History of San Antonio

The city of San Antonio in the U.S. state of Texas has a long history, being one of the oldest settlements, and for a long time, Texas' largest city.

Early history

Native Americans originally lived near the San Antonio River Valley, in the San Pedro Springs area, calling the vicinity Yanaguana, meaning “refreshing waters”.

In 1536, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, a shipwrecked captive of Native Americans, visited the interior of what would later be called Texas. He saw and described the river later to be named the San Antonio.

In 1691, a group of Spanish explorers and missionaries came upon the river and Native American settlement (located in the area of present-day La Villita) on June 13, the feast day of Saint Anthony of Padova, Italy, and named the place and river "San Antonio" in his honor.

Spanish settlement

In 1717, The Spanish Council of War approved a site on the San Antonio River for construction of a fort. The Domingo Ramón expedition, accompanied by the trader St. Denis from Louisiana (who had come to the site two years previous) established a presidio on the river. That council also approved a request by Father Olivares to establish a Catholic mission at the site.

In 1718, Martin de Alarcón, then Governor of Texas, reinforced the presidio and the ten soldiers and their families were recognized officially as the beginning of the villa. Alarcón named the presidio San Antonio de Béjar in honor of the Duke of Béjar, in Spain, the viceroy's brother, who died what was considered a hero's death defending Budapest from the Ottoman Empire in 1686.

The Spanish Missions

Main article: Spanish Missions in Texas

That same year, the Mission of San Francisco de Solano was moved from the Rio Grande to merge with Mission San Antonio de Padua. Father Olivares renamed his merged mission Mission San Antonio de Valero. The presidio, the villa and the mission comprised the municipality named San Antonio de los Llanos (of the Plains) by Governor Alarcón. One year later, in 1719, Mission San Antonio moved to its second site on the east bank near the present day St. Joseph's Church on Commerce. (The names are in dispute because there are no such saints and only a Pope can name saints.)

In 1720, The Marquis de Aguayo moved the presidio San Antonio de Béjar to its present site on the Plaza de Armas, where permanent quarters were constructed for the soldiers. In 1726 the official settlement population was 200, including 45 military and their families. The Mission San Antonio was moved to its third and final site on Alamo Plaza in 1724 because of hurricane flooding at the previous location.

Four other missions were either established or moved to the vicinity along the San Antonio River during this period. Mission San José was established in 1720, while Mission Concepción, Mission Espada, and Mission San Juan Capistrano moved there in 1731.

The Canary Islanders

At eleven o'clock on the morning of March 9, 1731, sixteen Spanish families (56 people) who had been colonists in the Canary Islands, often referred to as the "Canary Islanders," also known as "isleños", arrived at the Presidio of San Antonio de Bexar in the Province of Texas. By royal decree of the King of Spain, they founded La Villa de San Fernando and established the first civil government in Texas. The Marquis of Casafuerte, Viceroy of Spain, (King of Spain) bestowed upon each Canary Island family titles of nobility. Many descendants of these first settlers still reside in San Antonio.

San Antonio grew to become the largest Spanish settlement in Texas. After the failure of Spanish missions to the north of the city, San Antonio became the farthest northeastern extension of the Hispanic culture of the Valley of Mexico. The city was for most of its history the capital of the Spanish, later Mexican, province of Tejas. From San Antonio the Camino Real, today Nacogdoches Road in San Antonio, ran to the American border at the small frontier town of Nacogdoches.

Role in the Texas Revolution

Main article: Texas Revolution

After Mexico won independence from Spain in 1821 Anglo American settlers, at the invitation of the Mexican government via Empresarios such as Stephen F. Austin, began to settle in Texas in areas east and northeast of San Antonio.

When Antonio López de Santa Anna, after being elected President of Mexico in 1833, rescinded the Mexican Constitution of 1824, violence ensued in many provinces of Mexico. In Texas the Anglo settlers joined many Hispanic Texans, who called themselves Tejanos, in calling for the return to the Constitution of 1824. In a series of battles the Anglo Texans, who called themselves Texians, supported by a significant number of Tejano allies, initially succeeded in forcing the Mexican military to retreat from Texas.

Under the leadership of Ben Milam, in the Battle of Bexar, December, 1835, Texian forces captured San Antonio from forces commanded by General Martin Perfecto de Cos, Santa Anna's brother in law. This gave the forces opposing Santa Anna control of the entire province of Texas. Today Milam Park and the Cos House in San Antonio commemorate this battle.

Battle of the Alamo

Main article: Battle of the Alamo

The Alamo as it appears today.

After putting down resistance in other regions of Mexico, in the spring of 1836 Santa Anna led a Mexican army back into Texas and marched on San Antonio, intending to avenge the humiliating defeat of Cos and end the Texian rebellion. Texian leader Sam Houston, believing that San Antonio could not be defended against a determined effort by the regular Mexican army, called for the Texian forces to abandon the city.

A volunteer force under the joint command of William Barrett Travis, newly arrived in Texas, and James Bowie, and including Davy Crockett and his company of Tennesseans, and Juan Seguin's company of Hispanic Texan volunteers occupied and fortified the deserted mission, the Alamo, and determined to hold San Antonio against all opposition.

The defenders of the Alamo thus included both Anglo and Hispanic Texans who fought side by side under a banner that was the flag of Mexico with the numerals "1824" superimposed. This was meant to indicate that the defenders were fighting for their rights to democratic government under the Mexican constitution of that year. It was only during the siege that the Texas Congress declared an independent Republic of Texas.

