio is McArdle, The Battle of San Jacinto, 1898. Courtesy The State Preservation Board, Austin, Texas 14 Houston History Volume 4, number 2 spring 2007 6010845_UofH_Text.indd 14 10/13/10 6:12:36 AM the secular Easter six weeks after the wanted not only to Good Friday of the Alamo’s fall.”3 interview them, but for as For most Texans, the most obvious many of them as possible and memorable pairing of the Alamo to see the finished work. and San Jacinto is to be found in the He did not complete his gigantic paintings of the two battles San Jacinto masterpiece that hang today on either side of the until 1898. McArdle entrance to the Senate Chamber of returned in earnest to the Texas State Capitol. Dawn at the his Alamo painting only Alamo and The Battle of San Jacinto after his cross-town may be encountered not only within rival Robert Jenkins the walls of the Capitol but also in Onderdonk displayed countless book-jackets, posters, and in 1903 his dramatic illustrations of historical texts. There painting Crockett’s Last is a racial message also to be found in Fight (hanging today as these iconic works by the San Antonio- The Fall of the Alamo in based artist Henry A. McArdle, but it the Grand Foyer of the is a more complex message than the one Governor’s Mansion Brear describes in Inherit the Alamo. in Austin). McArdle’s Dawn at the Alamo McArdle began these massive works finally appeared two of art in the 1870s, and by 1874 he years later in 1905.6 had produced a preliminary sketch Of the many From McArdle Notebook, detail of Castrillón and Sylvester (flag- of what would later become Dawn bearer), The Battle of San Jacinto. Courtesy Texas State Library & 4 comparisons that can at the Alamo. However, he soon put Archives Commission. this first project aside and worked be made between are two races that represent opposing instead for the next twenty years on McArdle’s two paintings, one forces in the painter’s mind.”7 The Battle of San Jacinto. The reason for of the most striking is his contrasting doing the paintings “in reverse order” depictions of the Mexican soldiers Was it simply the Mexican slaughter becomes obvious when one realizes and officers. Not surprisingly, some of the Alamo defenders that provoked that McArdle was determined to of these men are shown as fleeing this bestial iconology in McArdle’s achieve historical authenticity as well as the San Jacinto battlefield, but many 1905 painting, so different from aesthetic merit in what were to become of the Mexicans at San Jacinto are his portrayal in the earlier painting the two greatest paintings of his life. portrayed as fighting gamely in a of the Mexicans at San Jacinto? doomed cause–none more so than the Apparently not, because a close look The artist conducted numerous gray-haired “brave and chivalrous” at McArdle’s preliminary sketch from interviews and extensive correspondence General Manuel Castrillón, a red sash the 1870s for Dawn at the Alamo shows with the veterans of the Texas across the breast of his blue uniform, a far more sympathetic view of the Revolution who were eyewitnesses to his head and raised pistol directly to Mexicans – not unlike his treatment the battles, and for obvious reasons, the foreground from the Texan flag- of them in The Battle of San Jacinto. there were a lot more surviving Texans bearer, Sergeant James A. Sylvester. who had fought at San Jacinto than This more benign view may best there were men who had been inside The Mexicans depicted in McArdle’s be appreciated by returning to the the Alamo. (There were a few of the hellish Dawn at the Alamo are more depiction of the death of Davy latter available, however. McArdle brutish than chivalrous, however. Texan Crockett. Unlike the scene described corresponded with both Mexican art historian Sam DeShong Ratcliffe has by Emily Cutrer, the Mexican soldier General Santa Anna and Texan Colonel described them as “plasticene, psychotic fighting with Crockett in McArdle’s Juan N. Seguín–the latter having murderers,” and Emily Fourmy Cutrer early sketch is neither dark nor experienced the siege as a defender of has called McArdle’s vision of the “apelike.” He looks like a perfectly the old mission before being sent out as combatants “Manichean”–with the normal–indeed, even handsome-- a courier, and eventually commanding Force of Evil embodied in the dark Mexican soldier. Another contrast may a company of rebel tejanos under and “apelike” Mexican soldier locked be found just above and to the right Sam Houston at the final battle.)5 in combat with a Davy Crockett of Crockett in both versions of the whose whiteness and noble bearing are work–atop one of the Alamo’s walls– Unfortunately, by the 1870s the San highlighted by the artist’s technique. where the commander of the fortress Jacinto veterans were beginning to die “Crockett and the Mexican are not is about to give up his life for Texas.

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