American Notes Texas

"All they knew was that they would die," said San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros. To honor the doomed men who made a stand at the Alamo 150 years ago, some 500 San Antonians and visitors gathered at a commemoration of the historic event last week. All the nearly 200 defenders, including Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie, died at the hands of 4,000 Mexican troops. Little more than a month later, General Sam Houston defeated the Mexicans, and Texas had won its independence. The revelers heralded the Alamo's last stand with a deafening musket salute. But the sesquicentennial celebration had its irony. Today, more than half of San Antonio's population is still of Mexican descent.