# Alamo **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [September 26, 2002, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alamo/129788 "2002-09-26T23:40:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Purplehorn3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9d8465/32.png) [@Purplehorn3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Purplehorn3)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2002, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alamo/129788/21 "2002-10-04T03:19:10Z")
“Blue Norther” I have experienced quite a few in my lifetime. The best one I witnessed was in the late 1970s in Midland, Tx. The temperature was near 90 degrees. Within two hours, the temperature was 45 and falling. Later that night we had a some sleet. The wind gusts were in the 25 - 30 mph. range. Needless to say, blue northers are hell on those who suffer from allergies. Hook’em ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2002, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alamo/129788/22 "2002-10-05T07:01:27Z")
Coincidentally (or not so coincidentally) I found myself visiting the San Jacinto monument this weekend. That’s on Buffalo Bayou just outside Houston, the site of the final battle where the Texans defeated and captured Santa Anna. [http://www.sanjacinto-museum.org/](http://www.sanjacinto-museum.org/) There’s a 570 foot tall monolith tower similar to the Washington Monument, except with a star at the top there. Inside is a small museum of artifacts, as well as an elevator to an observation deck around 480 ft up. They have a map of the Alamo, including description of the first attack and the final attack. The Texas revolution was actually more drawn out. It started with squirmishes earlier than 1835, where the Texans defeated the Mexican garrisons. Thus Santa Anna was leading one army (and another marched up the Texas coast) to put down the rebellion. I have to agree with **Purplehorn3** about the slavery comment. I’m not sure how big a role slavery per se played in the issue. When Texas first started to be colonized by the Anglos, they were welcomed and were happy to be joining Texas. The Mexican government was largely friendly and hands off. Then corruption within the Mexican government grew more pronounced, and they began to change policies toward the Texans, notably wanting to enforce the Catholicism and increase taxes. The Texans were mostly fighting over issues of local control and freedom from government oppression. Slavery _may_ have been one issue some Texans favored, but it certainly wasn’t the driving component of the revolution. Cecil’s comment seems to imply it was. I also was somewhat confused on the dates of events, but Goliad happened after the Alamo. (I had an ancestor who survived Goliad.) Regarding the “Great American Desert”, it doesn’t really apply to Louisiana and East Texas. It was more regarding the great plains states - Oklahoma, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, and the Texas panhandle. A couple of references: [http://www.iversonsoftware.com/sociology/great\_american\_desert.htm](http://www.iversonsoftware.com/sociology/great_american_desert.htm) > [@](#): > > The “Great American Desert” was the term applied to the land west of the Missouri River and east of the Rocky Mountains. The landscape had no trees, little rainfall and tough prairie sod. This land seemed like a desert to the many who past through this unexplored area on their way to the Pacific Coast and that is how it came to be known. [http://skyways.lib.ks.us/genweb/archives/1912/g/great\_american\_desert.html](http://skyways.lib.ks.us/genweb/archives/1912/g/great_american_desert.html) > [@](#): > > **Great American Desert.** — This was the term used by the people east of the Mississippi river to express their idea of the > country west of that river when it was an unknown land. Carey and Lee’s Atlas of 1827 located the Great American Desert as an indefinite territory in what is now Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Indian Territory and Texas. Bradford’s Atlas of 1838 indicates the great desert as extending from the Arkansas through into Colorado and Wyoming, including South Dakota, part of Nebraska and Kansas. Others thought the desert included an area 500 miles wide lying directly east of the Rocky mountains and extending from the northern boundary of the United States to the Rio Grande river. > [@](#): > > The report of Long’s expedition in 1819 and 1820 verified the words of Pike. He considered a great part of the country unfit for cultivation, and uninhabitable by people depending upon agriculture for their subsistence. In speaking of the whole section from the Mississippi to the Rocky mountains he says, “From the minute account given in the narration of the particular features of this expedition, it will be perceived to be a manifest resemblance to the deserts of Siberia.” > > Washington Irving, in his Astoria, published in 1836 and founded on a brief tour he made on the prairies and into Missouri and Arkansas, said: “This region which resembles one of the ancient steppes of Asia has not inaptly been termed ‘The Great American Desert.’ It spreads forth into undulating and treeless plains and desolate sandy wastes, wearisome to the eye from their extent and monotony. It is a land where no man permanently abides, for at certain seasons of the year there is no food for the hunter or his steed.” Several contemporary (early 1800s) citations of desert to mean more than dry sandy wasteland. Note that what they termed a desert we now call the breadbasket of America. Of course, this was before the invention of the Artesian well. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2002, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alamo/129788/23 "2002-10-05T16:28:37Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Irishman \* > Of course, this was before the invention of the Artesian well. Very nice post, up until the last sentence. Ouch. ---
**Author:** ![Purplehorn3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9d8465/32.png) [@Purplehorn3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Purplehorn3)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2002, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alamo/129788/24 "2002-10-06T04:02:00Z")
Those Texans were murdered at Goliad around three weeks after the Alamo fell. Texans were more outraged with the massacre at Goliad than they were at the Alamo. The vast majority of the Alamo defenders were killed in battle. The Texans at Goliad were promised humane treatment, but were taken out and shot. Those who were not killed outright were dispatched with the bayonet or ran down by calvary with lances. Some did escape and told their story to Sam Houston. Hook’em [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alamo/129788.md?page=1)