he story of the Alamo is simple, right? Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, William Barret Travis, and a bunch of their friends come to Texas to start new lives, suddenly realize they are being oppressed by the Mexican dictator Santa Anna, and rush off to do battle with him at an old Spanish mission in San Antonio. They are outnumbered but fight valiantly and die, to a man, buying Sam Houston enough time to defeat Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto. As almost any Texan will tell you, their sacrifice turned the Alamo into the cradle of Texas liberty.
The problem is that much of what you think you know about the Alamo is wrong. What you just read? That’s the Alamo myth. The actual story, well, it’s a lot more complicated.
These days there are essentially two schools of thought about the Alamo and what it means. A playful way to contrast them is through the stories of the two British rock stars most closely associated with all this. The first would be Phil Collins, who began his career drumming for the band Genesis and, as a solo singer, has sold millions of albums. Collins happens to be the world’s greatest collector of Alamo artifacts. He owns Sam Houston’s Bowie knife, a belt said to have been worn by Travis, and a shot pouch Crockett is said to have turned over to a Mexican soldier before dying. Not to mention Alamo-sourced cannonballs, maps, letters, muskets, powder flasks, bullets, swords, and even human teeth.
