Reflection on the Alamo

Armando did a great job in his presentation of Santa Anna the other day in class. I really enjoyed hearing him challenging the common view that Mexicans and Americans have toward Santa Anna.

History is written by the winners, not by the losers.

It is also true that the American perception of Santa Anna in the Alamo played an important and biased role in American history during decades, but at the same time, is there a debate on the way Mexicans perceived this war? I disagree with Armando when he said that Texians refused to pledge allegiance to Mexico and were some kind of militia planning to overthrow the Mexican government. I believe just the opposite. Texians, along with 6 Mexican regions pledged allegiance to the 1824 Constitution when Santa Anna suppressed it in 1835. Six Mexican regions sided with the Law against Santa Anna’s coup d’etat.I would say that in this case, Texians sided with the Federalist Constitution against Santa Anna. Also, they were forced to side with Mexican “Federalists,” the political group opposing Santa Anna centralism. At that time Mexico was in some kind of political civil war between “federalists” and “centralists.”Lee Ann Woodall in "Zacatecas: The United States and Mexico at War" suggests that “Texians subsequently used Santa Anna's conduct in Zacatecas as a justification for revolution against his government.” This view promotes the theory saying that the Texian quest for independence was part of an internal Mexican political conflict that degenerated into its colonies.Three native Mexicans were among those who signed the Texian declaration of independence: Lorenzo de Zavala, José Antonio Navarro, and José Francisco Ruiz. Zavala was a leader of the Federalist Party and a strong opponent of the Centralists. He supported the 1824 Mexican Constitution which was mainly Federalist. He was the governor of Mexico (1932-1833). He moved from Mexican Federalism toward independence. The part Mexican Federalist played in the independence of Texas is really interesting.Why did Zavala, the former Federalist governor of Mexico, sign the declaration of independence? Was the independence of Texas a way for Federalists to take a revenge on their main enemy Santa Anna the Centralist? Was the Texas-Mexico war at the beginning an instrumentalized war by federalists engaged in a political war against Santa Anna that finally became a Texian war? What do you think ?