page_title: Battle of the Alamo
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of the Alamo / Background
caption_attribution_description: This is the painting Fall of the Alamo, painted by Theodore Gentilz in 1844.
context_page_description: The Battle of the Alamo was a pivotal event in the Texas Revolution. Following a 13-day siege, Mexican troops under President General Antonio López de Santa Anna reclaimed the Alamo Mission near San Antonio de Béxar, killing the Texian and immigrant occupiers. Santa Anna's cruelty during the battle inspired many Texians, both legal Texas settlers and illegal immigrants from the United States, to join the Texian Army. Buoyed by a desire for revenge, the Texians defeated the Mexican Army at the Battle of San Jacinto, on April 21, 1836, ending the rebellion.
  Several months previously, Texians had driven all Mexican troops out of Mexican Texas. About 100 Texians were then garrisoned at the Alamo. The Texian force grew slightly with the arrival of reinforcements led by eventual Alamo co-commanders James Bowie and William B. Travis. On February 23, approximately 1,500 Mexicans marched into San Antonio de Béxar as the first step in a campaign to retake Texas. For the next 10 days, the two armies engaged in several skirmishes with minimal casualties.
context_section_description: In 1835, there was a drastic shift in the Mexican nation. The triumph of conservative forces in the elections unleashed a series of events that culminated on October 23, 1835, under a new constitution, after the repeal of the federalist Constitution of 1824.  Las Siete Leyes (Spanish: [las ˈsjete ˈleʝes]), or Seven Laws were a series of constitutional changes that fundamentally altered the organizational structure of Mexico, ending the first federal period and creating a unitary republic, officially the Mexican Republic (Spanish: República Mexicana).  Formalized under President Antonio López de Santa Anna on 15 December 1835, they were enacted in 1836. They were intended to centralize and strengthen the national government. The aim of the previous constitution was to create a political system that would emulate the success of the United States, but after a decade of political turmoil, economic stagnation, and threats and actual foreign invasion, conservatives concluded that a better path for Mexico was centralized power.
  The new policies, and the increased enforcement of immigration laws and import tariffs, incited many immigrants to revolt. The border region of Mexican Texas was largely populated by immigrants from the United States, some legal but most illegal. These people were accustomed to a federalist government and to extensive individual rights including the right to own slaves, and they were quite vocal in their displeasure at Mexico's law enforcement and shift towards centralism. Already suspicious after previous American attempts to purchase Mexican Texas, Mexican authorities blamed much of the Texian unrest on American immigrants, most of whom had entered illegally and made little effort to adapt to the Mexican culture and who continued to hold people in slavery when slavery had been abolished in Mexico.
  In October, Texians engaged Mexican troops in the first official battle of the Texas Revolution. Determined to quell the rebellion of immigrants, Santa Anna began assembling a large force, the Army of Operations in Texas, to restore order. Most of his soldiers were raw recruits, and many had been forcibly conscripted.
  The Texians systematically defeated the Mexican troops already stationed in Texas. The last group of Mexican soldiers in the region—commanded by Santa Anna's brother-in-law, General Martín Perfecto de Cos—surrendered on December 9 following the siege of Béxar. By this point, the Texian Army was dominated by very recent arrivals to the region, primarily illegal immigrants from the United States. Many Texas settlers, unprepared for a long campaign, had returned home. Angered by what he perceived to be American interference in Mexican affairs, Santa Anna spearheaded a resolution classifying foreign immigrants found fighting in Texas as pirates. The resolution effectively banned the taking of prisoners of war: in this period of time, captured pirates were executed immediately. Santa Anna reiterated this message in a strongly worded letter to United States President Andrew Jackson. This letter was not widely distributed, and it is unlikely that most of the American recruits serving in the Texian Army were aware that there would be no prisoners of war.
  When Mexican troops departed San Antonio de Béxar (now San Antonio, Texas, USA) Texian soldiers captured the Mexican garrison at the Alamo Mission, a former Spanish religious outpost which had been converted to a makeshift fort by the recently expelled Mexican Army. Described by Santa Anna as an "irregular fortification hardly worthy of the name", the Alamo had been designed to withstand an attack by native tribes, not an artillery-equipped army. The complex sprawled across 3 acres (1.2 ha), providing almost 1,320 feet (400 m) of perimeter to defend. An interior plaza was bordered on the east by the chapel and to the south by a one-story building known as the Low Barracks. A wooden palisade stretched between these two buildings. The two-story Long Barracks extended north from the chapel. At the northern corner of the east wall stood a cattle pen and hor
caption: The Fall of the Alamo, painted by Theodore Gentilz in 1844, depicts the Alamo complex from the south. The Low Barracks, the chapel, and the wooden palisade connecting them are in the foreground.
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