The Battle of the Alamo took place from February 23 to March 6, 1836. At first the battle was primarily a siege marked by artillery duels and small skirmishes. After twelve days Santa Anna, tired of waiting for his heavy artillery and eager for a glorious victory to enhance his reputation, determined to take the Alamo by storm.

Before dawn on March 6, he launched his troops against the walls of the Alamo in three separate attacks. The third attack overwhelmed the defenses of the weak north wall. The defenders retreated to the now famous Long Barracks and the Chapel and fought to the last man. Most historians agree that a handful of the defenders were captured but were executed as rebels on the specific orders of Santa Anna. The deaths of these "Martyrs to Texas Independence" inspired greater resistance to Santa Anna's regime, and the cry "Remember the Alamo" became the rallying point of the Texas Revolution.

Aftermath

The Cenotaph in Alamo Plaza, a memorial to the Alamo defenders

Texas won its independence at the Battle of San Jacinto on April 21.

City Seal of San Antonio

Juan Seguín, who had organized the company of Tejanos that fought and died at the Alamo, was not with them there. He would likely have perished too, but Sam Houston refused to allow him to rejoin his men after Seguín, acting as a courier for the besieged fort, delivered a message from Travis. Seguín would also earn fame for leading a company of Tejano volunteers at the Battle of San Jacinto. After independence he was elected to the Texas Senate. He later served as mayor of San Antonio. He was forced out of that office at gunpoint by Anglo politicians in 1842. The next Hispanic who would serve in that office would be Henry Cisneros, first elected in 1981.

As San Antonio has grown, the Alamo which in 1836 was separated by the San Antonio River from the city, has become an integral part of its downtown. Alamo Plaza contains the Cenotaph, a monument built in celebration of the centenary of the battle, and bears the names of all who are known to have fought there on the Texas side.

The Alamo is maintained as a shrine and museum by the Daughters of the Republic of Texas. Surrounded by many hotels and tourist attractions, it is clearly San Antonio's best known landmark, and is the most visited tourist attraction in Texas. It is featured in the city's flag and seal, and it lends the city's nickname, "The Alamo City." The city's yearly Fiesta Week in April commemorates the Texian victory at San Jacinto.

Annexation of Texas by the U.S.

Lithograph of San Antonio in 1886.

In 1845 the United States annexed Texas and included it as a state in the Union. This, after some incitement by United States troops along the Mexican border, led to the Mexican War between the United States and Mexico which concluded with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 1848. Under this treaty Mexico ceded to the United States not only Texas but all of what is now the American Southwest, excluding a small portion of Arizona and New Mexico. The war was devastating to San Antonio, and at its end the population of the city had been reduced by almost two thirds, to only 800 inhabitants.

Peace and economic connections to the United States restored prosperity to the city, and by 1860, at the start of the Civil War, San Antonio had grown to a city of 15,000 people. This period saw a large immigration from Germany. The beautiful King William district just south of downtown was built at this time as the home to the most successful of the city's German merchants. During this period a visitor was as likely to hear German as English or Spanish, spoken on the streets of the city. The Guenther Flour Mills, Gebhardt's Chili Powder, and Mahncke Park, are just a few of the local institutions which recall San Antonio's German heritage.

During the Civil War San Antonio was not deeply involved in the secessionist cause, due in part to the fact that many of the city's residents, notably those of German or Mexican ancestry, supported the Union. After the war San Antonio prospered as a center of the cattle culture. There is an argument to be made that it was in San Antonio that the American cowboy originated, because it was there that Spanish and Mexican techniques of herding cattle on horseback were transferred to Anglo-American cattle ranchers. It is undoubted that major cattle trails, including the Chisholm Trail, began in San Antonio. It was for this reason that promoter "Bet a Million" Gates chose San Antonio to demonstrate the value of barbed wire. In 1876 he fenced off Alamo Plaza with the new invention then had cowboys drive a herd of cattle into the wire. When the wire held the cattle many of the ranchers in attendance placed orders for the new product. San Antonio was thus crucial both to the beginning and ending of the open range period in American ranching culture.

During this period San Antonio remained a frontier city. Its isolation and its diverse cultures gave it the reputation as a beautiful and exotic place. When Frederick Law Olmstead, the architect who would two years later design Central Park in New York City, visited San Antonio in 1856 he described San Antonio as having a, "jumble of races, costumes, languages, and buildings," which gave it a quality which only New Orleans could rival in, "odd and antiquated foreignness." Much of the mystique which drives today's tourist industry in San Antonio has its origins in a sense of the uniqueness of the city which is over 150 years old.

In 1877 the first railroad reached San Antonio and the city was no longer on the frontier but began to enter the mainstream of American society.

Modern times

Aerial view of the city, San Antonio, December 4, 1939

At the beginning of the 20th century the streets of downtown, the old Spanish and Mexican city, were widened to accommodate street cars and modern traffic. In the process many historic building were destroyed. These included the Veramendi House, the home of the prominent family into which Jim Bowie had married when he came to city. Standing on the southwest side of the intersection of Houston and Soledad Streets this building was a massive quadrangle built of adobe around a central courtyard in the typical Mexican style. When the street was widened by 20 feet the building was leveled.

Like many municipalities in the American Southwest, San Antonio experiences steady population growth. The city's population has nearly doubled in 35 years, from just over 650,000 in the 1970 census to an estimated 1.2 million in 2005 through both steady population growth and land annexation (considerably enlarging the physical area of the city).

Main Plaza, Cathedral, and Court House, San Antonio, Texas

See also

• San Antonio Sporting District
• Isleño

External links

• San Antonio Missions: Spanish Influence in Texas, a National Park Service Teaching with Historic Places (TwHP) lesson plan