New Alamo Statue of Travis: A reminder of Slavery

Skewed history along racial lines has placed the named of William Barret Travis on schools, monuments, in history books, and public buildings across Texas. But what was this man really like? What was the historicity (what really happened) in what Travis did and stood for aside from the continuous hogwash that he is to be honored as some sort of hero? Is he to be honored as the as the commander who led defenders of the Alamo in the 1836 battle for separate country independent from the United States, or as a racist pro-slavery war mongering bigot? Let us start from the top and look at the background of Travis.
The mythical tales of the Alamo resemble a cult in which followers walk around in spotless gowns of pretended truth in a swamp that smells of rotted inventions and outright lies. The 1824 Mexican Constitution placated the Anglo slave owning class. Poor whites, indoctrinated with racist dreams and culture, having come from the slave owning states were attracted to the Mexican “frontier” because the American dream at the time meant owning slaves and land. The application of the old racist antidote of writing history with an eraser, or distorting facts, was applied with the astonishing hands of a magician. What better way to attack Mexico than to play on the omissions of political documents?
The “Victory or Death” letter by Travis does nothing to explain the actual circumstances that underpin the Battle of the Alamo and the role Travis played. Travis left Alabama seeking fortune in the form of land and slaves under a system that he and other “settlers” hoped to realize. Travis did not possess the moral character that myth has created. He left a pregnant wife behind in Alabama and soon found himself keeping records of the prostitutes he had been with in San Antonio. It was known at the time that Travis had a severe case of syphilis. When Travis penned the “Liberty of Death” letter, he was already under orders to leave the old Spanish church that could not be defended with the small number of men under Travis’ shaky command. Sam Houston was well aware that the ruined structure at the Alamo was the worst possible place to get trapped and so issued the order to abandon it. Travis doomed his own men. His mouth was full of big talk but his leadership skills were severely lacking.
Pro-slavery men at the Alamo had no prior military experience to speak of. Most of the defenders were farmers, ranchers, clerks, and Travis was a lawyer prone to giving big bloated speeches. Many Anglos were convinced that whites were “sturdy” and superior to any Mexican. They lived and died by this racial craziness. For decades the Southern slave holding states fought the federal government to enforce their ownership of slaves. William Travis was a lawyer who used his legal skills to return slaves to their masters often from Louisiana. Travis, a man prone to bloated fume, would commit to a scheme when he said, “We have sworn to support a federal republican government, not a military usurpation—Republicanism not Centralism, which is but another word for Monarchy.” Really? What would you call a system of white men of the plantation class with slaves in power in 1836?
How was he a great man of “moral standards” when he whipped a 50-year-old black man for drinking too much alcoholic liquor? It might have been more honest to say that his morals were on the extremist end in regards to alcohol, but couldn’t find a way to whip Bowie “the drunk.” Evidence exists that some Blacks were part of the Mexican army as demonstrated by Travis’ attempt to recover two slaves from Mexican General Juan Bradburn during the Anahuac town disturbances. Slaves escaping their masters, the masters that William Travis was trying to help in Louisiana, reportedly went to Bradburn for freedom. What made Texas slave owners particularly upset was the fact that Juan (John) Davis Bradburn withheld land titles requested by Anglo squatters attempting to steal land, enforced custom laws and most importantly refused to return runaway slaves to Louisiana masters. This is what centrally led to the war with Mexico
Travis would use the race card and the issue of slavery to incite racial hatred against Mexicans. Travis’ attacks against Bradburn led to filling the ranks of a “citizen militia” with racist followers. White racist militias sometimes were able to attract Mexicans and Native People into their ranks—nothing new here as racists do that today with sell-out minorities attached to the Trump campaign. “Citizen Soldiers” were nothing more that racist militias that were used through the South to slaughter Native people or catch runaway slaves. The whirlwind that Travis helped to instigate, in support of slavery, and the apparent greedy path that his law practice hoped to exploit, would soon come.
Colonel William B. Travis was no hero at all. He was a lawyer that often-found ways to sue Mexican authorities to have runaway slaves returned to their masters. These actions were a slap in the face when Mexico had abolished slavery, and who were not about to return black slaves to their brutal masters. The new Alamo statue of Travis is a reminder of the bigotry and hatred that Travis had sown