Burial ground under the Alamo stirs a feud in Texas
SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS — Raymond Hernandez was a boy when his grandfather would take him on walks to the Alamo, pointing at the grounds around the Spanish mission founded in the 18th century.
“He’d tell me again and again, ‘They built all this on top of our
campo santo,’ ” said Hernandez, 73, using the Spanish term for cemetery. An elder in San Antonio’s Tap Pilam Coahuiltecan Nation, he added, “All the tourists flocking to the Alamo are standing on the bones of our ancestors.”
On a busy day, thousands of visitors explore the Alamo, the site of a pivotal 1836 battle in the Texas Revolution where American settlers fought to secede from Mexico and forge a republic that would become part of the United States.
But long before the Alamo garrisoned secessionists, Spanish missionaries used the site, known as the Mission San Antonio de Valero, to spread Christianity among Native Americans.
People from different tribes built the Alamo with their own hands, and missionaries buried many of the converts, as well as colonists from Mexico and Spain, around the mission or right under it.
Now, a new battle over the Alamo is brewing, as Native Americans and descendants of some of San Antonio’s founding families seek protections for the human remains while Texas officials press ahead with a contentious $400 million renovation plan for the site.
The feud comes at a time when political leaders in Texas are trying to bolster long-standing depictions of the state’s history, restrict how teachers discuss the role of slavery in the Texas Revolution and target hundreds of books for potential removal from schools. As critics accuse leaders of political overreach, the dispute over the burial grounds has raised questions about whether the narrow focus on the 1836 battle at the Alamo comes at the expense of the site’s Native American history.
Ramón Vásquez, a leader of the Tap Pilam nation, criticized state officials who have resisted calls for the Alamo and its surroundings to be designated as a historically significant cemetery.
He likened the dispute to discussions about protecting important burial sites across the United States, such as those that surrounded the discovery in 2018 in Sugar Land, Texas, of the remains of 95 African Americans forced into plantation labor after emancipation.
“We’re not against telling the story of 1836,” said Vásquez, whose people filed a lawsuit in 2019 seeking to have a say in how remains found at the Alamo are treated. “All we’re saying is tell the entire story of the site. We have a rare chance to course-correct.”
In court documents filed this year, lawyers for the Texas General Land Office, custodian of the site, and the Alamo Trust, the nonprofit overseeing the development plan, said that the Tap Pilam’s claims of ancestral lineage do not give them a “constitutionally protected right” to have a hand in how human remains found at the Alamo should be treated.
If the Tap Pilam were to be granted such a role, the lawyers argued, the decision could set a precedent for other people who could trace their lineage back to someone who lived or died at the Alamo.
Courts have handed victories to the Alamo’s official stewards, which the Tap Pilam have appealed while raising pressure on the authorities in public protests and private mediation proceedings.
Their strategy has come close to producing results, though a resolution remains elusive.
Two people involved in the mediation proceedings, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the talks, said this week that Texas state officials were preparing to yield to several demands from the Tap Pilam. These included their requests to regain access to the Alamo chapel for religious ceremonies, improve training for Alamo staff and have a role in discussions over how human remains found at the Alamo should be treated.
The parties even reached a tentative settlement, according to court documents filed this week, though the settlement would need to be approved by the San Antonio City Council and other parties to take effect. But in a statement Tuesday, the Land Office said it would go on fighting the Tap Pilam in the courts.
“We currently plan to walk away from the proposed agreement,” Stephen Chang, the land office’s spokesman, said. “The proposed mediation — which was not finalized — was intended to end these frivolous lawsuits.”
While this legal battle plays out, the $400 million renovation plan, which includes building a 100,000-square-foot museum and visitor center, is moving forward under a shroud of criticism.
Others have argued that the Alamo should keep its focus on the 1836 battle, which made folk heroes out of men like Davy Crockett, a former Tennessee lawmaker who died in the clash. Brandon Burkhart, president of This Is Texas Freedom Force, whose members have appeared openly armed around the Alamo to protest changes at the site, said he opposed efforts to place Native Americans at the center of the Alamo story.
“They don’t want to shine the light on the Alamo defenders who fought for 13 days and died there,” Burkhart, a former fugitive recovery officer, said. “Well, I got news for them: People come from all over the world because of that battle, not because of the Native Americans that were there prior to them.”
George P. Bush, the Texas land commissioner, seems intent on assuaging such concerns. “The plan to restore and preserve the Alamo is focused on the battle of 1836 and the defenders who gave their lives for their independence,” Bush said in a statement.
The recent tensions have shed light on crucial phases of the state’s Indigenous history. Texas was home to hundreds of tribes, such as the Anadarko and Karankawa, when Spanish missionaries arrived in the 1700s in what is now San Antonio.