Alamo Cenotaph in Downtown San Antonio victimized by graffiti artists during Memorial Day weekend protests

Allen West Recalls Davy Crockett Words to Him
in Missive on Alamo that Omits Links to Slavery

By Mike Hailey
Capitol Inside Editor
September 21, 2020

Texas GOP Chairman Allen West stepped up his push to keep the Alamo Cenotaph in its current location when he portrayed himself on Monday as a modern-day Davy Crockett who's had the legendary battle's most famous character speak to him at the statue in front of the mission shrine in downtown San Antonio.

"I am a Tennessee Volunteer, and a former member of the US House of Representatives," West revealed in an email to party loyalists. "Whenever I visit The Alamo and look upon The Cenotaph, I see the man whose legacy I carry, Davy Crockett. And Congressman Crockett, says, "remember us."

The leader of the Texas Republican Party for most of the past three months, West brought Crockett up in the context of a story about a bloodbath in 480 BC at Thermopylae in Greece where the Persians annihilated the dramatically outnumbered Spartans in a clash that took seven days to win. The Battle of Thermopylae has long been viewed as one of the all-time most famous last stands and displays of epic courage in the face of certain death.

West said that the showdown that featured 300 Spartans who were hand-picked by King Leonidas bought valuable time for the rest of the Greek army that eventually defeated Persia and its King Xerxes. West explained how the Spartans spurned the Persian's demands for their surrender even though they had no chance to survive.

"In essence, freedom and liberty stood before tyranny and subjugation," the state GOP chairman added.

West served up the history lesson in hopes of persuading the Texas Historical Commission to vote this week against Land Commissioner George P. Bush's plan to move the Alamo monument around the block as part of a redevelopment project that he's referred to at times in the past as a piece in a reimagination initative.

While West didn't mention Bush as a fellow Republican, the state party chief contended that local officials in the Alamo City were to blame for a "dedicated effort to erase our history" by relocating the Cenotaph.

The "woke cancel culture mob supporters who sit on the San Antonio City Council do not see themselves as protectors of those who defended Texas," West declared. "No, they would rather surrender Texas history, an American iconic symbol, to the progressive socialist leftist mob."

West - a former military officer who served on term in the U.S. House in Florida - didn't mention that he's lived in Texas about five years or less. West also failed to point out that the Spartan warriors forced their slaves to fight and to die along side them against the enemy from Persia where slavery had been outlawed like it had been in Mexico during the Texas fight for independence.

What the Texas Republican Party's top leader might not realize or care about is that one of the pages of history that native Texans were never told about in school was that the battle of the Alamo was a fight to save slavery. Crockett and all of the other men from out of state that died at the Alamo didn't come to Texas simply because they wanted to die for someone else's freedom.

The motivations were spelled out in the convention that produced the Republic of Texas Constitution in 1836.

SEC. 9. All persons of color who were slaves for life previous to their emigration to Texas, and who are now held in bondage, shall remain in the like state of servitude, provide the said slave shall be the bona fide property of the person so holding said slave as aforesaid. Congress shall pass no laws to prohibit emigrants from the United States of America from bringing their slaves into the Republic with them, and holding them by the same tenure by which such slaves were held in the United States; nor shall Congress have power to emancipate slaves; nor shall any slave-holder be allowed to emancipate his or her slave or slaves, without the consent of Congress, unless he or she shall send his or her slave or slaves without the limits of the Republic. No free person of African descent, either in whole or in part, shall be permitted to reside permanently in the Republic, without the consent of Congress, and the importation or admission of Africans or negroes into this Republic, excepting from the United States of America, is forever prohibited, and declared to be piracy.

SEC. 10. All persons, (Africans, the descendants of Africans, and Indians excepted,) who were residing in Texas on the day of the Declaration of Independence, shall be considered citizens of the Republic, and entitled to all the privileges of such. All citizens now living in Texas, who have not received their portion of land, in like manner as colonists, shall be entitled to their land in the following proportion and manner: Every head of a family shall be entitled to one league and labor of land, and every single man of the age of seventeen and upwards, shall be entitled to the third part of one league of land. All citizens who may have, previously to the adoption of this Constitution, received their league of land as heads of families, and their quarter of a league of land as single persons, shall receive such additional quantity as will make the quantity of land received by them equal to one league and "labor" and one-third of a league, unless by bargain, sale, or exchange, they have transferred, or may henceforth transfer their right to said land, or a portion thereof, to some other citizen of the Republic; and in such case the person to whom such right shall have been transferred, shall be entitled to the same, as fully and amply as the person making the transfer might or could have been. No alien shall hold land in Texas, except by titles emanating directly from the Government of this Republic. But if any citizen of this Republic should die intestate or otherwise, his children or heirs shall inherit his estate, and aliens shall have a reasonable time to take possession of and dispose of the same, in a manner hereafter to be pointed out by law. Orphan children, whose parents were entitled to land under the colonization law of Mexico, and who now reside in the Republic, shall be entitled to all the rights of which their parents were possessed at the time of their death. The citizens of the Republic shall not be compelled to reside on the land, but shall have their lines plainly marked.