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Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham has some chutzpah; few elected officials would unveil a statue honoring an enslaver, illegal immigrant and sexual predator at a public institution in 2023.
If anyone doubted that white supremacy still reigns at the Alamo, Buckingham put that question to rest earlier this month while celebrating a problematic depiction of William Barrett Travis, the commander during the 1836 battle that made the Spanish mission famous.
“Today, we stand at the hallowed grounds of the Alamo to honor the memory of Lt. Colonel William Barret Travis, a man whose dedication and sacrifice have left an indelible mark on the fabric of our state’s history,” Buckingham’s prepared remarks declared. “This statue serves as a powerful reminder of the courage and determination that shaped Texas, and we must always cherish the memory of those who fought valiantly for our freedom.”
If the Alamo is a critical part of the Texas brand, thoughtless displays like the new Travis statue at the visitor’s center set the wrong tone for a state where Hispanics outnumber Anglos. Buckingham’s General Land Office oversees the Alamo, and the ambitious politician is drawing her line in the sand of the culture wars.
Travis’ great skill was epistolary. He wrote stirring letters during Mexican General Antonio López de Santa Anna’s siege of the Alamo while waiting for the rest of his army to catch up with him. The greatest example is the Victory or Death letter.
“The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion, otherwise, the garrison are to be put to the sword, if the fort is taken — I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, & our flag still waves proudly from the walls — I shall never surrender or retreat,” the letter reads.
Scratch the surface, and the story of courage disintegrates.
(Disclosure: Travis was my great, great, great grandmother’s cousin, and they were neighbors in Conecuh County, Ala., before he abandoned his pregnant wife and child and moved to Texas to avoid jail.)
Travis bought his first slaves while trying to start a law practice in Alabama. But when he couldn’t repay his debts in 1831, he settled illegally in the Mexican province of Texas, violating the Law of April 6, 1830. The central government was already concerned about Anglos trying to steal Texas for the United States and had placed limits on immigration.
Travis was 21 years old when he hung his shingle to become a lawyer in Anahuac. He fell in with racist malcontents who refused to accept legitimate Mexican authority over Texas, sparking some of the earliest armed conflicts.
Contemporary accounts paint Travis as high-strung, hotheaded and mercurial, probably because he was taking mercury pills for syphilis. He bragged in his diary about having sex with at least 60 different women, some likely enslaved, and noted that he’d contracted a chronic disease that required medication.
When Texian Gen. Sam Houston dispatched Travis with 30 cavalrymen to the Alamo, the 26-year-old brought a recently acquired enslaved person named Joe. Joe survived the battle and recounted how a Mexican soldier shot Travis in the face after he’d climbed the ramparts in the opening minutes of the battle.
This brings us to the 2002 statue, “The Line,” sculpted by Western artist James Muir, One of 13 editions, Travis is holding a sword and drawing a line in the sand, something he never did.
The myth of Travis realizing that his garrison was doomed and asking the men trapped inside to cross a line to show their readiness to fight to the death was an invention. A fantasist named William Zuber invented and published the story as a letter to the editor in 1873. Historians agree it has no basis in fact.
Lastly, we learned from contemporaneous Mexican accounts that Travis tried to negotiate a surrender to escape with his life. But Santa Anna would not agree to his conditions.
Buckingham is an avid GOP culture warrior. During her campaign for land commissioner, according to attendees, she denounced the book I co-authored, “Forget the Alamo,” while speaking at the Bryan Museum in Galveston. Her host was J.P. Bryan, who is currently trying to preserve Texas mythology by taking over the Texas State Historical Association.
Just before the statue unveiling, Buckingham was on the phone with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick complaining about a professor who made derogatory remarks about the state’s drug policies during a lecture at the University of Texas Medical Branch.
You can judge a community by whom they choose to honor. Buckingham’s new Travis statue makes Texas look backward and ignorant when we’re neither of those things.
Chris Tomlinson, named 2021 columnist of the year by the Texas Managing Editors, writes commentary about money, politics and life in Texas. Sign up for his “Tomlinson’s Take” newsletter at HoustonChronicle.com/TomlinsonNewsletter or Expressnews.com/TomlinsonNewsletter.
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