second chance in texas. he had a colorful past figure he lived with the cherokee, had a cherokee wife, the governor of tennessee, he had a political life. he s got military expanse with the u.s. army, as an officer. after the losses, he wanted to preserve himself for a better day, to find a way the enemy would be at a disadvantage, which culminated in the battle. which sam houston honorably led and began the process. welcome to san antonio, texas.
behind me, a pretty famous building. that is the church inside the alamo where the famous battle took place. we ll talk about this battle in a way you probably before. before we do that, i want to flashback, flashback to what texas was like back in 1820 when moses austin started bringing americans right here. what brought americans to texas in 1820? what was the attraction? it s a time when people were on the move. because there s opportunity and there s also hardships to escape. what texas offers is both of those.ca so you come to texas because the opportunity is land, and at that time, land is livelihood. so if you don t have land, you can t make a living. many people think of texas as west texas. where it s rough terrain. but east texas wasn t part of hardwood forest and great easy plowing. but they didn t have a lot of
running the volunteers, people who want to stay there. colonel travis, the regulars. santa ana thought this was a fight for who owns texas. and he thought it was an easy one. he was focused on san antonio. he wanted restore his w brother-in-law was the commander when the texans captured the fort. it was a little bit of retribution and pride, coming this way, instead the other road where he would have been able to bypass the alamo, reinforce and resupply san jacinto. santa ana moved north. but the texas rebellion had lot of previous success. sometimes success is your undoing. because we won, and many of the colonists started leaving, because we won the war. and they hadn t. plus, you had different
soldiers turned one way, or fired their muskets. should them appoint th at pok range come in cold blood. and close here is a memorial. can we take a look? shorter. they were burned after they were massacred, just like they had at the alamo, but the alamo had dry wood for the funeral pyre is. they had greenwood here, so fires didn t completely burn the bodies. vd texas army collected them in one spot and buried them with the monument stands today. as we get close, we see two cannons. not only symbolic that they are being protected, but they date back to the battle? they were part of the artillery. that is the burial site. it s hard to believe the remains of 400 men are buried beneath there. it s the final resting place for the men here, the story that we tell there at the fort. it s basically there memorial marker.
mexicans wanting to move that far north. they became free lotteries. moses austin had this idea to start bringing americans this way and deal with the spanish. what he s offering the spanish, the opportunity is, we can bring you the people that will turn this from the wilderness into a productive area, no longer a frontier. there s not a lot here. and the spanish have been trying for years to establish community. mexicans didn t want to move to texas because of the apaches. so they said, look, we got to h have somebody in mexico live there. so they did this deal to bring in the americans. then come down to texas, we ll give you free land, no taxes for 10 years. but you have to turn catholic. a lot of people started migranting to texas. people were calling it a new eat in. you maybe coming to the united states, but you re going to become spanish. and when transition comes to